Chapter Text
“Let me go you stupid hobo!”
Aizawa groaned, literally dragging the pomeranian along the ground with his capture weapon.
“Idiot child.”
The kid actually growled, like some kind of feral beast, chewing at the scarf-like material, palms crackling. Aizawa grabbed the blond by the collar, bodily lifting him up as they stepped into the Principal’s office. He sat Bakugou into the visitor’s seat, and pulled out a warm blanket to drape it across the student.
“What the fuck is this?”
He swore that this year would be the death of him. This idiot was halfway to hypothermia and was acting like administering first aid was something foreign to him.
“Nedzu. I assume you saw what happened?”
The chair on the other side of the desk swivels around, revealing the white furred rodent Principal of U.A. He poured a cup of tea silently, and offered it to Bakugou.
“Drink, child. It will help with the cold. I suggest you leave Aizawa, I will handle this from here.”
Katsuki growled deep in his throat, but he still took the offered tea and drank deeply. He was eying the two up, as if this calm atmosphere would suddenly break out into violence.
Aizawa in response sat down at the other visitor’s seat. “No. I need to get to the bottom of this, and I don’t trust you to tell me the whole story. No offense, Principal.”
Nedzu chuckled, sipping his own tea. “None taken, Aizawa.” He put the cup down with a very distinctive clink of china, turning his focus squarely to the student in front of him.
“Bakugou Katsuki, age 15. Quirk is Explosion, a secretion of explosive sweat ignited via phosphorus glands in the fingertips. Vulnerable to cold temperatures, antiperspirant, and apparently has an extremely volatile personality. Your school record is suspiciously clean, not one single report of the type of violence you so casually enacted on the FIRST DAY of school. Your grades show a clearly highly intelligent and focused mind, but frankly your personality is so villainous that on first impression I would never have let you join my school if I knew.”
Katsuki gulped loudly, clutching onto the cup so tightly it threatened to shatter. He bared his teeth at Nedzu. “What the fuck do you know about being a hero? That bastard Deku should be nowhere near a hero course.”
Aizawa hid his face in his scarf, the dark bags under his eyes somehow growing darker. Nedzu, on the other hand, didn’t even blink at the speech.
“Deku, a useless doll, if the kanji for Izuku is read incorrectly, it can be interpreted as Deku. Do you believe that Midoriya Izuku is worthless? That he is somehow beneath you? That he deserves to be injured and ground into the dirt until he stops moving?”
The teacup in Bakugou’s hands actually cracked at that, it looked like he was going to say something, but then a flash of recognition of his situation dawned, and instead of flying into his normal rage he retreated into himself and gurgled out some slurred words under his breath.
Now, that caught Aizawa’s attention. He looked Nedzu in the eyes, who simply gave off a calculated smirk.
“Such a shame that an abuser like you is holding back the future Symbol of Peace.”
That finally set off the blond, the teacup exploding as his quirk activated, crackling dangerously as he started to climb over towards Nedzu. Aizawa calmly kicked back his chair and stepped to the side before gripping onto the child’s wrist and slamming him down onto the ground, knee on his back to prevent him from attempting to attack again.
Aizawa hissed through clenched teeth. “Stay down, Bakugou.”
Bakugou gnashed his teeth, letting out more crackles before his quirk was Erased. “Fuck you! Deku’s nothing but a quirkless freak! If anyone’s gonna be the next Symbol of Peace it's me!”
Nedzu scuttled onto the floor and dusted off his suit seemingly out of habit while getting up on his hind legs. “Bakugou Katsuki. You have shown the emotional maturity of a rabid dog, and the restraint to match.”
Beady, inhuman eyes stared directly down at Bakugou. The motion looking alien on the mouse-like skull. Usually a rodent will stare at you sideways with big bulging eyes, but Nedzu glared directly forward. The gaze of a predator.
“I see everything in this school. I know how badly you injured Midoriya. That is why I do not hesitate to order you transferred to General Education, Class 1-C. In addition Aizawa will escort you down to the support workshop after class, where they will attach quirk-suppressant bracelets to you. You will only be allowed to remove them if and when I personally decide.”
There was a slight pause, as the principal seemed to calculate his options, before continuing.
“You will only be allowed back into the hero course if you show significant improvement in your character. Your continued enrollment in U.A hinges on you meeting with the school’s counselor once a week.”
“Fuck you, you shitty white labrat! I’m fucking Bakugou Katsuki, the next number one! You can’t do this to me.”
There was a flash of something sadistic in the Principal’s eyes. “Of course, you could ‘mysteriously disappear’ after class, never to see the light of day or another human face for the rest of your miserable, hateful life.”
“You wouldn’t, you’re a pro hero. You wouldn’t have the balls.”
Nedzu leaned in, his paw touching Bakugou’s cheek, making the boy flinch away.
“Do not test me, villain.”
Aizawa grunted. “That’s enough, Nedzu. This is what I meant by not trusting you with the boy.”
Bakugou closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath in and out slowly. “Fine! I’ll go see the fucking therapy dog. Get off me!”
The teacher stood up, gripping onto Bakugou’s arm and pulling him back up, putting him in the seat. “You will stay in this room until I say it is time to go. Recovery Girl will be here to see you. One more incident like this and I will throw you in juvie personally.”
And with that, Aizawa left to check up on the rest of his class.
The student sniffled, wiping at his nose and pulling the blanket around him tighter as he sat in the chair. “Can I have another tea?”
Nedzu somehow had made it back up on top of the desk, and glared at the blond with clear distaste. “No.”
“I am going to remove the cover now, Midoriya.”
Recovery Girl made sure to approach from the child’s right hand side, giving him a reassuring smile even as she pushed away the worrying Toshinori to make room.
The response was soft, croaked out too quietly for a boy that should be so vibrant. “O-okay…”
The nurse gently pulled the wet cover away, inspecting the burn with a faint frown. “Hmm. It shouldn’t be too bad. Thankfully I was available. Do you want to see?”
Izuku blinked rapidly, his left eye readjusting to the light and watering slightly. He then slightly nodded. Toshinori was definitely not easing his apprehension at all, his figure leaning over behind Recovery Girl like a skeletal sort of mother hen.
A handheld mirror was slowly lifted up into Izuku’s view by Recovery Girl, showing the damage that Bakugou had made. A full half of his face looked red and shiny, his left eyebrow burned away and a big chunk of his messy hair about the temple burned to the roots. Thankfully, Recovery Girl’s quirk had repaired most of the damage, but she explained that it was likely he would have some sort of lingering hearing loss on one side. If his hair grew back, it would most likely grow back much thinner and white.
As Izuku looked over the actual scar tissue, he realised that his skin would probably never heal the same way again, a faint red splotch across his face and a dark star of scar tissue against his orbital bone, the mark left behind by the main point of Explosion. Just one inch to the right, and his eye would have probably boiled inside its socket.
He shuddered at the mental image of his eye popping like a grape in the microwave.
Toshinori smiled grimly, grasping onto his successor’s hand in an attempt at reassurance.
“Scars are inevitable in this line of work, young Midoriya. I hoped you wouldn’t suffer something like this so soon.”
Recovery Girl hit the blond idiot over the head with her cane.
“Stop talking like he’s lost an arm. He’ll be fine!”
The look of embarrassment on Toshinori’s face, like that of a kicked puppy made Izuku laugh out loud.
“She’s right, All Might! Even if I did lose an arm, I’d still keep on going! After all, you lost a lung and you still kept going.”
It was now the student’s turn to get hit over the head.
“Don’t think you’re off the hook, young man. Yagi here is a clear example of what not to do. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I won’t be happy if you keep on breaking your body with that quirk of yours.”
He gulped.
“B-but, Recovery Girl, I don’t know how to control it properly. It just all comes out at once!”
The nurse huffed at that.
“Of course the numbskull didn’t teach you anything. If it weren’t for Nedzu I would have done everything in my power to keep that dolt away from the classroom. He has no idea how to teach!”
Toshinori mumbled. “I’m the only one that knows enough about One For All to train him anyway.”
Recovery Girl glared at the pro hero. “What happened to Gran Torino?”
The blond’s face visibly blanched at that name.
Izuku sat up. “Who is Gran Torino?”
“He… He trained me to use One For All.”
Izuku’s sunshine smile beamed out. “Then let's get him to help!”
All Might was shaking at the idea, grimacing. “I.. I don't think that’s a good idea, young Midoriya.”
Recovery Girl had already pulled out her phone. “If you don’t call him, I will. I won’t let Midoriya suffer just because you’re too much of a coward to face him.”
Toshinori’s jaw worked wordlessly, and seeing the reaction, Recovery Girl dialled a number. Toshinori looked like he was about to faint, and a short conversation later she hung up.
“He will be here tomorrow afternoon. I’ll make sure to tell Principal Nedzu about this, so he can set aside Gym Gamma after school.”
Now it was Izuku’s turn to reassure All Might, patting his hand with a look of concern about what kind of person could make the Symbol of Peace turn into a nervous wreck. It seemed Recovery Girl wasn’t done talking yet, though.
“Yagi, you will be in charge of taking Midoriya home and explaining what happened to his mother. If I was the boy’s mother I’d probably want to press charges against the school that scarred my son on the first day, so it’s your job to make sure she doesn’t drag our name through the mud. Now, both of you, get out of here. I have a feral student to administer aid to.”
Izuku wasn’t sure which person was supporting the other more, him or Toshinori. His mentor was treating the situation as if he had just been given a live bomb and told to bring it home.
He really didn’t want to think what his mother’s reaction would be to all this.
Rumi was fairly skittish the rest of the school day, every so often she would glance at the two empty seats, tapping her fingers loudly against her desk and only half paying attention to the syllabus that were given out for the more normal types of classes.
She noticed everyone else was just on edge as well, even the pervy grapehead wasn’t trying anything. The rest of the school day seemed to fly by in excruciating boredom, her ears twitching as she focused more on the clock than the living concrete block droning on about what would be expected from his class.
First days of the school year always bored Rumi, but with the added uncertainty from those empty seats it took all her restraint to not just launch herself out an open window when the bell finally rang for the end of the last class.
As it was, she slipped her backpack onto one shoulder and began to storm out the door. She was stopped by a hand gripping onto her upper arm, and she wrenched herself out of the grip with a snarl, about to tell off the idiot that touched her.
Ochako returned the expression in full force, an unexpected dark expression on her face. The blush marks on her cheeks did nothing to distract from the pure determination washing off her. There was a moment when they were both frozen like that, staring into each other's eyes unable to back down, before Rumi broke it off with a sharp bark of a laugh and slapped Ochako on the back.
“Sorry there, I thought you might have been one of the guys. What’s got you looking like that?”
They began to walk out of the classroom, clearing the doorway for the others.
“I wanted to talk to you. In private.”
One of those long ears tilted to the side, and Rumi gave a quizzical look that caused Ochako to blush and stutter at how cute she suddenly looked.
“Sure thing, Sweet Cheeks. I know a good cafe nearby, it’ll be a date!”
The poor gravity user began to float up like a balloon. Rumi grabbed her wrist and pulled her back down while laughing at her plight.
“If I didn’t know better, Ochako. I would have thought you had a crush on me or something! And it’s only the first day. Must be a new record for cute girls throwing themselves at my feet.”
Whatever response Ochako gave back was horribly muttered and incomprehensible, which only made Rumi laugh even more while pulling her along.
As they passed through the barrier and walked out into the city, Rumi was too distracted by the blushing mess of her new friend to notice a yellowed reptilian eye stare at the U.A uniforms from the darkness of an alleyway. Powerful jaw muscles flexed into a thin-lipped grin, and a scaled tail quietly swished along the ground in excitement. Those two would be the perfect targets.