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“Alright then, settle down,” Shouta Aizawa yawned loudly wanting to end the day quickly so he could snuggle up into his marigold sleeping bag and drown out the horrors of teaching. Almost immediately, the students of Class 1-A shut up and sat down. They didn’t want him to flash his Quirk at them, rising his hair as if it had been caught by a gust of wind. Making sure no one was making a peep, Aizawa continued. “Okay, so I something important to tell you.” Almost immediately, the students were on the edge of their seats, shivering at the thought of what this important thing was. Could it be a gruelling test of physical strength and endurance? Or would it be an extensive exam of mind numbing questions about what they had learnt in the week? Or was it…?
“… I’m setting you essays.”
Oh, right.
“WE’RE DOING SOMETHING NORMAL FOR ONCE!!” The class screamed collectively as if they had all endured the same thought at the same time, which they indeed had. With a flash of red from their homeroom teacher’s eyes, the class was back in their seats and silent once more. It was unusual to do something as trivial as an essay after everything that had happened just a few weeks before hand.
“So, like I said, you’ll each have an essay to write for the end of the week,” Turning is back towards the class, Aizawa picked up a piece of chalk and wrote down the instructions, noting the rustling of bags and paper behind him. “Each of you has been set a Pro Hero to research and I expect citations with your research too, don’t want some bias entering.” It was noticeable that his gaze landed on a certain green haired student, but nobody dared to say a word. “Also, Midoriya. Only three pages. You gave me a doorstop last time I asked for one from you.” Some of the other students looked towards Izuku Midoriya out of pity, or just to snigger, as he hid his beetroot red face from view as steam rose from his ears.
“SIR!” Tenya Iida rose from his chair with arm stretched up high, eyes hidden behind the sheen reflected from his glasses. “What should we focus our essays on, what factors can we talk about when we are assessing our set heroes, do we have to write about our set hero or, with your permission, can we change it?” Aizawa groaned, rubbing his forehead before pulling a juice carton out of his capture tape scarf before taking a loud sip from it.
“You should talk about the hero’s history in the field, their Quirk and Quirk usage for starters,” Sloppily, he added the necessities to the blackboard, cursing that his holographic projector was on the blink thanks once again to Present Mic. “Talk about their feats and achievements, as well as criticising anything that they did wrong or they could have done better and no, Iida, you cannot write about your brother… again.” Iida was the one blushing this time as he lowered himself into his seat, hands nearly karate chopping his desk as they took their place on it.
“Sir?” Yaoyorozu raised her arm elegantly, to which Aizawa nodded at her to continue. “You said the Pro Heroes have been chosen for us? What factors have been addressed when selecting a hero for each of us to analyse?”
“The top five students of the class,” his eyes darted from Yaoyorozu to Iida to Bakugou to Midoriya to Todoroki as he spoke. “Have been given harder heroes to analyse with less information or too much information about said heroes. And no, Midoriya, that does not mean more than three pages.” Midoriya’s quivering hand dropped back down onto his desk. “The rest of you have been given a bit more of an easier task, but the heroes chosen are out of your usual comfort zone. You can use any source, as long as it’s credible so no Wikipedia, Ashido, Kaminari.” The aforementioned students groaned and slammed their heads on their desks simultaneously.
“Umm, Sir?” Ochaco Uraraka’s hand rose next. “How will we find out which hero we’ve been given?”
“Your cover pages,” Aizawa responded, glad someone had finally given him an easy question to answer. “They include your name and the Pro Hero who will be the focus of your essay. I’ll hand them out but don’t share who you have with the rest of the class in front of me, or I’ll dock points for getting help. Class dismissed.” He pulled the cover pages from out of his sleeping back and began passing them around, face down so that they wouldn’t begin to talk about it yet. Once all the pages were out, he went to leave only to stop and glare once more at his group of troublemakers. “Oh, and yeah, no asking Midoriya for help. Find your own hero knowledge.”
As he left and shut the door, he heard the collective groans of about ten students inside the classroom. How dumb did they think he was? In all honesty, Aizawa was dreading marking the essays.
What kind of crap could they come up with now?
~0~o~0~
A week had passed and the teaching staff of Yuuei was enjoying a peaceful, lazy night in the office. Either the heroes were conversing or steadily marking classwork. Recovery Girl had chosen to join them, watching over Toshinori like a hawk after the recent death of Sir Nighteye. Whilst he was hiding it, the old Symbol of Peace couldn’t help but blame himself from the lack of time the two had spent together after his injury from fighting All For One. The others knew that All Might was on a downer and hoped something would arrive that would brighten up his spirits and make his day.
That moment, Aizawa kicked the door open with an unreadable expression. Thirteen almost toppled over in their seat; Present Mic nearly screamed the building to rubble, Cementoss and Ectoplasm jumped up in defensive positions, Midnight simply raised an eyebrow, Power Loader shook his head and was immediately joined in the response by Snipe whilst Blood King and Hound Dog gave each other surprised, yet confused looks. That was, until they noticed the wad of papers held in his hands.
After taking a deep sigh, Recovery Girl frowned at the underground hero. “Please, Shouta, don’t do that again! I don’t think my heart, or Toshinori’s can take it!”
“Hey!” Toshinori was almost scowling at the remark. “I wasn’t scared!”
“You coughed up blood, Toshinori.”
“So? I do that often!”
“Can it!” Midnight turned her attention back to Aizawa who was hovering over the staff desks. “What’s the matter with you now? Did your class give you a major headache?”
“Meh, not really,” Looking closely, the Pro Heroes could notice that Eraserhead was trying to hold back a beaming grin, which really had them worried. “Some of them could have tried harder but all of them got a passing grade.”
“That’s good…” Cementoss turned his head to the others, eyes narrowing. “…Right?”
“Just read this.” Aizawa threw fifteen pages towards Present Mic, who raised a finely preened eyebrow at his old friend. Shivering from the glare he received, Hizashi cleared his throat and read aloud.
“The Number One Hero: Endeavor, a true hero?” A Question mark? Ignoring it for the moment, Present Mic continued. “At the recent loss of All Might from the community of heroes, Enji Todoroki – A.K.A. The Pro Hero Endeavor – took the place as Number One Hero and with it, the spot of the highest honour a hero can have. But, does he actually deserve to be known in history as one of the greats?” He choked on his spit as he read ahead. The other teachers stared at him, slightly confused and growing increasingly worried by the minute. “Whilst a powerful hero in his own right, Endeavor has no concern for anything other than his overwhelming pride and towering ego that has left a stain on the definition of what it means to be a hero. Oh my goodness!”
“Give me that,” Thirteen swiped the pages from his hands, which was easy as Mic was at the point of near collapse in a fit of laughter. “Ahem. Throughout Endeavor’s twenty-five year stretch as a Professional Hero, it has become blatantly obvious that negligence of care towards the surroundings and civilians comes hand in hand with any crime scene he has been to. Skills taught to students here at U.A, which we have been reminded time and time again are crucial in becoming a pro, are that civilian casualties and damage to structures with our Quirks should be kept to a minimum at all costs. However, in the case of Endeavor, it seems as if he was absent during those lectures or chose to simply ignore them as a student. Last year alone, Police records state that Endeavor has caused ¥870,000,000 in collateral damage and sent innocent civilians to the hospital with first, second and third degree burns from just standing close to immediate area of his Quirk usage. Instead of reigning in his power and controlling it as any other professional hero would, Endeavor acted just like a four-year-old who had just received their Quirk and was testing it out without a care of what it could mean in the long run.” Thirteen blinked before tipping their head up at Aizawa. “Is this correct?”
“I’ve checked all of the citations and links,” The hero with the erasing Quirk replied as the proud grin just grew on his face. “They are all reliable and within the terms set for the essay.”
“Fifteen pages long, too.” Power House nodded, the amusement evident on his tone of voice. In the background, Snipe and Ectoplasm were chuckling their heads off at what they had heard, every single one of the teachers were visibly pleased by what they had heard. “So, how does it end?”
“Well, even though I told him not to do more than three pages,” Eraserhead explained, still grinning his head off. “The kid went on and continuously roasted Endeavor for each of the points he makes, each of them backed up by evidence, and then concludes with a return to why this man doesn’t deserve his title, linking back to the main argument of the essay.”
“Oh, this is a good one!” Midnight was passed the essay by Thirteen, eyes glinting with uncontrollable glee. “It has been known that Endeavor’s struggle to become the Number One Hero, and subsequent failure until it was handed to him without the glory of defeating All Might for that title, has been passed down forcibly to his son, Shouto Todoroki, who openly refused to use his father’s side of his Quirk until after the end of the U.A. Sports Festival mere months prior. Present Mic mentioned that Endeavor was, and I quote “A doting father”, for giving some word of “encouragement”, which is quite frankly far from the truth. From my own encounter with Endeavor, I realised he was only thinking about his wants and ambitions for his son, not realising that it was not what Todoroki (Jr.) wished to end up on the path towards. His arrogant sense of pride and glory – and an ego that is too big to measure on any known unit of scale known to the human mind at the moment – has not only caused damage to those he was supposed to be “protecting” but to his own children as well. Wow, someone has done their research… that or they know one of your recommended students very well!”
“That or they read the interview made of Shouto Todoroki after the Sports festival finished,” Aizawa added with a harsh glare, before handing the paper over to Toshinori. “You finish it.”
With another cough, this time without the blood, All Might began to read the ending. “In conclusion, whilst the media attention on Japan’s new Number One Hero has receded his daily output of destruction from his mere presence at a scene, the responsibility that comes with the role is a responsibility that Endeavor cannot handle, and will probably never be able to unless he can miraculously through away his bruised ego and pride from not beating All Might to the title. His violent nature with trivial matters and his clear lack of concern for the public that all heroes swear to protect is highly concerning, considering his now vital role in society as the new beacon of hope until the next Symbol of Peace can relieve him of his visibly straining responsibility. Whilst his methods were horrific and inconsiderate, the Hero Killer: Stain had a point about Endeavor which still remains correct to this day. Endeavor is not a true hero, he’s not even a remotely good hero. As a student wishing to become a Pro Hero myself, I wish that the presence of a new wave of heroes will send him into a much-needed early retirement, not for his own good but for the good of the citizens of Japan…”
Present Mic was rolling over on the floor laughing as Thirteen was trying to hide their noticeable giggles. All of the other teachers were either chuckling or applauding the ambiguous writer of the text.
“So, you read it all?” Snipe asked, shocked when Aizawa nodded.
“Saved it for last because it was so goddamn long, but read all of it,” he replied honestly, snatching back the papers out of Toshinori’s hands. “The brat made multiple points, each time destroying Endeavor and backing up his previous statements by reiterating them.”
“So, what did they get then?” Recovery Girl asked, wiping away tears from her own heartfelt laughter. She never really had liked Enji Todoroki, even as a student years ago. “It has to be in the nineties if you enjoyed it.” It was well known that Shouta Aizawa rarely, if ever, gave a student full marks. It took going above and beyond to get that kind of grade off of Eraserhead, and so far, only two students had succeeded. Everyone was expecting something in the mid nineties as Aizawa passed the paper back to Toshinori, who skipped to the marking… and promptly spouted more blood out to the side.
“ONE HUNDRED!” For a brief second, All Might was once again in his beefed up form out of pure disbelief, before shrinking back to normal in a matter of moments. “WHO IN THE NAME OF PEACE AND JUSTICE GOT ONE HUNDRED MARKS?!”
“Yes, Shouta!” Present Mic was no longer dying from laughter and was leaning over his desk to try and pry the information out sooner than later. “Who is the savage student you are so proud about?”
Aizawa blinked at them, holding up the piece of paper that he had left close to his side since the beginning. A mixture of shocked gasps and beaming grins/smiles of pride arose from the reveal. In the middle of the paper, underneath the name of the Pro Hero of fire – who had been heavily roasted to a crisp over 15 pages of pure delight – in bold letters was a name.
Midoriya Izuku.
“Young Midoriya wrote that?!” It was blatantly obvious that Toshinori was proud of the student he doted on the most, a glimmer in his eyes which had vanished after Nighteye’s death had returned as suddenly as it had left.
“Yeah, the problem child wrote it,” Instead of being grouchy, Aizawa was far from it, looking more awake than he had ever been in his life. “I was just looking for a point to deduct but, I can’t fault it. Your problem child did good, Toshinori, despite me telling him he couldn’t go over three damn pages.”
“Well, if he had, then you wouldn’t be reading that then, would you?” Cementoss reminded Eraserhead cheekily.
“Crap, you’re right,” Aizawa sent a hand into his scarf, pulling out enough copies of the essay so that everyone could have a read. “Luckily, I have spares.”
The staff room almost instantly became a mess of laughter and joy, almost too much so that Nedzu was slightly worried about his staff. On the other hand, this essay was very insightful for the principal.
~0~o~0~
When Aizawa entered the classroom the day afterwards, he knew that the terrified faces looking back at him were eager to receive their essays back as soon as possible. Normally, he would draw out the tension until Mineta looked like he was about to pee his pants, but he was still on a high from last night that he decided to say “fuck it” to the usual and just give out the assignments immediately.
“Good job, most of you, with your essays,” The homeroom teacher stared back, noticing that the more confident members of the class were sitting high and proud of their work. Surprisingly, the one who was the most terrified was the one who obtained the highest grade in the class. “Some of you veered off course from focusing on the hero to other things like details of fights or sidekicks and agencies over the more vital parts that made up those people as professionals. That being said, I’m surprised. You all did well, at least you all got a passing grade.”
Some of the class jumped up and cheered, only to be hushed by a piercing glare from Aizawa. “I’m giving you your papers back, those who decided to distract Midoriya to steal his notebook lost points…”
“You did what?!” A guilty Kaminari, Ashido, Sero and Aoyama whistled, turning their heads away from the outburst.
“… But next time, use your own research. It’ll better your grade.” He finished by handing back the papers, alphabetically before returning to the front of the classroom. It wasn’t long before the school equivalent of a dick measuring contest, A.K.A. comparing scores, began to reach his ears.
“Momo got 98!” Jirou announced loudly, causing the creation Quirk user to blush. “Man, that’s gotta be a record. And you were one of the five who got a harder hero!”
“Well, I just applied my knowledge to the hero I was given,” Yaoyorozu replied anxiously, “It wasn’t too hard.”
“But the hero Native?” Satou raised an eyebrow. “Apart from the fact he was almost Stain’s next victim, there should be next to nothing about him.”
“Which is why I was happy with the challenge…” She turned her head to the boy sitting next to her. “What about you, Todoroki?”
“I guess Mount Lady was okay,” Todoroki’s score of 75 was flashed in her direction. “The fact she’s new doesn’t give much to work with but I did alright.”
“Lucky!” Mineta growled, “Selkie gave me nothing to work with and… ow!” Tsuyu’s tongue whacked him around the head.
“Say one more bad word about the Captain,” There was a hidden air of malice to her words. “I dare you.”
“I won’t, I won’t!”
“Hey, Deku?” Uraraka looked up from her score of 63 over to her fellow classmate, who was staring at his own mark as if it held the secrets of the world. “What did you get?” When he didn’t answer, Todoroki got up and walked over, peering past Midoriya’s bush of hair to read the score.
“Wow, just wow.” He didn’t say anything else, but the shock on his face told all. Bakugou turned around with a smirk on his face, waving his 87 with the grace of a fairy elephant.
“Deku fucking failed, didn’t he?” The explosion Quirk user smugly stated, as if he knew the answer. “Shitty nerd wrote too much bullshit!”
“Shut it,” Todoroki snarled slightly back at him. “Midoriya got 100.”
Silence reigned over the class until collectively, they yelled as one unity. “WHAT?!” or as some people put it, “WHAT THE FUCK?!” to which Izuku Midoriya once again turned red with embarrassment.
“How?!” Iida shouted shortly after. Although he didn’t doubt his friend, and classmate’s, abilities the fact he got higher than Momo Yaoyorozu, the smartest of Class 1-A, was outstanding.
Kirishima walked over and snatched up Midoriya’s paper from the poor, flustered boy’s hands and began reading the first paragraph. It wasn’t long afterwards that his grin stretched to the very corners of his mouth and he tried to suppress a laugh, but failed miserably.
“Midoriya threw shade at Endeavor!”
Within seconds, the rest of the students of Class 1-A – Bakugou surprisingly included – crowded around Midoriya’s desk, trying to have a read of the essay that basically dissed the Number One Hero from first to last page. Aizawa watched, not even trying to hide the smile that was forming on his face. Sometimes, teaching these kids of his was really, in all fairness, actually worth it.