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It was the Problem Child’s turn. The nickname was probably unneeded, since Aizawa would doubtless be expelling him soon, but it sure fit; it boggled Aizawa’s mind how much hubris it must take to think one could skate by to a hero’s license without learning an ounce of control when so many others were working themselves ragged to reach that goal.
Midoriya drew himself up in concentration. Throwing the softball with all his strength—
“Forty‐six meters.”
“Uh... What gives? I was trying to use it just now,” Midoriya muttered, looking at his arm with confusion. It was less panic than people usually got the first time Aizawa used Erasure on them, which made sense considering how little apparent control the kid had.
“I erased your Quirk. The judges for this exam were not rational enough. Someone like you should never be allowed to enroll at this school.” The words were harsh, but kids with such powerful quirks always needed a strong reality check if they were going to pull their heads out of their asses enough to actually use their potential. Aizawa had taught enough of them to know; if he’d been a teacher when Endeavor (just for a random example) had been in school, that asshole would have been expelled quickly for his rotten attitude.
Midoriya floundered. “Wait, you did what to my— Ah! Those goggles. I know you! You can look at someone and cancel out their powers. The Erasure Hero. Eraserhead!”
Ignoring the mutters of the other students, Aizawa kept his face stern. It was a little impressive that the kid knew who he was, but that didn’t change the facts. “You're not ready. You don't have control over your power. Were you planning to break your bones again? Counting on someone else to save your useless body?”
“No! That's not what I was trying to do!” Midoriya flailed, and Aizawa grabbed him with his capture scarf and pulled him closer, determined to make sure the kid fully understood.
“No matter what your intentions are, you would be nothing more than a liability in battle. You have the same reckless passion as another overzealous hero I know. One who saved 1,000 people by himself and became a legend. But even with that drive, you're worthless if you can only throw a single punch before breaking down. Tell me, Midoriya, how long has it been since you first used your quirk? About eleven years, right?” Aizawa asked, fully intending to ask what the kid had thought was more important than learning to control his stupidly powerful quirk.
Midoriya looked down, suddenly looking vulnerable instead of indignant. “A month and half, technically,” he mumbled, almost too quiet to hear. “My body couldn’t handle it until I reached a certain amount of muscle mass, so the d-day of the entrance exam w-was the first time I used it.”
Aizawa blinked, completely caught off guard. Had he just heard correctly? That couldn’t be right. “The zero-pointer in the entrance exam was the first time you’d ever used your quirk?” he asked, making sure his voice was level, not accusatory.
“Yes, that’s correct,” Midoriya confirmed, sounding resigned as if he fully didn’t expect to be believed. His voice carried further this time, the rest of the class having fallen silent to try and hear the exchange.
Okay, what the fuck? The teacher exited out of the testing app on his phone and pulled up Midoriya’s file, scrolling through it silently. He didn’t usually read the students' full files until after the first day, preferring to make his own first impressions before seeing what baggage they’d come into the classroom with. Nedzu knew this, and put anything he needed to know up immediately such as learning disabilities or health concerns at the top of the file. The sparse mention of Midoriya’s quirk history was buried in a footnote. The kid wasn’t lying, what the hell? Aizawa thought. He didn’t instantly have a migraine, but if there was an equivalent that afflicted the soul, that was sure happening. Looking up at the kid again, Aizawa made an effort to look less overtly upset. “If your quirk hadn’t manifested, what was your plan?”
“I... I would have... I would have tried to become the first quirkless hero,” Midoriya said, posture defiant but expression more bleak than anything else. Knowing the statistics on the quirkless population as Aizawa did, the contrast of hope and despair wasn’t surprising. It’d been less than a month since he’d found the same red shoes Midoriya was wearing on a rooftop and a young adult on the pavement below; not for the first time, and likely not the last.
Wait, red shoes? How does he have a quirk as well as the toe joint? Something to look into later. There’s a lot that’s not adding up here. It was time for some damage control; Aizawa wouldn’t have said what he did if he’d known. “Alright, Problem Child. After class, we’re scheduling you quirk counseling and looking to see if you need support items to help control your quirk like Aoyama does,” he said firmly, not wavering in the face of a kid who probably thought he was useless without a quirk. Clearly the unit on quirkism was going to need to be moved way, way, up. “If you can’t complete this test without shattering your arm, I’ll have to assess your potential some other way.”
Midoriya stared, uncomprehending. “You mean you won’t expel me for not being able to use it?” he whispered, eyes wide.
Aizawa fought the urge to facepalm, frustrated with himself (and at Nedzu for not fucking warning him.) Instead, he did his best to gentle his expression. “No, I won’t. That would be illogical when you haven’t had a chance to learn how to use it yet.” Midoriya looked completely flummoxed, like he hadn’t imagined a teacher might make such an accommodation. And if he’d been quirkless until now, odds were... yeah, the flinching he’d noticed in homeroom before was probably a learned behavior. Loosening the folds of his capture scarf, Aizawa sighed. “I’m sorry for what I said. I thought you hadn’t bothered to learn control in the past decade because you weren’t taking things seriously,” he apologized quietly, making sure to meet Midoriya’s still wide-eyed gaze.
Midoriya didn’t seem to know what to say, so Aizawa freed him completely and motioned him back to the softball throw. “Give it another try, no arm breaking please.”
The class had gone back to whispering as Midoriya stepped up, his shocked expression slowly turning back into one of determination. He visibly checked his stance and posture, then screwed up his face as he wound up and threw the softball. “ SMASH! ”
A huge gust of wind resulted, almost knocking the kid over, and Aizawa almost found his expression mirroring the wide-eyed looks of the rest of the class. The distance measurement read 705.3 meters, and Midoriya straightened up, a shaky smile on his face as he clenched his fist. Only a single finger had taken on the almost purple look of brokenness. “You see, Mr. Aizawa? I’m still standing!”
Aizawa broke into a grin he didn’t usually let his students see. This kid... he thought to himself. To harness that much power with so little experience was impressive. As much as he felt it important to build up his reputation with his class as a hardass who expected much of them, he couldn’t let the effort go unremarked upon. He gave Midoriya an approving nod.
The sheer relief in the kid’s eyes renewed the alarm bells in Aizawa’s gut. It was time to get on with the testing, but he was doing a deep dive into Midoriya’s file and then pulling Hound Dog and Nedzu to come up with an individualized educational plan for getting him up to speed with the rest of his classmates and filling in the obviously missing gaps. Why they hadn’t done this before school started was an oversight they’d be having
words
about.