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2020-09-18
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2022-06-24
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17/?
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Analysis lessons, and consequences thereof

Summary:

Izuku Midoriya's close friends have known almost since the beginning that there is more than determination, kindness, and a powerful quirk that make him a great hero. Now, when an innocent school assignment reveals more about him to the teachers than he is comfortable with, it's time for the rest of the world to know as well.

Notes:

Hi, and welcome! Kudos, ideas, criticism and comments in general always welcome!

Enjoy!

(See the end of the work for other works inspired by this one.)

Chapter Text

The day that would change the face of hero society forever started like any other day, really. Aizawa Shouta, aka Eraserhead, was nursing his third cup of coffee this morning as he headed down the pristine, expansive corridors of UA in the direction of his class.

 

As usual, respectful silence immediately asserted itself in the room the moment he slipped through the door, even though Shouta made sure not to make a sound. Good, the situational awareness courses they had run a few weeks ago were paying off. He surveyed the room as he slunk towards the lectern, not planning to waste any valuable time on roll call. Everyone was in attendance, and no immediate issue presented itself before his piercing glare. He could begin.

 

“Listen carefully.” He stated dispassionately as he turned to face his class, dropping his sleeping bag to the floor and letting his Quirk flare briefly for effect. “Today we will be starting a new subject.” Quiet murmuring erupted in the class, some excited, others apprehensive. Shouta glared. The room fell silent.

 

“As I was saying, today we will begin a new subject. It is, unfortunately, not part of the mandatory curriculum, though every hero worth their salt knows at least the basic techniques we will be covering in these lessons. No student of mine ever received a hero license without at least a passing grade in this subject,” and here he made intense eye contact with his students, especially a certain electrical-acidic duo, who wilted slightly. “So I advise that you take this as seriously as you take any other class. Today, we will start learning about analysis .” 

 

Shouta turned to write the subject title on the board. When he turned back around, he was greeted with three kinds of reactions from his class. The first one was expected, normal, and if he was perfectly honest with himself, quite satisfying. The aforementioned duo, as well as a good half of the class were exchanging despairing looks that generally conveyed the clear message of how the hell are we gonna get a passing grade on this one?

 

The other two reactions, however, were mildly alarming. Not in the way that made him think of ambushes, overpowered villains and burning forests, but in a way that made his skin itch with the feeling there was an important piece of information he had missed.

 

Several of his students (not to name names but Uraraka, IIda and Todoroki, most prominently) have gone slightly pale, and were casting furtive, and somewhat apprehensive glances towards one of their classmates. The reaction of said classmate was the last, and perhaps most surprising of the three.

 

Izuku Midoriya was, for lack of a better word, basically vibrating in his seat. His usual sunshine smile had brightened by a few thousand watts, fingers twitching at his side as if reaching for a pen that wasn’t there, eyes darting excitedly between Aizawa and the blackboard.

 

Well, this is not suspicious at all, Shouta internally deadpanned. Whatever. It’s too early in the morning for this. If it becomes a problem, I'll deal with it later. He decided to give the instructions for this lesson as quickly as possible and then go to sleep. He was exhausted already, and could feel a headache coming.

 

“The first thing we will be doing is assessing the level each of you is currently at. Some of you may discover that you have a natural talent for analysis, others will realize they have been doing something similar for quite a while without noticing. In any case, this test will highlight your strengths and weaknesses in the subject and allow me to address them individually. So.” he handed Iida a stack of blank pages to be passed around. When everybody had pages to write on he turned, and started writing on the board.

 

“Your assignment is simple: within the next hour, you need to write as detailed an analysis as you can about me.” he turned to look at them for a moment. “You have been my students for a while now, and all of you have seen me fight several times. I want all the details you can provide: fighting style, personality, strengths, weaknesses, and anything else you think could help you win a fight against me.” He finished outlining the assignment on the board, and once more looked at his class, one eyebrow raised. “Any questions?”

 

He was met with resigned sighs, emphatic head shakes and a quitely, but very intensely vibrating Midoriya. “All right...” he said dubiously. “You may begin”. He wrapped himself in his sleeping bag and lay down for a nap.

 

Shouta fell asleep to the sound of a single, furiously scratching pen.

 

***

 

He was awoken an hour later by the ringing bell. Iida was standing at attention by his desk, ready to hand over a sizable stack of paper. Surprisingly sizable - maybe there was hope for his problem children yet. Shouta accepted it with a nod of thanks to the class rep and headed for the door, tuning out the excited chatter of his students. 

 

As he slunk towards the teacher’s lounge, Shouta reflected on what to do with the few free hours he had until his next lesson. He contemplated another nap before discarding the idea - he felt surprisingly well rested right now (or as close as he ever got to well rested), and he might as well get a headstart on grading this new assignment.

 

He sighed in resignation as he plopped down onto his usual sofa in the lounge and fished the papers out of his bag. Right. First let's get a general idea of what i’ve got to work with here.

 

As he skimmed the papers, everything seemed normal. Ashido, Kaminari, Kirishima and Mineta have all submitted barely two pages, full of crossed out sentences and distracted doodles. Iida, Bakugou, Todoroki, and surprisingly, Koda, each submitted five pages of seemingly organized and well thought out information. Basic, but not bad for beginners. Yaoyorozu submitted seven, as expected of someone who’s quirk depended so much on information and memorization of details. 

 

He counted each work as he skimmed over it and set it aside, so he became quite confused when nineteen of them had been examined, and he was left with a good quarter of the whole stack in his hand. He stared down at the name on the first page of the report as the alarm from earlier that morning started to rise again. Midoriya, he found, had submitted over twenty pages of analysis, written in a small, precise script that was much neater than his usual, punctuated by occasional (surprisingly well done) illustrations, and more well-structured sections than Shouta was comfortable with.

 

Apprehension and curiosity mounting with every moment, Shouta began to read. And kept reading. By the time he was done, there wasn’t a single red mark on the pristine, white sheets, and Shouta’s mild alarm had mutated into not at all mild terror.

 

Shouta gave this assignment every time he taught the basics of analysis to his classes - sometimes as an opening assignment, sometimes as a finishing project. Occasionally both, so that the students could see exactly how much they had improved, and what they still needed to work on.

 

The analyses he has gotten over the years varied - some of them were more or less accurate,  some missed the main points completely. Very few, few enough he could count them on the fingers of one hand, pointed out things he had never thought about before, or offered a new perspective on some aspect of his fighting style or another. But never, in all his years as a teacher, has he seen anything like Midoriya’s paper.

 

The depth and accuracy of the boy’s observations was astounding. It made Shouta feel vaguely like a bug under a microscope - dissected and carefully examined from every possible angle, stripped to the bone until nothing was left hidden from those keen, excited green eyes. 

 

There was everything in this report - analysis of his quirk and fighting style, with illustrations to demonstrate several of his unique moves. There was a psychological profile with an in-depth discussion of his personality and mannerisms, as well as observed relationships with other teachers and even students, and how all of it could be exploited against him. There was a section dedicated to his gear, with ideas for weapons that could be complementary to his capture weapon, and suggestions for improvement for his goggles. And there were strengths, and weaknesses, and suggestions for overall improvement. The small part of Shouta that was not numb with fear was distantly amazed he had never actually thought to tie down his hair. The rest was busy calculating how many ways Midoriya could kill him if he wanted to, even without use of his quirk. The answer was, without getting into details, way too many for comfort.

 

Well... fuck.

 

***

 

Yamada Hizashi, aka Present Mic, was worried. It was by no means unusual to see his husband sitting on his favourite sofa in the teacher’s lounge, grading papers. Neither was it unusual for him to become so engrossed in his reading that he stopped noticing what was going on around him, what with the amount of promising students he had this year.

 

It was, however, pretty unusual when the usually stoic man, after reading a fairly long paper in a pace that became more frantic with every page, just sat there and stared at it, pale-faced, as if he was looking at his own death warrant.

 

“Um, Shou? Is everything alright?” Shouta didn’t startle when Hizashi tapped him on the shoulder. His eyes didn’t leave the pages he was holding in his hands, either, though his expression became marginally less distant. A few more seconds of tense silence passed between them before he responded.

 

“We,” he enunciated very slowly and clearly, as if he also needed time to process the words, “are complete idiots. Me, most of all.” 

 

“Care to elaborate?” Hizashi asked tentatively. 

 

“Midoriya is… we completely missed… I can’t believe… ugh” Shouta growled, going completely non-verbal with his frustration. 

 

Hizashi was starting to get worried. Midoriya was a common topic for conversations of all kinds since the beginning of the year. Frustrated and praising, happy and terrified, they have had them all since the boy entered U.A. But Hizashi had never seen the erasure hero display quite this mixture of fear, worry, annoyance (and was that… respect?) for someone, let alone a student. 

 

“Is there anything wrong with the green-bean?” he asked worriedly. 

 

“There is either something really wrong with him, or something really right. I haven’t decided yet.” Shouta answered dryly, seeming to regain some of his composure. Hizashi’s eyebrows rose further. Before he could ask any more questions, the pages Shouta had been reading were thrust at his chest. 

 

“Read this. You’ll understand, I guarantee,” his husband said. 

 

Hizashi gave him one last skeptical look before diverting his attention to the papers in his hand. A look at the first page told him that this was the first assignment of the analysis course Shouta ran for each of his classes, specifically the one submitted by Midoriya. Can’t be too bad. Hizashi thought with a mental shrug as he started delving deeper.

 

***

 

Shouta watched smugly as Hizashi’s comically wide eyes kept getting wider with every page. He was skimming over the pages, not really having time to read it thoroughly, but that wasn’t really necessary in order to start grasping the magnitude of their unforseen problem. It was nice, at least, not to be alone in his predicament.

 

"What the hell ?" Hizashi finally asked, looking up from the essay. Shouta nodded emphatically, glad to see that his point got across, but his husband didn't seem to notice, too lost in his own thoughts as he continued mumbling. It was rare to see Hizashi so shocked that his volume actually went down instead of up, but here they were.

 

"Shouta, this is… it's professional level analysis. Hell, I don't think most professionals could have done such a good job of it, not the ones I worked with, at least. And he did all of this in an hour? Damn, I don't even know some of this stuff, and I've known you for half of my life!"

 

Shouta rose from the sofa and put a hand on the distraught man's shoulder. Hizashi tensed for a moment, startled, but then relaxed into his husband's familiar touch and looked up to meet his eyes.

 

"This is a problem." Shouta stated calmly. "Or, rather, the fact we haven't noticed this sooner is a problem. I knew from day one that Midoriya is smart, maybe smarter than he lets on sometimes, but this is a completely different level. Why didn't I see it? Why didn't he tell me? God knows I am used to him hiding problems and injuries from me, but why hide this ? He broke a finger the first day to prove to me that he has potential, but if he had just shown me his talent for analysis and tactical thinking, I wouldn't have dreamed about expelling him, volatile quirk or not."

 

Shouta pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation, trying to ward off the oncoming migraine. It helped that during his little rant Hizashi had abandoned the papers and was now standing behind him, rubbing his tense shoulders comfortingly.

 

The more he thought of it, the more he realized that this issue was far more complex than it was at first glance, with hidden layers that tied into other issues of Midoriya's he had never quite come around to addressing, what with their hectic school life and regularly scheduled villain attacks.

 

This was too big to ignore though. He realized now that putting off working out things with Midoriya for later was a mistake, and not only because of this suddenly uncovered well of potential. Midoriya's unwillingness to share his talents with his teachers, that was apparently just as big as his unwillingness to share his problems, was just another piece in a puzzle that just kept getting more worrying the more of it Shouta uncovered, intensifying the itching feeling that he was missing something important. Shouta really didn't like not knowing things relevant to his job. Still, he was a logical, practical man, and there was a clear, logical next step on the path to solving this puzzle.

 

"Talk to him." Hizashi suggested simply from behind him, echoing the underground hero's own thoughts. "Addressing this behaviour of his is long overdue, anyway."

 

"Oh, I will talk to him." Shouta promised. "And I will talk to All Might, too. He is clearly close to the boy, and something tells me that he knows more than he is telling me." His eyes narrowed in suspicion. If the blond scarecrow was hiding such important information from him, and about his own students no less, Shouta would kick his ass into next week, Symbol of Peace or not.

 

Then another, far more pressing thought interrupted his hypothetical plans of vengeance. He tensed abruptly, whirling around to look at his alarmed husband, once more wide eyed and pale as a sheet. Before the blond could ask what was wrong, he voiced the latest reason for his concern.

 

"I have to tell Nedzu."

 

Hizashi stared at him for a moment, then paled himself. It was due to fifteen years of friendship and later, marriage, and the fact they have both been working at U.A. for quite a while now that they didn't need to voice their thoughts to know they were exactly the same.

 

If Nedzu finds in Midoriya someone close to his own level of intellect...

 

May the world survive the chaos.