#also in japanese his first name sounds the same as midnight as in 0 hour

[beneaththebloodylake]

edgeworth is literally the least first nameable character ever to me. ill call manfred von karma by his first name, but with edgeworth it still sounds so weird

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

Their Hero Academia: Interlude

My ongoing next-gen My Hero Academia fanfic.  This is the raw and unedited Interlude, edited version will eventually go up on AO3.

Chapters 0-16 can be found here

Chapter 17 (unedited) can be found here

Their Hero Academia – Interlude – Shota Aizawa’s Perilous Staff Meeting

It had been a very long week, and Shota Aizawa was already seriously contemplating retirement.  Many of his fellow former teachers already had. Mic, Snipe, Cementoss, Vlad King, all of them and others had retired or moved to other positions.  Even Emi was telling him he ought to retire and spend more time with her.  But his wife knew, as he did, that he was far too dedicated to the youth, making sure that they turned out to be responsible, successful, and above all, not-dead heroes.

But if ever there was a class to challenge this resolve, this was it.

He sipped from a bad cup of coffee as he watched the other teachers and staff file into the teacher’s lounge.  It was unusual for Nezu to call a staff meeting on a Sunday; he would only have done so if he had an important reason.

He nodded politely to Yusei Fujii and Itsuka Tetsutetsu, Super Ball and Battle Fist, who were the other homeroom teachers.  Tetsutetsu had been one of the best students in Class 1-B decades ago and he knew her to be a reliable teacher who did well by her students.  Fujii had been a capable enough Pro-Hero in the field, though in Aizawa’s opinion he talked too much and made too many jokes.  As a teacher, Aizawa thought he was far too soft, too willing to extend chances to those who did not deserve them.  But Nezu had faith in the rubber-bodied bouncing hero, so Aizawa dealt with it by largely ignoring him when he could.

“You know, Aizawa,” Fujii said, “it wouldn’t kill you to smile a little.  Otherwise, how will we know if you die from boredom sitting there?”

He didn’t dignify that with a response and denied the opportunity to ridicule him further, Fujii took a seat.

Higari Maijima—Power Loader—arrived next.  He was one of the few people on the staff even older than Aizawa, making him feel like not quite such an old man in a field of kids.  Even if “kids” was something of a misnomer, considering the youngest was older than he’d been when he began teaching.

Power Loader fixed him with glare.  “Just a reminder that the Iida Twins are still banned from my classes until Friday. They’re your problem until then.”   He visibly shuddered as he took his seat.  “Twins!  One of that girl was bad enough, but twins…!”

“Trust me, Maijima,” he said, allowing a small amount of sympathy into his voice, “I feel your brain. The combination of Iida and Hatsume’s… idiosyncrasies was produced rather disturbing results.”

Samidare Asui, Hopper, entered with Michael Skyline (who went by the rather redundant Hero Name of Skyline) and Kukiko Iida, also known as Figure Sk8.  Though there were several years between them, the three were close friends and could occasionally be found getting into trouble after hours. A few conversations with Midnight and Nezu had eventually put a stop to that, at least, before they could completely besmirch the honor of U.A.

Iida brushed the single white forelock of hair out of her face, leaving it standing it stark contrast to the rest of her blue-black hair.  “You two are such lightweights,” she said.  “I had almost twice as much to drink as you two and I’m not hungover.”

Asui groaned in response. “What you are *croak*, is loud.”

<I am never doing shots with you again,> Skyline said, seemingly not realizing he was speaking English.  The blonde American managed to remember his Japanese by the time he continued.  “It’s just not worth it.”

“Lightweights,” Iida teased again, as they found their seats.  She watched as Asui poured a frankly absurd amount of sugar into his coffee. “That stuff’ll kill you, you know.”

“At this point, *croak* I welcome it.”

Having attended U.A. with Iida’s father, and having spent far too many nights keeping him, Hizashi, and Nemuri  out of trouble, Aizawa had few doubts as to where she got it from.

Atsushi Mori, the red panda-headed FireFox, came in next, looking entirely too cheerful for this time of morning.  “Good morning, everyone!” he said, a grin on his furry face.  

“Morning, Fox!” Iida called back, prompting another groan from Asui and Skyline.

“See?” Mori said as he fixed his coffee.  “Iida gets it.”

People who were that cheerful in the morning needed to be shot.

He was followed shortly by Midnight, who looked rather pleased with herself.  “You know, you never did thank me for your class this year, Aizawa,” she said, getting far too close to him.

Her words struck him like a slap.  “That class is on purpose?” he yelled, louder than he intended.  She winced as she took a step back.  “I thought the universe had simply cursed me.”

She laughed.  “Oh, no.  Nezu put me in charge of class rosters this year.  When I saw how many birds with coming home to roost, I simply had to put them under your care.  Of course, I did ask Emi first.  She thought it was hilarious.”

Oh, he was going to have such a conversation when he got home.  “I hate you.”

“Love you too, Sho’,” she said, blowing him a kiss as she sound her seat.  “You know your life would be boring if we didn’t spice it up a little.”

“Aizawa!” came the booming voice of All Might.  “What a week, eh?”

He tried not to wince. No need to let All Might show he was getting the better of him.  “Hrmm.”

All Might just laughed at that as he took the seat to Aizawa’s left.  “Still the same, aren’t you?  But tell me, how is my grandson doing?  Which reminds me, Inko and I would love to have you and Emi for dinner, bring Eri and Kota too, the more the merrier, we’re inviting Izuku and his family, did I tell you my youngest grandchild finally got her Quirk…”

Why didn’t he shut up?!

“Careful, Dad,” Eri said, sitting on his right.  Her husband, Kota, sat to her left, and was very clearly not even bothering to hide how amusing he found the whole thing.  “I did a pretty good job patching Mister Yagi up when I was ten, but I don’t think I could do it again.  So I’d rather you didn’t hurt him.”

In point of fact, Eri had burned up a tremendous amount of her power when she was ten, both rolling All Might back to before his injuries and Mirio Togata back to having his Quirk.  Now, she could only turn back the clock a few hours.  More than enough to make her a good emergency medic and U.A.’s chief physician.  A Pro-Hero and a doctor.  He couldn’t have been more proud of her.  Adopting her had been one of the best decisions he’d ever made.

“I’ve told you, Young Eri, call me Toshinori, please.”

“You’ll have as much luck with that as I have getting Kota to call Dad anything other than “Sir,” Mister Yagi.”

“Tell the whole world, why don’t you, Eri?” Kota said, but it was clear he was teasing her. His son-in-law was properly afraid of him, however.  As things should be.

“Ahem,” Nezu’s voice somehow cut through all the chatter, and the other teachers fell into silence. The Principal carefully made his way to his chair, leaving his cane leaning against the conference table as he took his seat.  “Thank you all for coming.  I apologize for interrupting your day off.  Hound Dog sends his regrets that he will not be able to join us, but is dealing with a personal matter.”

He folded his paws in front of him before continuing.  “We have been lucky,” Nezu said.  “There have been no further instances of what the CQR is now calling the “Quirk Disrupting Virus” in the Heroics classes and those students who were effected appear to have regained control of their Quirks.”

“Thankfully,” Tetsutestsu said.  “Haya Tanaka’s still shaken up by the whole thing, but she’s seeing Hound Dog and slowly getting her confidence back.  She’ll be flying again in no time.”

“The same for Yamaguchi,” Fujii said.  “We’re coaxing her back up to full power, but she’s still worried she’ll destroy more of the school.”

Nezu nodded.  “I am glad to hear that, please give them both my regards.  Unfortunately, the other classes have not been so lucky.  Three boys and two girls from the General Education classes, two boys and one genderfluid individual from the Business and Management classes, and one boy and two girls from the Support Classes.  Fortunately, all of them had relatively minor Quirks, and there were no injuries to anyone or any major property damage.”

Power Loader nodded.  “Only a bit of a close call.  One of my students has an alchemical touch.  On the plus side, we now have more than enough copper for wiring to last us the rest of the year.”

“What are the other schools saying?” Aizawa asked.  “Emi says they’ve had a dozen incidents so far at Ketsubutsu, including one of the teachers.”

“Shiketsu, Isamu, Seiai, and Seijin are all reporting similar numbers, as Mom” Eri said.  “I’ve been in contact with their medical staff and have been sharing results with the other schools and the CQR.  No one’s any closer to an answer than they were when this first started a few weeks ago.”

“And the schools outside the country?” he asked.

“The Center for Quirk Research is still ironing out the kinks in international cooperation,” Midnight said, her tongue sliding over her lips before she said the word “kink.”

Aizawa grunted.  “Of course.  A world-wide crisis and they’re squabbling.”

“Unfortunate,” Nezu agreed. “But we must move forward as best we can.”

“Any of the Pro-Heroes investigating find anything?” Iida asked.

The Principal shook his head.  “I am afraid not.  So far, no group has claimed responsibility, nor has anyone found any signs of a distribution method.”

If he had been a younger man, Aizawa would probably have been out beating the pavement, trying to find out what he could using his own methods.  But age was catching up to him and he’d likely be more risk to himself than anyone else.  More importantly, his place was here, offering guidance and protection to his students.  If someone’s Quirk ran wild, he had the best chance of stopping it without harm to anyone.

The thing of it is… the whole virus thing reminded him of the Trigger incident from nearly thirty years ago.  The way it made people lose control was rather familiar.  Perhaps he’d put a word or two in Police Chief Tsukauchi’s ear. Track one, track the other.

“So what do we do?” Kota asked.  Even as one of the country’s premier Rescue Heroes, he had always been a man of action. Uncertainty always weighed heavily on him.  Aizawa saw Eri give his hand a squeeze.  “I’ve got kids coming to the USJ tomorrow.”

“Ultimately,” Nezu said, “the same thing we have always done.  We continue working to prepare these remarkable young men and women for becoming the Heroes of tomorrow.  We let them know that their safety is our utmost priority.  We survive, we persevere.”

With a slowness that deftly illustrated his age and the stiffness in his joints, Nezu got to his feet. “We are U.A.  The country will be looking to us to lead the way in these dark times, as it always has.  We dare not falter, not when the very foundations of our society are being undermined.”

“In other words,” Aizawa told his son-in-law, “don’t go easy on them.”

“Fear not, Aizawa,” All Might said.  “I shall be watching to make certain Young Izumi treats the student like a harsh taskmaster.”

Aizawa fixed him with a cold stare.  “The moment it looks like your grandson is in trouble, you’ll be calling the whole thing off.”

“Now, I don’t really think that’s fair…”

“Relax, Dad,” Eri said. “I’ll be teaching the class too. I’ll keep them both in line.”

“I’m counting on you, Eri,” he said.  “Teach them right.  I have a sickening feeling we’re going to need it.”

 END OF WEEK 1