Chapter 20: The start of Aldera's downfall.
Hizashi hadn't really paid any mind to the text Nedzu had sent him that Friday. He knew it was probably important but there were other things he had to be worried about, like the fact that Izuku was having nightmares every single day. He and Shouta wanted to ask Inui for advice, but they hadn't had the chance to bring it up to him, since it was the last week of the school year, classes were getting a lot more chaotic as students got excited, it was particularly bad for the third years who were getting ready for graduation. All the teachers had been scrambling around simply trying to keep the students in line during class, not that they were any better, the teachers' lounge was abuzz with activity, although everyone was thankfully toning things down from last year, all of the new teachers had finally gotten settled in since last year. Besides, Izuku was also in the teacher's lounge whenever they weren't in Nedzu's office, so everyone had to keep things relatively calm for their sake, not that anyone minded, they'd all gotten attached to the kid rather quickly, even though no-one other than Shouta and Hizashi knew much about them, at some point even Tanaka had left their spot at the cafeteria, which was an incredibly rare occurrence, simply to say hello to Izuku.
All things considered it wasn't until Wednesday when he finally found out what that text was about, it was a routine staff meeting, Hizashi hadn't thought much about it. When he got to the meeting room Nedzu was seated at the head of the table, shuffling through some papers, he thought that was a bit odd, especially considering these meetings were usually just for everyone to talk about any issues they'd noticed with the students, like bullying or other troubling behaviour, as well as organize future tests and exams. Majima was already there as well as Takeda, he seemed to be purposefully ignoring whatever the principal was planning, Hizashi looked over at Majima questioningly, but xe just shook xyr head in shared confusion. The rest of the staff slowly filed in, and seemed just as confused as everyone else.
Finally once everyone had taken their seats, Nedzu started the meeting, and, it was just a normal meeting? What was he doing with those papers then? Why did some of those look like incident report files? What was going on? Was nobody going to mention the very clearly visible school files that looked nothing like the ones for UA? Hizashi could see almost everyone's eyes occasionally glance to the files, they were all curious, but then again, nobody dared to speak up if Nedzu wasn't going to bring them up. After the usual discussions had ended, Nedzu went right back to going through the files, and Anan decided to take one for the team and ask what had been on everyone's mind, because during the meeting Nedzu had been distracted. And whatever could actually take that much of his attention was something that everyone should probably be concerned about.
"Um, sir? What exactly are those files?" they asked, hesitantly, everyone's eyes turned to Nedzu and he just tilted his head at Hizashi and Shouta.
"I believe you two will have a clearer answer than I currently do" that was a particular surprise, since no, they had no idea what was going on.
Shouta shook his head "what are you talking about?"
"These are files on a certain school, Aldera Elementary, the school that Midoriya Izuku apparently attends."
Oh, oh Hizashi now completely understood why the principle had been so utterly distracted. Shouta had sat up straight at the mention of Izuku's name, they both knew what that meant, this was the school whose teachers allowed children to get beaten up almost every day, and allowed one to almost be killed, just because they didn't have the strongest quirk, or in Izuku's case, no quirk at all. Apparently, their reaction was enough to warrant concern from everyone in the room.
Nemuri was the first person to speak up "okay, I'm gonna guess that the school isn't the best, considering both of your reactions".
"What?"
She shook her head in amusement "Shou, sweetie, you look like you're trying to glare a hole into the table."
Takeda huffed "I reckon it's bad enough to warrant an investigation and shut down if Nedzu's bein' all fussy about it" she said still not looking up from her own work. He'd been teaching at UA the longest out of any of them, so he had a pretty good knowledge of Nedzu's behaviour, the rest of them usually trusted whatever he said about the principal.
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Nedzu had indeed investigated Izuku's place of education, and he could barely find anything on the school, not for lack of trying mind you, it appeared that, for whatever reason, the school simply did not keep any records. That would have been concerning enough, even if the files they did keep weren't lacklustre at best, and downright falsified at worst. How did Nedzu know they were falsified? He didn't, not for all of them, however there was one file he knew must have been full of lies. The student record for Midoriya Izuku, there were far too many marks on their record to make sense, and the reasons listed for disciplinary action was almost always that they were disruptive and constantly starting fights with the other students, a statement that fell apart the second you met them. Nedzu had observed his new student over the few days that he'd worked with them, they were the least confrontational person one could ever meet. They avoided other people like the plague and wouldn't cause a commotion if their life depended on it. Most of the reports were altercations between Izuku and another student named Bakugo Katsuki, a student whose file painted him as the perfect child, perfect grades, perfect behaviour, perfect quirk. That was what caught Nedzu's eye, looking back at Izuku's file he found various notes from their teachers about how their aggression was likely jealousy because the other children had quirks. Looking further into the student records he found a pattern that angered him the more he looked at it, without fail all the children who had what would be considered weak or villainous quirks had long histories of disciplinary action with condescending comments about them being horrible children, while the students who had traditionally strong quirks had perfect records and were praised to the high heavens. Statistically that wasn't a possible outcome, the only logical explanation then was that the reports were incorrect, a result of biased teachers and a careless or malicious principal. Discrimination was something of a sore topic for Nedzu, what with his past, to think that an entire school of children were being hurt in this way, for not only was the school basically destroying the futures of the students they discriminated against, but they were also doing a major disservice to the students who weren't being guided properly because the teachers refused to correct any bad behaviour.
He hadn't intended to bring up the issue during this meeting, in fact he had planned to call a meeting at the last day of school to discuss the options. However he had gotten distracted, everyone had noticed that he had a new, project and while he could have simply ignored them, knowing that they wouldn't speak up against him if he shut them down quickly, it did present an interesting opportunity to close a minor hole in his plan. As predicted, Aizawa and Yamada had reacted immediately, even the people who weren't paying attention, namely Katou and Takeda, had quickly grown concerned due to the sheer rage that radiated off the both of them. Nedzu found it quite interesting how protective they were over Izuku, considering they claimed that they had found the child only last week, he suspected there was much more to that story than any of them had shared, however he somewhat understood that they wouldn't take kindly to him trying to get that information out of them, so he waited, the truth would reveal itself in due time.
Of course Takeda was the first person to recognize his intentions, she had hit the nail on the head, so to speak, although, depending on whatever Aizawa and Yamada could tell them, a few arrests might have to added to the list. "I had been investigating because I found it hard to believe that Izuku had not been further ahead in their education thanks to their intelligence. However I appear to have found an entirely different issue. It appears that the school has been letting quirkism run rampant in its halls, from looking through the records it appears that any children with 'undesirable' quirks are being given marks on their records for even minor infractions, while children with so called 'perfect' quirks have nothing but perfect records."
Suddenly the entire meeting room erupted into conversation, but Yamada and Aizawa looked minorly confused, Nedzu wasn't quite sure why, they had to have been expecting this given their reactions earlier. "That's, all?" Yamada asked, "are you sure that's everything you could find?"
"Unfortunately the school doesn't keep very many records, only the student files and expenses, everything else must be being handled under the table. Even the camera records are full of gaps where they clearly deleted footage. Why, is there something else we should know about?"
"It's not just bias in the records the staff at the school actively encourage bullying and fighting, at least, from what Izuku has told us."
That got reactions out of everyone, mainly anger, it was a lot of yelling until Inui finally managed to get everyone to shut up by barking as loudly as possible. "Look" he said "this is all awful and that school should be getting shut down, but don't you think we should at least ask Izuku about it? They should be able to tell us everything, if they're comfortable with that of course."
It took a bit to convince everyone that bringing Izuku into the discussion wouldn't be a terrible idea, but eventually Aizawa left to go get them from the teacher's lounge. By the time he returned with Izuku the discussion had somewhat calmed down, everyone tried not to put too much attention on Izuku, they had all quickly learned that they started to panic if too many eyes were on them at once. They sat down in a spare chair that had been put next to Aizawa's, they looked directly at Nedzu, "what do you want to know?"
"First of all, I assume Aizawa-san filled you in on what we are discussing." Izuku nodded.
"You want to investigate my school on the basis of quirk discrimination, right?"
"That about sums it up, I have found evidence that they are disciplining students differently depending on their quirks, however Yamada and Aizawa have mentioned that there is more I should be aware of?"
Izuku nodded, they started slowly signing, like they weren't sure what to say, "the teachers, I'm pretty sure they mess with kids' grades if they think they're higher or lower than what the kid 'deserves', and they accuse us of cheating if we get any marks too high. You get a mark on your record if they think you're disturbing the class, for any reason, one time I saw a kid just tapping her desk and she got detention for it, I think they just didn't like her because she had a 'villainous' quirk. And they don't care if you get told to kill yourself, actually, they might tell you themselves."
There was an uproar at that "Interesting, I believe Yamada-san also mentioned that physical violence was encouraged?"
"Don't you already know that from the camera footage?"
"Unfortunately there are, conspicuous gaps in the recordings, I suspect they purposefully delete the footage that shows any and all bullying."
"That, makes sense, anyway the kids with stronger quirks are encouraged to put other kids 'in their place' and it doesn't matter if a teacher is watching or not, cause they'll just ignore you, and you can't go to the nurses office either cause she might refuse to help you and then you get in trouble for wasting her time"
Nedzu saw Shuzenji visibly bristle at that, "that is illegal, nurses can't just refuse to treat someone like that, its grounds for getting her licence revoked."
"I'm sure we can add that to the list of evidence, I am curious though, what is the worst incident you can remember?" Nedzu knew that whatever he needed to launch that investigation would have to come from that.
Izuku paused for a second, genuinely trying to remember, they shook their head "maybe that time one of the upperclassmen broke a kid's arms and then they had to get through the entire day like that? I don't know, there's a lot of stuff that might count."
Yamada looked at them incredulously "what do you mean you don't know? What about what happened to you!? I'd say that's probably the worst thing that school let happen!"
"But, no-one's going to take that seriously, I'm quirkless!"
Nedzu cleared his throat "I assure you I can make them care, what happened?"
Izuku looked doubtful of Nedzu's claim, but explained nonetheless "Well, that one time, I think I almost got killed by my classmates? And the teachers might have encouraged them?"
You could have heard a pin drop in that room after that revelation. Kan hesitantly spoke up "what do you mean 'almost'? How did you survive?" it asked.
Izuku was silent for a bit "I managed to get away from them, I collapsed behind a dumpster, that's when Aizawa and Yamada saved me." Well, that wasn't exactly how Nedzu expected to find out why the two of them had been so vague about how Izuku had ended up in their care. "I think Shuzenji-san could tell you all the injuries I had." Nedzu noted that Shuzenji's eyes widened a bit.
"You mean that all those injuries were caused by your classmates?" She asked incredulously, Izuku nodded. "Kid, the only reason you lived is thanks to my quirk working instantly, if you had taken any longer to be healed even that little bit, you would have died that night." Even Yamada and Aizawa seemed shocked by this, had they not realised how dire Izuku's situation had been?
Everyone was silent for a long while. Nedzu simply nodded "right, well that is certainly enough of an incident to warrant launching an investigation." That simple response opened the metaphorical floodgates, everyone was talking over each other now, most were calling for an immediate shut down of the school, Nedzu was sure he even heard someone, probably Majima, suggest arson.
"Quiet" he said calmly. Instantly the silence returned to the room. "I can guarantee, I will not let this school or its staff get away with light punishment, they certainly will suffer, however I need time to build up the case, because there are no camera records I will have to monitor the cameras myself and catch any instance of improper conduct before they delete it. Luckily, if it occurs as frequently as Izuku claims, then I should have a proper case against them by the week's end, which also means I will have it shut down before the next school year starts, meaning no students will be displaced during the school year."
Everyone seemed satisfied by that answer, but there was still one thing Nedzu needed to cover, that minor hole in his plan "however, there is a minor issue, while I'm sure most of the students would be able to find schools that won't discriminate against them, Izuku is still quirkless, anywhere they go they will likely be harshly bullied and wouldn't get the education they require. That is the one detail I have not figured out yet."
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Izuku knew that Nedzu was right, there was no-way they'd ever be treated fairly by any school they tried to attend, they were about to say that it was fine, when Ishiyama spoke up "I don't know what you'd do about other subjects, but I'd be happy to teach them Literature."
Izuku was shocked, sure they had become, somewhat friendly, with the UA staff, but they never expected that one of them would offer to teach them! And soon it wasn't just one, as all the other teachers chorused their agreement. Izuku could feel their eyes watering a bit as they heard everyone speak. Nedzu turned to them "well? It seems that we have a solution to your education predicament right here, do you agree?" Izuku nodded gratefully, still unable to comprehend what had just happened.
"Then it's settled, I shall let all of you know when the formal investigation commences."
Izuku realised in that moment, that their little bubble of safety had just expanded by nine, and they couldn't be happier.
Chapter 21: Bye bye Aldera!
Nedzu watched the screen, beady eyes flitting around, watching files be cleaned, camera footage be erased, any trace of educational negligence wiped clean from the records. All the while a small handful of people scrambled to clean hallways and classrooms, scrubbing away dried blood, hiding burn marks, moving around damaged lockers, getting rid of heavily damaged tables and chairs, all to appear, for a single day, as an upstanding place of education. But Aldera Elementary was a corrupt school and no matter how much they tried to hide it, he would know, and he would tear them down, brick by bloodstained brick. It had been only a month since he began his investigation, and normally that shouldn't have been nearly enough time to build up a case against the school staff, however he had spent almost all his free time watching the cameras of Aldera for any sign of illegal activity. Some might call his methods, extreme, however nobody would argue that he didn't get results, besides, it was almost too easy to find what he was looking for, it was a miracle the school hadn't been investigated before. Now the next step of Nedzu's plan commenced, he had contacted some acquaintances who could get the school shut down from an educational standpoint, and he might have let it rest there, had it not been for the fact that some of the things the staff had done were outright criminal, and they practiced quirk discrimination. If there was one thing Nedzu couldn't stand it was quirk discrimination. He had made a call to Tsukauchi, the one person he could fully trust to not throw out the whole case just because the children being hurt didn't have traditionally good quirks. So as it currently stood the new school year was just a day away and the school was under heavy review, and was likely to either be shut down or entirely restaffed, while any staff who could be arrested were being quietly rounded up by Tsukauchi and the police. The board of education had, of course, informed all the students' families that Aldera Elementary might not be open for this year, hopefully it was enough time for those parents to find new schools for their children.
The door to the office creaked open and Izuku walked in, they sat down in a chair next to his, eyes glued to the monitor, even though it was already past the end of the school year and nobody should have been inside the school grounds, Nedzu had made an exception for Izuku, despite their previous concerns about the investigation, they had been insistent on at least being able to witness the results. And today was the day that they truly made their move, one last step, one meeting that would seal the fate of this wretched place. A meeting with the Principal of Aldera Elementary as well as a select few members of staff, the one conducting the meeting was one of his contacts in the local Board of Education, as much as Nedzu would have loved to go down there himself and put the fear of god in that crooked man, he would have attracted far too much attention, given that his name and position as a hero held quite a bit of power, people's attention would be drawn if they found out that a pro hero was part of an investigation into a school. In fact, that was why the only hero that was going to be at the meeting was Aizawa, he was unknown enough as an underground hero that his presence wouldn't ring any alarm bells. He was going both in case something went awry, as well as the simple reason that Aizawa is an incredibly stubborn man, and he refused to be kept out of this particular part of the plan, Nedzu suspected he just wanted to be able to torment the staff who had made life so torturous for Izuku.
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Izuku had mixed feelings about the whole operation, sure this school had made their life hell, and certainly deserved to be shut down, but they couldn't help but feel like they were doing something wrong. Like they shouldn't be happy that the school was getting shut down, especially considering that it was their fault, none of this would have happened if they hadn't told their mentors about what the school was doing. They could imagine their old teachers' reactions, yelling at them, telling them that they should have just kept their mouth shut, after all, the school was doing so much good for most of its students, what did it matter if a few suffered? But they had spent years interrupting fights and shielding the other kids whenever they could, they saw exactly how many people were being hurt by the might-makes-right mentality that the teachers practically drilled into your head. And Nedzu had explained to them that even the kids who seemed to be on top were going to suffer horribly later in life if they were allowed to continue down this path.
Still, as they watched the camera feed with great anticipation, some part of them, buried deep in their mind, long forgotten and crushed under the weight of the expectation for them to be meek and forgiving to all who cause them pain, felt joy, a sick sense of joy at watching the people who had wronged them so horribly get exactly what they deserved. Perhaps it was wrong for them to feel that way, even so, they were looking forward to seeing their old principal's face as he would try to worm his way out only to be presented with all the recordings that Nedzu had spent so long patiently obtaining. Their eyes snapped to the entrance camera feed as two people entered the building, one was Aizawa and the other was a friend of Nedzu's, even from through the screen they could tell that both of them were tense. Time to see how well this meeting would go.
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Shouta's gaze flitted around the hallways as they walked into Aldera Elementary, beside him Nedzu's contact, a person with a quirk that gave her dove wings named Shiratori, silently tutted to herself as she examined the building with mild disdain, their feathers ruffled as they noted down all the poorly hidden damage. Shouta would bet that most of it came from students using their untrained quirks and accidentally hitting walls and doors, although he noted that a few lockers seemed to have much more damage than the rest or were oddly missing, he could guess who those lockers belonged to, he could have even sworn he saw a bloodstain on one of the floorboards, and knowing what happened here, that was probably a reasonable assumption.
The principal's office seemed to be completely pristine, as expected, the principal himself was a plain looking man, the kind of plain that even if you met him a hundred times you still wouldn't recognize him in a crowd, Shouta wondered if that was his quirk, or if he was just that boring. There were three other teachers in the room as well. Everyone looked relaxed, smug even, he could have sworn he saw two of the teachers silently laughing and talking amongst themselves, only the principal seemed nervous, likely because he was the one who knew exactly how much scrutiny the school was being put under. Of course, not even the principal had any reason to suspect anything too unusual, since as far as they were concerned they were just meeting with an official from the board of education. Shouta was here under the pretence of being Shiratori's assistant, a little white lie just to ensure that nobody would be on high alert during the meeting, the more relaxed they were, the more likely they were going to slip up.
Shiratori sat across from the principal while Shouta remained standing, purposefully putting himself right next to the door to prevent anyone from leaving. Was he being paranoid? Maybe, but he wasn't taking any chances with this meeting, they had to seal the deal now, or the whole investigation would be delayed a full year, luckily they had what they needed, thanks to Nedzu, the laptop in Shouta's bag contained all of the recordings they'd need to shut down the whole school. Shiratori began the discussion with some idle small talk that Shouta couldn't be bothered to listen to, he knew what she was doing, she was making herself seem approachable, letting the principal drop his guard. After all, they were a friend of Nedzu's, of course they knew how to manipulate their way into people's hearts and get them to spill their deepest secrets. Shouta tuned back in once they finally got to the topic at hand, signalled by Shiratori subtly turning on a small audio recorder that was attached to her sleeve.
"Well Shiratori-San, I can tell you right now that our school does its best to care for each and every one of our students" the principal said with a sickeningly sweet grin, Shouta had to bite his tongue, there would be time to tear them apart later, for now they needed to get him to dig his own grave.
"I'm sure you do, however I would like to ask a few questions regarding the way you run this school, could you give me an overview of the disciplinary systems in place here?" Right, they both knew exactly how the school disciplined their students, which is to say, not at all, not when they really needed disciplining at least. Shiratori had been given a copy of the camera footage to go through, just so that they knew what to ask about.
"Well we do what any other school does, if a student is out of line we give them detention, or call their parents" lies, Nedzu had checked, there had been no phone calls made during the days that he had observed the school. "And if the behaviour continues we are forced to suspend the student or even expel them" of course what he didn't mention was the fact that suspensions were only ever given to students with "undesirable" quirks.
"Of course, but what kinds of things would you consider out of line?" Fishing for answers, if Shiratori didn't give a suggestion, then the principal would have to answer from his own morals, and he'd probably slip up and forget to mention something.
"Disturbing the class, cheating on tests, you know, normal things."
"Really? I find it odd that you didn't mention bullying in that list, you do discourage bullying, right?"
"Yes yes, of course! We don't tolerate the harassment of students!"
"So if a member of staff saw a child being hurt they would step in immediately?" Shouta could see the principal's face drop for a split second, he was starting to suspect, unfortunately for him, it was far too late to back down. Shouta flashed a grin at him, his deranged grin that struck fear into the hearts of anyone who saw it, it was quite effective at unnerving criminals and students alike. The principal's face paled, as did the rest of the teachers, who were slowly backing away from where Shouta was standing. Maybe he was enjoying their fear a little too much, but honestly who could blame him? Criminals like them needed a bit of fear in their hearts, besides, it was always fun to see just how long it took for people to crack. Then again he figured he should stop, for now, Shiratori still had to get the information she needed, and that wouldn't be possible if everyone was too unnerved to speak.
"W-well, yes, we would step in" the principal's voice had gotten much higher, it almost sounded squeaky.
"Oh? Then if we looked through the camera footage, we wouldn't find any instance of a teacher watching a child get bullied? And certainly no instance of a teacher encouraging it?"
The principal seemed to become much more confident for that question, no doubt assuming that they would go through the footage that already existed, which would exclude the deleted footage, unfortunately for him, this confidence was far too misplaced. "Of course! We can pull up the footage now if you like! Maki-San, if you would kindly-"
"That won't be necessary" Shiratori cut him off, "my assistant and I have already gathered some footage, we can just watch that, after all it would save everyone the hassle, wouldn't it?" They smiled sweetly, but her wings were puffed up threateningly.
Shouta pulled the laptop from the bag he'd brought, and set it on the table, opening it to show a video of the camera feeds, playing it revealed a compilation of instances in which a teacher or other member of staff watched and/or encouraged bullying and fighting. "I think it's clear that you've done nothing but lie to us, isn't it?" Shiratori asked the principal, smiling all the while. The principal quivered in his seat, too afraid to say anything to the contrary.
One of the teachers, Maki, was apparently too stupid to take the hint "you can't call that bullying, those students are simply defending themselves from those evil children!" she said, in reference to a kid with a 'villainous' quirk being attacked by three other students. That was it, Shouta was done with this whole situation, screw staying quiet, he was going to give this lady a piece of his mind.
"Really? Because from what I see, it's three kids beating up their classmate while a teacher encourages them, truly, you think a child as young as that even has the capacity to be evil? What are they? Seven years old? Its people like you who are the real villains, just a shame that you are too up your own ass to see it, you stupid, good for nothing, stains on humanity." Shouta didn't raise his voice once, they weren't worth the effort of yelling, instead used an icier tone of voice that certainly caused all of the teachers to cower even further into the corner, even the principal looked like he had just been slapped.
Shiratori smiled and continued speaking, sealing the fate of Aldera Elementary "this meeting was only a formality, this school will be getting shut down, there was no question about that from the beginning, this was just to warn all of you to get your affairs in order, as I don't think any of you will be teaching anyone after this."
The two of them promptly left the building, Shiratori left to finish the paperwork needed to get everything done, while Shouta was met at the gates by Hizashi who immediately asked for details, Shouta just laughed and said to wait until they got home.
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Izuku had slowly felt their eyes start to water as they watched the footage, Nedzu had been mildly concerned but they assured him they were crying happy tears, that wasn't really true, honestly, they were more relived than happy. Even after knowing Aizawa for months now, they were still surprised when he snapped at Maki-sensei. When their guardians came to pick them up they hugged Aizawa tightly. They left for home only after Yamada made Nedzu promise to give him a copy of that footage.
"Well, how'd it go?" Yamada asked once they got home.
"Well enough, you should have seen the principal's face when he realised just how screwed he was."
Izuku felt their eyes start to water again, thinking of how much their mentors had done for them over the months they'd known them.
"Little listener? Are you okay?"
Izuku just hugged both of their mentors and cried.
"Izuku!?" Aizawa sounded concerned "what's wrong?"
Izuku shook their head "happy tears." And this time they really were, for the first time in five, long years, they cried for joy.
Chapter 22: First day observations
The new school year meant that UA's halls would be filled with chatter as new students entered the building for the first time, but even before the students arrived there was a certain level of energy that permeated the air, most of the teachers were prepared for dealing with the new first years, Nedzu was making sure everything was set up for orientation, Shuzenji was preparing the infirmary for the inevitable influx of idiotic students injuring themselves or each other, and Izuku somehow got caught up in it all. They found themself scrambling around the teacher's lounge avoiding the adults running around and getting papers organized, it was the first time they'd seen the other teachers since that staff meeting last month. In the meantime, they'd been spending most of their time at the apartment, or sometimes at the nearby park with their guardians. Seeing as they didn't have much to do, and no friends, other than Tenya who had visited a few times, don't get them wrong, Tenya was a really good friend, but he was only one person after all. They had gotten to UA early with their guardians, their bright yellow backpack (they had refused to allow Yamada to buy them a new one, no matter how much he asked) now filled not just with their notebooks but also with some textbooks, Yamada had gotten them so that Izuku could restart their schooling as soon as possible, it was a simple plan really, Izuku would spend the majority of their time in the teacher's lounge studying, with help from whatever teachers were free at the moment, Fridays would be their analysis lessons with Nedzu.
Izuku had also asked Aizawa about their physical training, they hadn't kept up with their training since the incident and, other than that one time, they hadn't gone out as their vigilante persona either, he had tried to argue the point, and It took a few days of pestering, but he eventually conceded that they could join him for patrols occasionally, as long as they didn't actually fight anyone. Izuku had barely contained their excitement during that conversation, they had seen plenty of their new neighbourhood in the daytime, but they hadn't really had a chance to see it at night. Was there a high chance of Nedzu probably making the connection between them and the vigilante following Eraserhead around? Definitely. Izuku suspected that it would take about a month if they were being generous, but was that really going to stop them? Not a chance.
For now they had somehow made their way to the corner of the room without getting tangled in whatever the heck everyone else was doing, even if the amount of talking was making it rather difficult to tell where everyone was at any given time, and everyone was moving about sporadically, and they were fairly certain someone threw a stapler across the room at some point. To be fair, these were all pro heroes, they were likely being careful not to let Izuku get hurt, but honestly from the outside the teacher's lounge probably looked like a whirlwind of chaos. Although from their spot in the corner, Izuku could appreciate the surprising efficiency of the situation. Their spot consisted of a small desk and chair that had been dragged out of storage, they could have used the couch but they appreciated having their own designated area.
They hadn't really gotten a good look at the organized chaos earlier, but at the moment, they could see Majima looking over xyr students' work while also acting as a translator for Takeda who seemed to have begun speaking almost exclusively in cowboy slang while glaring at some papers, meanwhile Kayama, Yamada and Katou were done with their work and started talking with each other and writing down what looked like bets on a whiteboard, and Aizawa and Kan were comparing student files and discussing the listed quirks, or maybe they were arguing, honestly they couldn't tell, Kurose was sitting at their desk and throwing paper airplanes at anyone that moved. Ishiyama and Inui seemed to be staying out of the chaos for the most part, but Izuku could see them quietly start setting up a whiteboard that had each teacher's name with a set of tally marks next to it, the top of the board read "Chaos caused this year", how any of the teachers had caused incidents on the first day was beyond Izuku, but the teachers with tallies next to their names were Aizawa and Kan with one each, probably one of their petty arguments, Takeda with two, likely for the sheer amount of incomprehensible slang he was using, and Kurose with one, probably for the paper airplanes.
However things soon calmed down once Nedzu dropped from the vents to remind everyone that orientation was beginning soon, it was almost unnerving, the hush that settled over the room as everyone filed out of the room. Izuku took it as an opportunity to start on their studies without all the chaos to distract them, while they found it fascinating how everyone seemed to be able to function even with everything going on, it was certainly something they would have to get used to.
Most of the day went by rather smoothly, Izuku would be studying, and whichever teacher was in the room would help with whatever subject they could in between doing their own work. In fact, Izuku found themself rather enjoying their studies, which was unusual even for them, or, perhaps it wasn't that unusual, they had always loved to learn new things, and really when they thought about it, they were only miserable at school because of the teachers and the other students. At least their new teachers were nice and, whenever they talked to them, Izuku even got to learn some things about them, like how Katou lost his legs to a villain when he was first starting out as a hero, or that Kurose's mother was an astronaut and their costume was a tribute to her, some things were smaller details of course, like Ishiyama liking sweets, Kayama having a collection of stuffed animals, and Takeda doing wood carving as a hobby.
Their notebook was off to the side, slowly being filled with little facts about the heroes, of course, all of the additions were written entirely in code. They had been practicing over the month and they had already gotten the hang of writing in it, they couldn't do it as effortlessly as normal however, which caused a bit of a predicament when their thoughts went by faster than they could write them, their current solution was writing down their immediate thoughts in Japanese, and then translating them later, of course they would destroy the copy in Japanese afterwards. They had begun translating their existing entries into the code as well, beginning with the entries on their teachers.
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Nedzu observed his student from the vents, Izuku truly was a fascinating human, they had gone through what should have been an entire week's worth of subject matter in a single day, it seemed that when they had the opportunity to indulge in their studies without hinderance they were quite the fast learner, of course, Nedzu didn't intend to let them get by just reading textbooks, but it appeared that he would have to adjust the contents of the surprize tests he had been preparing. It had been quite a while since he had gotten personally involved in a students' development, seven years to be precise, although he might argue that even Aizawa hadn't caught his attention quite like this. Yes, if Izuku continued at this pace Nedzu fully expected that they would move on to a middle school curriculum within the year.
It appeared that the rest of his staff had also gotten incredibly attached to Izuku, that was obvious enough when they had all agreed to assist in their education, however it was interesting to catch snippets of conversation as he scampered around in the vents throughout the school, every time he passed by the teacher's lounge he heard at least one of the teachers sharing knowledge and stories with Izuku. Of course he would have to remind them that any information about himself and his methods was not to be shared, he had a reputation to maintain after all, he couldn't be an omniscient creature without a little trickery after all, and if one of those methods was hiding in the vents to eavesdrop on people, well, only he and his staff would know. Maybe someday he would teach his ways to Izuku, he suspected that they would make a terrifying hero if they had the right knowledge, they were keen, and already knew how to disappear in a crowd, if they wished, criminals would fear them like they feared him, if only they shed that meek attitude, it was so clearly only surface level, but perhaps even they hadn't realised that yet.