Age: 7
They say school is a second home. They repeat it until the phrase loses all meaning, becoming an empty mantra that justifies the long hours and tedious uniformity. They tell us that teachers are impartial guides, figures dedicated to patiently cultivating the promising future of society.
It's a lie. A well-intentioned lie, perhaps, but a lie nonetheless.
School is not a home; it is, quite simply, the first factory of conformity. It is where you learn with painful speed exactly what your place and your immovable value in line are. It is an ecosystem of brutally simple hierarchy: if you possess a brilliant Quirk, something explosive or stellar, you go to the front of the pack, receiving all the smiles. If your Quirk is useful but not spectacular, you are placed in the middle, a reliable cog. And if you have nothing... well, you are the factory defect that the institution actively tries to sweep under the rug.
I was sitting at my desk, an island of impassivity in a sea of childhood anxiety, spinning a pencil between my fingers with a monotonous dexterity that no seven-year-old should possess. Mr. Tanaka, our second-grade teacher, moved through the aisles with an air of tired superiority, handing back our weekly essays. The topic had been an invitation to superficiality: "My favorite hero and why."
Most of the kids had turned in three poorly written paragraphs glossing over how hard All Might hits or how cool Best Jeanist's clothes are. Tanaka smiled at them with a forced grimace, stuck a gold star sticker on their papers, and told them in a voice dripping with molasses, "Good job, keep it up."
The system rewarded disinterested mediocrity as long as it came wrapped in the package of a good Quirk.
"Midoriya," Mr. Tanaka called out, making Izuku's head snap up.
His voice lacked the warmth he had used with the others. It was dry, bureaucratic, as if he were reading a damage report. Izuku stood up, his small body tensing with predictable nervousness, and walked toward the teacher's desk with his head down, expecting a blow.
He wasn't wrong.
"Here you go," Tanaka said, dropping the paper onto the desk with a dull thud. He didn't even bother handing it to him.
Izuku took it, trembling. From my seat, my eyes caught the absence of the gold star; instead, a huge, aggressive red mark dominated the page. A zero.
"Sensei Tanaka..." Izuku murmured, his voice breaking with incomprehension. "Why did I get a zero?"
Silence fell over the classroom. The children, smelling blood, turned in their seats to watch the spectacle with malicious curiosity. The teacher sighed, adjusting his glasses with that fake patience mediocre adults use to hide their disdain.
"Midoriya, the instructions were clear. You had to write the essay yourselves."
"I did write it!" Izuku protested, slightly crumpling the edge of the paper in desperation.
"Please, don't lie," Tanaka cut him off, crossing his arms. "I read your work. You talk about the distribution of impact force and the relationship between muscle mass and reaction speed. These are advanced concepts of physics and biomechanics."
The teacher leaned forward, ensuring the entire class could hear him clearly.
"Let's be realistic, Midoriya. It's evident that a child... in your situation, could not articulate these things with such precision. It's obvious you copied this from some internet forum or had an adult write it for you. Plagiarism is a serious offense. Automatic zero."
Izuku took a step back as if he had been slapped. His eyes, already large and expressive, filled with tears. It wasn't just sadness; it was the paralyzing frustration of telling the truth and knowing that no one cared, because they had already judged him based on his genetics.
"But... I..." he stammered, collapsing in the face of the injustice.
"Return to your seat, Midoriya. And next time, put some effort into writing something that matches your true capabilities."
In the back, a few kids let out cruel giggles. "Deku the cheater," one whispered.
I felt an unmistakable, cold heat rise in my chest. It wasn't the explosive anger of the old Katsuki. It was a pure, sharp contempt for the moral superiority of this mediocre man.
The screech of my chair scraping against the floor sounded like a gunshot in the silent classroom.
I stood up. I didn't walk fast. I moved with my hands in my pockets, with a calm, measured stride, until I placed myself slightly between Izuku and the teacher.
"Sensei Tanaka," I said. My voice was perfectly polite, but it carried a glacial tone that made the teacher blink in bewilderment.
"Bakugo," Tanaka muttered, his face hardening. "Return to your seat immediately. This does not concern you."
"It concerns me quite a bit that you are accusing my friend of being a liar in front of the whole class," I replied with absolute calm, taking the paper from an astonished Izuku's hands.
I read the first paragraph out loud: "All Might doesn't just use brute force in his strikes; his most effective strategy leverages the wind pressure generated by the speed of his fists to redirect projectiles without direct physical contact, thus minimizing structural damage in urban environments..."
I looked up at the teacher, piercing him with my red eyes.
"It's well written," I judged.
"Too well," Tanaka insisted, his face twitching. "It's impossible that he..."
"Prove it," I interrupted. I didn't raise my voice, but the word rang out like an ultimatum.
The teacher was stunned.
"Excuse me?"
"If he copied it, he won't know what the words he used mean or how to apply them," I explained, never taking my eyes off Tanaka, but addressing Izuku. "Hey, Izuku."
Izuku looked at me, wiping his eyes with his fist, his terror mixing with obedient confusion.
"What happens if a hero deflects a projectile at a ninety-degree angle in a densely populated urban area?" I asked him casually, as if we were talking about the weather.
Izuku blinked. His analytical brain automatically activated at the challenge, overriding the humiliation.
"Um..." Izuku adjusted his nonexistent glasses. "The shockwave would bounce off the adjacent buildings and shatter windows within at least a three-block radius. That's why All Might always punches at an upward angle or toward the ground, to dissipate the force vertically and minimize collateral damage."
There was absolute silence. It was the sound of thirty children processing a truth the teacher had denied. I turned back to Tanaka.
"There you have it. He didn't just memorize the answer; he understands the concept. He knows it. He didn't copy it."
Tanaka's face went from white to red. His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. A seven-year-old, the star pupil, was dismantling his authority to defend the class outcast.
"Well... maybe he learned the answer by heart out of pure obsession..." he tried to excuse himself, desperate not to look ridiculous.
"Sensei," I said, taking a step forward and closing the distance. My tone became dangerously bored, indicating my patience had run out. "You assume that because he doesn't have a Quirk that produces a physical effect, he doesn't have a brain. That is a lazy prejudice. Having a Quirk that stretches your fingers doesn't make you smarter; it just makes you different."
I looked at the rest of the class, sweeping my gaze over those who had laughed seconds before.
"If we are going to grade based on 'capabilities,' maybe you should review last week's math tests. I'm sure the 'useless' Midoriya got a better grade than half of those with 'cool' Quirks."
No one said a word. Tanaka swallowed hard. He knew I was right, and that if this incident reached the principal, his blatant discrimination would be exposed.
"Alright..." he muttered, defeated. He took the paper back and pulled out his red pen. He crossed out the large zero with a trembling stroke. "Perhaps I was too hasty, Midoriya. If you can explain it, it's valid. I'll give you a B."
"It's an A+ essay," I corrected, the demand implicit.
Tanaka looked at me with a mix of impotent anger and fear. I held his gaze, impassive, waiting.
"...Very well," he finally yielded. "A low A. Now, return to your seats."
We walked back in silence. The atmosphere in the classroom had changed irreversibly. There were no more giggles; there was a palpable discomfort, as if they had just witnessed a break in the natural order society had taught them. The outcast had been defended by the Alpha.
As we sat down, Izuku leaned toward me, his voice barely a whisper full of relief.
"Thank you, Kacchan..."
I didn't look at him. I opened my textbook and turned the page with studied coldness.
"Don't thank me, Izuku," I said, in a tone only he could hear. "That idiot attacked you because he's weak. Mediocre people hate what they can't classify or what surpasses their own limitations. He attacked you out of fear that you'll outshine him."
"I thought... I thought no one would believe me," he whispered, his voice still small.
"I believe you," I said. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, a hard but honest gaze. "Your brain is your Quirk, idiot. It's stronger than any explosion. Don't let absolutely anyone tell you it doesn't work just because it doesn't glow with neon lights."
Izuku nodded, gripping the corrected paper with almost desperate strength. I saw him straighten his back a little, a minuscule but significant change.
I looked back out the window. Society bombards us with the idea that we are all equal, while it classifies and sentences us from the moment we are born. Today we had won an insignificant battle against that institutionalized lie. But I knew, with icy certainty, that outside these four walls, the world was much harsher than Mr. Tanaka.
I believe you, Izuku, I thought, watching a leaf blown by the wind fall in the schoolyard. But the world won't give you an A-. The world will try to crush you under its boot. And I won't always be here to step in the way.
But for today... seeing that corrected grade on Izuku's paper, along with his slightly straighter back, was enough.