Lifeless

Chapter 26 - pedes in terra, ad sidera visus

(Tw!)  This chapter contains depressing thoughts of death (of family, friends, and self) along with fighting scenes and mentions of anger/bullying! I'm hoping that my writer's block will be gone now, but we'll see : )

pedes in terra, ad sidera visus -(Latin) feet on the ground at the sight of the stars

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Aizawa was leading his class out to the training field. It was rudimentary in any type of training to gauge where each student was individually and to build off of what was already there. A good way to do this was one on one battles.

Fights were inevitable as heroes, and some of the kids going into the hero course didn't seem to realize this. Since strength tests took up most of the first day of school, Aizawa thought it a no better time to introduce his students to the true hardships that are his class.

Aizawa didn't mean to be mean, he didn't want to discourage any children that truly want to be heroes, but he also didn't want to protect them with fantasies of defeating villains with the snap of their fingers. That would only lead to overconfident and easily killed heroes.

Aizawa wanted his students to know what really happened with heroes, how their fights really went, and he wants his students to know if they are really cut out to be heroes. It might seem harsh to outsiders, but it was Aizawa's way of saving children. He knew that most, if not all of them were expected to go into this field, basically forced to by parents without knowing that death was closer than anyone would like to admit, and Aizawa hated it. He hated the way recruiters and adults skirted around the aspect of death in a hero's job, because he knew just how prevalent it was.

Heroes are targeted, their families are targeted, their friends are targeted, all by villains and media alike. Not only forcing children to face that, but also expecting them to fight and kill villains with such high risks, it was something Aizawa found absolutely despicable.

So he brought it upon himself to inform his students of this, though, that would be the third day's activities. Today Aizawa was going to root out any volatile students (even if he had an idea who that was from the first day and the teacher's briefing) along with anyone who was in need of a little more guidance on his part, mostly so that his planned talk tomorrow would go across as well as he wanted it to.

There were a few students that Aizawa knew wouldn't work well as heroes, including, but not limited to bakugou Katsuki, though it seems to Aizawa that it might be hard to discourage the boy with his hard headed personality, along with All Might's interest in him. Against all odds, Aizawa was going to do his best to discourage both the fully grown hero and the child in desperate need of anger management (something Aizawa fully intended to get the boy).

Aizawa's class gathered around him on the field, a few lagging behind the others. Aizawa didn't mind either way, but he knew that his students probably thought he did. He never bothered to correct their opinions, most of them would be corrected naturally over time anyway.

Aizawa ushered the rest of his students to hurry up before turning towards the real training grounds. It was a simple field on the edge of UA's property, on one side the large concrete wall that encompassed the premises and the other simply grass until the actual UA building. Not many classes used this field, so the grass was unusually nice.

The students automatically gathered in a half circle around Aizawa, waiting for instruction. "We are doing one on one battles. You will be randomly paired by this-" Aizawa raised his tablet that would pair his students for the battles, "and you will be allowed to use your quirks to defeat your opponent. You will be automatically disqualified if you cause any serious injury to the other party, and I hope I don't have to explain what serious injuries are classified as." Aizawa took a moment to pause, looking around for any questioning gazes before continuing. "This is only something for me to gauge your personal abilities, but if anyone doesn't take this seriously, I will expel you. This is the hero course, and not taking it seriously will get you killed. That being said, don't feel like a subpar performance will be your downfall, and don't think that any sort of aggression towards your peers during this exercise will be rewarded. You may be fighting, but you are not enemies. This is a learning experience, treat it as such."