✰keep your cool!

✰Chapter Six: Aizawa Interlude

Shouta is tired.

Why, you ask?

Because three of his students up and decided to be problem children right off the bat, that's why. Seriously, it's only the second day, and he's already up to his neck in bullshit.

One problem child, in particular, has caused the most stress (AKA concern). Kanazawa Jun. The one with the potentially unhealthy yet extremely powerful and versatile caffeine Quirk.

The first Incident™ involving Kanazawa happened before they were even officially accepted into Yuuei. Shouta remembers it clearly: Nemuri had come storming into the teacher's lounge, radiating a cold, silent fury that he hadn't seen from her in quite a while. She's usually the type to cry or yell-- or both --when she's angry, so this quiet, stony-faced rage immediately set off all the alarm bells in Shouta's head. Rightfully concerned, Hizashi had stood from the couch where he'd been eating an entire family-sized bag of Doritos and asked her what was up. Shouta just stayed lying in his sleeping bag and listened.

"Mineta Minoru," she'd hissed instead of replying, looking directly into a security camera where no doubt Nedzu would be watching. "He fucking sexually assaulted a kid during the Practical! During the fucking Practical Exam for the Yuuei Hero Course! The victim saved him from that big ass robot you insist on letting loose every year, and they got groped by him as thanks!"

Once he'd heard exactly what was up, Hizashi promptly joined Nemuri on her warpath. Shouta had just closed his eyes and sighed heavily before removing himself from his cocoon and getting up.

What followed was a staff-wide conference meeting wherein Nemuri tore everyone apart. "The kid was with Recovery Girl when they told me. Don't ask why; it isn't relevant. They couldn't even give their statement out loud; they were so goddamn upset. I had them type it out on my phone. When I left, I reviewed the footage from their area." Nemuri clicks a little remote and footage from the Practical projects in front of the rest of the staff. "And from this angle, you can clearly see him reach up and grope them. If you're asking yourself why they're holding him, it's because they're a great kid and went back to save him from the Zero-pointer, only to have this happen."

Shouta, not wanting to see the clip any longer, looked around to gauge the rest of the staff's reactions. Most of them looked at least mildly disturbed, but curiously, All Might looked like he was going to cry. Shouta had to wonder if the guy knew the victim personally, then.

"I've called you all here because we need to do better," Nemuri stated, voice frigid and head held high despite the heavy topic. "There wasn't much we could do about the perpetrator taking the Practical since that's open to everybody, but I want to know why we had to wait for the victim to speak up themself. We have crystal clear footage of the assault taking place, and I know that people scour these tapes every year to watch for Rescue Points." She slammed her hand down onto the table. "Why. Wasn't. This. Caught?"

In the end, it turned out that some of the staff watching for Rescue Points had neglected to watch the footage from all angles out of pure laziness. Nedzu fired them swiftly and with no small amount of glee. Then, he declared that he'd be implementing a new system. Starting next year, all examinees would have to register their names in a database before they could be allowed to take any Yuuei entrance exams. This system would prevent anyone with previous offenses to their name from even taking the exams, let alone actually getting into Yuuei. Shouta wonders why this wasn't already established in the first place, but oh well. 

(After that announcement, Nemuri's bloodthirsty soul had ultimately been satisfied. For the next few days, though, she broke into and refused to leave Shouta and Hizashi's apartment, constantly demanding affection. Shouta had just dealt with it and begrudgingly let her use him as a teddy bear. He suspected she'd taken the whole thing hard, and she needed to be around friends so she wouldn't take out her emotions on random criminals shoplifting or something. Hizashi kicked her out when she melted one of his good pans, though.)