REFRACT || bnha oc

🪞don't stop me now

don't stop me now by queen

. . . . .

TOBI YAMAKO WOULD NEVER see himself as an inspiration to other people, but he had inspired Aizawa in a very unexpected way.

The Erasure Hero had never much liked children, or dealing with them in any sort of way. They were snotty little whiners with no knowledge of the world, yammering on and on about being a hero without knowing a thing about the struggles that such a job entailed.

Meeting Tobi Yamako, or Hanasa, as he'd been known back then, was the first time that he'd understood why Midnight enjoyed teaching students at Yuuei. He was the kind of kid who was born to be a hero, from his Quirk to his disposition, but had seen too much of the world to ever really believe that it was possible.

When they'd first met one another, Aizawa had cautioned him against hanging out with errant individuals such as Knuckleduster. Tobi had not taken his advice to heart. The last time they'd met, two years ago, Aizawa had pulled his body out of the rubble of a building and found him unharmed, much to his relief. He still remembered how tightly he'd hugged the kid, almost passing out with relief.

He couldn't have another Shirakumo.

The truth was that Tobi was nothing like his late friend. He wasn't a big smiler, and he wasn't all that energetic and excitable. He never had been, even at ten years old. Always filled with a desperation to save other people, to take down villains, to do everything that a hero did, but to do it right.

If Aizawa ever had a kid, he hoped they would be a lot like Tobi Yamako.

And he hadn't been wrong. Tobi was definitely the most experienced in the class when it came to the real world of heroics. Or rather, anti-heroics and vigilantism. His skill in combat, as far as Aizawa was concerned, could only be surpassed by Todoroki, who had been trained since youth.

Perhaps Bakugou... as they went through the trials, it became very clear that Bakugou had worked harder than anyone else to hone his Quirk to perfection. Angles were calculated and output measured. He was one of those people -- a genius who still worked hard.

Yaoyorozu, one of Tobi's direct competitors, was the same as Bakugou, though markedly less arrogant. There was a spark to her, the creativity with which she utilized her Quirk. Through his four years of teaching here, he'd seen a lot of kids with a lot of overpowered Quirks. Most of them only saw one way to use it.

Momo Yaoyorozu saw all of them, and yet doubt still gripped her. It was that hesitation that should have put her ahead of Mineta, but ages behind Tobi.

But Tobi was lagging behind. His scores were reasonable for someone with his Quirk, but not someone with his experience. He cleared the 50-meter dash in 3.17 seconds, behind Tenya Iida and two seconds in front of Yaoyorozu. Though, that score could be explained away -- he'd had a hard time keeping up with Iida's brother, too.

Grip strength was explainable as well, but Aizawa expected something a bit higher. He scored 54.0kg, and Midoriya -- who still wasn't showing an ounce of promise -- managed fifty-six.

He should've cleared the long-jump, but as he walked out of his warp gate, he seemed to trip on his own shoelaces and collapse backwards into the sandbox. Bakugou got a kick out of that as Tobi spit sand out of his mouth, but Aizawa was getting increasingly suspicious.

Tobi could jump rooftops without his Quirk. Was he trying to fail?

Side-steps -- both Yaoyorozu and Tobi lost horrendously to Mineta. Aizawa struggled to admit that the use of his grape-like balls was pretty damn smart.