UA's Immortal Teacher

Part 56

Some years ago...

Toshinori dropped down into a seat near the middle of the classroom, setting his stuff down beside him. The rest of the class was still filtering in slowly, chatting with their friends about Nezu's newest lesson plan.

For some reason, he seemed to be more involved with the third-year hero students than any other. And while that had been exciting at first, they soon learned that having Nezu be interested in them was not a good thing. It was the opposite of a good thing.

He couldn't count the number of times that they had been given a task to do that was both complex and lengthy, and if they didn't finish it in time then the fire sprinklers would activate only in their classroom. The rest of the school would be kept nice and dry while they were left to deal with the stares of pity their juniors would give them.

But as scary as Nezu was, there was one teacher that Toshinori feared even more than that satanic rat- not that he would ever say that to his principals face. Every student that had known this teacher for longer than one day could confirm that he was... unusual.

For Toshinori, the moment of realization was when his homeroom teacher had walked right up to Nezu after one of his insane cackles and greeted him normally. In fact, not only did he greet him normally, he asked when they would be playing chess again!

And maybe that would just be enough to put him on Nezu's level, but it didn't stop there. No, Nezu had paused his crazy laughter and called him sensei, of all things.

So not only was his homeroom teacher able to stand on equal footing with their genius and quite possibly psychopathic principal, he taught him.

And if that wasn't terrifying, Toshinori didn't know what was.

Well, he reflected, maybe that isn't completely true...

He can still remember the look on his master's face when she told him about the indomitable villain that had killed all of the One For All users before them. The haunted look in her face as she described what had happened to the user before her... Toshinori didn't like seeing his master that sad, not one bit.

She was usually such a bright ray of sunshine, full of life and warmth. If she hadn't come along, then his dream might have always been out of his reach. He might have never been able to provide a stable pillar of peace for others to rely on during tough times.

He'd always be grateful to her for that.

Toshinori absently tugged at one of those strands of hair hanging down from the side of his face. Somehow, he'd found a way to make them stick straight up when he was in his 'All Might' form. And he could somehow stop looking like a little shrimp and bulk up his muscles.

Heat crawled up the back of his neck, and Toshinori turned around in his seat. It felt like someone was watching him, which wasn't altogether unusual considering he was one of the big three, but this felt different than the stares his classmates usually gave him.

He caught sight of who was watching him, and he gave the onlooker a bright grin. Enji just stared back at him sullenly, those electric blue eyes of his practically boring into Toshinori's soul.

Enji could be a bit serious and had a short temper at times, but Toshinori liked to think they were friends. They had a healthy rivalry, and pushed each other to try harder and harder as time went on. Though their battles were getting easier for him as of late. Nana told him it might be because One For All got stronger with each passing generation, so that might be it.

"Good morning!" Izuku-sensei called as he entered the room. "Everyone doing all right?"

Their teacher was in his usual gear, pouches hung from his waist, one of which Toshinori was certain contained a knife.