Chapter Text
Aizawa wasn’t in the room when they woke up.
Not entirely unusual, he hadn’t started in the room with them in the original timeline anyway, so he was probably right down the hallway in his sleeping bag or the teacher’s lounge. He’d be here soon, he always was.
Waking up in the homeroom meant they had a pretty good system on how to react. Look around for any empty seats, or were all the seats were filled with the twenty loopers. If there was an empty seat or two then wait until Aizawa confirmed if they had any extra people in class or if they were starting out with under twenty. If all twenty of them were there then either start discussing the rule list or wait for Aizawa, no need to make the same mistake they almost made with Yagi walking in on them all those loops ago. After Aizawa was there they could start making the list and Yagi would be there within a few minutes, in time to catch up with any changes and add his own before they needed to go get changed and do the quirk assessment. Basic but efficient and a drill they all knew by heart at this point.
Before they could do much more the count heads the door opened and an unfamiliar man waltzed in. He certainly wasn’t Aizawa-sensei, even if this was one of those loops that just switched one or two of their appearances. No, this man walked with a spring in his step, and a wide grin splitting his face as he twirled a bo staff around his hand. The students couldn’t help but think his outfit looked vaguely familiar, a blue gi and aviator jacket with a pair of dark grey goggles on his head and a bandage across his nose. Definitely different from most heroes they knew.
Midoriya was texting a warning to All Might under the desk without taking his eyes off of the man.
This was certainly a change, having a new homeroom teacher. Even if they weren’t all in 1-A Aizawa was always 1-A’s homeroom teacher, but who could this man be? A business homeroom teacher maybe? They weren’t really familiar with that end of UA, having only had one loop where a few of them had been in a business class together.
The man greeted them as he leaned on the podium, “Good Morning class!” His voice was just as cheerful and bright as his smile, “I’m your homeroom teacher, Shirakumo Oboro, or you may call me by my hero name, Loud Cloud if you prefer!”
Oh. the class thought, stomachs sinking, Oh no...
Aizawa wasn’t sure if he was really awake.
His body was moving and he was conscious but he felt like he was just observing his own body get up and get dressed like he was watching a movie shot in first person.
It wasn’t until his body was in front of the mirror did he really realize how wrong the situation was. The top of his head was wrapped in blood-red silk bandages, eyes completely covered, and yet he could still see, in fact, he could see past his normal field of view, he could see almost completely behind him, details impossibly sharp while the colors were dull and lackluster, and only a few short tufts of black hair sticking out from his head wrapping. His skin was ashen in color, corpse-like, and the bottom half of his face was… grotesquely skewed, jaw almost unhinged, lips stretching around his face. A tentative stretch revealed that his jaw was in fact unhingable, wide lips allowing for the easy split as the bottom half of his face nearly came off, long black tongue poking out of shark-like teeth. Even his clothes were so very wrong looking, a bone-white vest and pleated pants set over a charcoal grey buttondown and pale blue tie with a light grey trenchcoat pulled over it.
He couldn’t stop his body from continuing on, exiting his room even as Aizawa was busy panicking at what was happening.
“Aritoki,” Shigaraki called Aizawa’s body pausing, the younger man was sticking his head out of a doorway further down the hall, no extra hands to be seen, “Did you do what I told you.”
“Shigaraki Tomaru,” He greeted voice unrecognizable through the rasp that he was surprised wasn’t hurting his throat, “The plans have all been prepared and the Doctor says his creation will be ready in twenty-four hours. I will start on breakfast and compile your debriefing for you while you finish getting ready. ”
The final confirmation. Aizawa knew from the moment he saw himself, but none there was no doubt in his mind.
Aizawa Shouta was a Nomu.
The students were on edge as they loaded into the bus, heading towards one place they would get their answer to the question that’s been bouncing around their heads since Shirakumo-Sensei had introduced himself.
Shirakumo Oboro.
They all knew the name, remembering how Aizawa had reacted back in the very first loop when he found out his old friend that should have been long dead was a Nomu. Throughout the loops they had heard stories of high school antics between Aizawa and his friends, including the blue-haired cloud maker that had pushed Aizawa to be better, to truly believe in himself as a hero. They watched as loop after loop he went through the effort and mentally taxing task of trying to reawaken the remains of Oboro’s humanity in Kurogiri. Hell, a mere seven loops ago they had faced down both Aizawa and Present Mic because the two had switched sides to be with their friends remains long before the loop had begun.
For him to be here and alive should be a high point in this whole mess, to meet the man that Aizawa seemed to cherish almost as much as he did Mic, who was his husband in the majority of loops, to see Aizawa’s face knowing he had more time with his best friend once more, even if it was for a mere three years before they moved on, but Aizawa was nowhere to be seen.
They couldn’t ask outright about Aizawa to any of the people that would have known him, but Yagi had done a search through every database he had access to, an extensive list they knew, and could not find any mentions of Eraserhead or Aizawa Shouta past his UA enrollment papers. As far as they could tell, their teacher had disappeared when he was a teenager.
They knew the odds of him being Kurogiri were high, but they’d be lying if they said they weren’t scared. Would Aizawa remember them? The loops? Or would he be too lost inside the scrambled remains of the Nomu bartender?
Aizawa wasn’t sure how to feel as he moved into position as Shintai, the man Sensei had apparently given the teleportation quirk to in this loop, or maybe he was the original holder all along, focused and suddenly Aizawa was looking at his students, the heroes in training looking horrified at his new form, not that he could blame them, he was unnerved by his appearance even if he couldn’t show it, only having a small portion of control over his own actions.
He vaguely heard the order to restrain them, and suddenly he was pulsating. He no longer had functioning eyes, so instead erasure had changed, combined with the other quirks forced into his body. Erasure was now proximity-based, giving Aizawa a sphere of influence of fifty meters that he could turn off any nonmutation quirk he liked within. In addition, he no longer had his capture weapon, instead, he had bandage-like tentacles that sprouted from the base of his neck, growing and moving not unlike his scarf once did, with the ability to grow back if they were cut off.
He felt all the quirks of the UA bunch snuff out under his control as he moved closer, mind calculating who to grab first, but before he could someone stood in his way.
Mina.
She had stepped around the rest of the group to stand in front of him, staring at him with wide terrified eyes. She looked close to crying, and he was suddenly struck with how much of a child she looked. He stopped as she held up a shaky hand.
“Shouta-Sensei?” She asked lowly, searching his wrapped face for any indication that he recognized their code, that he knew her. She was terrified, as were the others behind her, but not of him… no, his stupidly noble students weren’t scared of him they were scared for him, scared he was lost in the mess of a being. He wanted to answer, to reassure he was just playing by the rules but he couldn’t move his mouth as his tentacle lashed out to tie her arms tight to her chest.
Then he hears the command he knew had been coming. The order to kill the class, to slaughter the children and their teachers because All Might wasn't there but he couldn’t do that. Couldn’t let them believe he was a soulless creature, couldn’t hurt Hizashi and Oboro when they already had been by his ‘death’ he couldn’t…
It felt like he had been hit by a truck but suddenly he was back in charge of his body not even realizing he had been fighting the mental restraints holding him captive in his own mind simply by denying the order he had been given.
“No,” he rumbled, erasure falling away from the students, and wrapping around Shigaraki and Shintai before his class could be teleported around the facility, “Won’t hurt them.”
The younger man’s deranged eyes narrowed on him, “Aritoki, what are you doing? Do as you’re told, you stupid party member.”
“Came to kill All Might,” his raspy voice cut over the silent facility, “Not children. Not ‘Boro.”
He could hear Oboro’s breath catch. Hizashi had always been careful to not let his real name get out, keeping Yamada Hizashi completely separate from Present Mic with the exception of with the students, he wouldn’t be surprised if Oboro had been the same with his Loud Cloud persona, so hearing his given name come from a villain would be shocking, especially when the villain was in the process of switching sides.
“He’s not here! We’re not wasting a trip because the stupid hero didn’t follow the intel we got! Attack them, Aritoki!”
“Won’t hurt you, Shigaraki Tomura, but can’t let you hurt them,” He said smoothly, tentacles lashing out to wrap around his charge and the teleporter, holding them suspended in the air.
Shigaraki thrashed in his hold, but no matter how he clawed at the tentacles he couldn’t escape, not with his quirk turned off. Aizawa cocked his head before using the end of the tentacle holding the villainous pair up to gag them both.
“Nomu,” He called at the beast, glad it had been trained to respond to him in case Shigaraki had been incapacitated, “Deactivate Code: Starburst”
The Nomu responded as he had expected, kneeling over as all brain function ceased, crashing to the ground in a boneless mass, the body instantly starting to decay. The code was originally meant to be used after it had succeeded in its mission to kill All Might so that it would leave no trace for the Heroes to investigate, but Aizawa wasn’t going to give Shigaraki the chance to use the beast against him, even if it meant only video evidence of the beast would remain.
Most of the weaker villains in the main area had been taken care of by Oboro before Aizawa had broken free, but the ex-hero made quick work of dispatching those that still remained standing with a swift snaking tentacle before he simply sat on the ground, the two league members still suspended.
Oboro was still hesitant to approach, even as the students edged their way down the steps despite Thirteen’s insistence that they stay back.
“He saved us!” He heard Uraraka argue, “He… he can’t be all bad if he turned on his own just because he was ordered to attack us.”
They didn’t come closer than the base of the stairs, but that was enough to make them and him relax. It wouldn’t be long until the other pro heroes arrived.
“Who are you?” Oboro asked lowly, making Aizawa cock his head.
“Aritoki, but I think I had another name before.”
“Before what?”
“Before I was… created by the doctor.”
Before Oboro could say anything else, the other pros arrived, an ear-piercing scream breaking the dome above them and allowing the swarming mass a way in.
Aizawa couldn’t help the fond huff fall from his lips, “Still Too loud”
“What?”
Oboro sounded shaken but Aizawa decided to try pushing the envelope, “Don’t remember much before, only vague parts. Too Loud, annoying but safe. Sushi, soft, protect. Rooftops, like rooftops. Clouds, happy and safe.”
He feels like he’s staring in a mirror as the hero stumbles back, bo staff falling from his grasp.
“Sho?”