Work Text:
(The first day of UA, the sports field, just before lunch.)
"Now, before I display everyone's results, I have just one order of business," Aizawa announced darkly to Class 1-B as they waited.
Several students were quietly praying they had done well, and two in particular were hoping their gambit had paid off.
Unfortunately, they hadn't thought it through very well.
*wzoop!*
Aizawa's capture scarf unfurled in a moment and looped around 2 students, dragging them forward with a yelp.
"Would someone please explain to me," Aizawa demanded icily, "how it is that a Recommendation Student and the 5th-ranked student from the Entrance Examinationmanaged a 3-way tie for last in the class with Kinoko Komori? Well?"
"Eh? They did what?" Kinoko yelped, her perpetual frown (she normally smiled a lot, but she also really hated the UA Gym Uniforms,) vanishing in her surprise.
"I... that is..." Itsuka Kendo hedged awkwardly.
"It was my idea, Aizawa-sensei," admitted Juzo Honenuki with a guilty smile. "I knew from, erm, from gossip that you weren't bluffing with the expulsion threat, but I also knew that UA has a lot of secret agendas in its teaching style. Quirk-backed fitness tests aren't exactly the most reliable method of gauging skill or heroic potential, as they're weighted against people with more esoteric abilities, so I assumed there was a secondary objective."
"Konenuki-kun spoke with me about it to double-check his math on how well he'd have to do, and I latched onto your 'last place student' statement," Itsuka continued, "figuring that if there was a tie then there wouldn't be a 'last place student' to expel. With Konenuki-kun being a Recommendation Student anyway and me being the 5th-place, we figured you'd need to explain it to the Principal and the board if you expelled either of us, and we could find other schools just in case we were wrong."
Kinoko stared slack-jawed at the both of them, as did many of their classmates.
"And can you give me a reason why I shouldn't ignore your self-sabotage and expel Komori anyway?" Aizawa demanded. "Or why I shouldn't just expel the both of you for flunking deliberately?"
"No! Sensei, please don't punish them for trying to help me, I failed fair and square despite my best efforts," Kinoko declared, stepping up with a deep bow as she sniffed back tears. "It's my fault for not being good enough here, please don't..."
There stretched on a pause in which no one spoke.
Finally, Aizawa sighed and loosed his capture scarf from the two students.
"Kendo, Honenuki, you will both serve detention for the next week after school, as punishment for slacking off on a class exercise and deliberately failing a test designed to measure your capacity. Komori... you are not going to be expelled, because even though you placed last, I saw you earnestly trying your hardest, squeezing out every ounce of creativity and ability you have to exceed your limits, whether it was squeezing the grip test until your fingers were raw or growing a cushion of mushrooms during your sit-ups.
"I was not bluffing," Aizawa continued, turning to the rest of his class. "I have expelled hopeless students before, as Honenuki no doubt has heard through family connections, but at the same time I recognize that it takes time to assess a student as hopeless or having potential. In this case, so long as every one of you earnestly did your best to show me what you've achieved and where you can grow, you were going to be fine. However."
Aizawa activated his quirk again, sweeping Erasure across his students as they shivered under his intimidation.
"This is not a joke. This is the heroics course, preparing you to enter the real world, where villains may well try to kill you. I want every one of my students to outlive me, and if you give me reason to believe I might ever attend your funeral, then I will not hesitate to kick you to the curb. I don't need a reason beyond my own judgment; the Principal awarded me that authority, and there will be no second appeal above me. Is that understood?"
""Y-Yes sir,"" everyone chorused with a shiver.
"Good." His hair lowered as his eyes reverted to normal. "Now, here are your results, minus Kendo and Honenuki's pointless self-sabotage which they will not repeat if they know what's good for them."
He hit a button, and the class crowded around to see the results.
"Sweet, first place!" Setsuna Tokage cheered, slapping five with Jurota Shishida, who'd placed 2nd.
And that's the story of how Itsuka earned a near-unanimous vote for Class Representative, when they held elections for it a few days afterward. (Juzo bowed out because he didn't want to deal with it, so Nirengeki Shoda took the Vice-Rep position.)