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If Sans were to blank out to the beginning, where stories started the ripest of all, he wouldn't have much ground to stand upon. Quirks were, inherently, still a bit of a mystery to him. An unsettling feat of misconstrued events. Monsters had magic, humans didn't. But apparently humans had magic here called quirks and their damned determination and Sans felt very, very unsettled by it all. The best way he described it to the gruff monochrome homeroom teacher had been, well- tigers with guns. Humans had their guns, tigers had their claws. But then tigers went and got guns and were just as fast on their hind legs; that wouldn't be all too reassuring, would it?
And really, that had been it. Sans was there, but now he was here, and there wasn't available anymore so here was his new abode. Some tiny tot of an apartment, where the windows faced north and the kitchen came predisposed with a kettle. Apparently Nedzu, the closest thing to a monster in this purgatory, had a fondness for it. All teacher assigned housing came with it.
Sans couldn't comprehend the whole thing, and he was sitting in the classroom with his legs tossed over the desk and some coffee jelly stuck to his teeth. Wriggling his newfound tongue against the globs only helped so much. He was still getting used to the damn thing.
The beats of events had been artificially quick. Some woman had a quirk that swapped out her soul with another, and used it. Falalala, in arrived Sans. Now amped with hair and parts he didn't have before.
The bathroom situation was god awful, but at the very least he still had his magic, and was able to peel away the skin like it was some grotesque flesh suit, and reveal the true skeleton body underneath for twelve hours before it stitched itself back together. Maybe he should've become an actor with that little trick, but no, he had to go and catch the attention of some man everyone insisted looked homeless who raptly reported his non-quirked abilities to the rat in charge. And, thus, Comic fucking Sans worked a seven to three shift at some rich, prompt high school as a homeroom teacher. Apparently the red eyed guy, Aizawa, had been trying to pawn off the annoying work for some time so he could focus on heroics.
Sans was punished with taking roll call, managing study breaks, and leaving his office doors open for the student president to mosey up and question minuscule details. Oh, the agony!
He was also required, per the very last teacher-training course jammed into his time, to protect the students. Life or death kind of expectation. Kids with quirks training to be the cliché, cape-wearing fools who adored the red light of a camera. Hating that came easily, along with begrudgingly admitting that starting during impressionable years could help save their asses down the line. Get in good habits early, and you were set for life. Unlearning sucked ass.
Sans wished he could unlearn this shit, but alas, he was a teacher now. While going with the flow was his lifestyle, it was a tad more difficult when the flow upended and went vertically. At least yesterday saw him snoozing through orientation, so he hadn't needed anything but the quiet hum of the air conditioning to lull him. Aizawa was being, in Sans' words, a dick to the kids by yanking them away from the speech in favor of some last minute competition. Aizawa insisted it was logical, Hizashi insisted it was mean, and Nemuri snorted until her fruit smoothie shot out of her nose. Consequently, Sans only saw his assigned homeroom for a wee thirty minutes of the day, where they were all amped on their seats to scurry home and brag to their parents about their robust day.
First full day full of Sans the not-skeleton. He was sure the kids were all ecstatic about it. After all, who wouldn't be more excited to see some random chick picked off the street for their training that day instead of some guy who was ranked top in the whole country for nearly forty years straight? Surely, their bummed expressions were just their uncontainable joy.
Sans hummed, staring out across the sea of hormone repressed balls of anxiety. Really, he didn't comprehend the whole hero craze, but Sans wasn't from this culture. His understanding of Japanese only came from inheriting it from the body he was dragged into. The fact that the kids of this place weren't wearing striped shirts made him feel a sense of wrongness.
All Might's time constraint was set for the man for a solid nine years, according to the grand hero himself. Today's schedule had been set for two months. All Might had decided to make a few guilt-prompted trips to help the less than fortunate, and blew it away before the first bell had even rung. Sans was now set to run the entire 'villian-vs-hero-bomb-threat.pdf' himself, with tweens disappointed their favorite celebrity wasn't going to pop in.
Nineteen of them. The twentieth had been, as Aizawa had testified, been expelled. Someone… purple. Sans couldn't be fucked to remember his name. Aizawa said it didn't concern Sans, so it didn't. But a few files marked for watch had been shoved to him instead. Some legends kid far too quiet. A brash boy with a brasher ego.
One reminded him eerily of Paps- all in all. Big ol' smile, hopeful eyes, reckless anxiety to support people to self-destruction. It was difficult to shake off the infestation of green to the left of the room, riddled with earnest muttering and the scratching of a pen. Nor was it easy to discredit the students are curiously staring at Sans, wondering who exactly he was. Heroes that worked for U.A had to have a long history, popularity, skill. Sans was the pity pick from the bottom of the bin. No one knew what to think of him.
Well, the teachers did. Nedzu did. Nedzu had scarily accurate judgement when it came to strength. Aizawa had gotten into a scuffle with Sans, attested to the Principals judgement with respect engraved on his face. Ditto. Aizawa's dodges were better than Sans'. If he didn't have shortcuts, he would've been a cocoon hurled over the hero's shoulder.
Hooray, because of that, Sans was hosting the lesson for kids who didn't want to learn from him.
"Alright, kiddos, kids, buckaroos, buddies, pals," Sans announced, voice as bored as usual. "Training grounds open now. Grab your gear from the wall and get changed. I'll meet you all down there, then we'll begin the training lesson. Any questions?"
Of course there was a few. Always the Iida kid, too. Sans didn't want to fault him, because asking questions was better than getting smacked in the face with regret, but holy shit he wanted to go home already. And it was so hot in the classroom. Sans still wasn't used to the whole 'flesh' situation yet.
Questions answered, students equipped, and Sans waited to pop over to the grounds with a shortcut until they evacuated the room. Was a rule of Nedzu's, something about only scaring them an adequate amount.
Kirishima rocked on down onto the training grounds first, halting in his rushed steps at the sight of his homeroom teacher already there.
"Aw man, I wanted to beat you," He groaned. "How'd you get here so fast?"
"Magic," Sans grinned. His gaze faltered. "Are you, uh… shirtless, kid?"
"Hm? Oh yeah, you like it?" The kid babbled, gesturing to his outfit. "It's made to help me stabilize my quirk for defense. No shabby clothes to get in the way!"
Sans stared bluntly. His quirk, who… right. Rock guy. His skin would probably tear right through skin tight stuff.
"I'll put in a request to get it changed," Sans said. "Hyperthermia ain't gonna be yer friend."
Kirishima's mouth gaped for a moment. "Oh. Right. I can't believe I didn't even think of that! What kind of hero would I be if I was only a summer hero?"
Some of the costumes were good, real good quality for the inevitable tear the kids were bound to give it. Some of them were not. Sans ended up rounding a few of the students, more skin than clothes, and sending them away to change into their gym outfits. Yikes.
And so began the teaching. Or babysitting, frankly. There really wasn't much for Sans to dip his toes into teaching-wise when it came to quirks. Magic worked differently. More akin to the soul, raw and personal. It was a part of them to understand the ways of the fight, of navigating monochrome options until someone dropped to zero and their soul shattered apart. And Sans had mastered that, damn it. Got real good at blocking off the fight option, of setting a surefire way that he could prevent his death if it came to it. That, Sans could teach. But here, humans didn't know how to summon souls, or initiate fights. Sans wondered if they even could.
It meant, to some degree, he was unkillable. They could strike his physical body all they wanted, but without his soul, it was a useless endeavor. What an odd thought.
One he dwelled upon as the kiddos got into their teams and begun the fight montages. Ice, acid, smoke bombs, impromptu dancing competitions (unexpected, but not unwelcome). Some blonde kid had sneered about their match being useless, but Mina had attested that using their background to her advantage as a villain was the right move.
"She's right, people can use whatever cards they want on ya in the future once you're big and pro," Sans hummed, a yawn edging his voice. "That's the risk you kids are taking with this whole self-sacrificial spiel. People are gonna watch ya on the big screen- you should probably be ready for the consequences of that." He let the yawn loose, like a rolling tide of thunder. Stars, he wanted his nap. "Main thing is that you're all kids, andddddd this is the second day of school. We're just trying to see how you guys work in teams and what you know already, no biggie."
The rounds progressed. Sans filled the time with idle chatter and puns as they all gawked at the screen at one another. Some were clearly newbies to the whole thing, which was fine. Some were terrifyingly equipped for it, to the degree that the term child solider might be appropriate. Todoroki had been the one to volunteer as the solo team player, and well, he certainly proved he could handle it himself. No wonder his file was neatly organized with a few others.
Sans eyed the other two boys marked down, both of which were pointedly standing on opposite sides of the room of one another. Didn't they go to the same middle school?
"Alright, last two teams up," Sans grunted, and the kids all cheered them on as best as they could, riddled with sweat and panting with exhaustion.
In hindsight, their fight had been just as his arrival here had ben; sharply sudden, dreadfully adrenaline inducing. But for the moment, it sure did take it's sweet time. One team planned, the other… babbled excessively. The blonde boasted he'd keep them away himself, the engine boy kept hitting the wall trying to make a breakthrough of a plan, and neither of them really got anywhere. It was kind of painful to watch.
"Knew him from childhood, I can handle him," Bakugou had said, prompting a curious hum from Sans. Might be another dance fight. Nice.
And, well, the timer buzzed.
Sans, admittedly, didn't believe in warnings. Asgore was always too much of a softie when he tread the golden tiles, so bright, so pure, so disgustingly smelling of bleach. Asgore always did insist on drawing a line, on giving them the chance to approach the fight. An idea he fathomed to some degree. But he saw no point in warning someone already hurtling themselves over that imaginary boundary. He images Asgore would have found some sort of excuse to still hurl his timber voice over the intercom as a warning.
Sans really didn't bother. He didn't see the need to. He just heard the boy shouting to dodge to live, and he was in the building the next second, a hand fisting the boy's hair and yanking him back.
"What do you think you're doing?" Sans asked.
It had been so loud, moments ago. With one of the audio receivers jammed into his ear, he could hear the low groan of the concrete, the gentle hum of Iida's engines, the purr of the wind through adjacent windows. Now, in the trenches of it, he heard nothing but Midoriya's sniffles and Bakugou's panting.
"What?" The kid tried to shove Sans off, snarling, "I'm doing what you fucking told me!"
"I don't remember ordering you to attempt to kill a classmate," Sans said, sharply. "Kinda funny how every other group seemed to get that but you didn’t, huh?"
Yelling was an unfamiliar tone to Sans, one he didn't indulge in. Not even at that moment, with some tweens shitty hair between his grasping fingers.
A yank. Sans kept him right there. He really wasn't in the mood to play chase with some boy who thought all that somehow equated to bragging rights.
"He's just a worthless deku, I was showing him his place," Bakugou snarled. "I was beating his ass! I was winning!"
"So just because you consider him worthless gives you the right to try and kill him?" Sans asked, nearly awestruck at how much of a fool this boy was being.
"Get off of me," The brat shook and insisted, "It's fine, he would've been fine if he dodged!"
Sans gawked openly at that statement, his thoughts nothing more than a derailed train. He heard U.A had some of the most difficult written exams for their entrance test. A foolish boy had slipped through, as if his quirk slickened his way through the crack under the door.
"So, if I were to shoot you right now, all responsibility would be exempt from me if ya dodged, right?" Sans pondered aloud.
"I wasn't trying to fucking kill him!" The kid at least had the decency to look upset, angry, and horrified. "I was just trying to teach that fucking idiot his place?"
"Where, in a fucking tomb? Nitroglycerin ain't a walk in the park kid, you've lived with that shit in your hands for, what, ten years? Eleven? I've seen scientists far more experienced with it still almost blow their heads clean off because they got a dosage wrong. And instead of taking that into account, you decided to gather up more than your usual experienced dose of it into a compact, heated container and told him to dodge- fucking where? You aren't an engineer, are you sure the explosion wouldn't have had a wide berth? Or that it wouldn't bring down the very obvious old, grandma-building kid?"
That certainly drew some realization onto Bakugou's face. Only some, as if the ground already had his shoes carved through the mud. So, on some level in the back of his mind, the kid had known. A fifteen year old child had somewhat known that this would have killed the boy if it had hit. And still chose to shoot.
"I've known deku since we were kids, he would've dodged," The kid grunted roughly.
"Mhm. Yeah. Because you can predict where rubble is, or if he slept enough today, or if his suit isn't rigid or heavy, or hell, if his partner didn't drop in to try and save him," Sans pointed out. "You'd be willing to bet a classmates life on that? Would you have been prepared to leave this exercise and go face that boy's parents and tell them that you killed him?"
The kid stared daggers at the ground, his wrists trembling.
"Would you?" Sans pushed.
No response. The other boy- Midoriya, a boy with some strength but no real control over it, sniffled.
"Right," Sans huffed, his fingers laxing. Bakugou slithered to the ground, gasping for air, as if he had been the one under the blasts trajectory. He very well might have been. Sans eyed the gauntlets, packed full of explode-me fun stuff. The scientific term. Gaster would've gawked at both the joke and the gauntlets themselves in the same manner. "Give me the gauntlets, Bakugou."
He did, oh so easily. Sans packed them both up underneath his arm, the warm, flimsy metal pressing against the crook of his armpit. Bottle of sweat against sweat. Great. God damn it.
"Midoriya, go grab the other two and tell them the exercise is over, and meet with the other students in the camera area. I'll let Snipe know to escort you all back to your homeroom," Sans grunted. He then jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. "Bakugou. With me."
Discipline has never been Sans' forte. Not this kind, anyways. Where Sans' punishments lay was in judgement of a worse kind, where they sneered at him and tried to gut the only unguttable creature in the whole of Underground. Not that some kids weren't on that list; some of them were younger than Bakugou, fresh with violence and sick to their core. Bakugou didn't share that same, dense stricken ablaze for death in his eyes they did. He was just a stupid, stupid kid addicted to proving himself better than everyone else. Bakugou hadn't planned a murder, he was a fool who swept himself up in the moment, entangled in his own delusion.
Of course, that didn't make it much better. By a considerable amount, about the same level Asgore was on- a little less, actually. Arguably, required sacrifices for a species escape of imprisonment was more of a forgiven venture than pulling the trigger because you believed someone looked at you wrong. Impulse was a disease Sans learned to tame ages ago, until his dear old Pa's strict hand of "I'm not going to let you grow up to be a fucking moron". Nor did the schools.
He pawed at the bridge of his nose, too fleshy and warm. Of all the people some random woman had to drag into her body, had to choose him, huh. Thanks lady. Real good pick.
"What a troublesome conundrum indeed!" Nedzu said, all too cheerful and pauper somehow at the same time. His voice shook with the weight of balancing such a paradox. His tea pot, however, remained steady.
"And this is why I said to mark his file," Aizawa grunted.
"This is beyond fucking rivalry," Sans said. "You said they were rivals. Big ol' rivals. Looked pretty one-sided."
A huff, a hand down the gruff face. Somewhere, in one of the holding rooms U.A somehow had, Sans knew Bakugou was stewing in silence. He wondered what that kid was thinking, Nemuri a hawk of a guardian, eyeing him like a criminal.
"It's what All Might said, and apparently that man's known them both for months before they even applied here," Aizawa said.
"You listened to All Might after the kid lunged at Midoriya just because he got a good score on a baseball throw," Sans' smiled stretched. "Yikes, buddy. Thought you said All Might was picking favorites, but apparently you're picking selective hearing."
"I- I'll admit, I was judging Midoriya for his lack of quirk control, but I did issue Bakugou a warning. I had assumed he was simply lashing out due to the stress of the physical assessment."
"Right," Sans clipped.
The not-anymore-skeleton indulged Aizawa's glare with a cheeky little wiggle of eyebrows.
"Honestly, he didn't seem to expect me to step in at all," Sans said, a sigh heavy. "Kid didn't realize he dug his hole until I pointed out the shovel in his hand. I really don't think this kid was, eh, disciplined. At all."
"I agree, based on the two days of behavior we've been privy to thus far," Aizawa said. The man looked so tired, there. So small. Hunched in on himself with a lingering exhaustion. Not quite as bone-deep as Sans', though. "The boy blatantly lunged at Midoriya unprovoked yesterday and then pulled this stunt today. Kids like that usually are weeded out by the rescue point requirement."
"The what?" Sans asked.
Nedzu hummed, sipping his tea for a moment. Just a moment. "During our entrance exam, all applicants are given a criteria to meet for points; we considered villain points as defeating the robots, and rescue points for helping others, teamwork, those expectations. Students have their points added to a total, and that ranking is how we enroll them- but I added an addition after Endeavor graduated. All applications with any black marks on their file would require at least one rescue point to even qualify for consideration. Just to ensure they show a decency for others."
"Which means that he managed to get through all of his school life without getting any marks, but miraculously started acting like this, in what you guys acclaimed as the most prestigious and desired high school in Japan, in his first two days," Sans said.
"It seems like some teachers weren't doing their jobs properly! I'll have to see to fixing that later. What a troublesome middle school if Bakugou's behavior went unconfronted like this for years. He very well may have grown to accidently kill civilians in countless fights!" Nedzu set aside his tea cup, paws folded under his snout. Oh. Before was business, but now the Chimera wanted business-business. "So the question is, how do we want to punish the boy. Midoriya's Mother may press charges, but I'd be a further fool to not have us take action either. Sans, when we first met, you mentioned that you were working as a Judge of some kind. Do you have any recommendations?"
A choke, awkward and stilted. "Um, no. Kind of judged... really bad people. Serial killers. Not kids like this. And I dunno how to really judge consequences as a teacher, either. I was kind'a the guy who... you know." Sans ran a finger across his throat. "Pretty sure I mentioned this."
"Ah, yes, you did. I was hoping to see if you had any other experience regarding judging beside that," Nedzu sighed. "What a predicament indeed! How unjolly. And for our second day, no less."
"It is a difficult situation," Aizawa said. "At the very least, he's going to be expelled."
"Yes, I believe that is a mutual consensus for us. The issue comes regarding his behavior thus far. Typically, we would simply remove him from our roster and give him a black mark, along with a general addiction to blacklisting his name from all hero high schools. If he gets tossed into another normal school, I'm afraid his behavior may be encouraged. If we do expel him, we may be doing society a disservice."
"So you're saying we don't even punish him? He needs to start learning consequences now before it's too late," Sans said.
Nedzu beamed at Sans. "No, of course not. Either way, that boy will not be attending my school anymore as of today. What I'd like to do is find an alternative that would ensure a chance for growth and decline him the same environment that cultivated that decision. That is, of course, the issue I am facing."
The plush couch beneath Sans felt so nice, so lush, so sleep inducing. Sans would have let the counted sheep billow him away if he wasn't hyped up on annoyance.
If there was any appropriate punishment, it wasn't sweetly arriving to Sans' mind. Damn thing still was in hiding, shmoozing about with his other background thoughts. Sans' judgement and karmatic dished punishments involved straightforward death, then a cup of tea with Asgore as he nurtured the soul into a container. That had only ever been done twice- the rest of the fallen humans were far kinder.
Sans wondered how Asgore was fairing without him, and promptly threw away the thought before it could trek elsewhere.
"We'll probably need to meet with Midoriya's mother to see if she has any requests," Aizawa said. "I'd request anger management and therapy before he could ever be cleared to attempt to enter heroics again, like some agencies have been doing recently."
"If you have connections as well, you could slip him into some school you trust- heck, an online school might be a good idea. Difficult to have anyone hyping up bad behavior if he's a faceless number." Sans added dryly.
"Those sound like wonderful suggestions! Thank you both for your help!" Nedzu said, clapping his hands together. Tail wagged. "Now, we should go gather his parents, they've likely arrived. And Aizawa, if you'd be willing to escort him while Sans handles the homeroom? I'm sure he'd be better to calm them down compared to you."
"Yeah," Aizawa said. He reached over when he stood, and a brief, heavy pat gave itself to Sans' shoulder. Then a shoulder squeeze. "This stuff happens sometime. You handled it the best you could."
"Right," Sans huffed.
The couch held him close as the other two left. And for a moment, Sans stewed. He was going to have to pop back over to his homeroom, for a class he didn't want, in a field he didn't desire to be in, in a body that wasn't his. To apologize for the outburst, and that one of their classmates was gone, just like another. Then he'd have to march up to them tomorrow and likely be tossed into some training ground with them, as All Might would inevitably be out of his daily allocated hours once more, a man so hopeless to his impulses.
Sans sighed, leaning back, yearning the taste of ketchup, the jazz humming, the sound of dog biscuits crunching as poker cards shuffled.
He wondered if Paps was doing well without him.
"God damn it," Sans huffed, rolling a warm, stupidly sweaty hand down his face.