Chapter 6: Falling

She buckled the clasp of the cape around her neck. The emerald fabric enveloped her, falling past her hips till it was about a foot from the ground. Her back straightened automatically with the cape on, and after hesitating only for a brief moment, she tucked her goggles into the pockets of her shorts. She had learned her lesson to not leave that particular article behind, especially with all the villains that seemed to be acting up in Japan.

Spinning slowly in front of her mirror, she tilted her head back as she studied herself carefully, smoothing out the non-existent folds of her cape. It had been a long time since she had seen herself in this outfit. Years. The weight on her shoulders was familiar, bringing back past memories of her work as a pro-hero.

It felt like a leash to her.

The reflection on the mirror frowned as emerald eyes exchanged a conflicted stare with the figure that peered back from the mirror.

"—But I think you have the potential to be a great hero."

A hint of pink rose on her cheeks unbiddenly as the words replayed itself in her mind. It was nice of him to think so, even if she wasn't sure she would think so of herself.

She liked to think that she was still a hero of some sort, yet the looks that had been thrown at her in her run-ins with other pro-heroes had disabused her of that notion soon enough. Sometimes, she thought that the crime was a crime of necessity—like Robin Hood. If she wasn't certain where she stood on the matter, she tended to turn a blind-eye on it. None of the pro-heroes had been appreciative of that fact.

Then there was the focus on capturing rather than killing. She agreed to that view. But only to a certain extent. Some people truly lived only for destruction, and she could not begin to understand why the law would continue to protect them. Place them in the prisons?

Just so they can escape and murder how many people again?

She huffed as she locked the door to her apartment, prepared for her trip to the U.A.

Being a pro-hero didn't agree with her. It was restraining and conforming.

She alone should set her own pace, her own actions.

The little paradise back at home. The peace and quiet; the ability to move around freely without answering to anyone or anything. She existed in her own space, she determined where and when she wanted to travel, she chose the villains that she would fight.

To be at no one's call—

She thirsted for freedom like a drowning man thirsted for air. She thought she had been free before, but then she had experienced the true bliss of limitless freedom. And once she had tasted that, there was nothing she craved more.

However, if she left Japan now…

Aizawa. Eraserhead. The hero that saw a potential in her.

A faint smile crept onto her face again. He was not one to lie. Even when she had told him of her choice to leave, the scruffy hero had believed every word he said when he had told her that she was a hero. It was something Nedzu had been unable to say if the slight disappointment in his face as she walked away from the hospital wing was any indication.

The suspicion and shock that had instantly arose on All Might's face at her decision...

Leia chuckled as she wove through the crowd of people. Most people gave her strange glances when they saw her outfit, but since they couldn't put a name to her, many just settled for steering clear of her.

All Might's reaction was by far the most common one she received in her travels whenever she had the misfortune of meeting other pro-heroes. She thought their reactions were justified. It had been how they were trained to behave. However, that did not necessarily mean that she had to agree with their perspectives.

She grinned when she say the grandfatherly owner of the bookstore that had sold her the book on All Might.

"Pretending to be a hero, young miss?" asked the shopkeeper asked.

Her grin widened and she gave a little twirl, her cape fluttering about her like wings. "Only for today! Reading about All Might motivated me to make my own costume!"

She left the bookstore after a short conversation and another purchase, and soon after, she found herself on the dirt-paved road surrounded by nothing except for the forests and the skies.

Looking around and seeing that she was completely alone, she activated her quirk. Leaping off from the ground, she took to the skies, drifting lazily on the current as it took her closer to her destination. All the while, she enjoyed the view of the acres upon acres of trees. A small stream ran through one section of the forest, and only once, she spotted a bear lumbering around. Small birds flew near her, their tiny eyes peering curiously at her as they stayed a safe distance away.

The whistle of the wind was like its own music to her. It was constant song that she heard no matter where she went. It was a familiar friend. Her lips twitched upwards as she spotted the gleaming towers of the school. Perhaps this wouldn't be too bad. She could give up a bit of her freedom, she supposed, to help out the man that had shown a bit of faith in her. He was certainly not in any shape to walk, much less teach a bunch of rambunctious teenagers—she could remember how loud she and her friends could get when they were at school.

Just for a week.

She'd stay for him, but only for a week.

The call of freedom was too alluring to wait any longer than that.

From the distance she spotted Nedzu's office and saw that a group of teachers, including All Might, seemed to be holding a meeting. Her eyes narrowed when she saw the tan coat of the detective, knowing that they were something that she wanted to avoid.

With a slight angling of her index finger, she quickly lowered herself so that she was level with the third-floor, the floor that All Might had told her the 1-A classroom was located. She flew closer to the windows, hoping to see the scruffy hero, and to her luck, after peering into what appeared to be an empty training gym, the next room she tried revealed a familiar bunch of children.

The scruffy hero had indeed dragged himself to class. He was strangely intense, that man. Extremely dedicated to his job, if nothing else. A small grin made its way to her face.

Aizawa had to have been accomplished if he had been hired to teach at U.A.

Yet, she had never heard of his hero name before this week.

It was interesting.

Perching on the ledge of the window, her grin brightened when the hero's eyes widened as they met hers, his speech halting to a stop. Almost comically, the students seemed to turn their head as one to see what their teacher was staring at.

"Sy—"

Leia placed a finger on her lips and winked mischievously at the green-haired boy before he could finish his sentence.

"I mean, L-Leia-san!" he quickly corrected. "What are you doing here?" he asked curiously.

"Oi! Deku!" the blonde-spiky haired boy suddenly turned around on his desk to glare at the green-haired boy—Midoriya, was his name, if she could recall correctly. "Who the hell is she?"

"U-um," Midoriya stuttered, backing away. His eyes darted nervously to Leia, to Aizawa-sensei, then back to Katsuki.

The blonde scoffed and in a surprisingly fluid motion got up from his desk and stormed towards the window where she was sitting.

"Who the fuck are you?" he growled. His red eyes sparked with irritation when all he received was a smile in response. He tried to take a step closer to the window when suddenly he felt himself bound and pulled back towards his seat in an abrupt manner. Mutinously, he glared at the homeroom teacher.

"Class has not yet ended," Aizawa said in a tired drawl. "Quiet down."

Perhaps remembering that their teacher had been injured in a fight for them, or that he was not above expelling them, everyone immediately turned their attention back to the front. Their eyes, however, darted back occasionally to the strange woman seated lightly on the window ledge. She continued to smile, acting as if she could feel none of their gazes.

Aizawa too, was not above glancing at the young woman every so often. He had been so certain that she would not be here after her frosty reply to him last night.

He hadn't thought that he would see her again.

She waved when she met his gaze again, and he shifted his eyes away awkwardly. It was weird how he felt strangely more awake whenever she was near. Even now, he could recall that night in perfect detail. The dead silence of the hospital wing, pitch black with nothing but a small stream of light from the moon. Then she stepped towards him. The moonlight had softened her features, the shadows of the night lending her a more subdued sort of glow. He remembered the fluidity of her motions; the grace in which she moved, and the gentle smile that had engraved itself onto his mind despite his logic yelling at him that it was a completely useless and irrational thing to store.

He sighed, slightly exasperated with himself, and turned his attention back to his class, announcing to them the upcoming U.A. festival.

o - o - o - o - o

Nearing noon, the sun was particularly bright. His session was ending, and in a few minutes, it would be Cementoss' turn for Modern Literature. He shuffled his notes together and tidied the podium. She was still there, though she had long turned her attention away. She leaned against the window, her body swaying to an inaudible tune as her legs swung back and forth.

He stared at the figure before he turned to his students who were now back to staring at her as well. His shoulders hunched tiredly.

"Midoriya, open the window."

The boy nodded and knocked on the window so as not to startle her. Without turning around, the young woman slipped off the ledge.

"L-Leia-san!?" Midoriya shouted in alarm before he remembered her quirk. The rest of the class rushed towards the windows, plastering themselves against it to see what would happened.

With a smile of mischief, Leia halted her freefall, and floated back up to wave cheerily at the class and their teacher who was staring at her with exasperation.

She smirked at his deadpanned gaze then she looked at the students. Some were gaping while some others recognized her and waved with a smile.

"Thank you for your help the other day—kero," said the frog-girl that she had met at the USJ.

The short kid with the purple suit, the other child that had been with the frog-girl and Midoriya, blushed madly as he stared at her. She arched a brow at him and watched with a hint of amusement and horror as he quickly wiped his nose. She spotted a smear of red on his hand, and she hastily looked back to Midoriya.

Leia knocked on the window.

"Oh! One moment!" Midoriya said as he hastened to undo the clasp. A second later, he had it opened, and a wave of fresh air flooded the classroom.

Aizawa watched quietly from the front of the room, a distance from the windows. The light from the afternoon sun glimmered as they clung, entangled and woven into the gold of the hair that floated around the young woman's face as she landed. The cape which had covered her completely fluttered as they rippled in the air, opening up like wings when she descended into the classroom.

His breath caught again; his heart stuttering as her eyes lifted from the ground to meet his directly. He lost himself in those emerald pools; its warmth drawing him in till his vision narrowed to focus on the eyes and the faint smile that pulled on her lips.

Then she blinked.

The world rushed back to normal, and he noticed that his students were crowding around her, chattering loudly and curiously. The drumming of his heart slowed back down to its usual sluggish beat and he tiredly rubbed his eyes. Clearing his throat for his student's attention, his irritation flared when most of them continued to chatter.

Only several had quieted down and returned to their desks.

"Oi!" Aizawa growled sharply, eyes turning red and hair lifting to the air. He slammed down the papers onto the podium. "Sit down!"

The rest of the students instantly scurried back to their seats as he looked on with displeasure. Their response time was too slow. It was irrational of them to waste time like that.

Aizawa nodded to Kaminari who had his hand raised.

"Who is she?" he asked.

"Leia-san—if I remember correctly?" Uraraka said with a thoughtful frown. "She helped us out at USJ."

Jiro hummed as she considered the young woman who was walking towards their teacher. "I don't remember seeing her."

"She was at the entrance and central plaza!" Ashido said brightly. "Man, if you saw her face after she saw Thirteen…" She laughed loudly to herself.

Leia chuckled at those words, drawing the attention of the class. The attention, however, only lasted for a short moment because suddenly, a sharp screech resounded in the room as the spiky blond-haired boy stood abruptly, his chair skidding backwards.

He looked angry, but Leia couldn't tell if he truly was or if this was just how he looked perpetually.

"You're the one that snatched All Might and Deku when they were fighting the Nomu!"

The red in his eyes glinted with interest, though, by the way he shouted the words at her, she wasn't sure if he was accusing her or stating a fact.

"When you say it like that it really makes me sound like a villain," Leia said lightly as she arched a brow at him. A sharp grin spread on her face. "I assure you that I am perfectly innocent."

The class blanched as a whole as they watched her snicker to herself.

"So you're the one who injured Kurogiri," the red-white haired boy said quietly once the class calmed down.

Leia tilted her head thoughtfully. "Ah the shadow?"

Aizawa cleared his throat, and she turned towards him. He gave a subtle nod in answer to her question, but also a look that told her that this topic was not to be shared in detail with the students.

"Oh, all right," Leia said. "So, Eraserhead—or is it Aizawa, right now?"

The hero's shoulders had hunched back on themselves; his eyes no longer red and his hair lay limply on his head. His eyes were droopy as they stared flatly at her.

"Aizawa, when I'm a teacher," he said. He blinked slowly as he took her in again. "Why are you here?"

"I thought you gave me an open invitation to come and pester you and your class yesterday," Leia said with a smile. She cocked her head. "Was I wrong?"

He gave her a stare that she found hard to decipher before he turned back to the class. "This is Leia-san, and she'll be with us till the end of the U.A. festival. That's all you need to know about her," he said flatly, his tone of voice leaving no room for discussion.

"Ehhhh!" Ashido exclaimed. "At least tell us her hero name!"

"Tell! Tell!" Some others in the class chanted.

"It's Leia," she said after quiet pause. "I'm a bit boring like that. But on that note, everyone, please just call me Leia."

Aizawa threw her a sideways glance. He didn't know what her hero name was, but he was pretty certain that was a lie.

Her smile remained fixed on her face.

"Right, well," Aizawa glanced at the clock, just in time to have the doors slide open and for Cementoss to enter. "Time for Modern Literature." He nodded at Leia. "You'll maybe see her around school in the future. Don't bother her too much."

As his colleague, Ishiyama, took the podium, Aizawa glared flatly at his class one more time.

"Behave," he said shortly.

The doors closed, leaving Leia and him in the quiet hallway.

Pools of sunlight spotted the large grey tiles of the U.A. floor, just as she remembered it to be during her time at this school. The halls were wide and incredibly spacious, and the doors to each of the classrooms were tall. They had been really tall when she was a kid, but now, even as an adult, she still found them to be incredibly huge.

She whistled lowly once they were a distance from the classroom. "You're going to have a handful this year, Aizawa."

He grunted in affirmation as he focused on dragging himself to the teacher's office. They walked in companionable silence, for a while at least, before he noticed her staring at him.

"What?" he said sharply, his heart taking on a strange beat.

Leia was surprised that he had managed to get himself to school. He couldn't have been feeling really well, or well at all. Then there was this other thing that she couldn't forget.

"I heard that you saved the frog-girl—"

"Asui Tsuyu," Aizawa interrupted. "That's her name."

Leia hid a smile. She had a feeling he was soft on his class. "Right, well I heard you saved Asui-san from the villain's quirk."

He did not object, so she assumed that it had happened.

"How did you do it?"

Aizawa glanced at her before looking forwards. "My quirk is erasure," he said slowly in a tired drawl.

"Erasure," Leia murmured the word as her mind played with the possibilities of what the quirk could be. She halted only moments later, spinning around to face the scruffy hero.

"You can erase people's quirks!?" she yelped.

He felt a faint smile stretch across his lips, though she couldn't see it; not with the bandages on his face.

Leia released a huff of air. "Well, you must be fantastic at hand-to-hand combat then. I'm pretty pathetic at that. I prefer relying on strategy and ranged combat. Whenever I choose to use hand-to-hand combat, most of my power relies on my quirk enhancing the speed and force to which I execute my moves."

Aizawa looked admonishingly at the young woman. "The basics are important."

"Yes, sir," Leia replied cheekily in a trill.

"They are important," he stressed. They had now stopped in front of the office. He turned around to stare straight at her, steel in his gaze. "My specialty is not in fighting a mass of villains. This," he indicated to himself, "is what happens if you neglect to improve your flaw."

Leia pursed her lips tightly. "You did fine against those villains," she said, her gaze darkening as she recalled the beast—the Nomu. "It was the Nomu you fell too, and that was a bad matchup for you, if not for most heroes."

Aizawa stilled at the word. Nomu. His gut wrenched, and he fought the shiver that wanted to rise up. Forcefully pushing those thoughts away, he pulled open the door and quickly shuffled over to his desk. He pulled out the stack of papers he needed to grade and his class' seating plan as well.

"Memorize their name, if you plan to stay," he muttered as he shoved the seating plan into Leia's hands.

Taking the first paper from the stack, he went straight into grading. It was almost frantic in how he tried to lose himself to the ink of the paper. The words seemed to dance mockingly at him as he read over the same sentence twice.

"Hey," a hand lightly touched his wrist after a few minutes of silence. He stiffened before relaxing again.

"What?" he said blandly as he shook off the hand to pull out the next paper from the stack.

The hand tugged firmly on him, and reluctantly, he turned around.

"What?" he repeated, his eyes drilling flatly into hers. When he saw the hint of concern in her eyes, his immediate reaction was to bristle, though his heart did the strange flop in his chest again. "Don't waste my time. It's irrational."

"I just wanted to let you know that I memorized the names."

Aizawa blinked in surprise. That was fast.

"And," Leia hesitated as she stared at the hero. The gleam that she disliked, but had seen far too often in many people, disappeared from his eyes as his attention switched from dwelling on the incident to what she was saying. "And I do agree with you—about the basics, that is."

She got a silent stare in response.

"When do you think you'll be fully recovered?" she asked.

"After the tournament. Chiyo-san has required me to keep the bandages and cast on till then."

She released her grip on his sleeve, crossing her arms. His eyes followed the hand before he returned his attention to her words.

"I don't mind helping you out with the festival, but I'd like to have a small spar with you when you think you've fully recovered."

"A spar."

"Yep," Leia said when he stared at her expressionlessly.

Aizawa leaned back on his chair. "Is this in exchange for your help?"

"Is it too much to ask?" Leia asked with a smile. "I still have to rent a hotel while I'm volunteering here without receiving any monetary compensation. Besides," she mirrored Aizawa as she leaned back on the couch, studying the scruffy hero that intrigued her so terribly much, "It would be a good learning experience for me. I haven't been forced into a proper hand-to-hand combat with a close combat specialist in a while."

The spar was no big deal to Aizawa. He would spar with his students if they asked him to help them improve. He had only been curious about her reason to spar.

He huffed tiredly. "When I've recovered," he answered her.

"Brilliant!"

Her smile was warm when she answered, her presence strangely calming. The irrational fear that had pricked at his mind had since abated. He looked at the papers and supposed that he could grade them after his nap. Slowly, he shuffled to the couch where Leia was sitting, her eyes following him as he approached.

The couch was a very large couch. It was also a very comfortable couch.

Aizawa settled down at the opposite end of the couch and crawled into his yellow sleeping bag. He lay down and stared at the figure who sat a space away from him. She stared curiously at him.

"Wake me in two hours," he muttered, eyes drifting shut.

The peaceful darkness of sleep was a familiar friend, and he allowed it to claim him as his breath evened out in slumber.

In the comfort of sleep, he felt her hand smooth back the hair from his face, a light laugh accompanying the movement.

"Of course," he heard her say before he submerged completely into the very much welcomed darkness.

Leia's heart pounded quicker when she looked at the scruffy hero whose head lay near where she was sitting. He was asleep already, not surprising at all as she had seen how tired he always seemed. Hesitantly, she continued to smooth back his hair when he nudged closer to her palm while he slept.

With a wave of her hand, the papers that Aizawa had been marking flew to her side.

She glanced once more at him, an unfamiliar warmth blooming in her chest, before she turned her attention to the papers, determined to mark at least some of them before he woke up.

Her right hand flew across the papers, making red marks as she went; her left hand moved in a soothing manner as she smoothed his hair. A faint smile played on her lips, and the tiny blossoming warmth flickered steadily within her as time ticked away, minute by minute.

A/N: I definitely prefer slow burns, so I don't usually read or write fluff/fast-paced romance lol. Hopefully the stuff here happened relatively organically -_-"

Thanks for reading!