#implied erasermic

It's not so much blood in the shape of footprints as much as a faint bloody trail that is staining the paleness of the floor, but Shota has had experience in his years working as a pro-hero. This is blood that came from someone dragging their feet across the floor, feet that have been injured, and from someone inevitably leaving their blood behind as a result.

This is a trail that's been made recently too, judging by the shade of the colors.

Now the only likely question that should be left is the following one: which one of his students is hurt. And likely hiding it. Again.

It unfortunately isn't unusual for his students to end up with injuries. They overwork themselves, and they go beyond what their bodies allow them to, or they, simply, act stupidly. Always. All of the time.

Shota would like for them to let him breath a single week without a single, even harmless, accident.

But this is different.

They don't usually let their blood drop onto the floor like that, let it be dragged across, and they don't continue being careless like that by not telling anyone that'd then inform a teacher. Unless maybe for Midoriya, but he's an exception. He's recently been getting better on that, too. And he saw the boy leave for his usual run this morning and he was as fine and cheery as usual.

No, this is different than the usual incidents. And if this is the LOV...

He sends a quick warning text to Nezu, code short and concise. 5.01. Unsure, but possible villain breach: Stay on alert, prepare for any possibility.

Shota keeps tracking the blood trails and they lead him straight to one's Shoto Todoroki's door.

Hah.

Well. That tracks. Hizachi would have intended the pun. He really did not.

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You see, Shota's mind might have gone right over one simple fact in its panicked haste.

Midoriya isn't the only one of his students that causes him trouble. There's Shinso, also. There's Bakugo, too, obviously, loud with his presence and opinions and always abrasive. There's also, to put it simply, all of his other students, all of them somehow always coming up with new ways for his hair to turn white.

Some of them are better than some others. As in, some drive him slightly less mad than others. They're all part of class 1-A, though, the class that has given him the more trouble in all his years of teaching, and so they're all still hopeless on this specific trouble-related point.

And then there's also Todoroki, silent and respectful and the perfect picture of quietness when in the presence of a teacher. Frost personified. Firm and calm, serious in his behaviour and his every action.

Except that Shota should have known better.

He has seen the way Todoroki brushes off a burn that should warrant a visit to Recovery girl. Or the way he'll sometimes take his notes of a lesson with splinted fingers. And. Really. What is it with his students and torturing their bones?

He had thought his carelessness was because of unawareness, obliviousness , maybe even some sort of undiagnosed neurodivergency, but clearly he needs to reconsider those first points.

Along with his observation skills and his capacities to reach obvious conclusions, apparently.

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He knocks on the door.

Inside, something makes a banging sound, and someone makes a noise that sounds oddly like a curse. Oddly unfamiliar to hear in the voice of a student he's only ever heard being the picture of politeness.

Shota isn't even amused to learn that Todoroki's capable of that.

"Tenya, I thank you for your concern, really, but I told you, I'm fine. I'll come to breakfast later", Todoroki says from behind the door, then stops when Shota speaks up.

"Not Ida", he says, voice blank, not quite reassured this isn't a LOV infiltration. He keeps his hand on his phone.

The other stays on his scarf even as Todoroki reacts normally, nowhere near tense.

"Oh. Sensei. I didn't know it was you, my apologies. How can I help you?"

By explaining the blood trail that coincidentally stops right at your door, maybe, he thinks and says as much.

"Oh, that. Yes. I'll clean up before classes start" is Todoroki's answer. That doesn't explain anything. That doesn't go unnoticed. But there are more pressing matters.

In any other situation, Todoroki would be more likely bowing out his apology. Here, Shota can only assume this is what he's doing, instead of being held at quirk-point and threatened to behave normally.

"That's not what I meant. I'd like to come inside, Todoroki", he tells the boy. Or he warns him, more like. He's not too sure what it comes across as.

"You don't need to enter. I'd rather you not, actually", Todoroki says, and if it weren't for the slight hint of panic in his usually blank voice, Shota might have let it go.

As it comes, he can't just go back to peacefully dozing off before the school day officially starts.

"Open the door, Todoroki", he insists, not quite an order but something firm enough he's pretty confident the boy will end up unlocking his door. Hopefully. He doesn't want to have to take the door down, or have to go through the window to get into the dorm room, but it's something he'll do it if it comes down to it.

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Todoroki ended up opening the door.

Shota might start wishing this had been a LOV situation.

"I don't think this is necessary", his student tells him.

Shota stares at him, deadpan. "Todoroki. The soles of both of your feet are bleeding."

There aren't any bandages laying around anywhere, even as he makes a quick assessment of the room. None in Todoroki's hands or wrapped around his feet, either. He's not sure whether or not he needs to be reassured he doesn't see a first aid kit at the ready.

The boy blinks at him, slow and fully aware, from the side of his door he's standing in.

"It was bleeding more before", Todoroki explains, calm and patient, like he considers this a reassuring fact and his teacher a toddler for not getting what's, really, obvious.

His students are going to be the death of him. A slow, painfully annoying and agonizing death.

He slips his phone in his pocket slowly enough that he has time to tell Nezu the LOV isn't involved before everyone comes barging in, then immediately locks eyes with Todoroki again.

The boy shifts on his heels. His bloody heels.

"Right. We're going to Recovery girl", he repeats himself. If Todoroki had at least the slightest bit of common sense, he would realise this wasn't a suggestion.

"That's fine Sensei , thank you, I can take care of it myself", he says.

Shota stares.

Sometimes, it feels like his students are competing for the prize of being deemed The Problem child. Even if he only used the expression twice, it seems they took his words as a challenge. Todoroki's apparently not an exception.

"That wasn't optional", he says with a barely repressed bone-deep sigh when Todoroki doesn't move, making to turn around. "We're going. Immediately."

Todoroki, it's a small mercy, maybe not getting the hint, at least doesn't protest further. He just stares right at him. Tilts his head.

"I'll be late to classes", he observes, a concession.

"Both you and I know you do well in maths. Ectoplasm won't mind you being late. Especially not for this reason. Come on."

It's a small line, being firm enough without frightening his students. It's a line Shota's barely stumbling across, leaving his students just jogging away instead of running away in fear, according to Hizachi. It apparently worked well enough this time. Todoroki doesn't run away, and he also doesn't stay frozen there.

Or maybe it's just Todoroki's not so easily impressed. The result is the same: he finally makes move to cross the doorstep, concealing a wince well enough that Shota might not have seen it had he not been plenty aware of the gruesome-like sight his feet are.

That does nothing to quell the frown threatening to take over Shota's carefully blank expression.

Todoroki pauses just before reaching him with a quick glance to the still quiet corridor.

Shota gestures to his back, even if he's fully aware Todoroki isn't a stranger to rescue-carries. His score on that specific test was one of the highest: he knows what Shota's intending.

Sure enough, Todoroki climbs on, not asking for clarification. Only being the slightest bit hesitant, for a reason he's not sharing. Shota really needs to know why he didn't tell anyone about his injury. He has his suspicions. He doesn't push.

Not when he's being shown this trust, at least. He'll do that later, when Todoroki's less closed off. Which doesn't mean much, but Shota still likes to think he knows how to handle his students, even if it seems he's been doing quite a bad job at it recently. And that's by not unnerving them further.

And that's essentially what Todoroki is, currently. One of his students, and one that's currently in need. As much as he'll likely deny it when Shota will say that out loud.

He won't say it. Or at least he won't yet. He knows to pick his battles. Currently, he's going to pick the easiest one: facing against Chiyo's ire, and trying to convince a student to have some additional common sense and inform, at least, his friends that he's bleeding instead of doing that all over the floor.

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And if his suspicions run deeper than that, then it's something Aizawa keeps into a corner of his mind. He doesn't know, yet. He technically doesn't have enough to do anything, yet. But he's going to be looking into it, now that he might know.

And if he starts keeping a watchful eye on Todoroki and his behaviour, but also his other student's, then this is why.

When the other teachers will start doing so as well, later on, when Aizawa threaten them into being more observant, it's for the very same reason. A lesson's never too late to be taught. They can learn from their mistakes, from those realizations they've sometimes missed, the details they should have noticed, caught on, analyzed, maybe overthought. They're going to. Or so help him, he's going to sue someone.

Hi! it's been so long since I last posted oops (literally more than two full months). I've been gone due to uni work kicking my ass but I'm planning on going back to posting at least once a week. This specific piece might get a continuation, but that isn't a given because I have sooo many fics I want to write beforehand, but do tell me if you'd be interested in one!