Chapter Text
“Ah, good, you’re still here.” Shouta’s voice pierces the quiet atmosphere.
Yagi startles and flounders about for a moment. “Oh, it’s just you, Aizawa.”
Shouta smirks, then straightens out his features. “I need your help, Yagi.” The words cost him nothing; Shouta has enough hubris to know when he needs help, and in any case it would be cruel of him to deny the number one hero this.
“Help?” Yagi repeats. There’s no uncertainty in his tone, simply curiosity. “With what?”
“You’re close to Midoriya, yes?”
”I, uh,” Yagi sputters. Inwardly, Shouta grins.
“Good,” he says sharply, interrupting Yagi’s meager excuses. “I’m sure you’ll take great pleasure in our task, then.”
”Oh?” Yagi says, a hint of trepidation in his tone. “And what might that be?”
”We’re going to destroy Aldera,” Shouta says grimly.
Yagi startles, caught off-guard. Then, catching on quicker than Shouta had expected, he says, “That’s Young Midoriya’s middle school."
Shouta nods.
Yagi frowns contemplatively. “So then why-“ Yagi pauses, finding his own conclusion. “They hurt Young Midoriya.”
”Yes.”
Yagi nods grimly. His eyes are haunted.
“It’s because he was quirkless,” Shouta adds distastefully. Is it bad that Shouta kind of wants to catch him further off-guard?
Yagi simply holds Shouta’s gaze for a moment, which is... odd. Then, feigning surprise, he says, “Young Midoriya was quirkless? How could that be-“
”You know what,” Shouta cuts him off, “spare me the bullshit. You clearly already knew this. At this point I don’t even want to know how you know.”
Yagi smiles, seeming relieved at Shouta’s mild reaction.
Shouta’s voice turns sharper. “Of course, I know that you were planning to inform myself and the other teachers soon, correct?”
”Yes, of course,” Yagi stammers out.
“Good,” Shouta says.
A beat of silence.
”Now,” Yagi says. “How are we going to take Aldera down?”
-
"Here we are," Shouta says blandly. He gestures at the convieniently placed desk in the center of the room. A single, manilla file lays on it.
"Have a seat."
Yagi enters the room, sits down, and asks, "What are we doing here?"
"This is why I wouldn't tell you the plan," Shouta says. "It's the sort of thing you need to see for yourself."
With that, Shouta turns off the hallway light and strides into the room. He stops in front of Yagi and holds out an expectant hand.
Yagi stares at him blankly.
"There's a disk inside the file," Shouta sighs. Yagi makes a soft noise of understanding an opens the folder. The disk is sitting dead-center on top of the stack. Yagi hands Shouta the disk, then turns to the file with curious eyes.
Shouta snaps the file shut.
Yagi looks slightly miffed. "I thought that we came down here so that I can read the file. Why are you keeping it from me?"
Shouta lets the question hang.
He turns on the diplated old television and inserts the disk. It begins to whir.
Shouta steps back to stand ever-so-slightl behind Yagi, leaving the other man's view unobscured.
Then, and only then, does he speak.
"You can read through the file afterwards. You need to see this first, though," Shouta mutters. Yagi tenses further. Shouta himself is dreading this, if he's being honest. He's seen the video before, of course. That almost makes it worse.
It's never enjoyable when you're watching someone you care for being harmed.
The soundless, condensed recordings of Midoriya's school years (that Nedzu hacked into, of course) are terrible things. They'll be useful in the case against Aldera, yes. But they are terrible.
At first, they aren't so bad. Tripping Midoriya as he walks through the halls. Pickpocketing him when the teachers aren't watching. The epitome of bullying at its finest. It's still wrong, of course it is, but it's mild.
Milder, at least, than what comes next.
Somewhere, the "accidental trippings" turn into pushes and shoves. Bald-faced pickpocketing while the teachers simply watch on.
Bakugou's involvement didn't- doesn't- escape Shouta's notice. He's already made the decision not to punish him until the Aldera case is through. Both because Shouta needs a clearer head and because something of interest may be brought up during the Aldera trial.
Even if Shouta was inclined to decide Bakugou's fate today, he'd still have a lot to think about.Bakugou's behavior has improved rapidly since the beginning of the school year. It wouldn't do any good to expel him.
Especially considering the fact that Aldera seemed to not only ignore bullying but to actively encourage it. The video may not have sound but Shouta knows how to decipher body language.
In any case, anger management is in Bakugou's future, and he'll likely complete his fair share of community service as well.
Shouta is jolted out of his thoughts when Yagi flinches. Yagi has been remarkably still this whole time. For him to startle like that…
Shouta focuses on the screen.
Midoriya's notebook is nowhere to be found. Bakugou's hand is on his shoulder.
It's smoldering.
Shouta grits his teeth but doesn't look away.
The video ends three clips later, each on milder than the last. Shouta can't help but be relieved by the anti-climatic end.
He strides forward, turns off the television.
Yagi finds his voice. "Aizawa. Aizawa, that was- that was terrible. Those children… they were horrible. And those teachers! They can't allow those students to treat each other so terribly. Aizawa, we- we have to stop them. We need to shut them down."
Shouta nods once. "I know. That's why I showed you the video first. In this circumstance, a video is worth a million of their useless words."
Shouta's combat boots thump as he walks towards Yagi. He smoothly snatches the file from the table, glancing at it disdainfully. Then, he hands it to Yagi.
"Have at it."
That's how they spend the afternoon. Yagi reads through the files, occasionally voicing his thoughts aloud. They're all rather disdainful, and Shouta agrees with each and every one.
He's reading through the same files, but for a different reason. Shouta also has a transcript of the video and he's comparing the two side-by-side.
"Midoriya has fallen down the stairs yet again. He was given two days' detention for slandering his classmate and claiming that they pushed him."
[Midoriya is walking down the hallway, notebook clutched to his chest. A nearby classmate conspicuously uses his quirk, Extend-O-Fingers to trip Midoriya. Midoriya falls down the stairs. Surrounding classmates laugh.]
Shouta highlights the inconsistencies as he finds them, but honestly- what isn't inconsistent? Shouta finishes before Yagi is complete, so he starts on a plan. When Yagi is through Shouta shows him what he has so far and together they get a fair bit more done and make plans to meet up on Saturday.
That meeting goes just as well, and they leave with a concrete plan as well as several backups. Just in case.
By the time Monday rolls around, they are ready to play their parts and play them well.
Shouta walks into the building with as bright a grin as he can manage.
Yagi walks in glowering.
The secretary trembles.