Work Text:
It’s been thirty-four days, thirty-four days since Izuku Yagi was sent to the police station for being suspected of being the traitor in UA by everyone in the class and his father had sent him to the cell himself while spatting at him from behind the cell, telling him that he’s a waste of space and had to rely on his archnemesis to be accepted.
The day had started as usual with 1-A packed in their classroom waiting for homeroom to begin. Then the door had slammed open and Eraserhead stalked in with the seriousness of a hardened pro on a case. Before anyone could speak, the gray loops of the capture weapon had shot out and grabbed Izuku while glowing red eyes stayed fixed on him with Erasure activated to keep his quirk shut off.
Izuku was claimed to be the ‘traitor’ of the UA because of his hero analysis notebooks. Aizawa, his homeroom teacher, expelled him. He knew that his teacher had been gunning at him since day one and not only that but the whole teacher seemed to have a dislike towards him.
He knew that the fact he was able to enter UA was merely out of pity and his teacher had shown zero support to his dream of becoming a quirkless hero. He suspected that it might touched a nerve for him.
After all the things he did for UA. Not knowing the intel was provided by his sister and the rest of the class who set him up to abandon his dream to be one. Even his stepfather, who he knew later on to be All Might went in cahoots with class A to expel his son all because it damaged his reputation as All Might.
Time slipped away as a haze washed over Izuku, thoughts muddled as he tried to process everything. He sits in his dark empty cell in Tartarus while contemplating how his life turned this way. It was a sharp pain that brought him back to awareness after they sprayed him with cold water in the face to awaken him from his thoughts.
He had no idea just how many long hours of beatdown he had to endure by the guards for being someone he wasn’t. How many punches and blows that he receive for every moment.
It was a week later when the news broke. Midoriya Izuku, provisionally licensed hero Deku had been arrested and sent to Tartarus as the UA traitor and a member of the League of Villains. However, by the time the news had been publicized, Izuku was already locked in Tartarus feeling empty. The teachers he had trusted betrayed him.
Only with the interference of Detective Tsukauchi who came to his cell in Tartarus and proved his innocence, he managed to see broad daylight once more before being prosecuted for life.
When he came outside of Tartarus, he was greeted by Nezu and Aizawa who went to apologize for jumping to conclusions but Izuku didn't acknowledge their apology and simply entered the car in silence.
As he entered the dorm, Tsukauchi then went to explain to the entire class that Izuku Yagi was proven to be innocent and an announcement would be made tomorrow to clarify the whole thing.
His sister shouts over to the detective saying that he's lying and he's the traitor along with several others but Tsukauchi presses the fact that his quirk is called a Lie Detector which silences the whole class knowing that their plan has failed.
Later tomorrow, the students and staff were all gathered at Gamma Gym for the announcement of the wrongful accusation of Izuku Yagi.
In no time, all of the first-year students of the hero course were gathered together in the school auditorium. There was a weird tension in the air as everyone eyed each other across the seats as they glared their eyes toward class A, specifically towards the green-haired kid standing in the middle.
Ever since he was returning from Tartarus, he's become colder than his usual self. Not again, he's having his cheerful persona or his giddiness seeing all UA staff gathered in one spot. Now all they could felt is nothing but an air of resentment hanging above him.
The bruise and few scars around his face are the living proof of his treatment for the time he was away from UA and gave his face a rough exterior almost like a thug vibes. Even with his sister and Bakugou taunting him over to his return the very first thing in the morning, he simply glared at them with the same animosity and hatred they used to give him before.
On the stage at the front of the auditorium sat almost all of their teachers including Snipe, Thirteen, and Hound Dog. All of them looked rather unsettled to be there.
Before the whispers and assumptions could get out of hand, Principal Nezu and All Might entered the room. The hulking hero walked with his usual strut, but Izuku noticed that “Symbol of Peace” wasn’t sporting his usual trademark smile and was replaced by scowled seeing his son still there.
Once they were on the stage, Nezu wasted no time walking up to the podium and addressing his students. “Greeting everyone. It warms my heart to see that you all can join us today. As much I would love to pretend that this assembly I’ve gathered you all for was a positive one, I can’t quite bring myself to do that.” The white-furred mammal said in a somber tone.
“It has come to our attention that Izuku Yagi here isn’t the traitor of UA and we as the faculty here made a mistake in our calculation in proving him to be one.”
“Mistake? The faculty? No, you simply put everyone in a group while avoiding the fact that you’re wrong for the first time in your small pathetic life.”
“Thus, all of his accusations are being lifted and he was brought to the school later at night under the care of myself and Aizawa sensei acting as his homeroom teacher.”
The crowd of students immediately broke into soft chatter, one raising their hand for a question despite the prior request for questions to be held for the end. A furred paw was raised towards the crowd to call for silence. “Again, questions will be answered at the end, thank you.”
“Now, I must sternly remind you that any biased accusation without concrete proof will result in punishment to the following party. Any person who conducts a vigilantism act within the school grounds will result in expulsion without any exception whether it’s the teacher or the students.”
As Nezu fell into silence, Aizawa leaned forward to speak. “As Izuku Yagi’s former homeroom teacher, I have a few words to say. We at UA have failed you, choosing to jump to conclusions off on evidence that mysteriously appeared just when our investigation into the possibility of a traitor commenced. An innocent student was condemned to Tartarus for over a month due to my reckless decision to alert the authority to the identity of who I believed was the confirmed traitor, worsened by my involvement in his arrest on campus in front of his classmates.”
Staring down the students, a heavy weight settled onto Aizawa’s face as his voice wavered in a rare show of weakness for the seasoned pro hero. “I’ve failed each and every one of you in many ways unimaginable. And for that, I apologize for jumping to conclusions.”
Izuku stared at the underground hero with a cold expression in his eyes not returning the gesture towards him or even Nezu’s apology. Both of them watch as Izuku stands placing his hands in his pocket with a blank expression. None of them had suspected him to be acting this cold and distant.
They thought that the kid would merely bow his head telling him that they weren’t in the wrong knowing his over politeness attitude but seeing how he showed that he didn’t care for their apology raised a few alarms in their mind.
One of the students in the crowd shot their hand up again, shouting out their question unbidden. “Sensei, are you sure about this matter?”
“Detective Tsukauchi from Musutafu Police Department had confirmed these suspicions. With his Lie Detector quirk, he managed to get the truth out of Izuku Yagi confirming that it’s the truth.” Aizawa answered.
The students look to the ground trying to accept the news knowing that they’re telling the truth, especially with the detective with a lie detector quirk to prove it.
“Is your proof regarding the notebook he usually writes, sir?”
“The evidence of the investigation is strictly classified,” Aizawa replied in a firm tone.
“Don’t kid around. Even without your answers, they all knew that it was true.”
“Class will resume for the period for today like usual, and regarding the new subject?” Nezu continues to speak about the syllabus when suddenly a hand rises in the air.
“I had a question.”
Nezu looked up from the podium and his beady eyes went in surprise to see that it was Izuku Yagi himself who raised his hand.
“Now that we have established that I’m not the traitor. How do you solve this traitor problem?”
“P-Pardon?”
“I meant, surely you don’t have only one suspect in mind right? With a brilliant mind such as yours, surely you have hundreds of speculations running through your scenario after deliberating the possible option right?” Izuku spoke with a cold tone towards the white mammal.
Students began to murmur around each other hearing his words and the teacher glancing around at each other wondering where this conversation was heading.
“Well, it seems that I was making a mistake and your arrest is something that is one of my wrongdoings,” Nezu admitted while trying to sound confident.
“Give it a rest already Deku, the rat made a mistake,” Katsuki said with a harsh tone standing a few students behind him. But Izuku ignores him.
“So you’re saying you made an arrest of one student based on a hunch?” Izuku perked his brow towards the white mammal.
“W-Well-”
“Because I seem to recall that Aizawa sensei came to my room at 2 AM and put his binding cloth in my mouth to silence me from shouting with you and All Might stood at my door room without reading an arrest warrant to me and cuffed me at the van at the middle of the night.”
The room began to fill with many whispers all coming together in an echo as they began to learn this news. It wasn’t announced in the news or by the teacher and it's the first time they heard about it either. Not only does the principal is present but All Might is also there which brings more questions to the students.
“Now surely there must be some kind of misunderstanding-”
“No, because I'm pretty sure I remembered that you said, and I quote, “Your classmate had gathered me with enough evidence that you were a UA Traitor. I already reviewed the evidence and it’s sorry to say that you’re being expelled as of tonight.” Izuku interrupted and this continued to bring more questions to the student's mind.
The rest of class A began to look around and found that this time the pair of eyes was shifting from Deku to theirs knowing that they were also in the wrong for providing evidence of wrong incarceration.
“Well, perhaps I was a bit rash with my expulsion,” Nezu conceded, though it was clear it was only to save face and he didn’t believe it, “And once again, we as the faculty had already properly apologized to our mistreatment to you a month ago.”
“And I’ll ask again, now that I’m being cleared of innocence, who did you suspect to be the true traitor?”
“Is it perhaps Shinso Hitoshi from Gen Education students who has a villainous type of quirk that pushed him to the dark side and provided intel?” the purple-haired kid shifted uncomfortable remembering how people saw his act during the sports festival.
“Or perhaps Iida who’s committing a vigilantism act during his internship for chasing after Stain and the villain saw that and used him to gain intel while acting as a double agent?” Few of the class glances at the bespectacled boy who looks down knowing that he did the crime and only being covered by UA to protect him from expulsion.
“Or maybe you suspected the Bakugou from their rash and brash attitude, similar to a villain in USJ and Kamino? With their brash and arrogance shown on Sports Festival, I'm sure that some of the audience including the student felt that his action brought questions to UA student's acceptance standards, ” both of the Bakugou grit their teeth over the accusation of their attitude while holding the urge to blow the nerd’s head but with hundreds of eyes watching over them, they had to hold back.
“Or perhaps you suspected Izumi Yagi, who recently just obtained a different type of quirk that we saw during the Sports Festival where she managed to blow her competition with a single punch? We all saw from the battle in Kamino where All Might battled against that villain who possessed multiple quirks. Surely you could all piece it together.” All Might looked momentarily shocked knowing that Izuku was talking about One For All. She showed two entirely different types of quirk during the Sports Festival and had a similarity with the villain that attacked All Might in Kamino.
“Izuku, that’s enough! One more word coming out of you and there will be detention for your wild accusation.” Aizawa went towards the podium while using his quirk to threaten him before saying his final word.
“Because if UA can chuck the wrong people blindly into jail without the consent of adults at midnight, what’s stopping you from doing the same thing tomorrow or the next day when you come up with new evidence? Our friends who are currently standing right next to us could be gone for a month before you decide to clear their name from you jumping the gun.”
Soon the once vast gym that's filled with hundreds of murmurs and shouts from the students turned into a deafening silence over Izuku's statement just now.
They knew that he was spitting out fact after fact in the last sentence, which was enough to start the sparks of doubt around them.
They kept glancing suspiciously around their surroundings on who could be the traitor around them. Is it their classmate? Their roommate? Their best friends? Or their boyfriend/girlfriend?
But the key suspect to all of this is the one who brought the fire into the mess in the first place. Almost every pair of eyes glare towards Class A who's the prime suspect of the traitor amidst their rank.
After all, the previous traitor comes from class A making it more likely that the real one comes from the same class as well.
"What are you looking at?" Katsuki growled glaring a murderous glare at one of the general course students.
Normally, this would silence anyone who got caught by the same glare. But now it doesn't bear any effect as they kept whispering suspiciously towards him and his sister. Thanks to Bakugou's outburst, now the attention is fully shifted towards class A for being the most likely to have a traitor for housing the most likely candidate to be one.
The teacher stood at the stage watching just how this meeting was unfolding knowing that this had gone sideways on so many levels as possible. After clearing out that Izuku wasn't the traitor, they were ready to close the book and call it a day, but now thanks to this meeting, they had to inspect EVERY STUDENTS for possible traitors whom they didn’t even know existed or not.
With Nezu's reputation as the smartest mammal in Japan, surely he won't make a mistake, let alone something at the scale of a possible traitor. Now with the students being restless, some of them were bound to tell their parents about this meeting and that would reach over to the media, resulting in the news of UA making an unsanctioned arrest of Izuku Yagi without the consent of an adult or authority figure.
Even if All Might made a lie and told that he was sure of the accusation, this would only bring chaos soon with questions being asked over and over whether UA's credibility hadn’t gone downhill. UA. was already under heavy criticism for the USJ and Summer Camp Attack. Now, as far as the media was concerned, the school itself was actively endangering its student’s lives.
All Might could be hiding his gritting teeth made by his son's accusation with his teething smile and chest puffing but even he had to admit that this could damage his reputation in more ways possible.
People would ask questions regarding his daughter sprouting a second quirk which he had no idea was possible and he suspected that it was because of the growth of One For All, but to think that his son is speaking that his sweet innocent daughter is involved with All For One is making him mad.
While in the group of students, Izumi is glaring towards the back head of her brother and wants to smack him for his words but no matter how they see it, it would only cement the student's accusation that she might indeed be the traitor and trying to frame her brother.
This isn’t how it’s supposed to go down. He should be rotting in prison for ever trying to be a hero, let alone born to be quirkless. Two or three days later they would hear of his death by the inmates in prison and they would be glad for it. Now the situation is turned in their favor from being the instigator to the main suspect.
In the end, Izuku managed to pull down every single one of them from their high throne and dragged them down to the abyss.
If there’s one thing he learns while being in prison, is that trust and mistrust are two common things in our society.