Chapter Text
The hospital was a mess of noise.
Machines beeped out of rhythm, shoes screeched against linoleum, coughing came from the room Shota was passing. The noise piled up until it was difficult to think.
The war was over. They had won.
And yet, Shota could not help but feel numb from all the hospital visits. He felt the same about the panicked phone calls he’d gotten from terrified parents.
That wasn’t all. Midoriya had lost his quirk.
The knowledge sat heavy in his chest.
He had taught the boy for months without realising the truth, that he’d only gained his quirk the day of the entrance exam, and how far behind he should have been compared to other students.
Midoriya stubbornly caught up with everyone else, instead.
But even that was done now. U.A. had never had a quirkless student before and Shota did not feel like he could teach him well.
For someone who had always considered himself to be attentive, Shota had been completely useless all of last year.
It was a mercy that his students were alive.
Their plan had worked. The cost had been too high regardless. Separating the villains went great up until Midoriya went missing, until it was too late to pull him back. He should have seen this coming.
Why hadn’t he thought of this? Why hadn’t he noticed Midoriya’s situation earlier?
The memory of Bakugo’s dead body surfaced in his mind, the helpless feeling of being so close, and yet unable to help his student.
He shuddered and forced the image out of his thoughts.
What kind of teacher was he to lead his students, a platoon of child soldiers, into war twice? What kind of man asked children to bear the burden of war?
By the time he reached the exit of the hospital, the thought settled fully within Shota: he should have never been a teacher at all.
His phone buzzed in his pocket as he crossed the parking lot. Upon checking that it wasn’t another parent calling, Shota put the phone back, with Hizashi’s call left unanswered.
He could not stop thinking about the war.
He spent years being strict on his students to avoid another tragedy like Oboro’s death, but he had let it happen again, worse even.
Inside his car, he bowed his head into his hands. The pressure in his chest had nowhere to go, his tear ducts too damaged to cry.
So he sat there, alone, shaking.
Exhaustion followed him back to U.A., every step took more from him than he could offer.
Shota’s feet carried him to Nedzu’s office without thought. He knocked, and was let in shortly.
Nedzu looked up at him, unsurprised. He had been right to bet on the principal rarely leaving the school.
“Aizawa!” Nedzu said, “Please come in. Are you here to discuss the counselling we are offering?”
Shota shook his head, a grim expression on his face. “I am here to resign.”
Nedzu paused, “Are you certain? I highly recommend the counselling service to talk about your feelings regarding work and the war.”
Shota was very familiar with Nedzu’s recommendations and how they would be closer described as orders. It did not matter anymore, he was resigning.
“I’ve already made up my mind.” He placed the resignation letter on the desk. Nedzu did not touch it.
He was turning to leave, but Nedzu stopped him, insisted on tea.
It was clear to him that Nedzu would use it as an opportunity to ask more questions, and as Shota was in no mind to dodge them right now, he declined again.
It was clear in the stoat-like being’s eyes that he knew why this was happening.
Shota left as fast as he could.
He refused to delude himself into thinking he belonged at U.A., not after everything that had happened.
By the time he made it back to his and Hizashi’s apartment, he had already begun to mourn it.
Some part of him was hoping that his partner would return home first, see his packed bags, and ask him to stay. Ask him to have a conversation about it, at least.
But the apartment was empty, and a letter would have to do.
He brought flowers to lay with the apology, in hopes it would appease his partner in some way. He wasn’t certain that this was the right thing to do, perhaps it would be easier for Hizashi to move on if it was just a letter.
Either way, he knew it would hurt.
The apartment was large, with retro furniture and decor to fill it in. It had all been Hizashi’s doing, Shota had never thought of decorating at all, and when his partner had brought it up, he simply let him take the reigns.
The space felt wrong without all the usual noise.
Sushi was lying up in his cat tower, the old man had become very fond of sleeping, and not much more.
It broke Shota’s heart to leave without him.
A few head scratched and a soft kiss on Sushi’s forehead later, Shota grabbed his bags and parted with his home.
That night, he went on patrol.
Trying to remember the jobs and leads he had before the war, the ones that used to fill his night with work to be done.
The city was easier to handle this late. He felt that patterns stood out more when fewer people were around to blur them. He basked in the silent darkness of night.
The first lead he could think of was trigger. It kept resurfacing, despite the take down of the Shie Hassaikai and Eri’s saving. Not often, but ever since civilians started returning to their homes it had been reported on.
There were other leads, technically. A vigilante that seemingly avoided him personally, and a traffic-based villain Endeavour’s agency wanted assistance with. Both of them required sightings, and since there had been none so far, it was unclear whether either of them had survived the war and the following unrest.
Trigger, at least, left traces.
Enough to keep him moving.
Its reappearance had coincided with people returning from shelters. As neighbourhoods filled again, so did desperation. The war had interrupted distribution, scattered runners, buried those very same rumours Shota needed to work efficiently. If the drug was back now, it meant someone had been sitting on a stockpile all along.
Shota pushed the rest aside and focused on what was in front of him. The cold night air burned his lungs as he breathed it in. Night patrols were familiar, and he had missed them more than he wanted to admit.
The city had not healed, but it had begun to rebuild. Everyone who could had already returned to their homes, bringing lights back into apartment windows. Construction barriers lined streets that had been torn open—or in some places, disintegrated.
Those who had no homes to return to stayed at U.A. and other shelters.
The streets were quieter than before the war. It helped Shota to move through the city unseen.
The trail of rumours The rumours were rare, but not entirely gone. His contacts were of course hard to find and harder to rely on in these circumstances, but a few hours in, he’d gained a few solid leads.
He followed one until it led him to a small alleyway. A small group stood clustered together. Shota could not identify what they were saying, they voices were too low, but he watched as money exchanged hands. A vial caught the light briefly.
He watched from a rooftop, until the vial was about to be handed over. Then, he jumped down.
For a split second, no one moved at all.
Then, panic interrupted from them all. One of them shouted, Another’s quirk flared on instinct, erased immediately. A second quirk’s blast cracked the asphalt where Shota would have landed, if he’d been careless.
The scarf snapped out mid-descent, a familiar weight in his hands. He wrapped it around two of the men before they could turn to run, yanking them off their feet and slamming them into the ground hard enough to knock their air from their lungs.
Shota’s eyes burned as he made sure their quirks stayed erased.
The third man managed to break off from the others, running off down the alleyway. He glanced back, saw the two accomplices tied and the binding cloth, and kept running.
Shota let him go.
He landed heavily, knees protesting, breath hitching before he could force it steady. He didn’t chase. He couldn’t afford to.
He secured the two he’d caught, quick and efficient, ignoring the way his vision blurred at the edges.
By the time sirens echoed somewhere in the distance, he was already pulling back into the shadows. He was surprised someone had even seen him capture the drug dealers and called the police.
He took the Trigger with him, in case there was something he’d be able to decipher about it.
He wasn’t certain to what extent he’d be able to continue his work as a hero. If anyone had learned anything in his classroom, he’d been taught to continue fighting until it was impossible, and as it stood, he still had a chance.
On the other hand, he was rational. With one eye and his weakness laid bare, he was an easy target. He knew that, the city knew it, too.
For all he knew, this would be his last patrol.
He kept going anyway.