Aizawa skidded into the room, followed by Himiko--after the cameras went dark, everyone had panicked. He had been the first one through the traps--he had hoped beyond hope he could get there in time if not for Tenya and Katsuki, for Izuku. Looking at the scene before him, he was overcome with confusion.
"I'm fine." Tenya said to his sister, who had tackled him in a hug.
"There's blood all over your shirt!" Izuku said, running over to his friend.
"It's not mine." Tenya grumbled.
"How is it not yours? You got stabbed in the chest!" Izuku cried.
"I'm alive...if anyone cares." Katsuki said.
"I care." Shimura said.
"Thank you for that info, by the way; I don't think Izuku and I could have won if we hadn't known about Zuko, Denki and Iida." he told her. Eraserhead stared at him. Right, he was talking to thin air.
"Good news! I didn't kill Shouto!" Denki said, standing next to his friend and waving to Aizawa. Shouto, at a lack of what else to do, waved as well.
"Hey." he said.
"Shouto!" Touya ran to his brother, crying with relief.
"Is anyone going to let me out?" Hawks asked. Izuku did so. Touya glared at Denki.
"Blame Zuko! He's the one who jumped in front of Izuku." Denki said.
"So...you aren't the UA traitor?" Aizawa asked, just to confirm.
"Nope! There was a misunderstanding, and they thought I was. I don't think there ever was one, actually. I took advantage of that, and I was going to zap Izuku into sleep--deep enough that they thought he was dead, I can do that--but Zuko interfered and got himself shunted into my head. Having someone else in your body is strange." Denki said.
"Zuko?" Aizawa asked.
"Touya here got hit by a quirk ten years ago, and so I've been switching bodies with Zuko every Tuesday." Shouto said.
"Every Tuesday, you're someone else?" Aizawa asked. Shouto nodded.
"Wait, you said the cameras turned black?" Denki asked.
"Does that mean everyone still thinks I'm a traitor who killed Shouto?" Aizawa shrugged.
"Probably."
"That went well, but I have some questions." Himiko said, turning to her brother.
"This villain, Bruce, has a possession quirk; it reacted with Dark Shadow and I ended up possessing him. I made the best of the situation, and actually, Himiko, I am grateful for that knife, and the extra blood I was carrying for you." Tenya said.
"I knew it was you! No one else waves their hands like that, or says nearly as awful villain monologues." Denki said.
"Thank [bleep] for headspace collision." Katsuki told Shimura.
"Katsuki, who are you talking to, and how are you alive? You got impaled." Aizawa said, looking at his student. Katsuki pulled off his bloody shirt, revealing no injury.
"I'm talking to ghosts, and I'm immortal; this was the fourth time I've died. Third time was getting shot by Overhaul; that's what Mirio's so freaked out about." he said.
"Hey, I turned the camera back on!" Denki said, and everyone looked towards him.
"Heyyy, people of Japan! I'm not evil, and no one's dead! Except for All for One. He's dead. I messed up his device, and all his quirks are inside it now! All of the quirks he put into the Nomus are there too, I think; and Shigaraki's quirk; I guess he gave it to him." Denki said.
"What?" Shigaraki asked.
"We won!" Denki shouted, and turned the camera off.
"Problem solved!" he said, and pointed finger guns at Shouto.
"Can you not do that?" Izuku asked.
"Why?" Denki wondered.
"Maybe because I died in front of him after you zapped me?" Shouto pointed out.
"All of you need therapy." Aizawa said. The group walked downstairs, and straight into the hero team.
"YOU KILLED MY SON!" Endeavor roared, stalking up to Denki, who 'eeped' and hid behind Shouto.
"I didn't think you cared." Shouto said. Endeavor blinked; how was Shouto alive?
"Guess who's not dead!" Touya exclaimed, waving his hands at Shouto.
"You're that villain." Endeavor growled, turning.
"Touya's not a villain!" Hawks protested, pulling Touya behind him. Endeavor stared.
"Touya?" he asked.
"Guess who's not dead!" Touya announced, and Shouto facepalmed.
As for Shouto, here's an explanation: Earlier:
"Zuko got Shouto killed!" Fuyumi cried, seeing her brother, and burst into tears.
"Wait--Zuko. Shouto ought to be Over There, right now." Natsuo suddenly said, snapping his fingers.
"You thi--think?" Fuyumi sniffled.
"There's a chance; he might be fine come Wednesday. Is--he physically damaged at all?" Natsuo asked Tsukauchi.
"He was electrified." Tsukauchi responded, confused.
"HA! I bet he'll zap back here at midnight. He has to." Natuso said.
"That would mean Zuko was dead." Fuyumi noticed.
"[bleep]." Natsuo said. They'd lose a brother either way.
So three people waited in a tent, waiting for midnight, watching the fight on a small screen; all the heroes were trying to break through All for One's fortress of death traps. Fuyumi, Natsuo and Tsukauchi sat in horrified silence, and another, also silent, lay beneath a sheet. Until he didn't.
"Fuyumi? What's going on?" Shouto asked, pulling the sheet off his face.
"SHOUTO!" Natsuo screamed, and hugged him.
"You're alive!" Fuyumi shouted.
"Yes...today was supposed to be the raid, what happened...what's that?" Shouto looked at the rather one-sided fight before the screen went dark.
"I have to help." he said.
"You can't! Denki killed Zuko." Natsuo said.
"What? But he can't be the traitor." Shouto said.
"He killed Zuko, Shouto." Fuyumi said.
"I don't feel very killed. Maybe Zuko just got launched into his body when he zapped my cold side? We've never tried that on a Tuesday." Shouto wondered.
"What are you talking about?" a still-processing Tsukauchi asked.
"Remember that time I absorbed lightning into my cold side, and I got blasted into Denki? Maybe Zuko did. And although Zuko went to my body, maybe I wouldn't go to mine. Anyway, I've got to get up there." Shouto said, and ran outside. Summoning a massive pillar of ice, he lifted himself onto the fortress's roof, burning through drones and projectiles. Tsukauchi stared after him, still unsure as to what had happened.
Soon enough, things were sorted out.
"The rest of the class is in this tent. They should have seen Denki's postscript video, so he shouldn't get attacked." Aizawa said, and Denki grinned.
"I'll be a hero!" he said, and marched into the tent.
Mirio sat with Mina and Yaoyorozu, knowing it was his fault Tenya, Shouto and Katsuki were dead. If he'd only been there for them, he coud have saved them. He'd tried to phase through the building, but was prevented by a very thin layer of lead--which no matter how much he practiced, could not phase through. After the cameras had blacked out, Yaoyorozu had made a bag, and stuffed everyone's phone into it.
"I don't want to see it when it comes back on. We'll hear the bad news in person." she'd said, and no one had argued.
"At least Aoyama's away from all this." Shoji said. Katsuki may have been immortal, but he'd wake up to find his friends gone, and Mirio could not think of a worse fate. Then, there were voices outside the tent. Everyone looked up, and Denki, THE EVIL MURDEROUS TRAITOR, strode in, smiling brilliantly.
"AAAAaaaghhh!" Hakagure screamed.
"DIE!" Kirishima shouted, hardening himself and rushing towards Denki. Mina hurled acid, Yaoyorozu threw a flashbomb, Sato ate a cupcake, Ojiro got into a fighting stance, Sero shot tape, Jirou stabbed her earjacks into the ground, Shoji spread his arms, Asui leaped into the air, Uraraka ripped up the ground, Shinsou started yelling insults, Tokoyami summoned Dark Shadow, Kouda called at least twenty ravens, Hakagure threw a lamp, Tamaki extended tentacles, Mirio phased into the floor, and Nejire raised her hands.
"Help!" Denki yelped, stumbling back outside. The full wrath of Class 1-A ran to follow him--and Aizawa stepped inside the tent, deactivating everyone's quirk. Shouto poked his head in.
"I guess they didn't see what happened after the cameras went black." he said.
"You think?" Denki's annoyed voice came from outside.
"SHOUTO!" Uraraka yelled.
"Wait, what about Katsuki and Tenya?" Asui asked.
"We're fine!" Katsuki said, walking into the tent with Tenya and Izuku; all three were covered in blood.
"Whose blood is that?" Shinsou asked.
"Mine." Katsuki said.
"Katsuki's. And All for One's." Izuku said.
"Himiko's." Tenya said.
"So, frick went down." Touya said, leaning on Hawks' shoulder.
"I can see that." Jirou said, confused but happy.
"I'm going to get nightmares, I think." Izuku said.
"Izuku?" Shouto asked.
"Shouto, I held your dead body. Tenya, I thought you'd been stabbed. And I knew Katsuki was going to be fine--it was part of our plan to let him get killed by All for One, anyway--because when the villains think they've won, that's the best time to defeat them--but it's one thing to say that, and another to watch your best friend bleed out." Izuku said.
"It actually hurt a lot. I'm going to try and avoid dying in the future." Katsuki said.
"Most people do that." Ojiro pointed out. Katsuki shrugged.
"Therapy for all of you." Aizawa repeated.
It was a week and multiple news articles later when Zuko returned.
"We beat the Firelord! I'm Firelord now!" he said to Fuyumi and Natsuo and Rei and Touya--wait, Touya?
"I'm an official part of the family, now." he said.
"He stays here as much as he stays with Hawks." Fuyumi said.
"So, how'd things go with All for One?" Zuko asked.
Touya gave him a quick rundown on the way to school, where Zuko walked into the classroom, to the students cheering.
"Zuko! We've been waiting a week to thank you!" Denki said.
"Touya told me what happened; amazing plan, Katsuki, Izuku." Zuko said.
"So are we just accepting that Zuko is here instead of Shouto on Tuesdays?" Yaoyorozu asked.
"Yes, and I will format his schoolwork to account for that. Zuko, on Tuesdays you get a summary of the week's work, and Shouto gets one day's extra spread across the week. Principal Nezu approves." Aizawa said.
"Wait--Nezu knows?" Zuko asked.
"He had his suspicions since the second Tuesday." Aizawa replied. Then, Aoyama walked into the classroom.
"I'm back from vacation, mes cheris! I heard All for One was defeated; what happened?" he asked. He was met with a vibrating silence, full of so much potential it was deafening, before everyone started shouting at once.
"SHUSH!" Aizawa shouted.
"To summarize, frick went DOWN." Katsuki said.
"It sure did." Zuko said, smiling.
"That was one heck of a Tuesday." Izuku said.
"You know, I read this book once; it was about a bunch of unicorns appearing in someone's yard on a Tuesday, and cloning themselves, and everyone was confused at the fact that it happened on a Tuesday, because there's no day more normal than that. I hereby declare last Tuesday as Unicorn Tuesday." Yaoyorozu said.
"What happened last Tuesday, though?" Aoyama asked.
"I died!" Katsuki shouted.
"I possessed Denki." Zuko said.
"I pretended to be the UA traitor!" Denki announced.
"I kicked All for One in the head." Tenya said.
"I punched him in the face!" Izuku said.
"I almost killed Kaminari." Kirishima admitted.
...and so on, leaving Aoyama even more confused than before.
All Might walked in the classroom.
"You will not believe what I found today," he said.
"What, Yagi?" Aizawa asked. All Might held up two pieces of a yellow device.
"My computer caster! I lost it after trying to project info to the computer, remember? Before the school year started. But I couldn't figure it out, and then I lost it, and now someone broke it." he said.
"That's the--the thing." Zuko said.
"The thing?" Aizawa asked.
"The thing that was broadcasting info to the League. I turned it on and Shigaraki recognized me, so he thought I was the traitor." Denki said. The entire class glared at All Might.
"So the USJ was your fault." Asui said.
"Your technological inexperience nearly killed us!" Kirishima shouted.
"Wait, that means the real UA traitor is All Might!" Izuku said.
"Who would have guessed? Oh! The betrayal!" Uraraka said, pretending to fan herself. Aoyama was poking through the group chat.
"Mon Dieu! What happened?" he asked, becoming steadily more appalled and proud at the same time.
Notes:
this is probably one of my favorite chapters. I have been planning the "aizawa runs to save everyone and arrives to a tableau of chaos" and "denki, shouto, touya and hawks talk to endeavor" scenes since the very beginning of this fic.