He made it through the next day, somehow.

After the water park was cleaned up good enough and Junpei was sent on his way, Aizawa went home to activate another burner. His hadn't survived his tousle with Eito in the water. Even after he showered and sat down to track Junpei's progress on his phone, all Aizawa could smell was the lingering scent of chlorine in his nose. He chain smoked a few too many of his good cigars to chase the smell away. There was no savor; no good whiskey to taste with it. No drugs to toss down the sink to clear the drain. He needed to be sober right now and it was still early as shit anyway. So instead, he had only the lux air until the odor of the water went away. He sat shirtless in his chair by the window, cigar in hand and gauze wrapped around where Eito had stabbed him in the arm, thinking. Thinking.

Had Yaoyorozu and the other girls been worth saving? He wasn't so sure. Aizawa wondered, floatingly, how long it would have eaten at his conscience — it would've been a bad move regardless, though, he at last sighed. The truth, Aizawa mused, has a strange way of forcing itself to the surface. The past few weeks had shown him that.

There was no easy solution to this, and no solution he liked at all. He was suspended in limbo waiting and watching his phone to make sure Junpei didn't try to make a run for it while he got rid of Eito. He still had to deal with Goro.

Another thing he considered regretting, then decided he still stood by, was taking care of the men separately. Goro wasn't exactly a slouch — sharper than the other two for certain. Had Goro been called to the building along with Junpei and Eito, he would've spooked that something was up before they even walked in the door.

Aizawa's head lolled to one side as he pulled out his phone and checked the time, then his thumb tapped and slid across the screen. His vision clouded with cigar smoke for a moment as he exhaled. More tapping. At last, he pushed himself up from his chair. Grabbed his keys. Locked the door behind him.

It was evening when he returned to Musutafu in a clean change of clothes, muscles loose, and mind at ease. His hair had dried on the relatively short flight back from Tokyo. He felt good. He still felt good, optimistic even, as he turned off the headlights then pulled off the road, parking in the driveway of a house with its lights off. No security light came on, and Aizawa turned off the interior lights of his car before getting out. He put his hands in his pockets as he followed the road a quarter mile before changing his trajectory through the sparse woods between him and the Yaoyorozu estate.

He lined himself up to approach as close to Momo's room as possible, but as he reached where the tree line met the fence of the property, he recognized Midnight's perching silhouette. No, he wouldn't try to get in around her. He retreated back, circling the building twice: Present Mic sat attentively near the front. It would be easier to get past Mic than Midnight. Aizawa lended himself to the shadows, splitting his gaze between Mic and the timed patrol circling the estate.

At last he laid his back flat against the wall, the hardest part of crossing the open yard accomplished. Then, luck still looking down on him, he watched as Midnight approached Mic from behind and gestured for them to exchange positions. Aizawa shadowed Mic on his way back across to the other side of the building, using the subtle sounds of Mic's movements to cover his own. While Mic settled in, shifting, Aizawa picked the lock of the window only a few shadows away.

The hook didn't work on the window, and Aizawa put it between his teeth as he took out his rake instead. He kept his eyes locked on Mic as he slid the rake to the back of the lock, and tensioned the core. Then he waited, patient and unmoving, as he watched Mic. Waited. Minutes passed. This was his strong suit though — patience. Subtlety. Stalking. He felt good still, felt calm. Then his moment came as Mic shifted position, boots sliding with just enough noise to cover the sound as Aizawa pushed the rake pick up into the pins and yanked it out, with a quick jerk. He felt the pins give, that gentle release, and before Mic had settled himself comfortably again, Aizawa had already shut the window behind him.

It was a study, blissfully vacant. Long shadows. Old book smell. New book smell, too. Leather. Ink. Aizawa let his fingers trace across the heavy executive desk that occupied the center of the room. The doorway was open, the hallway beyond it dim. Momo's room should be two to the left. He was between the jambs when he heard a door open. Aizawa took a step back into the darkness, shrouding in it, and his optimism rose as his dark eyes watched sharply down the hall. There was light from the opened door — Momo's. He heard her walking in his direction. Light, steady footsteps. Her silhouette crossed the door as she passed.

He snatched her.

One hand went over her mouth, silencing her vocal alarm, as his arm around her waist yanked her into the study. Even startled and caught off-guard, Aizawa had to dodge as Momo threw her elbow backward. She narrowly missed him. It was a better effort than Junpei had made when he'd gotten back into the car after dumping Eito's body, and seen Aizawa in the rearview mirror.

"Don't yell," he warned. "If your parents find me here, we'll never convince them that we aren't fucking."

It shouldn't have been as funny as it was, but he smirked at his own crude humor. Momo was rigid in his grasp — but she recognized his voice. She didn't fight him further. Aizawa turned her around to face him and let her go.

"What are you doing in my house!"

"I came to tell you I know who's responsible for the threat against you and your family."

With half her face illuminated by the moon coming through the window at his back, he saw the relief. The girl's eyes widened and the tension in her posture changed, dropping some of the weight she'd been shouldering. For a brief moment, he felt warmth. The comfort of being trusted. With it came a quiet rush that had long been mute in his life: a dim, flickering memory of why he had wanted to be a Hero. It was a call he hadn't heard in years — it was kept buried deep underground where its pleas couldn't be heard. It was a voice that had interfered with his Yakuza ambitions, once upon a time.

"I think that constitutes a phone call at most. How did you get past Midnight?" she demanded, a quiet hiss, and the moment was broken. The warmth was gone. The wish to be a Hero, buried once more.

"It's Midnight and Present Mic tonight, actually," he avoided.

"Why didn't you just call?"

"Broken."

His answer was clipped and deliberately vague, but she was Yaoyorozu Momo and she looked. He saw her eyes analyzing away, calculating away. She was too smart for her own good. It was better for her if she didn't know what he was doing — but she was a smart fucking girl, and he could see she was already piecing shit together. He smirked despite himself. Damn smart.

"You should be happy," he said. "I just told you I know who's responsible."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"Are you sure you want to know?" Aizawa challenged.

He dared her to say yes. Yakuza Princess had chosen the Yakuza solution, but how close did she want to get to touching her roots. Say yes. He willed it. Manifested it. She'd come this far, she could go a step further, he knew it. But the Hero she wanted to be — the Hero he'd long ago silenced in himself — would not let her pass.

"No," Momo whispered.

Disappointing.

"I'm going to take him someplace private and have a nice, long talk with him."

There was mockery in his tone. He didn't try to mask it from her, and the girl whirled away, a hand over her mouth as though she were going to be sick, and he gave a roll of his eyes — both disappointed, and all at once pleased. Smart girl, putting the puzzle pieces together whether she wanted to or not. The roots would have her if she didn't tread lightly.

He pushed. He smelled blood and pursued it. Followed it. She knew what was going to come next. He could make her accept it. Instinct told him she could, and that even if she knew, she'd keep it to her chest.

"Get over it. You came to me, I'll handle this on my terms."

"Why are you even coming to tell me this except to cause me pain?" Momo protested, voice wavering.

"Because I know you're capable of living with the guilt of duplicity."

There it was. The red stream of blood in the water, drifting and thinning before being dispersed by the waves. The truth was there. Said. Put into the universe against her. Aizawa didn't back down from his statement as she stared up at him, breaths shallow. He could feel his statement lingering in the air. It hung dense around her like fog.

What would she do, though, if she knew about Eito? And Junpei, who had gotten more of Aizawa's invaluable time for a one-on-one in Tokyo. Would she deride him? Threaten to turn him in again? Would she crumble under the hideous self-righteousness that Heroes wore and go to the police if he told her how he'd taken strips of skin from Junpei's back to get the residue of the information he had? Would it be so unspeakably ugly to her if she knew about the bleach he'd poured on the raw, exposed meat of Junpei's spineless back? Could Momo stomach it, Aizawa wondered, to know he'd ziptied a bag over Junpei's head then sat on a chair nearby to watch him suffocate while he rubbed at the blood in his knuckles.

Aizawa reached out and ruffled her hair.

"This will be over tomorrow, Yaoyorozu. After that you have the rest of your life to learn to live with it."

Aizawa turned away, done pushing. He felt the change though. As though something had transferred from him to her: the baton passing hands. He felt her crumbling resistance, the Hero in her taking a step back for the sake of her own self-preservation. Aizawa didn't look back as he unlocked the window to leave, and only her silence bid him goodbye.