"Fuck!"

Aizawa slammed the trunk shut, turning his back on it as anger and confusion rushed through him. His fists trembled down at his sides. Breathed through his teeth. Then he popped the trunk open for another look, tugging the chloroform rag down to fully uncover his face.

It was still some random fucking stranger.

Fuck. Fuck.

Aizawa reached a hand into the trunk and nudged the man's head to one side, exposing his throat, and put his fingertips against his skin. No pulse. Goro had been alive when he'd put him in here. The man had the same clothes as what Goro had on when he kidnapped him. Now Aizawa evaluated the rope and knots binding him — yeah, this was definitely his handiwork. There hadn't been any greasy swaps while his car had been in the valet's possession at the Yaoyorozu estate.

Goro had been alive when Aizawa had stuffed him in here, intending to make him pay good and well once they had some privacy. Now his victim was dead. This was some quirk bullshit at work.

Aizawa patted the corpse down, and found, to his dismay, two cellphones — both burners — and a license that matched his vic. He flipped through the recent apps on the first and glanced through the text conversation. Goro asking someone to "stand in" for him on call while he went out for the night. And, before that, a single text from Junpei that read simply, 'Danchou knows.'

Anger and annoyance flashed at their ignition points, sparks and heat flying as Aizawa slammed the trunk shut again. A stream of curses left his mouth and he began to pace, back and forth, as he considered exactly how fucking shitty his predicament was.

He had already assured the Yaoyorozu family that he had resolved the situation — that had been hasty of him. But he hadn't anticipated this. Goro had found someone to take his place, and someone who could use their quirk to give the vic Goro's appearance. In his head, Aizawa could practically hear Goro's lies. Yeah, I just need you to hang out at my place in case the my boss comes by.

Goro had gotten the best of him.

He couldn't go back to the Yaoyorozu family and tell them he'd been lying, that the person responsible for blackmailing them was still at large. Aizawa dwelt on what to do next, before settling that he needed to get rid of the body and handle the money aspect of the situation.

He gloved up and wiped the corpse down. By now it had been dead for a couple hours, and was oozing. He normally didn't hang onto bodies this long — although, to be fair, he'd planned on him being alive when he got him here. Aizawa didn't let his thoughts linger on if he'd have had any guilt if he'd interrogated and tortured this man instead of Goro. The situation hadn't come to fruition so there was little point.

How do get rid of the body, though. That was a good question. He'd have to weigh it down if he wanted to put it in water. Honestly, he didn't feel like fucking around with the mess of chopping it up. In the end Aizawa wait for nightfall then went to the cemetery a few miles away, and poked around until he found a grave that was waiting for its occupant to arrive the next day. Carrying Goro's stinking, seeping corpse across an open cemetery was almost panic-inducing, but Aizawa did it anyway and dumped the body in the bottom of the open grave before shoveling in enough dirt from tbr pile to cover him. Tomorrow the vic would be in good company.

The good news was, Goro's phone was unsecured. Sitting back in his car with cemetery dirt in his knuckles, Aizawa was able to access Goro's accounts. The money from Yaoyorou was gone. He could see when the transfer had cleared into the account, and when Goro had moved the money out the previous afternoon. Fuck. Goro was stupid, though — he was still using the card. Aizawa could see the gas station and ATM stops over the last twenty-four hours. He wrote down the names of the stations so he could follow up.

He finished the night out by gloving up and wiping down his car. Cleaning up to minimize how much trace DNA would be left behind. It was an odd deja vu; it sent him back, not so many weeks ago, to the day he'd learned Momo was following him. He couldn't even credit himself with the discovery either. Aizawa smiled to himself, and looked back at the memory almost fondly now. Yaoyorozu had been proving herself capable of more than he'd estimated.

It was a shame she wanted to be a Hero.

Had she wanted to be anything else — an attorney, a scientist, a librarian — he was certain he could coax her into his tutelage. An apprenticeship for a future in Yakuza. She had the birthright to it, after all. But no. She wanted to be a Hero.

Aizawa wondered, for the first time, why Yaoyorozu Momo wanted to be a Hero. She, more than anyone else in all of UA, could have chosen anything else. She was so smart it was scary. She had demonstrated her tactical mind. Shown him how she would wield it in the field. She could have decided to cure cancer, Momo was just that smart. But instead she wanted to be a Hero. Why?

Protege.

It came to him again. And that was the word, really, wasn't it? He'd seen those mirror points in her this morning, watching her gracefully play along with his lies and paint her own without missing a stroke. That thing within himself, that thing that made him succeed in the duplicitous life he'd chosen, he saw the early embers of it in her, too. She could be something. She could be more than anyone else.

Aizawa was tired and haggard as he walked into the Class 1-A home room a few hours after he'd washed the cemetery dirt from his nail beds. After he had gone through the trouble of wiring his own money — one hundred million yen — through various accounts for it to reach Yaoyorozu Asao's; now, like it or not, he had a financial stake in Momo's survival. At least until Goro could be apprehended so Aizawa could take the money back.

Momo was back in class.

Her dark eyes raised to look at him as he came through the door. Recognition in those eyes, because she just had to look. He wondered, passingly, if she thought of him as Danchou or Mr. Aizawa when she thought of him now.

"There's only one week left before your final exams begin," he announced from the front of the class. "I'm sure you're all studying constantly, right? Don't forget to keep training. The written exam is only one element. There's also the practical portion to worry about. Good luck."

The panic was palpable through the room, and he let the students devolve into their chaos so to give himself a short reprieve. His mind was still going, still cycling, the wheel still turning, as he tried to think of what he needed to do next. Of how he would find Goro. And how he would keep Momo safe until he'd cleaned up the newest spill.