She couldn't turn in Aizawa.

The realization came to her that night as she laid awake in bed, damp with a cold sweat, and hesitantly emerging from denial. Momo leapt out of bed and ran for her bathroom, clammy hand clamped over her mouth in case she didn't reach the toilet in time. She retched violently, body heaving as the contents of her stomach evacuated into the bowl. The taste it left in her mouth was foul, and left her tongue thick and sour. The corners of her eyes were damp. She laid her palm over her stomach, inhaling a ragged breath before pitching forward again.

The risk was too great for her to go forward with her accusation. She had taken no real evidence this entire time, and it would be her word against that of a UA teacher and Pro Hero. She didn't know how well Mr. Aizawa covered his tracks when it came to his…extracurricular activities, but her gut told her the odds weren't good. He was a hero with all the resources of one at his disposal — it would be foolish and naive of her to believe he wasn't using all of them to their fullest extent in order to mask his crimes.

Worst of all, she couldn't fully convince herself that he was truly a villain. He had spared her at their first encounter, and he'd put his life on the line to protect the class at U.S.J. Momo knew that villains were human, too, with human emotions and drives — there was no such thing as a person being all good, nor all evil. And, regardless of what he did after dark, he was still a Pro Hero. He did an immense amount of good and put that goodness out into the world every single day. He was a UA teacher, putting that good into each of them and preparing them for their futures doing the same. Her own father was convinced of Yakuza's merits in generosity.

A hand knocked on the bathroom door, and it creaked open a moment later.

"Momo? Are you alright?" her mother asked, stepping in.

Momo glanced up, unaware of when she'd gone down to her knees. Her arms rested on the seat, propping her head up above the bowl, and as her mother drew her out of her thoughts, she realized how terrible she felt. Her forehead was slick with sweat, but her body twitched with shivers. She was both ablaze and impossibly cold. Momo's mother laid the back of her palm against Momo's head.

"You're burning up," her mother breathed, drawing her hand back before smoothing down Momo's hair. "Let me call the doctor."

She didn't sleep that night, and she didn't go to the final day of her internship the next day. Her parents said they sent in the doctor note to both UA and the agency, and Momo knew Mr. Aizawa would take a special interest in it. Would he think she was a coward and hiding? Would he believe she was going to the police about him, and using this as her tool to stay hidden until it was safe to come out again? The anxiety over what he might believe he reasons to be only deepened her sickness, and her mother called the doctor out again that evening. It was Friday, though, and she had the weekend ahead of her to collect herself.

She didn't have the chance.

Her father came to her room, swinging open the door with one arm and standing in the doorway, expectantly. She'd been laying in bed recovering, fever improved and having not vomited since the morning, and the menace in his eyes was unfamiliar.

"Downstairs. Now."

Momo left bed, wrapping a robe around her before following her father. He didn't take her to the living room as she'd expected, or to the dining room. The fine hair on the nape of her neck stood up as he led her into his office and shut the double doors behind him. Her mother was waiting there already, thin lips pursed together with a tissue poking out of one closed hand. Her eyes were red from crying.

"What's going on?" Momo asked, glancing between them as her father shut the door.

"Sit."

She did as she was told. Her father was not a warm man, but this coldness was far from his normal tone. Had someone died? She could not imagine her father behaving this way in the face of a loss. He turned his back on her to open the cabinet, displaying his television. It took only a few seconds for him to seat himself in the chair across from her again, then press the button on the remote — but each second dragged. She felt the passage of time like oil slowly trickling its path down her skin. Her last thoughts, before the screen flickered on and her father hit play, went to Mr. Aizawa, and whether he was being proactive about levying his threat against her family.

It was color security footage, that was the first thing she noticed. The second was that it was from a dance club. It took her until its third play through to realize its significance. Her throat swelled and her tongue felt thick as she recognized herself in the bottom corner of the footage, with Mr. Aizawa in front of her. He was striking on camera — strong jaw, hair pulled back, the scar under his eye in view. Her mouth went dry. Then Momo swallowed a breath instead of exhaling as she watched the few seconds of the clip play repeat again, seeing everything now. His hands poised on either side of her, his knee between her legs. The way he leaned in close to whisper to her, the angle of the camera showing his shirt was unbuttoned but not catching his tattoos.

"You've been getting home from school later and later, Momo," her mother whispered.

Her head snapped to look at her mother, unable to hide the horror on her face. She was helpless to do anything except stare at her parents, slack jawed, as the immensity of the insinuation sunk in.

"That is not what it looks like," she balked as she pulled her wits back together, finding her voice at last. There was a sour taste in her mouth. Momo's eyes darted back to the video, watching it run through again.

"Is that your teacher?" her father asked.

"Father—"

"Is that your teacher!"

He rose from his seat as he bellowed the words, his cheeks reddening with rage and spittle shining on his lips. She flinched under the force of his anger, lips trembling.

"Yes, but—"

"How dare you! You compromise your reputation, your family's reputation — do you understand what this could do to us!" he shouted. Momo jumped when he slammed a closed fist on the table. "An affair with your teacher?!"

"Father, I'm not—"

His voice came out in a hiss now. "And you haven't even the decency to be private! You are underage and you met with him in a nightclub! In public for all to see! Where anyone can recognize you — both of you!" She opened her mouth to interject again, but he held up a hand, cutting her off. "This was delivered to the house today with a letter demanding a sum of one hundred million yen for it not to be released, Momo."

The gravity of the situation struck her hard, and she covered her mouth to stifle a sob. Was this Mr. Aizawa's doing? She couldn't imagine what he could gain from sending her family this video that would be worth putting his own reputation at stake like this, but he was more of a snake than she'd ever previously imagined and she couldn't dismiss the possibility.

"There are two options, Momo, to protect our reputations and honor," her mother said, wringing a tissue between her fingers. "We either pay the money as demanded, or your teacher must agree to marry you."

"What!"

That snapped her out of her horrified shock. She shoved herself away from the table, rising, vehemently shaking her head.

"I absolutely will not," she refused, "and you aren't letting me speak! Father, I am not having an affair with my teacher!"

He pushed to his feet, too, jabbing a finger in the direction of the television. "Then explain yourself! What were you doing there with him like that?"

But she couldn't. To tell them meant to reveal what she had learned about Mr. Aizawa, and she wasn't naive. There were two stories: in one, she was a student stalking her teacher to learn that he, a Pro Hero, was a Yakuza oyabun. In the second, she had been caught in a clandestine student-teacher affair. Even if she told them the truth, she knew which they would be more inclined to believe.

Her father crossed to the cabinets, slamming them shut again with a curse before turning to face her.

"I will pay what they demand," he breathed. "But you are not returning to UA."