As much as like shit Aizawa felt, he was glad that All Might still looked fucking worse.
All Might walked across the yard, finally taking his hands from his pockets, shoulders hunched. He was wearing a suit that fit, but even from here Aizawa could see the hollows under the Number One Hero's eyes were darker than ever. Retirement wasn't doing him any favors, and he didn't fucking deserve any anyway.
All Might didn't even deserve this moment, and Aizawa knew it was only by virtue of the lingering vestiges of his fame that All Might had gotten this: a one-on-one, face-to-face without a pane of plexi and telephone cord separating them. Aizawa knew he still could've declined to see him, but he knew the nasty, smug feeling he'd get from letting All Might see him now — see him for who he really was — would make him smile, even years down the road.
He at last looked like the convict he was. Prison barbers had cut his hair short and they made him shave every day. But his tattoos were out in their full glory, and Aizawa was ashamed of nothing. He had earned every inch of ink. And, as All Might came close, that's where the Hero's eyes went and stayed. They were Aizawa's testimony to what he'd done through his life, and who he was when the lights went down.
He didn't know what was happening in his syndicate, although he could make assumptions about the inevitable power struggle that would occur in the vacuum he'd left with his absence. He didn't know what was happening to Momo either — whether anyone was suspicious of her. And he couldn't reach out to ask, or that single act would shine a light on her and raise rightful questions about her involvement. No. It was better that his wonderings went unanswered.
Across from him, All Might made his singular demand: "Tell me why."
"Why what?"
"Why would you do this."
"You say that," Aizawa drawled, "as though I am the worst thing to happen to Hero society."
"There is nothing worse than a Hero who uses their privilege to take advantage of the system."
It shouldn't have surprised or pissed him off as much as it did to hear All Might — fucking All Might — make a statement like that, but it did. He couldn't stop himself. When he looked at All Might, in his good suit and cheap wristwatch, he saw the same buffoon who had been so insufferable to work alongside. Self-absorbed. Shallow. All Might stood before him as the epitome of all that needed to be erased.
"That's fucking rich coming from you," Aizawa said as he motioned to the corrections officer lingering back, acting like he wasn't listening. The man gave him a cigarette and lit it.
"You've got two left for today," the officer said as Aizawa inhaled deep on the cig. Across from him, All Might glared openly.
"I have never taken advantage of my Hero status—"
Fuck him. Aizawa looked him dead in the eyes and blew a smoke ring at him, cutting him off.
"You sure about that? What are you doing here exactly? You don't have a license anymore, All Might. I guess professional courtesy still gets the 'Number One Hero' pretty far.
"Let's not forget that it's all that kept you afloat at UA. You constantly used your three hours as All Might to UA's detriment, missing classes and burning out even though you made commitments to the school."
Aizawa paused to smoke and, when All Might didn't try to cut in, he knew he had the Hero on the ropes.
"You don't like people talking about how many villains you've maimed over the years, do you? All For One is just the most high profile, but when we look at your stats…You've broken a lot of backs."
"You're accused of murder, Eraser Head. You don't have room to talk."
That was the best he could do?
"You want me to talk about death counts?" Aizawa answered, "Yours is still higher. And that's not including all the people you failed to save."
"You wouldn't know anything about saving people at all. It was pretty convenient that you did stealth work — it really saved any questions of conscience, huh?" All Might accused, his face reddening with his building anger while Aizawa stayed cool across from him. "How long have you been a two-timing Yakuza piece of shit? Have you even ever really wanted to save someone?"
Aizawa thought of Momo, trapped and afraid in a freezer of mutilated corpses, and how he hadn't been able to get to her — hadn't been able to save her because of All Might's fight. He remembered, vividly, All Might crashing through the wall near him.
It was a fight that should've never happened anyway. If All Might had done what he'd needed to as a Hero years earlier, All For One wouldn't have had a second chance. He would've been rotting in Tartarus long before now. If All Might hadn't tried to do it alone, the world never would have come to this precarious and vulnerable place. Momo would never have been in vicinity of that warehouse, and she would still be sleeping through the night now. He would still be sleeping through the night instead of waking in a cold sweat to her terror.
Aizawa's head fell back and rolled on his shoulder as he slanted his eyes at All Might, the ash from the cigarette burning red as he stared.
He could kill him, he realized. All Might had no more fucking quirk left — he was nothing but man now. It'd take seconds to break his neck.
"You owe Hero society everything," All Might whispered.
Aizawa smashed the end of the cigarette into the table, dropping it to the ground, and stood. His eyes measured the distance between them. He made quiet wagers with himself about how close he could get to All Might without spooking him. Then calculating how many steps would be left between them that he'd need to cover before he'd be in distance to kill the bitch. That would be worth life in prison.
"Hero society did nothing for me except turn its back. When I needed it most, I was left empty handed. And I'm not unique. Hero society turns its backs on dozens of people every day."
He was climbing out from the picnic table when All Might whispered, like it was a dirty word, "Yakuza! And you're not some punk just trying to get some quick cash, you're the damn oyabun! Parading around as a Hero. Then to come down on me for not knowing Yaoyorozu was in the building, when you took her hostage at the hospital! Your men kidnapped and assaulted her, and the other girls from your own class! You dared to accuse me of carelessness and bitch me about about how she'll never be the same, but look at what you did to her, Aizawa!"
All Might didn't deserve to speak her name, and Aizawa's anger rooted even deeper, deeper down. All Might had no idea of what had happened between he and Momo over the last several fucking months. He had no idea of the sacrifices made, the money spent, the blood spilt to protect Momo. Chiyo with a bullet lodged in her skull while her loose lips wheezed in his bathtub. Eito's broken jaw sagging to the side. Washing blood from his knuckles before sitting down at his coffee table to clean his gun.
Behind All Might, the corrections officer was paying attention. Aizawa saw him move, repositioning himself and moving his hand down to where his taser and baton hung on his waist. Damn.
"It's okay for you to kill in the name of Heroism, but I do it off the books to protect students and it's a crime," Aizawa accused.
It was the first time he utter any confession within these walls to the crimes he'd committed. All Might's jaw went slack, fisted hands unfurling. The officer was watching closely, but Aizawa knew he had other ways to cut the Number One down at the knees.
"I see it in your fucking face," Aizawa attacked. "You don't like hearing the fucking truth. And I can see you thinking of how bad you want to shut me up. It's always easier to shut them up than to hear them out, isn't it, All Might?
"The last couple months have been shitty for you — and you don't like that you've deserved it. It's a hard pill to swallow when it's one you've earned. It's a hard pill to swallow when you realize that you're part of the problem."
"Why? Why would you do this? Go this far?" All Might demanded, still too shallow to understand. He couldn't even come close. For everything he'd done as a Hero, all he'd tried to do for society, everything that All Might experienced in the world was only skin deep.
"You've never not been able to save someone who mattered, have you?" Aizawa asked, already confident in the answer. "You've never lost anyone you truly cared for, have you . Never lost someone who really mattered because of what Heroes have become. Because if you had , you'd understand. You wouldn't even need to ask." Aizawa waved a hand at All Might in dismissal, and the officer stepped forward. "I'm done talking to you."
