Aoyama sat nervously in the interrogation room. Grimly waiting for them to decide his fate.
At first, he'd naively hoped that after All for One fell, he'd get away scot-free.
But deep down, he knew that wouldn't be the case.
After school one day, some men in black told him to go with them. With the U.A. staff "encouraging" him to go along.
And now, he was here.
He knew his parents were likely here as well. He could only hope they were ok.
Eventually, the door opened, and Izuku and Nezu walked in.
Aoyama looked down. He didn't want to see the look on Izuku's face, not after what he did.
He'd put Midoriya's family in danger. His children, in danger. How furious must he be right now?
"Please, just spare my parents. I beg of you." Aoyama said, completely accepting his fae.
"We're not going to kill you, Mr Aoyama," Nezu said. "In fact, you might be surprised at how lightly you get off."
"Huh?" Aoyama looked up in shock and finally got a look at Izuku and Nezu's expressions.
Nezu had on his typical unnerving smile. While Izuku looked…well it was hard to pin Izuku's expression.
Annoyed? Disappointed? Tired? Undecided? A mix of all of them maybe? Aoyama couldn't tell. But he could tell that while he was definitely not happy, but not nearly as upset as he thought he'd be.
"W-What do you mean?" Aoyama couldn't help but feel a bit hopeful.
"Firstly, while your crimes are significant, we've taken under consideration the fact that YOU personally had little choice in the matter," Izuku said. "It's not really fair to say that you should have just risked you and your family meeting an extremely unfortunate fate."
"But the law is still the law. So normally you'd simply get a reduced sentence and that's that." Nezu said. "However, the thing that's truly working in your favor in this situation, is the tumultuous times we find ourselves in."
"I…don't understand?" Aoyama said.
"Right now society is in a malleable state," Izuku explained. "All Might's retirement has left hero society in a state where any wrong move could cause serious panic. And my war with the M.L.A. has shone a massive light on the topic of quirkism. Now can you see why revealing to the world that a formerly quirkless hero student, made a deal with All for One and ended up as a spy in U.A. and the ONLY reason we found out was because of a little girl, could go poorly for everyone."
Aoyama paled a bit, as he suddenly realized the full impact of what he did, and how it would affect current society.
People would look at him, and view quirkless people as desperate and dangerous. Willing to do whatever it took to gain the power they lacked.
It didn't matter that he was only one person. It only took on bad egg and enough publicity, to make an entire group of people look bad.
It would also reflect very poorly on U.A. and the heroes. How could people trust them, when they couldn't root out a teenage spy? And yet a little girl, whose age wasen't even in the double digits yet, found him out?
Again, the details and nuance of the situation didn't matter. The public would take things at face value, and make their decisions based only on that.
People loved to judge, it's why his family refused to let him stay quirkless.
Taking all of this into account, it's easy to see why they didn't want the public to know about his deeds whatsoever.
But that just begged the question.
"If you don't want people finding out, why not simply, withhold information?" Aoyama asked. "Surely you could find a way to prosecute and sentence me without the public finding out."
"Normally, that's what we'd do," Nezu said. "However, even if we didn't tell the public, going through all that would still expand the number of people who knew the truth. And that increases the risk of a leak. We don't know who might be a spy working for the M.L.A.. And if they get their hands on this information, and reveal it to the public, they can make it look far worse than it actually is."
"And once again, we do have to take into account that your crimes were done with the belief that it was your family or us," Izuku said. "And now that All for One is gone, I sincerely doubt you'll be returning to a life of crime."
"I would never!" Aoyama piqued up, tears pouring from his eyes. "I hated working for that man! Every time I gave him information, I felt like I was selling a piece of my own humanity! If he was only holding my life hostage, I would let him kill me long ago. But I couldn't let him kill my parents. I-"
"You don't need to explain. We know." Izuku said, his expression softening a bit. "None of us believe that you're in any way, a truly villainous person. Just someone put in a terrible situation. Which is why we've deemed it not worth it to try and press any real charges on you."
Aoyama's eyes widened. "S-So…I get to walk free? J-Just like that?"
"Well. Not quite." Nezu said. Causing Aoyama's heart to sink a bit. "You see, while YOU can barely be held responsible, for what you did, your parents on the other hand. Are a very different story."
Aoayam immediately jumped to his parent's defense. "They didn't know that things would turn out like this! They-"
"They met with a crime lord named ALL FOR ONE, and rather they paying him money or anything like that, they offered him a favor with no limitations. And no way to make sure he wouldn't abuse the newly built connection they'd established." Nezu said. "If they thought that was going to end well, they have a legitimate insanity, please. I think we both know your parents aren't crazy. Nor are they THAT stupid. They knew there would be dire consequences with this decision. And they choose to go through with it anyway. This is not something we can overlook."
"In the end, we decided to shift ALL of the blame onto your parents," Izuku said. "You will be portrayed as a victim, whose parents were put under pressure, and attempted to force you to become a spy. But you reported this to the police, and everything was exposed. Your parents will take the fall, and you'll get off practically scot-free."
"That…I…I don't think I'm okay with that." Aoyama admitted. His parents rotting in prison, while he got away? After everything he'd done? The thought made him want to vomit.
"Well, that's unfortunate, because we've already spoken with your parents, and they approved of us going through with this," Nezu said. "Not like their approval was particularly NEEDED but their cooperation is appreciated."
"We're going to do what we can to reduce their sentence. However. That is contingent on you NEVER breathing a word of this to anyone." Izuku told him, speaking far more strictly than Aoyama had ever heard him before. "If this ends up getting revealed to the public because of you, the consequences on you and your family will be far more severe. Is that understood?"
Aoyama knew there wasn't any point in refusing or trying to fight this. All that would do was make things worse. And so with a heavy heart, he nodded.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Aizawa looked at Kurogiri, from behind the glass. As he was strapped to his chair. Sedated he didn't wake up, as scientists crowded around him.
"I don't understand, you were able to restore Midoriya's daughter in no time flat, why can't we fix Shirakumo!?" Present Mic asked, his loud aggressive tone being the exact opposite of his usual laid back demeanor. Making all the scientists around them flinch.
"That's because we collected Kiba's Remnant beforehand. Since we couldn't do the same for Shirakumo, we can't restore him in the same way." Dr Murasuki explained, the only one not intimidated by the obviously pissed-off hero. "Sir, I understand you're not pleased with the rate of our progress, but don't try to tell us how to do our jobs, as if you understand even the slightest bit of what you're talking about."
"Grrrrrrr." That only made Mic angrier, but just as he was about to shout at the doctor, Aizawa cut him off.
"Mic, he's right. If the world's top scientist can't figure out how to do it, then we definitely can't." Aizawa told him, still never taking his eyes off Kurogiri. "...Doctor. How high is fixing Shirakumo on the priority list?"
"Near the top." Dr Murasuki said. "Fortunately for you, Mr Midoriya is very sympathetic to your plight."
"Then that will have to do for now." Aizawa finally turned away and went to leave. "Let's go Mic. There's nothing we can do for now."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Meanwhile, on Angel Island, a bunch of scientists were finishing the final checks, before they did another test.
Meanwhile, the test chamber was a particular item. It looked somewhat like a medieval lance but with no point. Instead, it had a barrel at the end like a gun. The handle was gold, as was the large handguard, but the large barrel was pitch black and split into three segments. This device was EA. The weapon made to bring destruction upon all things equally.
"Alright, are we ready?" Asked one of the scientists. "I'd like to get some sleep before Gamma Lab accidentally unleashes another plague."
"Most of gamma lab died remember?" Said another scientist.
"Oh yeah, what killed them again?" Asked a scientist.
"Zombie virus." Answered another.
"And half the people who escaped the virus got eaten by the trees." Added another scientist. "Anyway, we should be ready to go, sir. Let's hope none of us get sucked into a different dimension again."
"Alright, let's start." Said the lead scientist. "EA test number 378."
After a few buttons were pressed, suddenly, EA suddenly sprung to life.
Red lines started appearing on the black barrel, and it started spinning. Slowly at first, but soon it started going faster, and faster, and faster. Until it was spinning so fast it started whipping upwind around it. Creating a cyclone around the barrel.
VRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
"Everything is stable." Said one of the scientists. "EA firing! NOW!"
EA let off an indescribable noise, as a massive beam of red light exploded out of the barrel.
The beam tore through the roof as if it was never there and rushed up into the sky. Sucking in everything around it. And after it traveled a few miles up into the air, the blast exploded against the fabric of reality itself.
KATHWOOM!
The sky around Angel Island turned red, and the explosion tore a crack into space. Revealing an unfathomable void into a space beyond their dimension.
"WAHOOOOH!" Everyone celebrated, cheering as all their blood, sweat and tears had finally paid off.
"It's done! Oh, finally it's done!" The lead scientist laughed. "Someone call Mr Midoriya! Ea is finally comple-"
BRRRRRRRRRRR!
Suddenly, all the power to the facility shut off. Leaving everyone in the dark, except for the red light coming from the massive hole in the sky.
"Ugh, you got to be kidding me!" The lead scientist swore. "I swear if this is another fucking robot uprising I'm gonna kill everyone in delta lab!"
"Assuming the robots don't get them first." Said another scientist with a sigh.
"Hey, should we be concerned that the giant crack in space and time isn't closing?" Asked another researcher.
"Eh, it should probably close on its own soon." Shrugged another scientist.
"And what do we do if it doesn't?" Asked the researcher.
"Continue to hope that it does." Answered the lead scientist.
Just checking up on some loose threads.
Anyway, please review and have a nice day.