CHAPTER WARNINGS: Mentions of past sexual harassment attempts via Mineta, cursing, mentions of child abuse.

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"Disgusting extra! You can go die!"

That was the first thing Shoto heard when he walked into class that morning.

Which, yeah, was typical of Bakugou on a relatively normal day, but it's what caused the vulgar choice of words that made Shoto pause in the doorway.

Mineta was strung up from the ceiling by what seemed to be Sero's tape, his whole body cocooned save for his head, which allowed him to breathe.

Then, there was Yaoyorozu on the other side of the room holding her arms over her chest in what looked to be a way of protecting herself.

Ah, so Mineta went too far again.

Shoto didn't know why the school didn't just expell him already. Yeah, he was a good fighter in theory, but perving on your female classmates and trying to peek on them through holes in the locker room should be reason enough to get kicked out of school.

Shaking off his momentary surprise, Shoto approached where Yaoyorozu stood and placed a hand on her shoulder lightly.

"Are you alright?" He asked.

She nodded, sighing and lowering her arms.

"Yes, I am. It isn't the first time he's tried to do this."

Shoto furrowed his eyebrows.

"Shouldn't you tell someone, then? If he's been trying to touch you before, it should be brought to attention. I'm sure the teachers would do something."

Yaoyorozu shuffled uncomfortably.

"I- I'll think about it."

Shoto didn't get to retort, because as soon as he went to, Mr. Aizawa was walking into the classroom.

"Alright, problem children, get in your seats, and get Mineta down from the ceiling, please." He droned tiredly.

Everyone went to their seats as Ashido used a quick spurt of hot acid to cut Mineta down and letting him fall to the floor.

After Mineta was cut from the cocoon of tape and sat in his seat, class began.

"Alright, today we'll be taking a different approach with the lesson. Every year, both of the Hero Course classes have a project that lasts about a week, and the subject changes each time to avoid cheating. This year, you and Class B will do a paper, diagram, whichever you prefer, on a What If? situation."

He shuffled a few papers at his podium at the front of the room, seemingly looking for something.

"The prompt you're given is 'If you were to turn to Villainy, what would your reasoning be, and why?' now, this prompt has been chosen because of what happened during the training camp. If any of you were to resort to being a villain for any reason, us teachers and Hero's would need to know so we could try and get you back on our side. Your reasoning could be from personal experience, morals, ambitions, anything. They'll be presented to the entire class at the end of the week and then turned in."

From the back of the room, Iida raised his hand.

"Sir, if we're all Hero students, why would we have any reason to turn to Villainy? We've already chosen our goals."

Aizawa regarded him with a nod.

"As I said, it could be for any reason, and this is all hypothetical. We're not saying any of you are going to, but just in case it does, we'd need to know your reasoning to pull you back."

Shoto contemplated from his seat in the back of the class.

What would his reasoning be?

Then, he thought about it.

Cold blue eyes and burning flames, large hands tossing him around the dojo, vomit on the hardwood floors from overexertion, boiling water being poured on his face-

Shoto snapped himself out of those thoughts. Now was not the time, not in the middle of class.

Willing himself to continue paying attention, Shoto shook the small feeling of panic away.

"Now," he heard Aizawa say when he turned back in to the class. "Some simple rules for this assignment are: you cannot copy off of another classmate, this is an independent project. You cannot refuse to do the assignment, it's being graded, and your reasoning has to be solid. If any of you are having trouble, you can come to me, but I am not going to do it for you. Any questions?"

Midoriya raised his hand.

"Do we have to go into detail with our reasoning?"

Aizawa nodded. "Yes, don't spare any details. If there's something you're not comfortable with sharing, however, you can come to me and we'll talk about it."

The entire class nodded.

"Alright, now that that's done with, let's get started for today." And then Aizawa turned to the chalk board.

~~~

All classes ended for the day, so the students headed back to the dorms for some well needed rest for the week ahead of them.

Shoto kneeled on the floor Infront of the short desk in his room, looking over the blank sheet of paper below him.

He had decided he was going to do an essay for the project, but the problem was that he had no idea how to start.

He didn't want to reveal his rather terrible home life to his entire class, he had already revealed too much to Midoriya at the Sports Festival, and it wasn't even half of what truly went on with Endeavor.

He didn't want them to know, he didn't want Aizawa to know, he'd rather keep it to himself.

So, yeah, he was having a bit of trouble with this assignment.

He was sure his other classmates were having similar problems with thinking about what they wanted to write about, but surely nothing this personal and touchy.

He tapped his pan against his bottom lip lightly.

Maybe, he could just not do it and risk a bad grade? No, Endeavor would be angry. He'd been getting angry at Shoto for almost everything lately.

Maybe he just needed to take a walk.

Deciding that he could work on the paper later -he had the whole week- Shoto got up off of the floor and left his room.

Making his way down the elevator and to the common room, he spotted a handful of his classmates on the couch in front of the TV.

He rose a quizzical brow, but shrugged and began to make his way out.

"Todoroki! Where you going?"

Shoto paused at the sound of Midoriya calling out to him, turning and meeting his eyes.

"Ooo, are you going on a date?" Ashido cooed in a teasing manner.

From the couch, where Bakugou was sat, the blonde scoffed 

"Dressed like that, he couldn't go out to dinner with a bird, much less go on a date. Don't be fucking stupid, racoons eyes."

Ashido pouted slightly from where she was, sticking her tongue out at him.

Shoto looked down at the long sleeved shirt and sweat pants he was dressed in, not caring what he looked like if he was just going on a walk around outside the dorms.

He shook his head, choosing not to respond to Bakugou, and instead turning to Midoriya.

"No, I'm going on a walk, clearing my head."

Midoriya furrowed his eyebrows.

"Everything okay?" He asked.

Shoto nodded.

"Yes."

'Liar.' he thought bitterly.

"I'm just having a bit of trouble with the assignment, I'm okay." He gave a small, reassuring smile to his green haired friend, before turning and walking off and out of the dorms.

He made his way down the pavement, hands in the pockets of his sweats as he contemplated.

If only there was a way to get out of the assignment entirely.

Maybe he could talk to Aizawa? Obviously, he wouldn't tell him the whole truth as to why he couldn't write the paper, but his teacher wouldn't know that, right?

Deciding he'd talk to Aizawa, Shoto headed to the school where he was bound to find him.

As he walked the distance and came up to the large building, he trudged inside, ignoring the questioning looks from teachers in the hallway who were still there grading papers.

Once he made his way to the 1A classroom, he carefully slid open the door and spotted Aizawa at the podium.

His teacher looked up at him when he entered, a questioning expression on his face.

”Todoroki, what do you need? It’s after school hours, you should be at the dorms.”

Shoto tried not to fidget in the doorway. He could do this.

"I was just wondering if I could talk to you about the project?"

Aizawa furrowed his brows but nodded nonetheless, gesturing for him to stand on the other side of the podium.

As he stood in place, stiff as a board with anxiety, Shoto spoke.

"I just- the subject I thought about writing about is very personal, and not something I'm comfortable sharing with anyone, so I was thinking that maybe I could just make something up? I'm never going to become a villain, I've sworn that, so I just thought-"

His teacher held up a hand to pause him from talking.

"If it's not something you're comfortable with telling anyone, we can work around that, but I can't have you or anyone lying on a school assignment just to avoid it completely. Is there anything else you could think of as a replacement that isn't made up? Maybe a goal you think you'd have?"

Shoto thought back to this morning with Mineta and Yaoyorozu, and how he had thought that it was irresponsible for Hero's and teachers to allow someone who blatantly and openly perved on fellow classmates into the Hero Program.

Then, he thought back to Endeavor. Someone who was publicly rude to fans and other Hero's, someone who beat and hurt his family for years and just wanted to sweep it under the rug like he hadn't destroyed them, like he hadn't practically killed them.

Endeavor didn't deserve to be a Hero, Mineta didn't deserve be to be a Hero. No one who willingly commits such vile acts deserves to be called a Hero.

Shoto thought back to Stain, his beliefs.

Maybe he was onto something.

The young boy felt something inside him crack just ever so slightly as he looked up at his teacher.

Well, guess he had another motivation now.

Meeting Aizawa's eyes, Shoto nodded.

"I think I have an idea as to what it could be."

He wordlessly turned to walk out of the classroom, stalking down the halls in a daze as he stared at the floor, the crack inside of him steadily and slowly growing.

~~~

Inside the League of Villains hideout, a dark figure is crouched Infront of a laptop on the ground, replaying a section of the video they were watching over and over again.

"It's yours! Your Quirk, not his!" A voice from the video shouted.

The video panned to Shoto Todoroki on the screen, and the figure paused it on his sorrowful expression.

Blue eyes narrowed in the dim light, purple scars stretching with the movement.

Then, they closed the laptop and were encased in complete darkness.

A sigh resonated through the inky nothingness.

"Damn brat, you should've realized it sooner."