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Describing the atmosphere as ‘tense’ was an even worse understatement than saying it was ‘kinda bad’ that Bakugou had gotten kidnapped from right under their noses. Okay, maybe it was a bit too soon to talk about that like this. The point is, the mood around the big UA conference table was closer to a rubber band that by all logic should’ve snapped half an hour ago than anything else. Because surprise, surprise, Bakugou had just gotten kidnapped from right under their noses.
“Since we’re on the topic of trust, there’s something I’d like to say.”
Oh, whatever Hizashi was going on about was going to be good, Shouta could tell. Either he was going to tell them all his deepest secret or he was going to spill someone else’s. Maybe this meeting wasn’t going to be a complete waste of his time, then.
“There’s a traitor among us, isn’t there?”
_Nevermind_. Aizawa no longer wanted secrets to be spilled.
“Only the teachers and the Pussycats knew where the training camp would be held! One of us had to have told the Villains!”
Yeah, in retrospect that hadn’t been planned all that well, had it? His savior came in the form of none other than Snipe. Shouta knew he should’ve married the cowboy instead of the DJ.
“That’s precisely what the traitor would say.”
Hizashi gasped, utterly aghast at the mere suggestion he could be said traitor.
“No, it’s not! Why should I plant the idea of a traitor existing in your heads if it’s me? That would only make things harder for myself.”
“Spoken like a true traitor.” Woah, out of everyone he hadn’t expected Cementoss to be the one to jump on this whole bandwagon.
“What?! No!”
“We see right through you, Zashi. You were trying to sow chaos and distrust between us!” Okay, Nemuri joining in wasn’t surprising at all. She’d always liked to cause as much chaos as possible of her own.
As much fun as it was watching everyone metaphorically dogpile on his glorified alarm clock, Shouta was still a good husband and needed to step it.
“I think we’re focusing on the wrong person here. Why was Snipe so quick to accuse Hizashi?”
Nemuri gaped.
“Because he was trying to redirect the suspicion away from himself!” She spun around in her chair, hair accidentally hitting the visor of Thirteen’s costume. “What’s your defense now?! Who are you going to accuse instead?”
“Oh, just pick a side already! Is it Mic or Snipe now?” Vlad was glaring at her and at his impatient outcry several of the others nodded.
“Why’re you so eager to label everyone as a traitor? To divert attention away from you?” Hound Dog was now also glaring at her, which made Shouta feel kind of bad for her. Being stared down by Vlad or Hound Dog was scary enough, but to have both of them focus their gazes on you? He shuddered at the mere thought.
“If that were the case, I’d shut the hell up and let everyone else do the accusing! I wouldn’t try to turn into the center of attention. I’d do it just like Power Loader does, sitting there quietly and waiting for the rest to tear each other apart.”
Power Loader raised his thermos flask and, without so much as blinking, said: “Yep, it’s me.”
Hizashi eagerly pointed at him, like a little school kid that just saw a bug fly past. Well, maybe not a bug in Hizashi’s case. “See? I told you it wasn’t me and now he just admitted to being the traitor!”
“He was obviously being sarcastic, you oversized cockatoo.” Seemed like Vlad was still convinced it was Hizashi. Sure, it was fun watching him be wrong, but he also just insulted Shouta’s husband.
“Hey, nobody disrespects my husband while I’m in the room. You’re pretty suspicious yourself, you know. First, you put pressure on Nemuri, and now on Hizashi.”
“Your Quirk is also pretty similar to that of one of the Villains. Are we sure you’re not secretly related?” Ectoplasm sounded way too proud of themselves for doing nothing but repeating one of Todoroki’s many theories in a close enough vicinity that other people were forced to listen to it.
“Guys, guys,” Thirteen gestured around and everyone shut up, “stop fighting, please. It was me.”
They might’ve been trying to say something else, but were effectively shut up by the rest of the staff yelling ‘no’ and several variations of that. Thirteen was many things, but certainly not a traitor and as much as Aizawa appreciated someone trying to take a bullet for him, (he’d wanted to say metaphorical bullet, but looking at the way Snipe’s hands were ever so slowly making their way towards his guns, he wasn’t too sure about that point anymore) it wasn’t going to be Thirteen.
“Nedzu has been awfully quiet too. He’s so smart, shouldn’t he have figured out who the traitor is by now?” Most of the others glared at Cementoss, but honestly? He was right. Aizawa was honestly shocked Nedzu hadn’t yet called him to his office to tell him how disappointed he was. Or hired a hitman to take him out. Fuck, he hoped he hadn’t hired a hitman to take him out.
“Believe me, if I were the traitor none of you would ever find out.”
Aizawa didn’t doubt that.
There was silence after that, everyone seemingly having run out of possible reasons to accuse anyone else. At least for a few moments.
“And what about All Might?” Nemuri really wanted everyone to secretly despise her, huh?
All Might coughed up blood as his reply. That was a great party trick to get out of conversations he didn’t want to have, Aizawa now realized. Maybe he should try to find a way to mimic that?
“He’s the Number One! Our Symbol of Peace! You can’t seriously think he’s our traitor.” Ectoplasm was the one to say what everyone else had been thinking. Well, probably. Aizawa knew he was too focused on artificially coughing up blood, so he assumed some others were also thinking about something else.
“But that would be the perfect cover! Nobody would ever expect it!” Oh great, his husband had officially turned into an All Might hater.
“He could be in charge of the Underground and get all the civilians on his side by being himself! For all we know, All Might could already be ruling the world from the shadows.” Snipe was just going to steal the plot of some comic then, alright.
“That is quite unheroic of you to suggest.” All Might sounded like he honestly couldn’t believe it had come to this. That was fair, Shouta figured.
“Okay, okay, I’m getting sick of this. Everyone points to the person they think is the traitor on three.” As much as Shouta loved his husband, this was ridiculous.
“That’s ridiculous. This whole thing is ridiculous,” while he agreed with Ectoplasm there, Shouta didn’t know where they were going with this and it worried him, “there’s nothing any of you can do to stop the plan, so I might as well come clean now, I owe you that much. It was me, I’m the traitor.”
What.
“No, you’re not!” Thirteen rarely yelled at any of them, so hearing their voice echo through the room was more than a little shocking. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s me.”
“You can’t be!” In contrast to them, hearing Nemuri yell was about as unusual as blinking. “It’s me! I’m the Villain you’ve been looking for!”
Multiple people told her to stop saying things like that to get everyone’s attention, and also, they were actually the traitor.
“Well, this is getting us nowhere.”
Power Loader took a long sip of whatever he was carrying around in his thermos before continuing.
“Everyone who’s not a traitor, raise your hand.”
Nobody moved.
“Alright, now everyone who is a traitor, raise your hand.”
Like a class of overeager elementary schoolers who have just been asked to talk about their favorite hobby, every single one of them raised their hand (or, in one case, paw).
Well.
At least Aizawa didn’t have to worry about being found out anymore?