Aizawa is supposed to be worried for Arata, really. Just a night ago, she got roughed up, driven to the brink of desperation. She barely escaped from that horrid incident with her life intact, almost decapitating the offender in the process.
However, here he is, arms crossed in front of his chest and a dark glare set at his laptop screen. More specifically, at Arata. She is sitting on the bed, kneading a pillow with her hands, her green eyes flickering in something akin to regret.
He suppresses a grumble from coming out. "Kid, you don't need to apologize for that. You feel guilty for it, I can understand that. But, why would you apologize for doing all you could to survive?"
Considering how the situation went down, I wouldn't even be mad if she took it further.
Wait, is this an appropriate thought to have as a teacher and a pro hero? Aizawa shakes his doubts off right away. Oh well, getting into a job doesn't mean one conforms to all the idealisms it entails. People draw their lines differently.
"What I did to the villain—"
"Was severe," Aizawa continues flatly, leaning to his chair's backrest. "I get it, Arata. You don't have to convince me about it, I have common sense."
Arata visibly winces upon his sarcasm. As if wanting to shield herself from it, she hugs a pillow closer to her chest. From the spot next to her, Todoroki shoots a disapproving look to him.
Were my words a bit harsh? "Arata, I—"
"I keep feeling like..." Arata murmurs, nails digging into the soft cushion. "I've done something that I wasn't supposed to... How far should I have gone to defend myself?"
The pillow is a stuff so tender, so spongy that if her arms transformed into the praying mantis forelegs right now, it would be shredded in an instant and its fluffy insides would pour out. Pour out, out, out— like the demonic creep in her grasp at that time.
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The hand that had been hitting her was trembling heavily on her shoulder. It once had been so strong. Struck her with a splitting headache each time it smacked her cheek. Crippled her with disgust when it slithered across the fabric of her dress. Drilled a blinding pain into her right arm as it gripped her broken bones.
It once had been so powerful, stripping her of the very last drop of control she had. Now it was so powerless, begging her to release her mandibles from his neck.
"P— Please... I'm... sorry... Please... let me live..."
If you were me, would you? Would you let him go? He, who will suck your lifespan dry for his own survival if an opportunity arises.
The red soaking her was his life essence worth tens of years. She ripped it out of him straight from his shredded jugulars. Sharp teeth sank deeper into his neck. They cut through the tender flesh until it nearly parted with his spinal cord.
I couldn't. I wouldn't.
Her control and survival came in the form of his blood. It wasn't until it leaked from him the situation turned over. Therefore, she wouldn't stop.
Not until he stopped moving. Not until he wasn't a threat to her anymore.
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Arata wishes she could say that she was under the haze of sleeping drug, that she had blacked out and a monster took over her. But, it's not true. Adrenaline was pumping through her like crazy, it had halted the sedatives' effect. She was fully aware of her actions.
"What would other people—heroes—have done in my position? I'm sure they wouldn't have made it into a bloodbath as I did. Tearing his flesh apart, although for the sake of survival, it felt so... wrong."
She could have tried stopping, see if he had really conceded, see if it was enough. She truly could've.
But, what if her mercy brought her downfall? What if he used it against her and the situation reversed?
I couldn't take that chance. There was no room for failure.
"I'd worry more if you didn't feel even the slightest guilt afterwards," Aizawa tells her.
"Am I... even allowed to feel guilty?" Arata sinks her face into the pillow, recalling the throbbing sensation of the demon's pulse against her jaw. The life she almost seized in exchange for her own. "Because... I know if I was faced with the same situation, when it was either him or me, I would do it all again in a heartbeat. I— I wouldn't even think twice. Does it... make me a bad person?"
For a moment, Aizawa stays silent. He lets her devastation seep into their communication line, flowing through it before it drips out from his end.
Arata's question trembles in a way that makes him believe if he was to answer her with a yes, she would crumble in an instant. Even now, she looks like she can come apart any time. The only thing that keeps her together is perhaps Todoroki's presence beside her—quiet, yet ready to take her in if she ever turns to him.
Sighing, Aizawa fixes the headphone's position around his head, then tries his best to answer, "I think it's not the right question to ask. It's true that as a hero, you must learn to keep the damages to minimum..." Not going straight for the kill.
Had the stakes been lower, he would've reproached her for her actions and drilled the correct practice into her.
However, based on what he heard from All Might, he doesn't think that Arata could hold the demonic villain off any other way. Hell, he gave both Kirishima and Todoroki a hard time. The villain was too powerful, too tough for her to contain without risking everything.
"... But, in this case, what you did was your only choice other than giving up. It was neither 'bad' nor 'good'. You did what you needed to, as simple as that."
"Although I...?"
There was a time, when you thought Todoroki was a Shirayuki with an objective to kill you, Aizawa stares at Arata **as his mind digs deeper into the past. Got into a brawl with him on the hospital floor.
For you, Arata, it was your life on the line, but even then, you didn't raise your mantis foreleg against him. The only quirk that I deactivated that day was Todoroki's.
If said circumstance hadn't managed to corner you into using quirk, I can't imagine how desperate you were when you decided to bite the demonic villain's head off.
How much pain have you endured before you transformed into a praying mantis? How much of yourself have you thrown away for that?
"Arata, you have to know." Aizawa hopes the weight of his words can transcend this video call, because she ought to understand. "Under no circumstances I'd ask you to roll over obediently and let him do whatever he wanted to you."
Before we are heroes, we are human beings first. I won't pretend I don't understand the primal instinct to stay alive. Self-preservation is in human nature. It will be hypocritical to blame her for it.
"'Roll over'?" Todoroki quirks an eyebrow at him. "Ara is not a dog. Why would she do that?"
It's a figure of speech, Aizawa clicks his tongue in annoyance, not for literal interpretation.
Paying his comment no heed, Aizawa says to Arata, "You fought back to defend yourself. You refrained from killing him. For me, that's not exactly great, but it's a start."
"... Aizawa-san?" she squeaks in a small volume, glancing at him timidly.
"What?"
"It's... not that I'm not grateful, but don't you think that you, um... set the bar too low?"
As a matter of fact, it is the bare minimum, Aizawa rolls his eyes and raps his fingertips on his desk, but it will do for now.
Asserting boundary and discipline is indeed imperative. However, well-being is indispensable. Overly focusing on the former could give her the wrong idea.
"Then, it shouldn't be difficult for you not to bite your next opponent's head off. Copy that, Arata?"
There's a grain of truth in his words. Still, it's not magic. It doesn't fix everything in a blink. Nonetheless, she now grasps where he is standing on among all this. Be conflicted as she may, it should sort of clear her thoughts.
"Copy, Aizawa-san."
After staying quiet for a while, Todoroki speaks up, "Does this mean our interview with I-Island's police tomorrow will go without a hitch?"
Aizawa supposes it can be translated as: "Will the notoriety of Arata's biological mother, Hanakiri, complicate the investigation again?"
Reassurance might be the one thing these kids need right now. That being said, it's not like Aizawa to downplay the truth. He shrugs and sips his lukewarm coffee from the cup in his hand, then tells them his honest opinion, "Can't say. I don't know."
The fact is: sometimes a level of force is necessary in self-defense. Any more than that, and the defendant is in danger of facing a lawful penalty themself.
The question is: does the force Arata exerted count as more than reasonably necessary?
While he gives her the benefit of the doubt, people looking from a different viewpoint will still be there. The police have started looking into this case, yet there's no telling their opinion on this and what assumption they are cooking up in the background due to the lack of communication.
Not to mention, the line between "necessary" and "excessive" in self-defense is very blurry. It's near impossible to prove or define. In Arata's case, the result might vary from "not guilty" to "attempted murder". It entirely depends on how I-Island's law enforcement observes her situation.
"Should we be worried?"
Aizawa thinks it's a bit funny that Todoroki phrases his sentence with "we", not "she" despite the one in predicament is only Arata, not both of them. "All Might will accompany you in this. Leave it to him."
He doesn't know how All Might is going to pull it off. Aizawa himself can't do anything, save for placing his trust in the Symbol of Peace. There's one point these kids should realize, though.
"Arata, cooperate with them. Don't let I-Island's police transfer this case to Japan's." Aizawa hasn't forgotten the troubles they stumbled upon during Arata's investigation in the hospital. The last thing they want is deal with another prejudice like that. "You have a bigger chance in I-Island. Hanakiri's reputation doesn't make as many waves globally as it does in Japan."