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When the League of Villains first attacks his class, Aoyama does not hunker down behind rubble. He still doesn't raise a hand or laser to any of the villains, but only because there is no need with Todoroki's ice sweeping through the battlefield. In the face of enemies he stands tall, shoulders squared and head raised. Aoyama Yuuga does not hide.
(This is not a world where Yuuga was raised with the luxury of cowardice. Human villains are not so terrible, not when he learned to wire C4 at twelve years of age in case the corpses of alien gods are revived by immortal cultists. He was born a Vidal-Bellerose. Aoyama Yuuga does not hide.)
It means Todoroki has another boy at his side when he questions their attackers, one who listens with naught but fiery determination to the thugs who babble about an inhuman monster meant to kill All-Might. He did not expect it to come so soon, but it is for moments like this that Yuuga wants to be a hero: something tangible and visceral that he can change for the better.
Stepping into the auditorium he is met with a tableau of violence. Blood runs in rivulets and stains the concrete, limbs are forced into unnatural angles, bodies groan and children cower. Todoroki moves to attack the shambling horror holding down Aizawa-sensei, but Aoyama takes in it's empty eyes and lack of initiative and forces down his fear to turn his gaze from the symptom to the true problem.
Halfway through his comment about Eraserhead's tell, Shigaraki is interrupted by a flash of light and searing heat against his cheek.
(The Yuuga of this world knows something most of his class have not yet learned: mercy, just like cowardice, is a luxury.
He may have changed his name but it is still in his bones, in his blood, in the tales he was raised on since birth of a woman who turned battlefields into deathtraps and built her legacy on Cosmic corpses. Genèvieve the Glorious was lethal and brutal and underhanded, because in the face of humanity's godly overlords the Siege-Breaker was a simple mortal armed with only gunpowder, ingenuity, and a grim determination to save her people.
It is a lesson every Vidal-Bellerose is taught: when you are weak compared to the opponents before you and up against impossible odds, viciousness is your only recourse. Survive to be judged for your actions, advised Yuuga's great-aunt. Be dishonorable and cunning and vicious and survive.)
What hits Shigaraki is not the laser charge used in spars and training. It is the full force of a descendent of the only woman who can claim to have tricked and killed two alien gods.
Aoyama watches it happen in slow motion, the villain flinching and mouth opening in a shriek that's cut off by an impact so forceful it dislocates the man's jaw. Flesh bubbles from the heat, sloughing off in bits and pieces to show the stark white of bone underneath, and as he finally cuts off his quirk Yuuga can't tell if the nausea in his stomach is more backlash or reaction to what he has just done.
There is a moment of stillness like the whole battlefield is holding it's breath, an eternity and blink of an eye all at once, before mist is enveloping Shigaraki with the Nomu and a frantic Kurogiri following suit. As soon as it registers that they're gone, that he's safe, Yuuga is doubling over with his hands clutching at his stomach. There is bile in his mouth he doesn't bother to try and stop from spilling out, the ache of his quirk a background symphony as he throws up on the concrete.
It's messy and ugly and Yuuga knows he will probably care later about being seen breaking down like this, but right now it's all he can do to make sure his breakfast doesn't end up on his sneakers. He's glad, in a distant way, that the cacophony of battle was too loud to hear how the villain's flesh must have sizzled and boiled. It's a small mercy, but the little things are all he has right now. An image without sound and clean shoes.
The auditorium doors slamming open jar Aoyama out of his thoughts. All-Might's voice calls out a familiar line, but instead of bringing comfort it makes something feral writhe in the pit of his empty stomach.
Where were you, Yuuga wants to scream. Where were you when Aizawa-sensei's skull was being bashed in, when we were scattered away to be ambushed by violent thugs, when we were bruised and bleeding and terrified where were you?!
And then, mentally said with something closer to a sob than anything else, Where were you with your options to neutralize our enemies without permanent injury. Where were you with your luxury of mercy.
Aoyama never does end up getting an answer. The Number One hero just continues to play at being a teacher (when he bothers to show up at all), letting the target painted in the blood of Aizawa-sensei stain the backs of 1A.
So Yuuga teaches Yaomomo the Vidal-Bellerose family secrets for their most effective weapons, convincing as many classmates as he can to strap a blade made by that same mademoiselle to their thighs. He helps teach knife skills and explosives safety and tries with a desperate fervor to press into the skin of his fellows that they cannot cling to honor.
Because if no one will offer his classmates the luxury of mercy, then it is up to Aoyama to give them the viciousness of his bloodline for a chance to survive.
(Tsuyu cripples Toga Himiko with a dagger through the other girl's foot. Izuku goes for the eyes first when Muscular dares to attack a child. A Nomu drags itself away from Momo with two less limbs alongside a tracker.
But that's a story for a different day. Right now there is only a boy desperate to teach the brutality he once tried to escape, because he refuses to be alone in living long enough to sparkle and shine.)