Khan took a breath and let it out slow.
"Grief isn't fair," he said. "It doesn't ask permission. It doesn't check your schedule. And it sure as hell doesn't care if you're training to be heroes."
Aizawa shifted his weight.
"You're allowed to hurt," Khan said. "You're allowed to miss him. You're allowed to be pissed at the world."
He tapped the desk with two fingers.
"You're not allowed to destroy yourselves in his name."
Khan glanced toward the back of the room, where the door waited.
"There's one more thing we need to talk about," he said. "And I won't dress it up."
The air changed. Students looked up.
"Administration made a decision," Khan said. "Starting this week."
A few murmurs broke out. Aizawa lifted his head.
"Midoriya Izuku will be transferring into Class 1-A."
The room reacted all at once.
Chairs scraped. Someone swore. Someone else sucked in a sharp breath. Uraraka's head snapped up. Todoroki turned fully now. Bakugo barked a laugh that had no humor in it.
Khan raised a hand.
"I know," he said. "I know what this looks like."
Bakugo stood halfway out of his seat. "You serious."
Aizawa's voice cut in. "Sit down."
Bakugo stayed standing. His eyes burned.
Khan looked right at him.
"You're thinking replacement," Khan said. "You're thinking someone's being slotted into an empty chair and told to smile."
Bakugo's teeth ground. He sat, hard.
"That's not what this is," Khan said. "And it's okay if it feels that way anyway."
A few students exchanged looks.
"Midoriya didn't take anything from Iida," Khan said. "He didn't ask for this timing. He didn't earn it through tragedy."
He paused.
"And he's not walking in here whole."
That caught them.
"He watched this happen from the outside," Khan continued. "He watched friends get hurt. He watched a class he wanted to be part of bleed. And he's been carrying that in silence."
Khan let that sink.
"Some of you will want to protect him," he said. "Some of you will want to freeze him out. Some of you will want to pretend this is fine and move on."
He shrugged.
"All of that is human."
He stepped back to the desk and rested a hand on it.
"What I'm asking," Khan said, "is that you don't make him the symbol of something he didn't cause."
Bakugo snorted. "Easy for you to say."
Khan nodded. "Yeah. It is."
That threw Bakugo off just enough to shut him up.
"I'm not here to tell you to bond," Khan said. "I'm not here to tell you to smile and clap and call it healing."
A few students relaxed at that.
"I am here to tell you this," Khan went on. "If you turn on each other now, you're doing the villains' work for them."
Silence.
"Iida believed in this class," Khan said. "He believed in structure. In unity. In holding the line even when it sucked."
He looked at the empty desk again.
"If you want to honor that," Khan said, "then you show up. You train. You let the room be uncomfortable without setting it on fire."
Uraraka swallowed hard.
"Midoriya will join you," Khan said. "He'll take the open seat. And yeah, that's going to feel wrong for a while."
He spread his hands.
"Feelings pass. Habits stick."
Khan straightened and glanced around one last time.
"My door's open," he said. "If you want to talk. If you want to yell. If you want to sit and say nothing."
He met a few eyes, one by one.
"You don't have to be okay today," Khan said. "You just have to keep going."
He stepped back, giving the room back to Aizawa.
Aizawa cleared his throat. "Take five."
Chairs scraped again. Students stood in clusters. Some stayed seated. Some left fast.
Khan moved toward the door, not rushing. As he passed Bakugo, the kid muttered, "This is bullshit."
Khan stopped.
He turned to look at him.
"Yeah," Khan said. "It is."
Bakugo blinked.
Khan didn't wait for a reply. He stepped into the hall and shut the door behind him.
Out there, the noise felt thinner. He sighed and rolled his shoulders.
Khan shut the door behind him and leaned his forehead against the cool metal for a second.
"That brat had protagonist energy," he muttered. "And a brain wired straight to the gas pedal."
Midoriya Izuku. Front line magnet. The kind of kid who stepped into danger first and apologized later for bleeding on the floor. The class would hate him at first. Then they'd watch him throw himself in the way of something ugly and they'd forgive everything. Respect followed that kind of move whether people liked it or not.
Khan couldn't let that happen.
He crossed the empty room and dropped into the chair. Khan leaned back and stared at the ceiling.
If Midoriya threw himself in front of danger at the Forest Training Camp, the class would snap together around him. They would rally. Grief would turn into momentum. That empty desk would stop being a wound and start being a scar. Something survivable.
That couldn't happen.
He needed the opposite. He needed a moment that stuck in their throats. A second where Midoriya chose himself and everyone saw it. Not a grand betrayal. Not something loud. Just hesitation at the wrong time. A pause where heroes weren't supposed to pause.
Fear did better work than anger.
He sighed and rubbed his face. Forest Training was the his only option. Remote location. Media blackout. Students tucked away behind trees and security teams.
Aoyama.
Khan's mouth twisted.
The mole.
Canon had treated him like a confession waiting to happen. A tragic reveal. Tears. Apologies. Redemption arc bullshit.
Khan snorted.
Redemption was expensive. He preferred efficiency.
But the problem wasn't Aoyama. The problem was access.
Forest Training was locked down tighter than most villain hideouts. Only core staff. No counselors. No observers. Nezu and Aizawa guarded that trip like it was their own spine.
If Khan showed up, he'd glow brighter than Aoyama ever did. The only oddity in a controlled list. The only extra body.
Suspicion would crawl fast.
He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.
"How do I get there," he muttered, "without looking like I want to be there."
His fingers tapped against the armrest.
Trauma.
That was the angle.
Class 1-A was still cracked open. They held themselves together with routine and stubborn silence. A counselor embedded on-site made sense. On paper, it looked responsible. Progressive. Caring.
And Nezu loved optics.
Aizawa would hate it. That was fine. Aizawa hated most things that weren't sleep or expelling teenagers.
Khan closed his eyes for a second and ran through the conversation.
Concern. Support. Oversight. He'd keep his tone clean. Let them talk themselves into it.
Still risky.
Very risky.
He bit his nails, then stopped and laughed under his breath.
"Or," he said quietly, "I skip all that and flip the table."
If Aoyama was outed right after the camp, the entire setup changed.
Khan's smile crept in.
Time to kill Aoyama.
Not with knives. With truth placed in the wrong hands at the right moment. The kind that burned everything it touched.
He stood and stretched, joints popping, then grabbed his jacket.
Nezu's office lights were still on.
Perfect.
**-**
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