Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Why are we here again?”

Kaminari glanced down at Sero, his chin in his hands and his legs swinging over the edge of the building. He glumly stared out at the skyline; the night quiet – for now.

Kaminari sighed deeply, “I don’t know, man. It’s one of the big questions isn’t it, why are we here?” Leaning up against the barricades, he tried to make out his classmates running around below. “Why us? I mean, so many of us have been through so much and now we’re all stuck here together and –”

“No, Kaminari, you idiot!” Sero interrupted suddenly, breaking the peace. “Why are we here? We’re on a roof in the middle of the night, and you have a bunch of exposed wires!”

He blinked, “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. What was all that about? Did you think I meant – meaning of life or something…? Are you ok?”

“Fine! Fine, really – just… thinking ‘bout stuff.”

“Do you… want to talk about it?”

“…No, it’s –”

Kaminari froze – his eyes catching the glimmer of a flashlight below, turning on and off.

“– Maybe later,” he finished. “That’s the signal – right?”

“How am I supposed to know? That’s what I was asking you in the first place! I forgot!”

Kaminari hurried back to the wires, “I’m short-circuiting the building!”

“You can’t just stick your hands in there!” Sero hissed, backing away from the electronics that Sato had ripped out for them earlier. “You’ll short-circuit yourself!”

“And that’s why you’re here!” Kaminari grinned, giving him a thumbs up. “See you on the other side!”

And with a shout and a flash – the lights went out.

Kaminari stumbled back from what was once the fuse box, murmuring nonsense with that blank look upon his face.

Sero simply sighed, taping his friend’s arms together and hauling him over to the edge of the building, where they could abseil down.

“This is going to be a long night.”

“This is going to be a long year,” Midoriya muttered to himself, staring up at UA.

The massive, H-shaped building towered before him. The sunlight reflected in the windows. He had to avert his gaze from the blinding light; it was painful to look at. The heat was bound to be stifling in there, with all that glass. Their air conditioning better be good. The gazes from the other students already resting on him were bad enough.

He ducked his head, marching forwards and trying not to catch anyone’s eye.

That’s it – he was inside. Home for the next… who knows how long? Midoriya certainly didn’t.

For Midoriya, was a member of UA’s infamous class 1-A.

In a world of superpowers, also known as Quirks, those who held the greatest strength, rose above the rest and were hailed as heroes, holding back those who used their powers for ulterior motives – the villains. And of course, with rising crime rates, schools were established to raise heroes to fight for society.

But UA was unlike any other hero school. There were three years here, but the first year was the smallest. In the second year, class A and B were both hero classes, with C and D in general studies, etc. But the first year was half that size. Class B was the only hero class, C for general studies, D for support, and E for business. So, where did that leave class A, you might ask?

Class A was the villain class.

One day, some official looked at the data, and decided that most villains started on the road to darkness when they were only teenagers, like Midoriya. And it was only getting worse. There were kids with dangerous Quirks – kids who fell in with the wrong crowd – kids manipulated and turned against the heroes – kids who tried to be the hero themselves, illegally. That official said that, well, they could train more heroes to combat the growing crisis – or they could hit the problem at its source. Find a way to stop people from taking that dark road at all.

UA was a prestigious school. Its entrance exams were tough, and classes just as challenging, but it produced outstanding heroes. If you couldn’t get in for the first year, possibly because you didn’t have a flashy Quirk or the skill to use it yet, you had a chance to enter for the second year, providing you had some outstanding references and grades. You could even transfer from UA’s general studies department, if you proved you had what it takes.

And then UA talked to that official, or group of officials, and said, if we take in a class of delinquents from across the country, we could train them alongside our brightest – with heroic teachers and outstanding resources – and turn them around.

The program was a success. Some of the greatest support tech designers had graduated from UA’s class A. Outstanding underground heroes had been produced, and over-ground ones too. Then let’s not forget businessmen and women who could twist the market around their pinkie finger with the world of experiences they had gained from UA and beyond.

But if you failed class A – that was the end of the road for you. You’d be sent back to whatever hole they pulled you out of. Most often, juvie.

Class A was your last hope.

And Midoriya… he didn’t belong here.

Because in a world of superhumans, Midoriya was the opposite – he didn’t have a Quirk, nothing at all.

Quirkless – useless – pitiful Deku. And here he was, the red bands of class A painted onto his blazer – the large number 18 on his back. One of twenty would-be villains and thugs. Why was he one of them?

Why was he here again?

The room was deadly quiet as he slid the door open. He wasn’t the last to arrive, which he was thankful for. More so when he realised Kacchan hadn’t turned up yet.

He sat down on the desk, which had a new PE kit marked 18 sitting on top. 18 basically seemed to be his new name now. He stared blankly at the front of the room, waiting for the dreadful day to begin.

More arrived, slowly but surely. Each had their own remarkable story to tell, Midoriya was sure. Kacchan arrived eventually too. Midoriya quickly turned away from his furious stare as he stomped across the room and threw himself into the seat in front of him.

17.

Great! Just great.

Of course, Kacchan had to be number 17. Why couldn’t he have been… 1? He always saw himself as number 1 anyway.

I’m going to be the greatest hero this world has ever seen! Blah, blah, blah – stupid Deku – go die in a ditch – blah, blah, blah.

Ha, good luck with that now. You’ll have a black mark on your record for the rest of your life. Even if you do make it into class B next year, the world will always see you for your time in class A. You’ll never be number one.

Never.

The time ticked by. The classroom filled up to the brim, every seat occupied. Midoriya didn’t dare to glance around at his classmates (if he could even call them that). This was nothing more than a prison – at least, that was what it felt like. The trackers strapped around their ankles didn’t help to convince them otherwise.

Midoriya wasn’t the only one who flinched when the door was finally flung open again. Outside, was a man who couldn’t possibly be their teacher, right?

But he waltzed in regardless – long, greasy, black hair, tired eyes and dull clothing; a bright yellow sleeping bag slung over his shoulder and a white scarf around his neck. He let the sleeping bag drop to the floor, the soft thud filling the silence.

“Good morning,” his low, gravelly voice greeted them. “I am Mr Aizawa, your teacher.”

Midoriya felt his sweat drop. For such a tired, done looking man, he radiated a strange intensity. That didn’t stop Midoriya giving him a weird look when he pulled what looked like a… fruit pouch from his desk and ate… drank… most of it whilst staring back at them.

“You all know why you’re here,” he sighed, tossing the empty pouch into the bin beside his desk, which already had a decent number of packages within it, despite this being the first day of class.

Midoriya was tempted to say that, actually no – he didn’t understand why he was here. But that would mean speaking out in front of everyone. He wasn’t ready for that yet – he had to figure out how this classroom worked first.

A prolonged moment of silence reigned over them before Mr Aizawa continued, “You can graduate class A at any time. All you need is my approval, and you will be immediately transferred to class C, general studies. But you have to earn it first.”

Another minute of silence passed as Mr Aizawa looked every one of his students in the eye. Midoriya hated how he lingered on him for a little longer than the others.

“Pick up your PE kit,” the teacher instructed. “I’m taking you down to the changing rooms, then I’ll meet you out on the green.”

Everyone got up with varying enthusiasm. Midoriya could already see who they were from the way they walked. How some seemed to cower and shuffle past; how others stood tall, chin raised in defiance, as if saying that this place had no hope in changing them, or perhaps that it was an honour to be considered bad enough to get here; whilst the rest didn’t seem that bothered, like they knew they’d end up here anyway.

Mr Aizawa followed them from behind, calling instructions out to those in the lead as to which way to go. They’d all individually been toured around the buildings and facilities anyway; that’s why they all arrived at different times. Midoriya hadn’t been listening or paying attention though. He had been too lost in his own thoughts. Now it looked like he’d get lost in this maze of a school too.

With orders to meet him past the door on the other end of the changing rooms, Mr Aizawa left them to it, allowing the boys and girls to separate into their respective rooms, and wandering off. Midoriya got changed as quickly as possible, not wanting to be shut in this situation for a second longer than necessary.

He just needed to make it through to graduation – however… long that ended up being. Maybe Mr Aizawa would soon see there had been a mistake and let him transfer to general studies! Yeah, he could seem himself there – sure, why not…?

Damn it, Kacchan – this is all your fault.

Whilst Midoriya scampered towards the exit, he walked straight into terrifying-looking number 11. He glared down at him over the top of his blue mask, and a third eye appeared on his tentacle-like hands.

Midoriya just laughed nervously and backed away, giving him a wide berth as he made his way towards the door.

“Aren’t you going to get changed, 15?!” someone suddenly called out. The loud noise made Midoriya jump. He turned around to see bespectacled number 4 waving his arms at this number 15.

Midoriya met eyes with 15, and his blood ran cold.

“There are no cameras here,” he said whilst Midoriya backed out of the door. “I’m not here to make the heroes’ life any easier.”

Midoriya heard nothing more. He marched away, not wanting to get involved, and soon found himself standing by some of the girls, before Mr Aizawa.

His mind wandered back to the changing rooms –

Student 15 – was Shoto Todoroki.

Midoriya used to be a fan of heroes. He knew all about him. Well, even if you weren’t a fan of heroes, you’d still know about Shoto Todoroki, the son of the number two ranked hero, Endeavor.

It was a great scandal. Todoroki was supposedly kidnapped by a scarred villain named Dabi a few years ago. There was massive media coverage over it. When he was finally caught, Dabi slipped through the cracks, and Todoroki had a newfound hatred of heroes – specifically his own father.

Of course, he’d end up at UA. Where else would he go? He wasn’t exactly a murderer like Dabi, but he was still a villain of sorts.

But of course, Midoriya had to end up in his class too. He didn’t ask for this. For God’s sake, it hadn’t even been an hour yet, and this was already a nightmare.

Time went by, and most of the other students arrived. But not Todoroki.

Eventually, Mr Aizawa went to get the missing student himself. And after way longer than necessary, Todoroki seemingly gave up and got dressed, meeting Mr Aizawa outside and walking as slowly as he could over to the rest of them.

“Line up,” Mr Aizawa sighed, and they did just that. “In your number order.”

A confused minute of shuffling later, and Midoriya found himself between a guy half his height who kept ogling at the girl next to him, and Kacchan.

Because the universe just hates him.

“Get used to who you’re standing next to,” the teacher instructed, “Whenever you line up, it will be in this order. Be quicker next time.”

Great.

“There are three reasons for you being here,” said Mr Aizawa, walking up and down the line. “Firstly, your Quirk could be dangerous. Numbers 1, 2, 7, 10 and 14 – we will be working on gaining better control of your abilities. You will graduate when I believe you are no longer a danger to yourself or anyone else.

“Secondly, vigilantism. I know it sounds honourable; I know you believe you were doing the right thing – but it is illegal. In the eyes of the law, you are villains, not heroes. Without training, restraint and skill, you could have caused more problems than you fixed. Numbers 3, 4, 6, 8 and 9 – you will graduate once these messages have truly sunk in.”

He stopped in front of them all, sighing deeply, “That makes ten. The other half of you are here for villainous behaviour. Argue with me all you want – it won’t change a thing.”

Midoriya clenched his fists. That’s what they really thought of him? A villain? That wasn’t right – he didn’t do anything wrong! It was Kacchan who was meant to end up here – not him as well! But it had all backfired so horribly… For all the planning and everything he’d thought through, this was not an eventuality he’d even considered.

“You will graduate when I believe you understand why you ended up here – and when you can see a better path to the future.”

Well then, Midoriya was going to be stuck here forever.

“Reach the end of the school year without my approval to move on, and it’s an automatic fail.”

Midoriya gulped.

“Do I have to explain what that means to you?”

No one answered.

“Good. Every single one of my students graduated last year. Let’s see if you have what it takes.”

And then the dreaded words were uttered – Quirk assessment – and Midoriya knew that this was the beginning of the end for him.

It was bad enough at his old school, Aldera Junior High. It was bound to be worse here, where half of his classmates were basically villains. The second they knew he was Quirkless, it would start all over again.

He’d gone through all that effort into ending it, once and for all, and it had boomeranged right back into his face.

Well, at least Kacchan was here. Not that Midoriya was particularly thankful for the familiar face. It was more because that was Midoriya’s aim. He wanted to get Kacchan into class A. His old friend was going to make an excellent hero, that was for sure, and Midoriya had no doubt that Kacchan would transfer to class B before long. But he needed to learn a little humility before that. He couldn’t be a hero and a tyrant. Kacchan was heading straight towards a life where he’d just be a bigger, crueller, meaner version of his middle school self – a bully with power. Class A would teach him the difference – right? With the added bonus of him likely being unable to make the highest hero ranks.

Of course, Midoriya never planned that he would also be in class A.

“Oh, and I forgot to mention,” Mr Aizawa suddenly said, interrupting them as the first two made their way to the start of the sprint exercise. “Last place in this assessment will get immediate detention.”

There was a murmur of complaint that Midoriya didn’t dare participate in.

“And for you, that means helping class B wash their dishes tonight.”

Mr Aizawa’s terrifying grin made the prospect seem far worse than it probably was. And all of a sudden, Midoriya had a newfound motivation to do well in this test.

But that didn’t stop Kacchan accidently blowing up in Midoriya’s face whilst he used his Quirk for extra speed in the sprint. It certainly didn’t help when he almost burnt through Midoriya’s shoes whilst he was supposed to hold his feet down during a sit-up exercise. And Midoriya was most likely still sitting dead last when, in the eight-hundred metres, Kacchan tripped him up and Midoriya got a face full of concrete.

Midoriya caught Mr Aizawa’s gaze after he stood back up, rubbing the blood off the gash in his cheek with the back of his sleeve before he carried on. Somehow, he still didn’t come last.

“Number 17,” Mr Aizawa called out before they moved onto the ball toss.

“Why don’t you use my damn name?” Kacchan hissed.

“At the moment, you’re not acting like someone that deserves it,” Mr Aizawa droned with no remorse. “Care to explain why you’re treating 18 like this? That’s a nasty cut on his face and don’t think I haven’t noticed all the scorch marks on his clothes.”

Midoriya felt the rest of the class’ eyes on the back of his head. He kept his gaze on Mr Aizawa.

Kacchan simply snarled, “I’m not doing anything he doesn’t deserve.”

Midoriya didn’t say a word – didn’t move a muscle – didn’t avert his eyes.

“I know how the two of you ended up here. Neither of you will be going anywhere until you can find a way to work out these differences. Especially you, 17.”

Well, Midoriya really was going to die here. At least he was taking Kacchan down with him.

“Detention,” Mr Aizawa snapped to Kacchan. “And don’t come last, or else you’ll be doing two days in a row.”

Midoriya was one hundred percent prepared for Kacchan to immediately take it out on him. Since, once again, it was his fault. But the fact that he just clenched his fists, seething in silence and glaring at him from the corner of his eyes, almost made it worse.

The rest of the assessments passed without any problems, which just made Midoriya nervous. Especially when short, purple haired number 19 ended up scoring incredibly high in that side-to-side jumping activity. Midoriya was doomed. He was going to end up in detention with Kacchan. It was even more of a punishment.

“Ok, here are your scores,” Mr Aizawa sighed, and with the touch of a button, the leader board appeared as a hologram before him.

Midoriya winced, preparing himself for the worse, before slowly allowing his eyes to gaze up and find that –

– he wasn’t last?

“15 – detention. Next time, put in a little more effort.”

Todoroki didn’t seem so bothered, but Midoriya was relieved. He wasn’t last! He was third to last! The invisible girl hadn’t done as well as him either! Well, it made sense, considering her Quirk didn’t give her any advantage in these tests. Although Midoriya couldn’t see her, from her clothes, she seemed just a little smaller and weaker than him.

“Number 20, I expected more from you. I won’t let it slide next time. And 19 – I’m watching you.”

Well, that wasn’t ominous at all.

The tall girl with the ponytail (number 20) glared down at 19 (the short, purple boy). Gosh, Midoriya really needed to learn their names.

Mr Aizawa handed a note to Midoriya. “Head up to Recovery Girl and get that scratch fixed up. I assume you know the way.”

Midoriya nodded, even though he didn’t at all.

His teacher turned back to the rest of them. “I need all of you to be trying your hardest if you want a hope in graduating. This is your first warning.”

“What about him?” 19 pointed up at Midoriya, who flinched at the sudden proclamation, “He didn’t even use his Quirk.”

“18 doesn’t have a Quirk.”

Well, that just happened.

“You barely scored higher than him, 19 – I don’t know why you seem so smug about it. You’re on thin ice. 18 put in more effort than most of you. Any bigotry towards someone’s Quirk, or lack of one, will not be tolerated here. Do you understand?”

Midoriya blinked. He… hadn’t expected that.

“I said, do you understand?”

There was a chorus of: “Yes, Sir.” – before they were finally dismissed. Midoriya almost ran back to the changing rooms. He got changed so quickly that most hadn’t even made it inside before he was gone, ready to roam the maze in search of Recovery Girl.

Maybe… this won’t be so bad after all.

But that was only the beginning.

Chapter Text

Kacchan being in detention was a blessing to Midoriya.

At the end of the day, him and Todoroki were escorted out of the class A dorm, Heights Alliance (a pretty name for a place which was essentially a prison), and Midoriya was left in peace.

Prior to which, they were shown around the dorms, given an extensive list of rules (no turning off the lights around student 14; no touching anything marked with a pink number 2; no leaving the dorm after nine –), and allowed to unpack.

Another good thing for Midoriya, was that for once, the numbering system hadn’t been used when assigning rooms. This was likely because of the need to separate the girls from the boys. But Midoriya was simply happy that he wasn’t next to Kacchan.

It wasn’t so great that two out of the five students with dangerous Quirks were on his floor. He had a sign stapled to the back of his door, explaining that if he dared turn off the lights in the corridor at night, student 14’s shadow monster Quirk could lash out and potentially kill them all – oh, and his neighbour, student 1, had a laser in his navel which could leak out at any given notice, have fun with that. And his other neighbour was perverted student 19, who kept trying to talk to him and Midoriya really would rather not encourage that friendship, especially after how he’d called him out on his Quirklessness in front of the entire class.

Midoriya flopped down onto his bed with a sigh. He’d unpacked everything already, from the various boxes that had been brought up to his room earlier in the day. He didn’t bring too much, just the norm – clothing, bathroom necessities, stationary and an array of notebooks. He wasn’t allowed his laptop or phone. He didn’t bring any posters to make his room look a little less drab either. He used to have a lot of hero merchandise, which made his bedroom look like a small shrine. He didn’t bring any of it because, well, it didn’t exist anymore.

A few months ago, he’d sold most of it off and thrown the rest in the trash – ripping the posters angrily off the wall and bringing some of the plaster along with it, but that was the fault of blue-tack. His notebooks used to be full of hero analyses, but he didn’t have the heart for it anymore. He left all thirteen of those at home, including the one with the number one hero’s, All Might’s, signature inside that Kacchan had burned up, on the day it all went wrong. His new notebooks were all completely empty – he supposed he should find something to use them for.

And well, a life full of nothing but analysis directed him towards one thing.

This was why Midoriya picked up the first, empty notebook he could reach, and began his work. Before long, twenty double page spreads were set up – one for each student in his class. Now, he just needed to find the information to fill it up with.

What did he know already…? Well, there was him, Kacchan and Todoroki – those were the only names he could add. Oh, and there was what Mr Aizawa had said – certain numbers being here for dangerous Quirks, some for vigilantism, and the other half for villains. Midoriya didn’t think he had many talents, but even he couldn’t deny that his memory was excellent. Ah, and then they had warnings for each of the dangerous Quirks students…

On the first page, he made a quick contents section:

1. Dangerous Quirk – navel laser
2. Dangerous Quirk – acid – pink girl
3. Vigilante
4. Vigilante – with the glasses
5. Villain
6. Vigilante
7. Dangerous Quirk – electricity
8. Vigilante
9. Vigilante
10. Dangerous Quirk – something to do with sugar?
11. Villain
12. Villain
13. Villain
14. Dangerous Quirk – shadow monster
15. Shoto Todoroki – Villain – ice (and fire?)
16. Villain
17. Katsuki Bakugo (Kacchan) – Villain – explosive sweat
18. Me
19. Villain – short, purple guy
20. Villain – girl with the ponytail

Well… that wasn’t much.

But he wasn’t going to learn anything else by sitting in his room.

Midoriya sighed deeply, shoved his notebook and pen under his pillow, and braved leaving his room.

The dorms were eerily quiet. The solemn atmosphere sent shivers down his spine. Everyone else must have been thinking along the same lines as Midoriya, because when he arrived in the common room, he found it was completely empty. They must have retreated to their rooms immediately and hid away, seeing everyone else as villains and all-round dangerous people.

But the silence was better than a majority of the alternatives Midoriya could think up on the spot, so he wasn’t complaining.

He collapsed onto the nearest sofa for a while. The dorms were nice, considering the situation they were all in.

Everyone acted like ending up in class A was the end of the world. It was made very clear that finding yourself here was not any sort of prize or thing to aim for. Despite the posterchild results from some graduates, a majority don’t end up becoming anything significant. Midoriya would rather be anywhere than here. Perhaps the bad reputation came from the UA Sports Festival…

The event was world renowned. Of course, there were plenty of similar contests in other countries, but UA blazed the trail. Essentially, the hero students duke it out and the world has the chance to watch their heroes in the making display awesome power. Usually it’s the second- and third-years you want to watch – this is where the future heroes make their mark. But the first-year event was a different spectacle all together, and this was because of the inclusion of class 1-A.

With half the number of competitors, the Sports Festival for first-years might seem less interesting, but when a class of the most promising hero students in all of Japan, are pitched against a group of juvenile delinquents, it really did seem like heroes verses villains. Everyone watching cheered and clapped for class B, whilst booing and hissing at the grim-faced members of class A. It was as though you were publicly shamed for ending up there – like a group of clowns who never wanted the job.

Perhaps, if class A weren’t portrayed so badly on television, some desperate individuals would get into trouble on purpose to end up in the class. Afterall, you do get some remarkable opportunities after graduation, namely transferring to UA’s other courses.

If you make it that far.

Midoriya had to get out of here before the Sports Festival. Before the world saw him as the useless, Quirkless, would-be villain that this school seemed to already think he was.

He turned on his side, trying to banish the depressing thoughts from his mind. That was when he came face to face with a large whiteboard, spanning the wall opposite the TV, that separated the abandoned kitchen area from the rest of the common room.

He got up and wandered towards it, picking up the black pen that lay waiting for him. Spread across half of the whiteboard, he wrote down the student numbers, leaving blank spaces at each. By his, Kacchan’s and Todoroki’s numbers, he started writing their full names.

As he was writing his own, he heard footsteps. Hesitating on the kanji, he turned, finding himself facing stern number 4.

He walked right up to him and gazed at the names Midoriya had already added. Nervously, he finished his own writing, before realising number 4’s hand was outstretched to him.

He gave him the pen, and watched as he added his name –

4. Tenya Iida

He knew that name… he just couldn’t pinpoint from where.

Putting the pen back down, Iida held his hand back out to Midoriya, “Tenya Iida, nice to meet you.”

With a gulp, Midoriya took his hand and shook it, “I-Izuku Midoriya – a-and you, too. Nice to meet you, I mean.”

Iida gave him a soft smile and nodded, before turning back to the whiteboard and gazing at the blank spaces. “I see you know two of our classmates already,” he realised.

“O-Oh, no – no, just one other. Kacchan – I-I mean, Bakugo. I’ve known him, well, forever, really. I just recognised Todoroki – student 15 – from the news…”

“Ah, of course. I recognised him too. He doesn’t seem particularly pleased to be here.”

“Well, does anyone?” Midoriya laughed, rubbing his head nervously.

“Hm, I suppose not,” Iida sighed. “But I am thankful I have been given a chance here, at least. I don’t know what would have happened if not.”

Midoriya wavered, he didn’t know if it was a good idea to ask yet, but… “Um, how did you end up here? I-If that’s ok to ask! You don’t have to answer, I’m just… interested.”

“It’s quite alright,” Iida replied, waving his right hand about in a chopping motion. “It’s only natural to be curious. I would bet that everyone here has quite the story to tell.”

Midoriya nervously cast his mind back to his story. No, he still didn’t reckon it warranted sending him here. He supposed he would find out why, eventually.

“Have you… ever heard of the Hero Killer, Stain?” Iida asked.

“Yeah,” Midoriya answered immediately. Two seconds later, his eyes widened with recognition. “Oh – Oh, you’re –”

“Yes,” Iida sighed again, pushing his glasses further up his nose, “that was me. I was foolish; I got what I deserved. Permanent nerve damage in my right hand, and a sentence here, for vigilantism.”

“More noble than me,” Midoriya shrugged. “And… for what it’s worth, I think it was really brave of you, standing up to him for your brother.”

Iida stiffened, and then nodded, “Thank you, but I don’t deserve it. A hero should never act in revenge. But that doesn’t stop… the hatred.”

“Yeah… I get it.”

He cleared his throat, “And you? May I ask why you’re here?”

“Ah, well, you see…”

“Hi there!”

The two boys turned. Before anyone could say anything more, a bubbly girl with a brown, bob haircut swooped in between them, picking the whiteboard pen up off the floor, and adding her name to the list –

5. Ochako Uraraka

“This is a cool idea. Calling everyone by numbers feels so… weird,” she shuddered. “I’m Uraraka! Sorry, did I interrupt…?”

“O-Oh, no, it’s ok!” Midoriya stammered. “I-I’m Midoriya – and this is –”

“Tenya Iida, greetings!” His hand was in that stiff, plank-like position again. Midoriya wondered if that was a result of his nerve damage…

“It’s super nice to meet you!” she grinned.

Student 5… so, not a dangerous Quirk or a vigilante. But… she seemed so nice? Why was she marked as a villain?

“How’s your face?” she suddenly asked.

Midoriya blinked at her for a moment, “My – Oh, you mean the scratch. Yeah, fine – Recovery Girl was nice. She assumed I got into a fight though… she wasn’t incredibly happy about it.”

“Yeah – that 17 guy was so mean!” she huffed.

“Ah, yes – you’re number 18,” Iida realised. “I recall Mr Aizawa mentioning there was an issue of sorts between you and 17… Bakugo?”

Midoriya rubbed his head nervously, “Um, yeah… We’re not the best of friends…”

“Well, I was secretly glad I didn’t end up in detention with him,” nodded Uraraka. “I bet you are too.”

He nodded without hesitation, “You have no idea.”

“Todoroki did not lead a good example of the effort we should be putting into this class!” Iida suddenly snapped, as if he’d been thinking about it all afternoon. “He most certainly deserved his detention.”

“I just don’t think he wants to be here,” Midoriya pointed out.

“Frankly, I don’t believe many of us do wish to be here,” the statement was repeated. But that wasn’t Uraraka – another girl had appeared. She snatched the pen from Uraraka’s hands and scribbled her name down.

20. Momo Yaoyorozu

Ah, it was the girl with the ponytail, that Mr Aizawa had also told off for not trying hard enough.

“Unless any of you are exceptions?” she asked pointedly.

“Not really,” Midoriya replied quickly, not keen to get on her bad side.

She seemed a little less tense after that. Perhaps she was just nervous and didn’t show it well. “Would… any of you like some tea?” It was a rather sudden change in attitude. She went from a menacing, purposely cool sounding person, to someone quite timid and unsure.

“That would… be nice,” Midoriya replied first, despite the fact that he didn’t really feel like having tea at the moment.

Her smile made it worth it though.

“I-I don’t know what’s available!” she admitted, hurrying over to the kitchen area, “But I shall have a look!”

“You know what?” said Uraraka, “Maybe this place won’t be so bad!”

“Kacchan’s not back yet,” Midoriya reminded them bitterly.

“Kacchan?” Iida and Uraraka repeated simultaneously.

“Jinx!” Uraraka yelled.

Iida didn’t understand.

“O-Oh, I mean Bakugo – number 17? Sorry… I’ve just called him that ever since we were little kids. It’s a habit.”

“Aw, that’s sweet!” Uraraka beamed. “I’m going to call him that too!”

“No – no, no. Seriously, he’ll kill you!” Midoriya warned.

There was an evil glint in her eyes, “I’m going to do it!”

“He’ll also kill me but, to be honest, that’s no different than usual…” Midoriya moped.

“I have the tea!” Yaoyorozu called out. “I usually have mine black – does anyone want milk or sugar?”

“It’s fine like this, thank you very much,” Midoriya smiled as politely as possible. She still kind of frightened him, and the nicer he was, the happier she seemed.

“Likewise, thank you!” Iida nodded with a slight bow as he accepted the bland, chipped mug that Yaoyorozu had obviously found in one of the many cupboards.

“Iida!” Uraraka exclaimed after accepting her own tea, “You’re not supposed to speak until I say your name! That’s how jinxes work.”

“But you just did?”

“…Oh, damn it!”

“You all seem so… normal,” Midoriya realised, sitting down on the nearest sofa and staring at his reflection in his tea. “Sorry, but it’s not what I expected.”

The three of them stared at him for a moment.

“Yeah… well…” Uraraka began, “I’m not that normal… I’m here for a reason. And I guess everyone else is too.”

Yaoyorozu simply nodded, and Iida just looked sad.

“I’m… not sure why I’m here,” Midoriya finally admitted. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, but… I still don’t understand.”

“It’s something to do with Kacchan, right?” asked Uraraka.

Midoriya flinched at the nickname, “Yeah… I guess. Maybe he said something about me to someone – I don’t know what. But it’s all I can think of at the moment…”

“Hm…” was all Iida uttered for a minute or so.

“Well, I know why I’m here,” Uraraka admitted, her hands on her hips after she put her mug down on the coffee table. Yaoyorozu put a coaster underneath it that seemingly appeared from nowhere as she spoke. “And to be honest, it’s really not that bad for me? Maybe I’ll get somewhere after all this. Anyway… I might of… um, you see – my family’s not… that well off? We own a construction business; work wasn’t going well… A few machines broke and it all went wrong. I just wanted to help my family and might have resorted to some stuff my parents weren’t too proud of when they found out,” she explained shyly with a slight laugh. “My Quirk lets me float stuff – and myself. So, I, err, could get in and out of places others couldn’t…”

“You’re a thief,” Midoriya realised. “Sorry!” he added quickly, “That was rude, I just –”

She waved the comment off, “Nah, you’re totally right. Might as well admit it! I’m not proud but… I did get enough money to help my parents get the business running properly again! So, there’s always that. Not that they realised at the time where I’d got the money… Thought I’d found some well-paid part-time jobs. Which is technically true!”

“It’s still honourable, in a way,” Midoriya supposed.

“Yeah… thanks.”

“But wrong,” Iida added.

“Oh, yeah – of course… Um, what about you, Iida?”

And so, Iida told his story again. Midoriya didn’t pay quite as much attention now that he knew the details. He focused more on the fact that, slowly but surely, other people had started to arrive. It couldn’t have been long until Kacchan and Todoroki returned from their detention either, right? Class A hadn’t had their dinner yet, but that might have been because they were waiting until the other two came back. Midoriya wasn’t sure how it worked yet.

He sat back and watched as more names were added to the board. Soon, it was almost full, and Midoriya was very glad he’d had the idea.

“Hey! When did everyone come out of their hiding places?!” called out pink-skinned number 2.

“About half an hour ago,” replied Uraraka, allowing Yaoyorozu to refill her cup of tea.

“Aw, man! I should have come down earlier! Oh – I like the board idea, who started that?!”

“That would be Midoriya here!” announced Iida whilst gesturing to him.

Number 2 gave him a grin and a thumbs up, adding her name to the board.

2. Mina Ashido!!!

“Awesome! Is this super exciting or what?!”

“Or… what?!” Midoriya laughed nervously.

“Come on! This place is so cool! I’ve been looking forwards to coming here all year! I gotta say though, that Mr Aizawa is intense!”

“You were looking forwards to coming here?” scoffed number 12, Jiro.

“I agree, it seems rather counterintuitive,” said Yaoyorozu with a hint of her earlier malice.

“Not for me!” Ashido grinned, “For someone with a super tricky, kind of deadly Quirk – this is the best place for me! I don’t know about you lot, but –”

“Yeah, you clearly don’t,” Jiro interrupted, twiddling earphone-jack-like extensions from her ears around her fingers. So, that was her Quirk, huh…?

Ashido put her hands on her hips, “What’s your story then?”

Jiro rolled her eyes, “You eavesdrop on one hero and suddenly you’re a danger to society and need to be locked away or something!”

Midoriya narrowed his eyes, “…What hero?”

“Like I’m telling you. Last time I went around doing that, I ended up here. It’s best to just keep yours and everyone else’s secrets to yourself.”

“…Super hearing Quirk?” Midoriya guessed.

Jiro’s eyes flickered from her earphone-jacks and back to Midoriya. She pulled her hands away from them and tucked them into her hoody, out of sight.

“Oh, you’re Quirkless 18, right?!” Ashido recalled, bounding over to him. “It must be weird, not having any Quirk at all!”

Midoriya gave her a look, “You’re the one who’s pink and corrosive…”

She blinked and then laughed, “Hey, good point!”

“Don’t be rude to Midoriya,” Iida swooped in. “I won’t hesitate to report any Quirkest comments to our teacher!”

“I’m not being rude!”

“Must be weird, not having the ability to control your Quirk at all,” Yaoyorozu suddenly added, sipping her tea nonchalantly.

Ashido stared at her, “W-Well… that’s why I’m here. So… there. What’s your Quirk then? I didn’t see you use it much during the Quirk assessment!”

“Well, wouldn’t you like to know?”

That had gone south awfully quickly. Midoriya was just surprised he’d seemed to make a few friends already – or… maybe allies? People that stood up for him – whatever that meant. It hadn’t really happened before.

So, Iida, Uraraka and Yaoyorozu seemed to tolerate him. Ashido… maybe not so much after that. Maybe not Jiro either. He didn’t know about any of the others milling around. Todoroki seemed to not want to be involved at all, and Kacchan definitely didn’t like Midoriya. Maybe he should write all this down later…

Midoriya wasn’t powerful or any sort of intimidating presence. He hadn’t done anything remarkable or had much of a story to tell. If he wanted to do well here, he couldn’t just slip into the shadows and ignore everyone, desperate to just survive until the end. If he wanted to graduate, he had to actively prove he deserved it. His best course of action was not to gain strength nor academic prowess. He needed to be… social. Mr Aizawa had said that he and Kacchan had to learn to get along if they wanted to graduate. Midoriya knew that wasn’t going to happen, but if he could get everyone else, or at least a majority of them, to vouch for him – be on his side, rather than Kacchan’s, he had a chance. Mr Aizawa would see that he was the victim; he wasn’t a villain; he didn’t belong here.

“How low a pH can you make your acid go, Ashido?” Midoriya asked.

She blinked at him, “Like… how strong?”

“Yeah – what can it do?”

“Oh! Loads of stuff! It can go through plastic, I can melt like, nearly anything I want! It’s hard to control though. That’s why I have to wear this disgusting outfit! It’s so uncomfortable,” she picked at the thick fabric of her long sleeve top and baggy trousers. She wore gloves and covered as much skin as possible. “It couldn’t hurt to have a little more style at least!”

It was in that moment that they heard the front door slam open, crashing against the wall, and footsteps march towards them.

Great, moment of peace, over.

Kacchan came into view, and for once, Midoriya dared to not avert his gaze. He refused to be his punching bag this time. This class was full of strong, tough and stubborn individuals. Midoriya was determined to be the same.

“What are you looking at, Deku?” Kacchan snarled.

Midoriya just sighed. He was done letting Kacchan intimidate him.

“What are you looking at, Kacchan?” grinned Uraraka, peering over the back of the sofa.

“WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY, ROUND FACE?!”

“Round Face?” she gasped. “Don’t be mean, Kacchan!”

“CALL ME THAT AGAIN AND I’LL KILL BOTH OF YOU!”

“Told you,” Midoriya shrugged.

Todoroki appeared, walking harshly into Kacchan’s side and knocking shoulders with him.

“Watch where you’re going, you damn popsicle!” Kacchan yelled, he was not in a good mood (but was he ever?). “Maybe if you brushed your hair out of your damn eyes you could actually freaking see!”

But Todoroki just pushed his hair further over his eyes in retaliation. His hair was two toned, half red and half white. But he’d pushed the white half back, so it covered up most of the red, spiking up and also covering part his face. It must have been rather long, without all that gel in it, and jaggedly cut. Midoriya could just see his famous scar, spanning the hidden half of his face. He looked very different to the missing posters and advertisements that had covered the internet over the last few years.

He glanced at the board, noting his name, before turning his gaze to Midoriya, who refused to flinch. But Todoroki didn’t hold it for long, before turning and wandering up the stairs to his room, out of sight.

“What’s the freaking board for?” Kacchan suddenly snapped.

“So that we all know each other’s names!” Iida proclaimed. “It was Midoriya’s idea, and a very good one, I must admit!”

“For sure!” Uraraka beamed, “Now we don’t have to call you 17 all the time, Kacchan!”

He ground his teeth together, “Let me give you some advice, Round Face.” He pointed an accusing finger at Midoriya, who held his gaze firm, green eyes cold and sure. “Don’t freaking listen to him. The number thing was his idea, huh? Well then, I bet he’s got all this copied down in a notebook somewhere. He’ll find your strengths and weaknesses and turn them against you – it’s all the Quirkless bastard can do.”

Silence flooded the room, and Midoriya glared at Kacchan. It had to have been him who got him into class A. Perhaps he accused him of stalking or something – and maybe doing the same to heroes. It wasn’t the truth, obviously, but Kacchan just loved making his life difficult.

“It’s your own fault if you decide to trust him – or any of you losers! You’re all villains – but I’m going to get into class B, and then those idiots will be sorry!” And with that, he shoved his hands in his pockets, turned on his heel, and thundered up the stairs.

Midoriya sighed, so much for his idea of being liked for once. Who was he kidding? He’d have to try and find some other way out of class A… But then –

“What’s his problem?” student 13, Sero, grinned nervously.

“He’s kind of scary,” electric Kaminari, student 7, winced.

“He’s so grumpy!” huffed Uraraka in agreement.

Kirishima, number 8, stood up and announced, “I’m going to go and try and talk to him.”

“Don’t be so righteous, just leave him alone,” Sero protested. “If he doesn’t make an effort with us, why should we make an effort with him?”

“I vote we just ignore him for a week,” Jiro grinned. “Maybe he’ll calm down after that.”

Kirishima simply shrugged and went after Kacchan anyway.

But Midoriya was stunned. He’d never seen anyone else stand up to Kacchan like that. And after everything he’d just said about him!

“I don’t get it,” he laughed nervously. “H-He just –”

“He might have been the big bad at your old school,” Uraraka interjected, “but I don’t think it works like that here… He did really well in the Quirk test, but I don’t think any of us are going to gang up with him just because he’s strong. Plus, Iida did better!”

“It’s not right to judge any of us by the means in which we arrived here,” said Iida, standing up to collect empty cups. “It would be hypocritical. I’m not sure what to make of what Bakugo said about you, Midoriya, but unlike him, you made an effort. I respect you for that.”

“U-Um… thanks?”

“So, you’re like, super smart, yeah?” Ashido grinned, leaning over the sofa towards him.

Midoriya inched away, “I-I don’t –”

“You analyse stuff? Isn’t that what the mean guy said about strengths and weaknesses or something?” she guessed.

“Well, y-yes, but I –”

“What about me? Can you analyse me – can you help me with my Quirk?!”

“I-I might need a little more time!” Midoriya admitted standing up. He hesitated and gazed around at his… classmates. “Are you seriously… not bothered by what K-Kacchan just said?”

“We’re in class A, dude,” Jiro reminded him, flopping into the place he’d just left on the sofa. “Who cares?”

“I always speak my mind,” spoke up croaky number 3, Asui, as she hopped towards him. “And I would like to point out that out of you and Bakugo, you are far more tolerable, ribbit.”

“Thank you?” Midoriya replied unsurely.

“What he said just makes me want you to not hate me, like you hate him.”

“I-I don’t hate –” he wavered – “ok, yeah, m-maybe I do – just a little.”

“A lot, ribbit.”

“B-But why would I hate you?”

“We’re in class A,” she reminded him, holding a finger to her chin in a thoughtful manner, “anything’s possible.”

“Like you being here!” Uraraka interjected, grinning at Asui, “You seem so nice!”

“It’s a long story.”

“Well, we’re happy to hear whenever you’re happy to tell it!”

“Thank you. Maybe another time, ribbit.”

“Sure! Wanna sit? There’s space!”

Midoriya was still struggling to believe what had just happened. Out of all the places he expected to find blind acceptance… and he found it in a class full of villains.

If this is what it means to be a villain –

– then why did he ever want to be a hero?

Chapter Text

Midoriya struggled to sleep on the first night of UA.

The light pouring under his door from the hallway made it hard to keep his eyes shut, but if he turned it off, he risked the wrath of student 14’s shadow monster Quirk. Just thinking about it in the middle of the night only made things worse. The unfamiliarity of his room made him uncomfortable, but not as much as the tracker anklet did.

They all had to wear one at all times, and they couldn’t take it off. It was waterproof and surprisingly thin, so unnoticeable under clothing. But the feeling of it against his skin, however slight it was, still made him itch and fidget. He’d also noticed that different people had slightly altered designs. Todoroki’s and Kacchan’s were thicker and of a different material – perhaps fireproofing so they couldn’t melt it off? The same must have applied to Ashido, but she wore clothing that covered as much of her skin as possible, meaning the anklet was hidden from sight. Kaminari’s was different again, maybe to stop him from short-circuiting it. Of course, Midoriya had already tried prising his off, but it wouldn’t budge. The anklet had more purpose than just keeping an eye on their whereabouts. Whilst most students needed a student ID to get through the gates to UA without the defences being activated, and barricades appearing from seemingly nowhere to stop intruders, the anklets did the exact opposite. They activated the barricades if they tried to leave. Moreover, with the Principal being able to see their exact positions at all times on a digital map of the school, Midoriya felt even more uncomfortable.

But he must have slept eventually, or else he couldn’t have been awoken by the shrill sound of the alarm clock that he hadn’t set himself. The wake-up call was so ear piercing that he almost fell out of bed. It didn’t help that he could just hear everyone else’s alarms go off at exactly the same time, despite the thick walls, and a chorus of groggy moans and complaints filled the dorm.

Wanting to get to the bathrooms first (as to avoid as many awkward interactions as possible), Midoriya got into his uniform in a hurry, and practically ran downstairs to brush his teeth and wash up. Not shower though, he’d do that in the evenings (again, to avoid awkward morning interactions).

Last night, they’d been supplied dinner by Lunch Rush, a hero who doubled as a brilliant cook. But Mr Aizawa was quick to inform them that from now on, they’d have to cook dinner themselves. Breakfast was for individuals to organise, and lunch was free for them (Uraraka was the most ecstatic about that idea, specifically by the word free).

Whilst everyone else slowly but surely set about their new morning routine, Midoriya was well ahead of the game. He’d scoffed breakfast before most of his classmates even appeared to go to the bathrooms, but he made sure to wait until he’d definitely seen Kacchan turn up, before risking going up the stairs. He didn’t want to pass him because that gambled a quick trip back down the stairs, and another visit to Recovery Girl.

After the danger had passed, he returned to his room to gather what he thought he might need for the day. In his yellow backpack, artfully decorated with hand-shaped scorch marks, he shoved his slightly tattered PE kit, his pencil case and two of his notebooks – one empty, and one partially filled with information on the rest of class 1-A. He’d simply titled it A in a massive, bold letter that smothered the entirety of the front cover in splodgy, red ink.

He’d only had a day, so the information was still rather lacking. He took it back downstairs, and was able to finally add everyone’s names, since a few were still missing last night, and he couldn’t quite remember how to spell all of them. In fact, the only name that wasn’t on the board by the morning was Kacchan’s since he’d clearly rubbed it off in spite. But Midoriya watched as Uraraka wrote in its place Kacchan! in the tackiest writing possible. He’d had to correct her spelling of the name, which gave her fits of giggles. She sat down next to him whilst she ate her toast. Midoriya had to angle his arm to make sure she couldn’t see what he was writing and drawing.

Having her sitting next to him was the perfect opportunity to add a sketch. He used to do that all the time with heroes, his villainous classmates were no different. With all the practise, he’d gotten quite good at drawing. But he’d learnt the hard way to keep his notes private. Kacchan burnt them all up whenever he caught a glimpse. Speaking of which, he was practically smouldering in anger when he wiped Uraraka’s writing off the board.

At 8:20am exactly, Mr Aizawa unlocked the doors to the dorm to escort them all up to the classroom. Midoriya had thought he’d let them all make their own way to class, since that was what happened on day one. Perhaps Todoroki’s incident yesterday, when he decided not to leave the changing rooms, had convinced Mr Aizawa to take extra precautions. Midoriya was sure that later in the year, their teacher would just unlock the doors and meet them at their classroom later on.

“We will be starting ordinary lessons today,” their drab homeroom teacher explained. “Some of your teachers may give you short tests to assess your abilities in each subject. We don’t expect you all to be of a similar level, given your different backgrounds. Once they know what you know, they’ll be able to alter the course to better benefit you all. So, actually try in these tests, it’ll make it easier for everyone in the long run. Don’t make me give out more detentions on the second day.”

To everyone’s surprise, including Mr Aizawa’s, someone then actually raised their hand.

“Yes, 7?”

“If I’m just so bad at everything that it doesn’t look like I’m trying, will I still get detention?” Kaminari asked with a sly grin.

A few others around the classroom suppressed their laughter. But Midoriya was more interested in what their teacher would –

“I’ll be the judge of that,” he snapped, and the class fell silent once more.

Mr Aizawa had the uncanny ability to keep even the rowdiest group under his complete control. Midoriya didn’t know quite what it was about him, but no one dared put a foot wrong in his presence. He didn’t exactly look like the sharpest, strictest person in the world, but something about his very existence, and his piercing glare, made even the toughest student cower in their place.

However, not all of the teachers of UA had the same intensity.

“WELCOME TO CLASS 1-A, LITTLE LISTENERS! YYYEEEAAAHHH!”

Midoriya grimaced and covered his ears, he wasn’t the only one. Even Mr Aizawa was quick to try and make his leave when their new English teacher, the overly energetic hero, Present Mic, burst into the room.

“ANY INSTRUCTIONS, AIZAWA?!”

“Just don’t try them,” he sighed, and slipped out the door, dragging his sleeping bag along behind him.

“YOU GOT IT!” Present Mic exclaimed, giving his colleague a thumbs up as he disappeared. “NOW, WHO’S READY FOR SOME –”

“Hey, could you tone it down a little?!”

Everyone stared at Midoriya.

He swallowed, “S-Some of us have sensitive ears,” and he gestured to Jiro, sitting not that far in front of him.

“You got it, Little Listener!” Present Mic grinned, now only at a slightly above average volume.

Midoriya didn’t fail to notice the shocked look upon Jiro’s face, and the soft smile that she developed soon after, whilst Present Mic was handing out empty exercise books.

Midoriya smiled too – that’s one more person who didn’t hate him.

Mr Aizawa had been right about the pop quizzes. English wasn’t Midoriya’s strongest subject, but that wasn’t the end of the world. By the looks on some of his classmates’ faces, he wasn’t struggling nearly as much as they were when faced with all the grammar and vocabulary Present Mic threw at them.

When they’d finished, Iida volunteered to collect the exercise books back in. Present Mic sat back and watched whilst Iida wandered around the classroom like any other normal person would do to collect the books. But apparently, this was not normal behaviour for class 1-A.

“It’s been a while since class A was so civil towards each other so early!” Present Mic almost laughed. “And in such a strange group too!”

“Why are we strange?” Asui asked immediately, doing that thing where she prodded her chin with her finger, it seemed to be a habit.

“Lot more vigilantes than usual! And some cool Quirks – or lack of!”

Midoriya narrowed his eyes at him, trying to ignore the glances in his direction.

“You know, you’re the first person without a Quirk to ever attend UA, 18!” Present Mic announced.

Great, so they’d been talking about him in the staff room. Well, it was to be expected. The staff had likely had a lengthy conversation about every member of class A. Perhaps Mr Aizawa had instructed them all to call them by numbers during the meeting as well. It had to be some sort of twisted teaching method.

“Then why am I here?” Midoriya dared to ask.

The class fell silent like it did only in the presence of Mr Aizawa. Midoriya wondered how many others had quietly asked the same question about him to themselves.

Kacchan scoffed but didn’t say anything.

Midoriya glared daggers at the back of his head, “What’s so funny?”

“You know exactly why you’re here, Deku,” he hissed.

Midoriya wasn’t going to cower down in front of Kacchan anymore. He’d said it before, but he’d say it again, even if only to convince himself, but he’d had enough. In a class full of villains, he refused to be so weak. “If I knew I wouldn’t ask.”

“You think you’re so freaking smart, but you’re actually as much of an idiot as the rest of them,” Kacchan snarled back.

This classroom doesn’t work that way, Kacchan – you can’t intimidate people into liking you.

“Has anyone ever told you that your personality reeks like if someone set the sewers on fire?” Kaminari butted in.

“WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!” Kacchan yelled, standing up and pushing his chair back so that it hit the front of Midoriya’s desk in the process.

“Well, we only just met you, so it’s quite telling, ribbit,” added Asui.

“I’LL KILL ALL OF YOU!”

“Hey, settle down –” started Present Mic.

Uraraka took the opportunity, “Yeah, calm down, Kacchan!”

“You might want to take back that comment about us being civilised, Sir,” Sero laughed.

Kacchan slammed his hands onto Midoriya’s desk, letting smoke hiss out from underneath them, “This is all YOUR FAULT!”

“And we’re back to berating Midoriya again, leave him alone, man,” said Jiro. “What did he ever do wrong?”

“Look at his freaking stalker notebooks and think again!” he shouted, grabbing Midoriya’s bag before he even realised what was happening.

“Hey, give that back!” Midoriya stood up and lunged forwards, but Kacchan had already retrieved the notebook marked A, and Midoriya regretted labelling it so soon.

“Just try and take it from me!”

But Present Mic now had his hand on Kacchan’s shoulder, and a disappointed look upon his face, “Come on, Little Listener – give the notebook back. I don’t want to have to give out detentions! I’m the cool teacher!”

Kacchan gritted his teeth and chucked the notebook at Midoriya’s feet. There – now it matched every other notebook he’d ever used. There was a nice set of burnt fingerprints on the cover.

They sat back down, and Iida finally handed Present Mic the pile of numbered exercise books. Iida gave Midoriya a sympathetic glance before making his way back to his own desk.

“So, what was the notebook?”

Midoriya gulped at Present Mic’s question as he slid the item back into his bag. He was going to have to admit that Kacchan was right, and all the good relationships he’d forged would be void.

“It’s one of your analysis books, right?” pink skinned Ashido perked up with a smile.

Midoriya blinked at her in surprise, “Err, yeah…”

Her smile grew wider, “He does Quirk analysis, Sir!” she explained. “He’s going to help me with mine!”

“I-I never –” he hesitated. Last night, Kacchan had ranted about his notebooks again. Ashido picked up on it and asked if he could analyse her Quirk to help her out. It must have meant a lot to her… He thought Ashido wasn’t that fond of him, but this might help amend that. “…Yeah, eventually.”

She beamed.

“I… used to analyse heroes and stuff a lot,” Midoriya admitted, absentmindedly brushing away the scorch marks on his desk, “It was a hobby, I guess.”

“Did you ever write about me?” Present Mic asked, pointing a thumb at himself and grinning.

Midoriya had, although it was a while ago. If he were still much of a hero fan, he would have freaked out about having him as his English teacher. He used to listen to his radio show all the time. In fact, he was still secretly excited about meeting all these heroes, even though he’d tried to hide it. He just hadn’t figured out who Mr Aizawa was yet…

“Err, yeah – I think so,” Midoriya shrugged.

“Come on, what about my strengths and weaknesses?! I would say do it in English, but that’s harsh – so think of this as a little public speaking exercise!”

Midoriya wasn’t quite sure what to do. People usually weren’t that interested in what he had to say, especially in terms of this kind of stuff.

He started mumbling about his Quirk and all his strengths, fiddling with his thumbs and never really meeting anyone’s eyes. Kacchan seemed to be stewing in his anger in silence, which was the only thing which encouraged Midoriya to keep going.

“Hey! You know your stuff, Little Listener!” Present Mic exclaimed, “I’m impressed!”

Midoriya smiled. People hardly ever complimented him about all this. They usually found it creepy.

“Oh – what about his weaknesses?” asked invisible Hagakure.

“Yeah! Come on – how do we take him down?” laughed Ashido.

Present Mic waved it off, “The best heroes keep their weaknesses a secret! There’s no way he knows about –”

Midoriya smiled, and deadpanned, “Insects.”

And most of the class turned to the hero with identical, toothy grins, as a single bead of sweat fell from his forehead.

The bell sounded.

“AND THAT’S THE END OF YOUR FIRST LESSON!” Present Mic barked, still looking rather worried for his general wellbeing. “YOU HAVE MATHS IN TEN MINUTES SO HAVE FUN!”

“Are you scared of bugs?” asked Jiro.

“SIGNING OFF NOW – BYE, BYE!” And he slammed the door shut behind him.

A couple of seconds passed before the class burst into laughter.

By the time their maths teacher, Mr Ectoplasm, arrived, Kaminari and Ashido had already cooked up half a dozen pranks for poor Present Mic, and Midoriya was smiling so much that it hurt.

A tough morning of surprise exams passed them by, and soon enough, class 1-A was off down to lunch.

Midoriya found it kind of funny, watching how different friendship groups were already being forged.

With the whole pranking Present Mic idea, Kaminari and Ashido had gotten talking. Kaminari had dragged along Sero, and Ashido had roped in Kirishima, who appeared to already know her from outside UA. Kirishima seemed to be a genuinely nice person. He was the only one who made much of an effort with Kacchan, despite the fact that he was still calling him Weird Hair. And so, Kirishima dragged Kacchan along to this group of energetic pranksters, who were still animatedly calling him names, and he was doing so in return. It was… strangely nice to see.

Midoriya found himself spending more time with Iida and Uraraka, since they were the first to actually talk to him. But now Yaoyorozu and Asui (“Please, call me Tsu,”) were tagging along as well. Midoriya couldn’t remember a time when he’d found himself in a group of people who seemed to actually like him.

Friends – they were… friends, right? It had been a while since he’d actually had friends (if ever). He’d come to learn that Kacchan didn’t count – and he never had.

“– a lot of Quirkest people out there, ribbit,” Asui – Tsu – croaked. “My brother had a problem with some of his classmates. They’d make fun of him. I stepped in when they started leaving dead frogs in his locker.”

“Oh, that’s horrible!” Uraraka gasped.

“It was,” she agreed. “I went to the headteacher and he gave the bullies some stern words, but it didn’t help, ribbit. They got angry that he told someone about it all. He started coming home covered in bruises, so I followed him around until I caught them in the act and confronted them, ribbit. They attacked so I defended, but no one believed me. I think one of the boys’ family gave quite a few generous donations to the school in the past, so when they reported me, the school backed him up and I was punished for it.”

Yaoyorozu frowned, “And you ended up here just because of that?”

“Not exactly, ribbit. It kept happening, and I kept stepping in. One day, I think hurt someone. Or maybe they made it up. The school had to act somehow, but they didn’t want me locked up as a villain, so it was filed as vigilantism. The headteacher forwarded the case to UA, and they accepted me.”

“It’s not the best outcome, but I suppose it could have been worse…”

“Agreed. And the boys faced some consequences too; two of them were expelled. But I can’t protect my brother anymore or contact him. I hope he’s ok, ribbit.”

“You did a very honourable thing, Asui,” Iida nodded in respect.

“I’ve told you to call me Tsu.”

Uraraka groaned loudly as they joined the lunch queue, “You guys are all so cool! And I’m here for something… way less cool!”

“You haven’t heard my story yet,” Yaoyorozu sighed, “I suppose I’ll have to explain in due course…”

“Only when you want to,” Iida insisted.

“Thank you.”

Midoriya had remained silent throughout, listening, but also casting an eye towards a few people a little further up the queue. They kept giving them sideways glances. It wasn’t hard to notice the red bands or the large numbers on their blazers – they were clearly class 1-A. So, who were they?

Todoroki was just ahead of them, standing alone. He was a hostile and abrasive individual, in a vastly different way to Kacchan. Midoriya hadn’t quite figured him out yet. But right now, he was looking at the same group of people that Midoriya was, and there was a look of disgust in his eyes which seemed to indicate that he knew them.

A blond boy with dull eyes and a cocky smile turned his head. Todoroki immediately averted his gaze, but the damage was done.

“Well, hello there, number 15,” the other boy said with a laugh. “Are you planning on washing up after us again tonight? Or will UA just lock you up with the other villains until morning?”

“Class 1-B,” Midoriya muttered, and the other four immediately locked gaze with the opposing class. It was the first time they’d met, but Todoroki and Kacchan both received detention last night, and were tasked on washing up after class B’s dinner.

Todoroki didn’t say a word, trying to ignore him completely.

“Oh, come on,” the boy grinned. “I’m just trying to strike up a conversation! You could have been in our class, once upon a time. I’m just extending the hospitality of UA. You should be glad they let you within a mile of this place!”

“How rude,” Iida spoke up, but none of them were brave enough to step in. Perhaps Tsu’s story about the fall backs of standing up for people had struck a chord.

“You have an incredible power, being the son of the number two hero,” he leered, stepping closer to Todoroki and reaching out to him, “It’s such a shame to see it go to waste –”

Todoroki slapped his hand away, “Back off,” he snarled.

The hero student pursed his lips for a moment, before glancing down at the hand Todoroki had knocked away. He clicked his fingers, and a flame began to burn, “So, you can use fire – interesting. In all the encounters shown on the news, you’d only ever used ice. Why hide a part of who you are?” He let the fire grow brighter, catching the eyes of a few other students around them, so it wouldn’t have been strange for Midoriya to continue watching carefully. The hero student held out his other hand, and let ice crystals form over it, “Half ice, half fire. You would have been the perfect –”

“Stop it,” Todoroki interrupted, leaning in closer, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know Quirks,” he sighed, “not people. But it is a shame – I know your Quirk better than you do.”

A copy Quirk – Midoriya realised. It was an incredible power, Midoriya would have done anything to have something like that, but it was not to be. That didn’t mean he was powerless though. No… not against a copy Quirk.

Midoriya made his move, stepping forwards to Todoroki’s side.

“If you plan on being a hero, you should first figure out how to be a good person,” he snapped.

He narrowed his eyes, “And who might you be – ah, another villain. Who are you…?” he tilted his head to try and catch a glimpse of the number on Midoriya’s back, “18 – I see. I’m Monoma, class 1-B.”

“I figured,” Midoriya replied. “Can you please leave us alone? We didn’t do anything wrong.”

“On the contrary!” the boy – Monoma – laughed. “Why do you think you’re here?”

It was a question Midoriya had been asking himself a lot, but he decided to take a leaf out of Yaoyorozu’s book in this situation, “Wouldn’t you like to know?” he hissed.

He simply laughed again, “Oh, I can always find out. I always find a way.” He stepped a little closer to Midoriya, holding an icy hand over his heart, “I am a hero, and you are a villain. Which side do you think this school is really on?”

Midoriya saw Todoroki flinch as Monoma rested his hand on Midoriya’s shoulder. He must have come to the same conclusion Midoriya had; the Quirk was activated through touch. The ice cracked away and left a chill behind.

“Is that a threat?” Yaoyorozu spoke up.

Midoriya hated Monoma’s laugh, “You villains are always quick to start a fight! We’re just having a civilised conversation here.” He turned back to Midoriya, pulling his hand away. “Now, what about you? I suppose I didn’t make my query clear. Why are you here? What is your power…?”

He looked down at his hands and stared for a moment – and then frowned.

Midoriya let a smile creep across his face whilst Monoma grew increasingly confused. His eyes darted from Midoriya and back to his hand. After a few seconds, he turned around and grabbed his ginger-haired friend by the arm, who hadn’t been paying attention to the interaction at all. Midoriya guessed that he was trying to copy her Quirk, already being familiar with it.

“Monoma – what are you doing?” she questioned, her hands on her hips after she pulled away from him.

Monoma just looked back to his hands, breath now frantic, “What did you do?!” he asked Midoriya.

Realising his assumption had been correct, Midoriya began his charade, “A copy Quirk, right? You make contact with someone, and you copy their power. That is bound to have some limitations – is it one power at a time? Or as many as you want, with a time limit on each? Can you combine Quirks, or do you have to switch one off and another on?” he questioned thoughtfully, genuinely interested.

“What did you do?!” he repeated, seemingly rather frightened.

Now, Midoriya could have just explained that he’d copied his Quirk, which, of course, was nothing. But he had a better idea.

“Well, our abilities seem to fundamentally contradict one another,” Midoriya sighed. He turned and started to pace back and forth. “Can you at least answer my question? Is there a time limit?”

“Hey, what just happened?” frowned the ginger girl with the ponytail, clearly ready to step in if something was going wrong. They’d gathered quite an audience too.

“He did something to my Quirk!” Monoma accused, his calm composure lost to the wind.

“Well, it’s your own fault,” Midoriya shrugged. He walked around behind Todoroki, and whispered hastily to him, “Freeze my arm, quickly!”

Todoroki seemed unsure, but thankfully, didn’t question it. He brushed his hand against Midoriya, and with a sudden chill, Midoriya’s hand was as frozen as Monoma’s had been, ice crystals quickly melting against warm skin and trickling down his palm.

Monoma stared.

“It is a cool Quirk – both of yours are.”

“That’s… my Quirk,” Monoma gaped with wide eyes. “You took my Quirk! Give it back!”

“Tell me how long your time limit is,” Midoriya insisted, brushing away the ice. “And I’ll think about it.”

Monoma gritted his teeth, “…Five minutes per Quirk.”

“Ah, cool – and can you combine them?”

“No – now give it back to me!” He reached forwards as though to snatch something out of the air.

Midoriya just gave him a look, “It doesn’t work like that. You won’t need contact when you get it back. It just needs to be released. You’ll have it in… five minutes.”

“Hey, give it back,” the ginger girl ordered. “It’s not funny, you’re frightening him.”

“And it’s not funny to have a go at us either! We didn’t choose to be here – at least, most of us didn’t. Stop having a go at us for being in your school, and we’ll stop getting in your way, deal?”

“Fine!” Monoma exclaimed, “Just give me my Quirk back!”

“He said five minutes,” Todoroki breathed. He must have caught onto Midoriya’s trick. “Keep asking and it’ll be ten.”

He snapped his mouth shut, and silence fell over them all.

“…You wanna eat lunch with us, Todoroki?” Midoriya asked whilst everyone continued to stare.

He hesitated, and then shrugged, “Sure – but don’t call me that.”

“Oh, ok – but I can’t just call you 15…”

“Shoto is fine.”

“O-Ok!”

The crowd parted as the group of ‘villains’ re-joined the lunch queue. In fact, there wasn’t a queue, they let them go right to the front. Uraraka just hummed along to a tune in her head and followed suit, not bothered at all by the situation. The only one who seemed at all worried was Iida, who didn’t speak up about it for a while.

“That was very brave, ribbit,” Tsu voiced when they finally sat down, somewhere far away from everyone else.

Midoriya sighed in relief, “I-It was kind of scary.”

“You were kind of scary!” Uraraka exclaimed. “But also, really cool – that was smart!”

“It was,” Yaoyorozu nodded, “I don’t think I would have thought of it.”

“I don’t get it though – you are Quirkless, right?” said Uraraka, picking at her food.

“Y-Yeah, I am,” Midoriya answered, rubbing his head shyly. “But I realised he had a copy Quirk and um, well, if he tried to copy Quirklessness, I thought that maybe… he’d copy having nothing – which would mean he couldn’t turn his Quirk on or off or do anything until his timer ran out. There had to be a timer – it made the most sense. I was a little w-worried there wasn’t for a moment…”

“So, that’s why he thought you took his Quirk! Uraraka gasped. “Wasn’t there an old villain with a power like that or something…? Whatever – Now he thinks your Quirk is stealing others!”

“Because he didn’t anticipate someone in this school being Quirkless,” Yaoyorozu finished.

Todoroki didn’t say a thing. He simply sat there and noisily slurped his noodles. Midoriya figured he wasn’t the type for much social interaction, which he could relate to.

“I don’t think antagonising the hero class was a wise idea,” Iida finally spoke up. “They are our betters and we shouldn’t –”

“They aren’t our betters,” Midoriya quickly interrupted. “Don’t talk yourself down like that, Iida. You’ll transfer soon enough. That’s why you’re here, right?”

He hesitated, before clearing his throat and continuing, “This may come back to haunt you.”

Midoriya simply shrugged, “Why do you think I’m here?”

And they all fell silent again, filled only by the sound of Todoroki eating.

Midoriya stared at his rice, thinking over what he just said.

Why do you think I’m here?

“I’ve had a complaint from class 1-B today,” Mr Aizawa announced at the end of the day, and Midoriya shrunk into his seat. “About one of their most promising students having their Quirk taken away from them and being threatened by you, 18.”

Midoriya felt all their eyes on the back of his head.

“Care to explain?” Mr Aizawa asked, raising his eyebrows.

“I-I um… may have… faked taking his Quirk…” he admitted sheepishly. “He has a copy ability and he copied my Quirklessness so I thought that maybe I could trick him – but I didn’t mean to scare him so much! I just –”

“Calm down,” the teacher sighed, rubbing his temples, “I can’t process if you’re speaking that fast.”

“It’s not his fault,” Todoroki – no, Shoto – suddenly interjected. Everyone stared at him. No one could have expected him to speak up. He glanced around the room, suddenly seeming a lot less cold and unforgiving, and a little more… human. “Monoma was… antagonising me, and Midoriya stepped in.”

Mr Aizawa let a long, hard moment of silence hold the atmosphere in an iron grip, “18,” he began. At his name, Midoriya flinched and cowered. Mr Aizawa continued, “you need to understand that fabricated strengths, can quickly become very real weaknesses.”

The tension left Midoriya’s shoulders, and he sat up a little straighter, confused.

“Class B will target you because of this,” his teacher explained, “you will all be attending several classes together, and Monoma won’t forget what you did. He’ll catch on eventually.”

Midoriya gulped, “Yes, Sir – sorry… Sir.”

“You also need to realise that the lack of a Quirk, isn’t a weakness – you all need to understand that.”

Mr Aizawa gazed around the classroom. Midoriya stared back at him with wide eyes.

“Quirklessness isn’t a weakness,” he repeated, “it is just the lack of a strength. You have plenty of other strengths, Midoriya. You don’t need to cover up and hide. If you step back and really look at it, you can find power in what you think is powerlessness.”

He just… used his name.

“But if you do something like this again, it’s detention in class B’s dorm – get it, problem child?”

“Y-Yes, Sir! Sorry, again!”

“Good.”

When the day came to a close, and Midoriya once again rested his head against his pillow, he realised he was still smiling.

Midoriya slept well on the second night of UA.

Chapter Text

Two Weeks Prior to The First Term of UA

“Hello, Mr Aizawa! It’s good to see you again!” Principal Nezu beamed, “Tea?”

Aizawa knew better than to refuse. He gave him a swift nod, and a cup was pushed towards him. The small, intelligent rat-bear (…thing) clambered down off his desk. He’d been standing on it to pour the tea. Now back in his chair, and Aizawa seated opposite him, they were ready to begin, “This time of year is always dreadfully exciting, don’t you agree?”

“In some ways,” Aizawa answered hesitantly.

“After your success in class A last year, I would expect you to be looking forwards to this one!”

“I can’t know until I meet them.”

“Of course not, but this is the first step.”

Aizawa had been the leading role in UA’s redemption class, commonly known as the A-class threat, for quite a few years now. Long ago, he would have never guessed he’d end up leading this class, but the cause was very meaningful to him, especially.

He’d seen very few failures, and most of his students had gone on to live fulfilling lives on the right side of the law. But he could never expect every year to be as simple as the last. Despite every student graduating before summer’s end last time, Aizawa could not afford to rest easy. Some of those students too, had been particularly challenging. If they hadn’t ended up at UA, who knows what horrors they could have found themselves a part of.

But whilst Aizawa was busy trying to turn these kids’ lives around, Principal Nezu was already setting his sights on the next lot. And that’s what they were here to do. Nezu had already finalised the students – organised the dorms and informed the families. But this was the first time Aizawa would see them all, at least, in their files.

The meeting was the same every year. A couple of weeks before term began, Nezu called the hero to his office so they could go through the files together. There was a couple of students this year, that Aizawa had known he’d be seeing for a while.

The game was about to begin.

“We have a very interesting group this year,” Nezu grinned. He spread the twenty files out in front of him in number order. “What shall we start with?”

Aizawa wavered, “Let’s go with the dangerous Quirks.”

Nezu nodded, “Number 1.”

He reached towards the file. “Yuga Aoyama – a laser power without control, huh? I can see why he’s here.”

“He has a specialised belt for refining his power and limiting outbursts.”

“Belt?”

“It’s a navel laser.”

“Right…”

“Number 2.”

Aizawa closed the first file and reached for the second.

They went through each and every student like this, assessing their dangers and the precautions taken. They had fewer dangerous Quirks than normal, but more vigilantes. The villains only made up half the class.

“Shoto Todoroki,” Aizawa sighed, he knew he’d be seeing him here.

“I’ve been looking forward to having Endeavor’s son in our halls!” Nezu beamed, “And for him to be in class 1-A? No one could have predicted it, not even me!”

“He’ll be tricky,” Aizawa warned, staring at the photo in his files. The boy had styled his duel coloured hair to hide his scar, and cover most of the red with white. “There’s a story here we don’t know completely – and we’re no closer to locating Dabi. Has Endeavor said anything?”

“He insists Dabi corrupted the child,” Nezu admitted, resting his paws on top of one another, “Although I agree. The boy disappeared without a trace, with no sign of a fight. He has been trained by his father from a young age to take up his mantel, yet he didn’t fight his kidnapper… Yes, there will be a lot of work ahead of you.”

“His Quirk is listed as ice and fire,” Aizawa realised. He scanned over the pictures taken when he was fleeing the police and heroes. He only ever used ice, “He’s repressing half his abilities…”

“Specifically, fire, an ability held by both Dabi and Endeavor.”

The two met eyes for a moment. Aizawa didn’t like this case one bit, and he knew Nezu didn’t either.

“The way to him will be through the others,” Aizawa insisted. “I’m a hero, a teacher, and an adult – there’s no way he’ll let me close to him. But if he lets one of the other students get close, he might lower his defences, and we can get to the bottom of this.” He closed the file and pushed it back into place.

“Perhaps number 4 would be of assistance.”

Aizawa knew who this would be as well. He opened the file, and the face of Tenya Iida stared back at him.

“This kid had so much potential,” Aizawa sighed.

“He still does,” Nezu reminded him. “He has learnt a valuable lesson. His elder brother clearly means a lot to him, and Tensei’s paralysis by the hands of the Hero Killer, Stain, must have destroyed young Tenya.”

“You think he could help us get close to Todoroki?”

“Well, what do you think?” Nezu asked, sipping his tea.

Aizawa closed the file, “No – they’re too different. I know Tenya through Tensei. Tenya is usually rigid and almost robotic in personality. He won’t click with Todoroki, even if they come from similar backgrounds. And Iida respects heroes greatly. Todoroki doesn’t.”

Nezu nodded, “I had similar thoughts. I simply wanted your opinion.”

“Well, Todoroki will definitely be the biggest challenge this year.”

But then Nezu smiled, and Aizawa knew he was in for a whole load of trouble, “Actually… there are two more we haven’t had the chance to speak about yet.”

Aizawa’s eyes flickered to the two files he’d yet to touch, sitting right in front of him –

17 and 18.

“Open 17 first.”

Aizawa narrowed his eyes as he did as he was told. Number 18 awaited him, the bold number plaguing the corner of his sight as he tried to focus on 17.

“I know this kid,” Aizawa realised, “Katsuki Bakugo – he was on the news about a year ago…”

“Bakugo had great heroic potential,” Nezu explained. “He has an immensely powerful Quirk that he has competent control over. Ten months ago, he was caught by a villain made of sludge, who tried to suffocate him. Bakugo panicked and started several fires. The heroes at the incident were not suited for the job, and all reports suggest that Bakugo would have died if All Might hadn’t arrived just in time.”

“But that wasn’t all, was it?” he frowned, trying to remember. “There was another kid –”

“Yes, his classmate. He stepped in when he saw Bakugo in trouble – the heroes insist that he got in the way and could have made the situation worse, but I have looked through the footage. He bought them a few vital seconds. Bakugo would have died if he hadn’t run in to save him.”

Aizawa was getting more curious about 18 now. “But that’s not the only reason he was on the news.”

Nezu’s smile grew wider, “A classmate of his gathered significant evidence to prove that Bakugo was a Quirkest bully. His victim suffered from frequent physical and emotional abuse, and the school did nothing to stop it. Bakugo was blacklisted from any hero school, and the school itself suffered greatly.”

“But you believe Bakugo still deserves a chance?” Aizawa raised his eyebrows.

“That’s up to you.”

Aizawa grunted, of course it was. He put down the file, and finally reached out to number 18. After a glance in Nezu’s direction, he opened it, and saw an eerily familiar face. Glancing at Nezu again, Aizawa threw file 17 back open.

“But… this is the kid who saved Bakugo,” Aizawa realised. “This is number 18?”

“Izuku Midoriya,” Nezu positively beamed. “He is also the student that Bakugo bullied.”

Aizawa furrowed his brow. He’d just noticed some interesting information in 18’s file. “He’s… Quirkless…”

“I know – isn’t it wonderful?”

Aizawa blinked at him, “Why is this kid here? What did he do?”

Nezu reached forward for file 18, still smiling menacingly, “Oh, poor Midoriya. He must have suffered much torment from Bakugo and many others for his Quirklessness. He didn’t fare well after the sludge villain attack either. This was before he’d complied his evidence against Bakugo, of course. Yet, he still saved him. Threw a notebook at the villain’s eye with astonishing aim, I must admit. It wasn’t vigilantism – he didn’t use a Quirk, obviously. And he still wasn’t punished, when afterwards, he publicly shamed every hero present for not taking action like he had – for not trying everything they could. They were prepared to let Bakugo die, and Midoriya was furious. You should see the video. It’s been taken down in numerous locations, but you can find it if you look hard enough. The boy wasn’t even fond of All Might, despite him saving his life.”

“So, the kid hates heroes,” Aizawa assumed. “Why should he be in my class?”

“Well, he did also hack into his school’s security system to gather evidence against Bakugo. Broke in at night to achieve it.”

“His only crime is breaking and entering.”

Nezu laughed, “He wasn’t caught. No, no, he is much too clever for that.”

“Then why is he here?”

Nezu paused, smile fading. “Eraser Head, you have seen hundreds of students pass through these halls – heroes, villains and everything in between. But this, small, Quirkless boy…

“This is the most dangerous member of class 1-A you have ever seen.”

Aizawa looked him dead in the eyes, “Why?”

The smile returned – that damned smile. “Look at the world we live in – of heroes and villains. We, the heroes, stand as the leader of the pack. The villains are but a small percentage that we mercilessly try to stamp out of existence, but we will never succeed – that is but the way of life. Look at all these, once innocent children. They fell through the cracks – it is not their fault. We’re here to… pull them back up again. But we can only help so many. The rest will fester in the darkness, and the best, or perhaps worst, of them will rise up to attack our light. They only go so far, of course. They never learnt to band together – the great powers face titans such as All Might, and the world rejoices in the villain’s defeat.

“Now… imagine, in a few years’ time, a young man, who has been toeing the line of the dark his whole life, slips over the edge. He has no power of his own – but great motivation and determination. He sees power in what once was powerlessness, and this wonderful, brilliant mind, stands up, and speaks to the rest who we have failed. Imagine a leader, who can tell the villains that they are not alone – that they are not powerless. He knows how they feel – he knows what it’s like to be where they are.

“Imagine a leader – and take another look at that boy.”

Aizawa looked back down at the face of Izuku Midoriya. The photo was taken recently. There was such anger in his emerald green eyes. And suddenly, he could see it too – the potential.

“He wouldn’t go down in a battle of raw strength, where a hero would appear victorious and as legendary as the warriors of old,” said Nezu. “If he so willed, I believe he could wage a battle of wits, unlike any of us have ever seen. All he needs to do, is slip.”

Nezu was never wrong.

Never.

“Oh, and another thing. After some… accidental circumstances, moments before the sludge villain attack, our number 18 discovered All Might’s power limit.”

Aizawa’s eyes grew wide, “That oaf – how did he let his secret out to a teenager?!”

“It was an accident, as I said. But it does raise some problems, considering everything else I have said. After all, young Midoriya just needs a group to lead,” Nezu smiled, and he returned his file to its place among the rest of class A –

“And imagine what he could become.”

Yes, this year would be interesting indeed.

One Week into UA’s First Term

Midoriya had started adding his teachers to notebook A. There was plenty of space; it might as well be filled. Speaking of which, his notebook kept disappearing for short periods of time and mysteriously reappearing with extra notes added to the occasional page. It didn’t take him long to realise that it was Uraraka’s doing.

It was such a shame he was banned from the internet. None of class A were permitted to have contact with the outside world. Midoriya supposed individuals who had found themselves in more dangerous groups would be best completely isolated from that situation, and the rest of class A would have to be treated in the same way. Midoriya also had the sneaking suspicion that the staff were well aware of his more technological skills.

But if he did have access to the internet, he might have been able to find some more information on Mr Aizawa. He’d yet to figure out his Quirk, but the man was still somewhat familiar… He had to be an underground hero, especially with the getup he wore around school. All the other teachers wore their hero costumes at all times, and Mr Aizawa couldn’t have been any different. If he was over-ground like the rest of them, it was bound to be a little more flashy, designed to grab attention. Midoriya did feel as though it was acceptable that he couldn’t remember who Mr Aizawa was in this case, it just proved that he was a good underground hero.

And he was a good teacher too.

Midoriya had finally figured out what the numbers were all about – it definitely was a teaching method. And it worked. Addressing everyone as numbers initially dehumanises them – making them feel regretful for being there, feeling like they were in a prison, like they’d done wrong and that they didn’t deserve to be called by their names. Which was rather horrible. But as soon as they started doing… better, Mr Aizawa would miraculously remember what they were really called. Midoriya wasn’t the only one who lit up at the sound of his real name. He felt like he was a puppy in training, but he couldn’t help it!

UA was a school unlike any other, and Midoriya… was actually starting to enjoy being there.

The only distractions in lessons occurred when the rest of the class decided they were bored of the teacher. On several occasions (all of which were Present Mic), they’d managed to actually chase them out of the room (screaming very loudly). Maybe Midoriya wasn’t learning as much as he perhaps would have been, and not having the internet didn’t help, but at least his stuff wasn’t being burnt up and he wasn’t hobbling home trying to hide his fresh injuries every day.

Maybe the rest of the school avoided them like they had the plague, always pointing and whispering, but Midoriya was used to that from his old school. At least it wasn’t only him. Also, one glance from Shoto and most went running, so that was fun.

Maybe he was labelled as a villain. Maybe the outside world was watching and waiting for the Sports Festival, an eventuality which loomed over them like a death sentence. It would be the first time their families saw them since the start of school. Maybe Midoriya missed home – maybe he was ashamed.

Maybe… UA still wasn’t all that great.

But he tried to forget about all that and focus on the best thing that had happened to him so far. He actually had friends. And they were the coolest people he had ever met.

Uraraka had a frighteningly good knowledge of martial arts that most likely came from an equally frightening source, so everyone decided to steer well clear of the topic. Student number 6, Ojiro, however, was extremely interested in her skill set. He was here for vigilantism, desperate to prove himself, and having Uraraka around for some competition in PE was probably good for both of them. It led the two teaching a few moves to whoever braved asking for it, and Midoriya was one of them.

Iida was strict, almost robotic, and desperate to not do any wrong, whatsoever. He was a nice person and seemed particularly protective of Midoriya, for whatever reason. He was obviously aiming for class president and had made the fact even clearer only a few days ago, when he shouted at Kaminari for not doing the washing up, since it was his turn. He ended up blowing the fuse in the building, since electric doesn’t mix well with water. And the laughter ringing out in the darkness only grew louder when faced with the fact that Tokoyami’s Dark Shadow was probably going to kill them all now. It was safe to say that they all survived; Tokoyami was rather proud of himself for not causing any disaster, and Iida was utterly mortified by the whole ideal.

Tsu was honest without a fault, and terribly blunt. She’d already thrown student number 19, Mineta, out the window twice for perverted comments, and refused to apologise. Her frog Quirk gave her some interesting abilities, which Midoriya had already interrogated eagerly and written all about it in his notebook. Most prominent was her abnormally long tongue, which she could use to slap Mineta around the face with from a distance.

Shoto was harsh, cold and merciless. But also, utterly useless at friendship. He didn’t know what he was doing, and generally just lurked in the background. Midoriya took it upon himself to make sure he felt included, and eventually, everyone else started to see his charm too. Poor Shoto just didn’t get it. It wasn’t his fault – his frightening exterior hid a personality that Midoriya just… clicked with. Also, Kacchan left him alone when Shoto was around, which was an added bonus.

Finally, there was Yaoyorozu – with the coolest Quirk Midoriya had ever seen. She still hadn’t revealed why she found herself in class 1-A, but no one was pressurising her (except Mineta, and that was the third time he’d found himself in the bush below the window outside the dorms). She revealed her Quirk to Midoriya first, and he did a double take. Ashido, who now insisted they all called her Mina, had accidently melted the bottom of Midoriya’s mug. Iida had labelled them all from 1 to 20 after people kept leaving them in the sink and not washing up. After throwing it away and assuming he’d have to wait until Mr Aizawa ordered a new one, Midoriya turned around and found Yaoyorozu pulling a brand-new mug from her arm and pouring tea into it like it were a completely ordinary thing to do.

Midoriya had not fanboyed over something so intensely since he still liked heroes. He might have flustered Yaoyorozu a bit but come on – she could make anything she wanted at a moment’s notice! All she needed was to eat the right diet and not overdo it, and she could quite literally pull a sword from her leg. Oh, my God – it was amazing.

And then, she finally admitted how she got into UA.

“My parents are overprotective,” she admitted as they all walked up to the classroom for the beginning of the day. Mr Aizawa had let them walk their themselves after the first week, which made them all weirdly excited (puppy training). “It was bad enough to begin with, but when I got my Quirk, they just… became so constricting! I-I couldn’t take it. I practised my Quirk to no end out of boredom, but when I ran out of ideas… I started… sneaking out.”

She fiddled with her ponytail nervously, as if she were scared about what they might think of her after they knew the truth, but none of them seemed bothered so far. Midoriya certainly wasn’t.

“I… wanted to do everything my parents wouldn’t let me do. I… look a little older than I actually am, so I’d dress up and sneak into parties and… stuff… But it was nothing more illegal than sneaking in! A-At first. I met a group of girls and we became friends and then… there was this situation – we got mugged but we didn’t have any money on us, and I panicked… I made fake notes and handed them over. They let us go but after that, the girls wanted to do so much more with my Quirk. A-And I just didn’t want to disappoint them! I’d never really had friends before a-and… it just went wrong. I have plenty of money myself, but I couldn’t take it from my parents without them noticing! I kept making fakes of that and so much more and it just got out of hand… They sold me out, eventually – when they got caught with the fakes. They said it was my fault and then my parents found out…”

“They don’t sound like real friends to me,” Tsu insisted.

“Yeah – don’t worry about them ever again! You have us now!” Uraraka added with that glowing smile of hers.

Yaoyorozu sighed in apparent relief, “After everything that happened, I’m… happy I ended up here.”

“Yeah, me too!”

“Me three, ribbit.”

Neither Shoto, Iida nor Midoriya added to that. Maybe they weren’t quite sure of their answer yet.

They reached class A. Iida was always insistent that they were the first to arrive, but everyone else wasn’t that far behind anyway. Kacchan was still stewing in silence whilst his new, err, friendship group, laughed at him. Someone had written Kacchan~! in pink, permanent marker on the whiteboard back at the dorms. He’d spent the morning trying to rub it off, but Mina had accidently melted all their whiteboard pens, so he couldn’t do the trick where you wrote on top of the permanent pen to wipe it away. But he had found the permanent marker, and now nearly everyone had ridiculous nicknames, in hot pink.

Right on time, as always, Mr Aizawa walked through the door and the class quickly grew quiet. He had that effect on them – especially when he was carrying a large, cardboard box as well as his sleeping bag.

Midoriya was tempted to ask if he was restocking the supply of fruit pouches he hid in his desk, or yogurt or jelly or whatever they were. But the way he slammed it down on the table and looked at them all, made him think otherwise.

“Congratulations, you’re one week into UA, which means it’s time for the next step,” Aizawa announced, and suddenly everyone was far more interested. “Class A doesn’t usually learn to talk to each other for a week or so, but you’ve out done yourself. These were initially implicated so that you could easily contact me if, for example, someone’s Quirk is going haywire.”

Without further explanation, Mr Aizawa picked the box back up and made his way around the room. Midoriya frowned in utter confusion when he was handed a brick phone, labelled 18 across the back, as well as a charger.

“You have each other’s numbers already inserted, as well as mine –” he raised another brick phone that he had in his pocket – “and a few other teachers’. You should only be able to contact these specialised phones. If you even try to contact someone else, they will be confiscated. We can read all your messages.”

Midoriya looked down at his and turned it on. It was primitive – only for texting and calls. He had contacts labelled 1 to 20, missing out 18, of course, as well as Mr Aizawa, Vlad King and even Midnight. Other than that, there was one group chat set up, which all his contacts, excluding Vlad King and Midnight, were in.

He could change the contact names – easy. The others wouldn’t be able to see what he’d changed the names to, but no matter. There was no add new contact button – someone had somehow removed it from the screen entirely and likely disabled the function too. He couldn’t delete any contacts either. But it wouldn’t be hard to work around that – he could probably restore everything in under five minutes. The technology was too old to connect to the internet, but if he got Yaoyorozu to make him a couple of things then maybe he could –

“And 18?”

Midoriya flinched and slowly looked up at Mr Aizawa.

“Don’t.”

He gulped and slowly put the phone back down. It immediately let out a soft beep. Midoriya turned it over again to see:

[20 -> 18] Don’t?

Midoriya knew better than to answer whilst Mr Aizawa watched over them like a hawk.

“Principal Nezu can also see all your messages.”

And everyone put their phones down; the beeping noises echoing around the room stopping immediately.

Mr Aizawa sighed as he flat packed the empty box and knocked it off the table. “One week in and I have something else to remind you of – choosing class president.”

Midoriya saw Iida perk up from across the room. Being class president meant proving that you were responsible and the most trusted out of all of class A. When, in the future, you were questioned about your time in the infamous class, you could say, actually, I was selected as the leader and was highly trusted by my peers and my teachers. If Iida ever hoped to get back on the hero course track, being class president was his best bet.

Of course, it would be easy for Iida to get the role. He was the best behaved, already ordered people around, and kept the dorms clean. He was the perfect candidate. Only problem is that people didn’t always listen to him, but that was class A for you – they’d never listen to any kind of authority.

“Usually, a class representative is chosen by the class,” Mr Aizawa explained, “but it doesn’t work that way here. I will select them when they fulfil the most important criteria.”

Iida raised his hand, “And what would that be, Sir?”

Midoriya saw a few of his classmates roll their eyes and chuckle. He wasn’t the only one who knew Iida desperately wanted the role.

“I’ve been teaching class A for years, and I know that you lot won’t listen to me or anyone else as much as you would to one of your own. Your class president will be whoever ends up at the top of the pecking order.”

Midoriya flumped back into his chair – it wasn’t him then. But Iida still had a shot – he’d help him out in the best way he could.

“Whoever I choose can then select a vice president. Oh, and you can’t back out of being class president – my decision is final,” finished their teacher. “That’s all, try not to kill your Japanese teacher.”

“I think you’d make a great class president, Iida!” Uraraka exclaimed as they all sat down together for lunch.

“Thank you, but only Mr Aizawa can deem me worthy!”

“Sounds like it’s the rest of the class which does that,” Tsu acknowledged.

“Don’t any of you want the role?” Iida frowned, “It could give you such opportunity in the future!”

“It’s… not for me,” Uraraka admitted, before shovelling more food in her mouth.

“I wouldn’t mind it,” Yaoyorozu interjected, “Although, I doubt I’ll be selected. What about you, Midoriya?”

“Oh – I won’t be chosen either. Top of the pecking order and someone everyone listens to? Sounds more like Kacchan to me.”

Uraraka laughed, “The only reason everyone listens to Kacchan is because he’s so loud! And no one takes him seriously!”

“Bakugo would make a bad class president,” said Shoto, who rarely participated in conversations, probably because he didn’t know what to say.

Uraraka giggled again, “Oh, just imagine.”

“Bakugo trying to make everyone wash the dishes, ribbit,” Asui grinned.

“Wash the dishes or I kill you! Die, die, die!” Uraraka mimicked, slamming her hands on the table as she did so, and Shoto had to hold his water still to make sure it didn’t fall over.

“I think someone would frisbee a plate at his face…” Midoriya sniggered.

“Oh, my God, yes!”

“But you would break the plates!” Iida exclaimed, chopping his hands through the air like he always did when he was telling someone off.

“Exactly,” Uraraka replied, “Then you wouldn’t have to wash them up! And UA would just replace them – everything’s practically free here, it’s great!”

Midoriya was thinking about how especially great the food was, before his dropped his chopsticks in shock and held his hands over his ears.

A loud, shrill alarm had filled the hall. Within seconds, people had started to panic. Plates of food were abandoned, and the entire school began to run for the exit.

“Let’s go, everybody!” Iida called out, getting to his feet.

Uraraka looked mournfully down at her food, “But lunch…”

Midoriya pouted, “Well, I think I’ll just stay here,” and he shovelled some rice into his mouth.

Everyone but Iida hesitated and sat back down.

“But… the alarm!” Iida exclaimed.

“Well, it’s not a fire,” Midoriya said. “We had one over the weekend, remember? Some support student set fire to something and the alarm sounded nothing like this.”

“Oh yeah…” Uraraka remembered, “So, what’s this alarm for?”

“I don’t know, but they never drilled us for it.”

“…I say it’s their fault if something happens. They didn’t tell us what this meant,” Yaoyorozu decided, starting on her food again too.

“But everyone else is evacuating!” Iida persisted, gesturing towards the panicked stream of students.

Midoriya laughed, “They’re not going anywhere in that corridor – it’ll be filled to the brim! We’re probably safer here.”

“If it’s a villain attack, why would they target class A anyway?” Shoto pointed out.

Midoriya nodded, “Exactly. Besides Shoto can fight any fire of for us.”

Shoto didn’t even argue with it. “Sure, whatever.”

Iida looked lost for words. Perhaps he would have tried to get them moving again if their phones didn’t beep at them in that moment.

Class 1-A Group Chat

[7] Does anyone know what’s going on?

[8] Who’s that not evacuating?

[5] We’re hungry
[5] Midoriya said it’s not a fire alarm!

[18] The fire alarm sounded different

[5] Also look at this food going to wASTE!
[5] Disgraceful

[4] May I suggest we all swiftly exit the building?

[7] Nah, let’s burn to death

[18] We have Shoto

[7] Everyone but the guys with 15 – let’s burn to death

[2] Death!

[7] Death!

[18] Can’t the teachers read this chat?

[2] dEATH!

[17] You’re all freaking idiots

[13] You’re not moving either

[7] Does he care about us?

[5] Kacchan cares!

[2] Awwwwwwwwwwwwww! We wuv you, Kacchan~!

[17] YOU BETTER HOPE THAT FIRE GETS YOU BEFORE I DO

There was a yell and a small explosion from across the hall, and everyone in class A started laughing, the sound echoing around the emptied room when the alarm finally stopped blaring.

Jiro’s yell of “FINALLY!” made them all laugh harder.

It wasn’t until much later that they were finally told that the press had invaded campus, and that set of an intruder alarm. Mr Aizawa gave them some stern words for not leaving, but none of them took it to heart. Midoriya could have sworn he glared at him more than everyone else.

He gave him a look so menacing that Midoriya was quite certain his eyes glowed red for a moment, when Midoriya asked why the press felt the need to break in like that.

“The press always get excited at the beginning of UA,” Mr Aizawa sighed, rubbing his eyes, “They want to know about you lot. With 15 here, they’re slightly more desperate for information than usual.”

Midoriya supposed that made sense. Imagine all the articles they could write if they got even the smallest story behind one of his classmates…

“Oh, and All Might’s teaching the hero course this year, so they probably want to know about how that’s going.”

The entire class perked up. None of them had heard about All Might, the number one hero – nor seen him!

Midoriya’s glare simply hardened, and he knew Mr Aizawa had noted the change in his expression.

“It’s good to have dreams, young man. Just… make sure they’re attainable.”

Midoriya had met All Might. It must have been ten months ago now. His old idol, the number one hero of Japan, had rescued him from a villain made of sludge. When asking him if someone like Midoriya… could be a hero too. He… said no…

And then the man… deflated. The impossibly tall, muscular, symbol of peace shrunk into a skeletal man with an ugly scar on his side. All Might’s Quirk kept up the illusion of near-to invulnerability – but now Midoriya knew the truth. After a fight, hidden from the rest of the world, five to six years ago now, All Might had been weakened.

And the whole encounter was stupid anyway. The sludge villain escaped, and almost killed Kacchan! If Midoriya hadn’t stepped in, when all the other heroes he once admired had given up, he would have died. Sure, All Might turned up again at the last second, but Midoriya’s point had been made – heroes weren’t all they were cracked up to be.

After being scolded for jumping in like that, Midoriya ripped the hero posters from his walls, knocked the merchandise he’d spent years collecting into boxes, and hid it all beneath his bed. His room was bare – just like his dreams.

It was in that moment, that he had decided to make a difference – he stared at the last hero analysis book he ever made, one scorched and burnt after Kacchan had casually told him to just go and kill himself and tossed it in a pond. All Might had signed it too, ignoring the damage – just like everyone else – and Midoriya concluded that Kacchan needed to be dealt with.

The school knew what Kacchan had been doing to Midoriya. They turned a blind eye to it. If Kacchan got into UA’s hero course, they could hail his successes forever more, as being because of their excellent teaching. But punishing him for bullying would ruin that, so they ignored it. They never expected Midoriya to hack into their security network and save the files they so carefully tried to dispose of and go to the police with his evidence.

The school was still under investigation, last Midoriya knew of it, and of course, Kacchan ended up in class A. It was all going so perfect, until… his mother got a letter from UA too.

It was All Might’s fault Midoriya slipped. His fault it all ended up like this. Now Midoriya had thought through it, he was sure. Maybe it was him who recommended he were sent to UA!

Yes… Jiro was sent here because she knew something that she shouldn’t have known… right? Did she know the same thing Midoriya did?

…Did she know about All Might’s weakness too?

Or do the heroes hide even more dirty secrets?

When Mr Aizawa was leaving the classroom to let their afternoon lessons begin, he must have noticed Midoriya’s smile, because he hesitated. He’d always paid particular attention to him, and now Midoriya knew why.

Oh, the heroes thought he was dangerous. They saw how angry he was at them after the sludge villain attack – saw how he brought Kacchan down without lifting a finger in any violent affair – and realised what Midoriya knew… And they thought the best place for him was class A – somewhere they could keep an eye on him, and maybe retrain a love of heroes.

Midoriya dared to look back at Mr Aizawa and smiled a little wider.

He knew why he was here.

Now he just needed to figure out what he wanted to do with it.

Chapter Text

The first meeting of the term was held a day late this year. Principal Nezu needed to deal with the situation with the press, and that took priority over the annual class 1-A report. There were two every term, one at the start and one at the end. Aizawa would visit the Principal and tell him of any progress or concerns he had over his pupils. The first one was the most interesting, of course, since it involved him finally giving his initial thoughts of the students he’d only seen on paper prior to the year’s beginning.

Today was to be a busy day, hence it being rather annoying that the meeting was delayed, but Nezu was still seemingly keen to get it over and done with. The two heroes sat in silence, facing each other for a few seconds too long.

Aizawa sighed as he lifted the twenty files onto the desk before them. A little thicker than they had been when the Principal had last laid his eyes on them, but not by much. It had only been a week, after all.

“Number order?” Nezu suggested innocently.

Aizawa gave him a look, “I’ll leave you to look over the files yourself. For a majority of them, there isn’t much to say or discuss.”

“A majority?” he repeated.

Aizawa was more than frustrated by this supposed naivety. Sliding the stack of files across the table to be dutifully ignored, Aizawa leant back in his chair and crossed his arms, “18 is becoming problematic.”

“Quicker than expected,” Nezu simply smiled, taking a sip of his green tea.

“Are you sure it was a good idea to put him in this class?” Aizawa dared to acknowledge.

Nezu put down his cup as he listened.

“The longer he stays here, the worse he’ll get. He was so cautious for the first few days – but the moment he realised All Might was teaching here, something changed.”

“He realised why he was enrolled in class 1-A,” Nezu nodded. “I would expect a change in attitude after that. Midoriya needed the confidence to recognise his potential. He’ll be a quite different person to manage from here on out.”

Aizawa wavered, “He’s not a genius.”

“Oh, no,” Nezu smiled, shaking his head. “He doesn’t have an intelligence Quirk, nor does he have a fluke in his genetics to give him smarts to rival such an ability. Not to my knowledge, at least.”

“Iida bests him in most subjects, and once Yaoyorozu finally began to apply herself, she quickly out did him too. Bakugo isn’t someone to cast aside either. Midoriya is definitely in the top, but by no means is he the top.”

“He had much bigger fish to fry in middle school. No, he has a different kind of intelligence – one with people.”

Aizawa just stared at Nezu as he refilled his teacup. Aizawa’s own lay abandoned, quickly getting cold.

“But it’s because of him that the entire class is so close knit,” the teacher explained. “Most of my classes took up to a month to finally start talking to each other. It took this one half a day – because Midoriya made them all write their names next to their student numbers back at the dorms. And then Mic said he promptly wrote everything down in a notebook and started collecting their strengths and weaknesses – and had previously done the same for many heroes, including him. Now the entire class is taking advantage of his stupid bug phobia whilst Midoriya sits back and watches it happen – did you see what they did during the alarm yesterday? Midoriya told them to ignore it and not a single one of them questioned him. He’s achieved exactly what you predicted he would, and in one week.”

“And Todoroki?” was all Nezu said in reply.

“Seems to be close to Midoriya. He’s the only one he’ll actively speak to.”

Nezu’s smile grew wider still, “How excellent! I suggest we leave them be for a while. The real test will be the Sports Festival, and the home visit that follows.”

Aizawa rubbed nonchalantly at his temples, “Bakugo is definitely one of Midoriya’s loose ends. The two despise each other and he’s the only one that actively works against Midoriya. It doesn’t help that the rest of the class jumps in to protect him from Bakugo – it makes him angrier. At this rate I can’t see either of them graduating. Both are getting worse. Putting Midoriya in here may have caused more problems than it solved. The other students would probably behave a lot better if they didn’t have Midoriya either intentionally or unintentionally edging them on.”

“It’ll be unintentional at this point,” Nezu hummed to himself. “I think he and All Might should have a class together. We could send class A with class B during their rescue training. I heard that Midoriya had an altercation with someone from the hero course recently?”

“Monoma,” Aizawa sighed. “Midoriya managed to convince him that he had the ability to steal other Quirks and all of class A played along.”

Aizawa noted how Nezu’s paw hesitated at his cup of tea, “Did he now?” he almost whispered, “I knew he’d convinced the hero course that he had a Quirk, but I was not aware of the nature of it. Remarkable – I wonder how long that will last… You didn’t give up their game, did you?”

“No. I thought you would be interested in how that would turn out.”

“I assume you are too.”

“Naturally.”

Another too-long moment of silence passed whilst Nezu finished his fourth cup of tea. Aizawa just stared at it, as though willing it to transform into coffee.

“How long do you recommend we wait until we do some therapy sessions with the individuals this year?” Nezu asked, glancing at an untouched form to the side of the files Aizawa had given him.

“We’ll need some more time,” Aizawa admitted. “None of them trust a single member of staff enough yet, let alone any stranger asking them about their mental health. It’ll make them feel more insecure – and I don’t want Todoroki to lock himself away from everyone again, especially Midoriya. We may have to wait until after the Sports Festival at least.”

“I trust your judgment,” Nezu agreed, sliding the form out of sight for now. He glanced at the files. “Tell me, what are your thoughts on little Miss Zero?”

Absolutely no one in class A was looking forward to the day, when Mr Aizawa announced that they’d be accompanying class B to a specialised training facility on the other end of campus to help with their rescue training.

This easily translated to various groups sitting in fake disaster zones, calling out “Help – my leg – it is broken,” in the most bored tone in the world, whilst waiting for the amateur heroes to roughly ‘rescue’ them. And if that couldn’t get any worse, they would be accompanied by not two, not three, but four heroes – Mr Aizawa; the head of class B, Vlad King; the hero in charge of the rescue facility they’d be utilising, Thirteen; and All Might.

Midoriya was wondering if the hero course could just let him die.

“So, hear me out right – Thirteen, the hero – and 13, the student,” Mina giggled.

They were on the bus on the way to the training facility they’d be meeting class B at. They were all in their PE kits, grudgingly ready to be tossed around by the hero course for the rest of the morning.

“Sero, you’ve got to answer to 13 for the rest of the day,” Kaminari insisted.

“Just imagine class B calling for help or something oh, Thirteen, can you – and then Sero swoops in front of them!” added Mina.

“Maybe they’ll learn to stop calling us by numbers,” Sero sighed.

“Speaking of numbers, anyone have any idea how to silence these stupid things?” called out Hagakure, waving her brick phone in the air, labelled 16 in red.

“I haven’t figured out how to do anything except call and text,” Jiro moaned. “I miss my music…”

The bus had a rather open planned layout, and on a long row of seats, Midoriya sat beside Shoto and Yaoyorozu. The taller girl leant over to Midoriya and asked, curiously, “What did Mr Aizawa mean by don’t the other day? You never explained.”

In a hushed voice, he replied, “I um… hack… stuff…”

“Oh… so, you could theoretically…”

“I could restore the phones to their original function, yeah, easily – allow us access to settings, deleting contacts, adding them, calling whoever we want… I might need to take it apart and put it back together. It could take a little longer to stop the teachers from being able to read our messages – and I wouldn’t be able to connect them to the internet at all without a little more… err, pieces – the software just doesn’t exist in these things.”

Midoriya took his own phone out of his pocket. Everyone had taken theirs with them. They didn’t need to but having them was like a little piece of freedom, despite their obvious limitations. After the initial fear of the Principal reading all their messages, they’d loosened up. The most recent conversation in the group chat had been held in the middle of the night, which had started on the topic of how sleep was a waste of time and ended a few hours later about the blood type preferences of mosquitoes.

The bus ride didn’t last long. The UA grounds were massive – Midoriya gazed out the window nearly the entire time. The campus was surrounded by walls, and then mostly lined with trees. Beyond the main school, which Midoriya hadn’t left for a week now, were numerous hero-training grounds, including what they were heading towards.

They dragged their feet when getting off the bus. Class B was waiting for them, just inside the large, dome-shaped building, all dressed up in their hero outfits.

“Line up,” Mr Aizawa ordered.

Kacchan roughly pushed between Midoriya and Hagakure as they took the positions that they’d been forced to practise every day for the last week.

Whilst Mr Aizawa went to talk to the other two heroes present, Vlad King and Thirteen, class A awkwardly stood in their place, and class B turned to them.

“Look at them line up in number order,” sniggered Monoma, and a good majority of his class followed suit.

“Wow,” Jiro deadpanned, “Look at their pretty little outfits. Where’d you get yours, Monoma? A fancy dress shop?”

Now it was class A’s turn to laugh, although, the trainee heroes didn’t seem that bothered, not even Monoma.

“Does it have any… function?” Yaoyorozu asked him.

“What would the likes of you know about hero costumes?” Monoma scoffed.

He was wearing a suit, and an ugly one at that. Midoriya could barely do his own tie up properly, but he could still wrinkle his nose at what Monoma was sporting, at least in terms of practicality. His blazer was long tailed and that couldn’t have been helpful in any feasible situation. His shirt collar was upturned, and his blue tie, although done up correctly, was covered in black polka dots. The only thing Midoriya could spy that was of any use whatsoever, were the stopwatches attached to his belt.

“More than you, apparently,” Midoriya dared to speak up.

Monoma laughed. He had such a dull… mocking laugh. “You already know about my Quirk since you decided to have a go – I don’t need any specialised items.”

The entirety of class A knew about Midoriya’s little trick from all the way back on the second day of term. After Mr Aizawa had warned him about what consequences may befall afterwards, Uraraka told the story of how Midoriya and Todoroki somehow got Monoma to believe that Midoriya could steal Quirks, after his Quirklessness cancelled out Monoma’s copying ability.

“I could think of a dozen specialised items,” Midoriya retorted. “For one – a jacket without tails that could easily catch fire. Since you do have a Quirk that allows you to copy fire Quirks, which are rather common, fireproofing should be one of the first things you thought of. It would also be a good idea to have some kind of weapon that you don’t need to use your Quirk for. You’re relying too heavily on your abilities that already rely on someone else’s. You need to be able to fight Quirkless and be good at it – and your stiff costume really won’t help, especially when you need to be able to move fast and get in close to touch someone and gain their power, and then likely move away to have the time to figure out how to use it. I hope your shoes don’t give you blisters,” he said in a way that implied that he hoped the opposite.

Everyone stared at him for a few moments, including the pro heroes. Midoriya tried not to cower under their scrutiny. But he could have sworn he saw Mr Aizawa smile.

“Wow, you really know your stuff,” blinked a member of class B in an orange and black armoured costume. He held a similarly coloured helmet under his arm, so Midoriya could see his face. He didn’t seem to have any lips, so all his teeth were on full show. It was kind of scary, but at least his costume was better than Monoma’s.

“He would have to, with a Quirk like his,” said the ginger-haired girl that Monoma had been with back when they first met. “Hi,” she smiled, “I’m Kendo – I’m class B’s new representative!”

“Your costume’s pretty!” Mina called out.

“Hey, thanks!” she grinned, glancing down at her blue, knee-length qipao. She had free movement and practical boots. She also wore a utility belt and even black shorts underneath the short dress. Monoma should have taken notes – Kendo had clearly thought this through. Midoriya didn’t even know what her Quirk was, but for some reason, he was thinking it would be something to do with martial arts.

“Kendo!” Monoma interrupted, “We shouldn’t be associating with the inferior class!”

“Oh, come on, Monoma, just because you and 18 don’t get along doesn’t mean we all have to hate each other. Plus, you two have similar Quirks – maybe you could learn from one another,” Kendo suggested with a bright smile.

Midoriya couldn’t tell if she was faking being that nice or if it was genuine. She had told him off for scaring Monoma back then, but maybe she’d forgiven him…? Perhaps he’d simply been deprived of nice people who didn’t have ulterior motives, didn’t care, or who also happened to be villains.

Nice villains, huh? Midoriya would have once called that an oxymoron – the two words just didn’t seem to fit together. Now it was nice hero that sounded off.

Midoriya had figured it out now – he’d had it wrong all his life. It made sense though, this whole world was run by heroes, so of course he’d trust them, worship them, even. But the system only worked because they pushed down those who resisted, that’s what class A was for, right? For as long as he’d known, everyone had pushed him down, told him he was worthless – powerless.

But Mr Aizawa was right – there was power in what he thought was powerlessness. Midoriya may not have a Quirk; no strength, no… fire or ice or speed… but he had his mind. He could make a difference, just… not perhaps in the way he once thought. He didn’t know what he wanted to do yet. He had the ammunition; he just didn’t know where to fire the gun. But that ammunition made them nervous – them being the heroes. So, they slapped another label on him – on top of Quirkless and useless – villainous and dangerous. And that made him smile.

He’d found himself – and he was a villain, not a hero.

UA would have been better off just leaving him alone.

“Shut up! You don’t know who the hell you’re dealing with!”

Midoriya blinked, and suddenly Kacchan was fighting with Monoma. Midoriya had kind of lost himself to his thoughts, which was a common occurrence. The teachers didn’t seem to be intervening either. He wondered if they were stalling, since All Might hadn’t arrived yet, or perhaps they were just interested in seeing what would happen between class A and B – it sounded like something Mr Aizawa would do.

Before he knew it, Kacchan had grabbed the front of Midoriya’s shirt and hauled him up to his height, “This is your fault!” he hissed for at least the fifth time that week.

Midoriya would have once squirmed and shrunk under his gaze, but since he’d been at UA, despite how short of a time that was, he’d come to realise there was no point in acting like that. A real villain wouldn’t back down from a fight.

He pushed Kacchan’s hands away with a sigh, so calmly that Kacchan almost backed away in surprise. “Yes, we’ve already established that, Kacchan.”

“Seriously, Midoriya, are you ever going to tell us what you did?” laughed Kaminari, and class B just looked nervous.

He supposed that’s where most of his confidence came from. He’d spent so long working on getting Kacchan into class A. Over around five months, Midoriya had bettered his skills in hacking, he’d read up on laws, spent hours shut up in his room, growing more and more bitter. There’s no way he could have backed out after that.

“I should be on the freaking hero course!” Kacchan yelled, cupping little explosions in his hands, almost spitting in Midoriya’s face.

“Oh really?” Monoma laughed, “Imagine, a villain in our class – you can’t be a hero!”

“That’s enough.” Mr Aizawa stepped forwards, and they all went silent. His eyes did that thing where they glow red for a moment again. Midoriya could have sworn his hair floated that time as well. He sighed, “Your class president is right, you’re here to learn from one another. Class B, as well as class A.”

He stood in front of the line that class A maintained, crossing his arms as he faced class B sternly, “If you tell any of my students that they don’t have a chance again, then maybe you don’t deserve yours.”

The cocky smile faded quickly from Monoma’s face. He turned away, averting his gaze with a hint of embarrassment in his eyes.

“Anyone can be a hero – some roads are just rockier than others.”

And Midoriya blinked at his teacher, the words striking a chord in his heart strings that he had been sure couldn’t be played anymore. He stared at the back of Mr Aizawa’s head, tilting his own to one side whilst he wondered how rocky his road had been. Because who better to teach class A than someone who had…

“Oh,” Midoriya found himself saying out loud, and everyone turned to him. His eyes flickered to them all nervously, before settling back on Mr Aizawa, “Eraser Head – t-that’s your hero name, right?”

He said nothing, but the chill in his eyes seemed to have faded.

“You… used to be in class A, didn’t you?”

Mr Aizawa cracked a smile, “That took you longer than I expected.”

Midoriya only frowned when his teacher turned back to the others, “Speaking of which, we’re going to have to start without him. We’ve waited here long enough.”

“W-Wait, where’s All Might?” asked one of class B. Midoriya didn’t register who, because he was too busy thinking.

He figures one thing out, thinks he can see the world clearly, and then something else trips him up and he finds himself kneeling in the dirt again. Mr Aizawa graduated class A. And he was a hero – an underground one at that. Midoriya didn’t know much about him; he wasn’t exactly the type to seek the spotlight, but maybe that was the point. He was quite sure he’d gotten into the class as a vigilante, and essentially ended his years at UA as a vigilante with a license and carried on with what he’d always been doing.

“He got waylaid with some villains,” Mr Aizawa vaguely explained.

Midoriya knew that wasn’t the whole truth though. His time limit must have run out on him.

Vlad King cleared his throat and stepped forwards, “Right, today we will be focusing on rescue training. Members of class A will be rescued by class B in fake scenarios using –”

“Wait, we have to be rescued?” gaped Jiro, Mr Aizawa’s kind words immediately being lost to the past.

Midoriya had thought this was quite obvious, but apparently not as much as he’d thought.

Mr Aizawa ignored her completely, “One member of class B will be paired up with a member of class A. Vlad, you can choose who goes with who – we’ll be changing it up next time anyway. Alright, Thirteen, did you want to explain the facilities here?”

“Looks like a theme park to me, Sir,” Sero butted in before the hero Thirteen could say a word.

The teachers glared at him whilst class A chuckled under their breath.

“I have an idea,” he continued, “To avoid confusion, why don’t you be Thirteen, and I… hm… why don’t you just call me by my name?”

“R-Right,” Thirteen stammered, “Well, welcome to the Unforeseen Simulation Joint –”

“The USJ?” Mina said innocently.

“Yes, it’s –”

“Universal Studios Japan? That’s literally a theme park!” Sero exclaimed.

Whilst this conversation was batted back and forth like a tennis match, Midoriya’s eyes wandered to his surroundings. The large dome was split into several zones, depicting different disasters – like fire, landslides or shipwrecks. Midoriya was trying not to smile, thinking about Kacchan being forced to participate in these fake rescue exercises, where he couldn’t be the hero. The smile faded when he realised that he’d find himself in the same situation. He just hoped Monoma wouldn’t be the one rescuing him.

Why was there a fountain in the middle? What was the purpose? Some rogue Quirk was bound to blow it up at some point anyway, and then they’d have to block the area off until it could be fixed up again.

“18, focus,” said Mr Aizawa.

Midoriya snapped out of his daydreams and turned back to the class. He found himself standing next to Kendo.

“We partnered up,” she whispered to him, “and we’re going over to the landslide zone.”

“Oh, thanks,” Midoriya muttered in reply. He was just glad Mr Aizawa hadn’t decided to teach him a lesson by pairing him up with Monoma, who was with Kacchan instead – Midoriya grinned.

They started walking in a line behind the teachers. He supposed they’d been paired up with the hero class like this to stop them from running off and doing something stupid, which sounded like something which could have easily happened before.

Finding the situation awkward, Midoriya tried to make conversation with the hero girl he was with. He nudged her side and indicated towards the fountain, “What do you think the point of the fountain is?”

“Hm…” she started after a moment’s hesitation, “Not sure – because it looks nice?”

“But it’s in the way. Wouldn’t a central… battle arena or something be more useful?”

“Maybe – but there are benches. It’s like a rest area.”

“That doesn’t warrant the presence of a fountain.”

“Oh, would you shut UP?!” Kacchan yelled back at him.

This, of course, spurred Midoriya to keep talking, “And the greenery around it – they’d have to get people in here to look after it, which is unnecessary.”

“Unless they had a, um, sprinkler system?”

“See? It’s all so complicated – and what’s the strange purple light? It doesn’t even look nice.”

Kendo glanced back over Midoriya’s shoulder, “What purple light?”

Midoriya stopped, “That… one…”

“What’s going on?” asked Yaoyorozu. They were at the back of the group, but everyone soon stopped. Midoriya’s observation seemed to confuse the teachers too. And as that swirling, purple vortex grew bigger, it became clear that it wasn’t supposed to be there at all.

A pale hand reached through, pushing the light apart like a set of curtains, stepping out like he were on a stage. And God, it was a large cast, because more followed – so many that Midoriya couldn’t count.

“What’s going on…?” asked Kirishima, taking a few steps back. The steel-themed hero student beside him mimicked his movements.

“Is this part of the training exercise?” asked a particularly optimistic member of class B.

“No,” Mr Aizawa replied sharply. “No – those are real villains – stay back!” He pulled at his scarf – which Midoriya now realised was a hero support item and not just a portable pillow.

“Where is he?” rang out the voice of the pale man in the centre, covered in… detached hands. “Where is All Might?”

“Who are you?! What do you want?!” Vlad King called out, his gruff voice holding an unspoken threat.

“Such a pity,” the villain sighed, turning to the two men either side of him. Well, Midoriya could hardly call them that – one towered above his counter parts, with a face like a beak and an exposed brain. The other seemed to be made of purple-black mist, with imposing, golden eyes. “He’ll turn up, I’m sure… Why don’t we complete our other target whilst we wait?”

Midoriya didn’t like the sound of that.

“Class A – we’re here to liberate you.”

“Go – run, now!” Mr Aizawa called out, pushing a set of iconic yellow goggles over his eyes, once hidden underneath his scarf. “Thirteen – protect the students! Vlad, come with me!”

Thirteen immediately began to usher the students towards the exit, but it was clear they were unsure of what they should be doing.

“Wait, no!” Midoriya suddenly found himself calling out, “Mr Aizawa – your fighting style isn’t suited for this!”

Mr Aizawa blinked back at him, “No hero’s a one trick pony, kid.” And the two teachers charged down the rest of the stairs at the swarm of villains.

Wait – why did Midoriya say that? Why – who – what side was he on?! Who should he be fighting against here?!

“Class B! Stick with your partners!” Thirteen ordered.

Midoriya felt Kendo’s hand grip his arm and pull him backwards, “Come on!” she exclaimed.

Was she saving him or holding him prisoner?!

He wasn’t the only one confused. Most of class A tried to lag back, glancing at each other as if they could find the answer there.

Midoriya gritted his teeth – no, this wasn’t right. They needed to run, “We need to go, come on!” he exclaimed, allowing Kendo to pull him forwards, and the others soon followed.

Their hesitation, however, would be their downfall. Because in seconds, they were surrounded by a purple fog, and the gleaming eyes of the mist villain appeared before them, blocking the exit. “Why are you running?” he asked them all with genuine curiosity. “Come now – those who call themselves heroes keep you captive. We are the League of Villains – join us.”

“…T-That’s a stupid name,” was all Midoriya could utter, almost choking on the words in fear.

“Stay back!” cried out Thirteen, stepping in front of them all, “I’m warning you!” They pointed a finger menacingly, ready to activate their deadly Quirk – black hole.

“Shigaraki is waiting for All Might,” the fog villain said simply. “We shall leave only once he has met his demise.”

They… want to kill All Might? Midoriya gaped; was that even possible? Maybe with his weakness… but did they know about that?!

“Then you leave me no choice!” and Thirteen’s Quirk was activated, pulling the edges of the fog into the tip of their finger, obliterating it instantly.

But the villain was prepared. Immediately, another swirling, purple light appeared behind Thirteen, and their own Quirk ripped at the back of their astronaut themed costume. They fell to the ground with the despaired screams of Midoriya’s classmates, class A and B alike.

The shock lasted barely a second, before someone leapt to Thirteen’s rescue –

“KACCHAN! NO!” Midoriya cried out, as his old friend propelled himself forward with his explosions, ready to fill the villain with his own smoke and fire.

The villain reacted instantly. His fog spread around them once again. Midoriya shielded his face from the dust and rock caught up in the vortex that engulfed him.

All of a sudden, he felt the sound around him fade and the ground disappearing from beneath his feet. With no time to take a breath, Midoriya plunged into the… water?

In the surprise of it all, he tried to breathe, inhaling only liquid. He reached the surface with a kick of his legs, coughing and spluttering. He tried to get his bearings, pushing his soaking hair from his eyes as he tread water – he was in the shipwreck zone. He’d been teleported halfway across the USJ! The boat was closest. He tried to swim towards it, but within seconds, was pulled back under the water.

“The red bands! He’s class A, idiot!” It was a villain with the head of a shark, snapping at another under the water, who held onto Midoriya’s ankle as he struggled to get free, quickly running out of air in the panic.

“Midoriya!” called out a familiar, croaky voice. In a blur, the villain holding him down was pushed away, and Midoriya was flung above the surface. He’d been closer to the boat than he thought because he slammed harshly onto the deck, and soon after, Tsu leapt out of the water and to his side. “Are you ok, ribbit?”

Midoriya rolled over and coughed up the rest of the water in his lungs, taking in deep, cleansing breaths of air. He took a hand reached out to him, shaking as he got to his feet, “W-What just –”

“That warp villain separated us,” explained the guy who had helped Midoriya up. It was the hero student with the scary teeth and practical armour, but he seemed to have lost his helmet. “It’s easier to take us on in smaller groups.”

Midoriya stumbled over to the edge of the ship and looked down. A disturbing number of gleaming eyes stared back up at him from just below the surface. He backed away.

“W-Well, we should be safe here for now – thank you, Tsu,” Midoriya sighed.

“It’s ok,” she nodded. “Can you swim?”

“Yeah – I was just a little shocked, sorry for almost drowning on you…”

“Thank you for helping me too,” said the hero student, rubbing his head. “I was the one supposed to be rescuing you, but it looks like it was the opposite way around today. I’m Honenuki, nice to meet you.”

“I’m Asui, but you can call me Tsu. This is Midoriya, and that’s Mineta, ribbit.”

Midoriya turned to see short number 19, sitting in a soggy ball and shivering in the corner, obviously terrified by the experience.

After a moment of silence, Honenuki spoke up again, “I can’t believe that just happened. They came out of nowhere…”

“Literally,” Midoriya added, trying to shake the water from his hair.

Honenuki glanced at him. Midoriya noted a slight fear in his eyes – what had Monoma said about him to the rest of his class?

“…For a moment there, I really thought the rest of class A would run to the villains.”

Midoriya and Tsu stared at him for a moment, until Midoriya bowed his head and said, “So did I.”

“Then… why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know.”

“…Well, thank you for not.”

“Come on, kids, we don’t have all day!” yelled one of the villains from the water.

The four of them (yes, including Mineta), wandered to the edge of the boat and gazed down.

“Toss the hero!” another laughed.

“Yeah – come on, we’ll take you three home and dry! You know you want to!”

Midoriya saw how Honenuki tensed and glanced at Midoriya and Tsu, either side of him.

“…It’s three against one.”

And Tsu slapped Mineta across the ship’s deck with her tongue. “We’re not tossing you overboard, ribbit.”

Honenuki breathed a sigh of relief, “Thanks.”

“But this is a shipwreck simulation… It’s only a matter of time before one of the villains figures out how to activate the sequence and this boat will sink, ribbit. There’s got to be another way out of here,” Tsu pondered, and she turned to Midoriya.

“W-Why are you looking at me?”

“I thought you were the smart one, ribbit.”

“W-Well I-I wouldn’t say that! I just –”

“You’re 18, right?” Honenuki interjected, rather wary that Mineta had gotten back up and reached their side, “The one that could steal Monoma’s Quirk? Could you use that on the villains?”

Midoriya smiled weakly and crouched down, out of sight of the villains. The other two followed suit, and Mineta didn’t need to.

“I, err, well, about that –” Midoriya hastily cleared his throat – “I might have… tricked Monoma into thinking I could steal his Quirk…”

Honenuki stared at him, “But how –”

“My um, Quirk reacted with his and cancelled it out. I played along and pretended that I took it…” Midoriya fiddled with his thumbs, glancing back at Honenuki nervously, “You see, I’m actually… Quirkless…”

Honenuki blinked whilst Midoriya grinned anxiously at him, “So… Monoma copied… not having a Quirk... Huh, I didn’t know it was possible to be Quirkless anymore – you really don’t have a power at all?”

“Err – no… No, I’m extra ordinary – with a space in the middle.”

It took a moment for him to laugh.

“What’s your Quirk, can you use it to get us out of here?” Midoriya asked, painstakingly aware of the time they were wasting.

“Not really,” he winced. “My Quirk is softening –” he reached back and sunk his hand into the boat – “I can make any non-living object softer. I can essentially turn it into quicksand.” With a second tap, the wall became solid again.

“It’s an incredible Quirk!” Midoriya exclaimed, “But… not very useful in the water.”

“I know, I’m sorry – if only I could be of more use.”

“My Quirk is frog,” Tsu explained quickly, “I can do anything a frog can – swim fast, jump high, stick to walls – I have a really long tongue; I can eject my whole stomach and give out a weak toxin, but that’s not particularly useful at the moment either.”

“Wow, you’d make a really good hero with a Quirk like that,” Honenuki insisted.

“Well, I did get put in class A for vigilantism, ribbit.”

“Ah, I see…”

“I stick to stuff too.”

The three of them turned to glare at Mineta as he took one of the purple balls on his head off and stuck it to the wall of the boat.

“Well, my hair can – I just bounce right off them.”

They stared at him.

He seemed to well up, “What?! I’m just trying to help! Midoriya doesn’t even have a Quirk!” he whined.

“But Midoriya didn’t suggest throwing Honenuki overboard, ribbit,” Tsu reminded him.

He sobbed louder, “I just want to live!”

“Ugh, this is taking too long!” was the voice of one of the villains.

Midoriya stood up to see him begin to clamber up the side of the boat.

“No! Go away!” Mineta cried, leaning over the barricade and tossing his hair balls at the villain, who in surprise, dodged and dived back into the water. The rest of them avoided the purple projectiles the best they could, washing them away carefully.

Midoriya narrowed his eyes, and then realised something. He turned back to the others, “They don’t know what our Quirks are!”

“Ok, but how does that help us, ribbit?” Tsu questioned.

Honenuki grinned at Midoriya with a greater understanding, “Just like Monoma didn’t know yours!”

“Exactly, we can fake having something we don’t to give us a greater advantage,” Midoriya smiled slyly.

“But what do we do?”

Midoriya turned to Mineta, “I have an idea.”

Not long after, the villains were bombarded with dozens of sticky purple balls. They floated around in the water, sticking to their shoulders and hands. They tried to pry them off, but the effort was in vain.

Midoriya stood up beside Mineta, whose scalp was bleeding and eyes were watering. “Listen up!” Midoriya exclaimed. “With just a click of my fingers, those little bombs that you’re stuck to will blow you sky high! So, I’d suggest not giving me reason to do so. And if you think that I’m bluffing, consider what class I’m in, and think again.”

Midoriya may have looked calm and collected on the outside, his green eyes gleaming with malice, but inside, he was more terrified than ever. “So, back off – we’re leaving.”

After a tense moment of silence, the villains swam to either side, giving them a clear path to shore. Tsu jumped in without hesitation, wrapping her tongue around Mineta and pulling him in too. Honenuki and Midoriya were close behind, being careful to avoid the purple balls floating around them.

They started to swim as fast as they could. Mr Aizawa’s words echoed in Midoriya’s ears –

“Fabricated strengths can quickly become very real weaknesses.”

If a single one of these villains took the risk, they were done for.

And they did.

They must have realised they wouldn’t dare blow them up whilst they were in the water too, and one lunged at Honenuki.

Tsu darted back and kicked the villain in the nose, still dragging Mineta around like a buoy, his purple head just sticking out of the water as he panicked and blew bubbles, just unable to breathe.

But Midoriya had already thought through plan B. Honenuki grabbed Midoriya’s arm and they sunk down – down – right to the bottom of the fake lake. His ears popping and air running out, Midoriya could only hang in there whilst Honenuki softened the floor and yanked Midoriya underneath the concrete.

Midoriya didn’t dare open his eyes as Honenuki swam through the floor. He kept a firm grip on the hero student’s wrist, trying to swim as fast as he could.

Seconds before Midoriya was sure he would inhale the stone, he felt Honenuki harden the ground, push off it, and burst through the surface of the water. Coughing and spluttering even worse than before, the two hauled themselves onto dry land.

As soon as he caught his breath, Midoriya said, “Where’s –”

But his unspoken question was answered instantly when Tsu landed artfully in the water just behind him, Mineta clinging to her side in a rather inappropriate manner and crying. Within seconds, he was catapulted onto land, and Tsu hopped out and glared at him for a moment.

She then turned away, “And we’re done here.”

She hopped off in the direction of the main exit, where Midoriya had earlier instructed they should head towards, leaving Mineta behind.

“Well,” Honenuki huffed, “That worked surprisingly well.”

“Not… exactly,” Midoriya winched, pointing out at the water. The villains were heading right at them.

Honenuki gritted his teeth and took a fighting stance, “I’m on land – I can take them now.”

Midoriya hated that he didn’t have more time to think this through, “Take Mineta and go after Tsu! Go the most direct way to the exit, around the central plaza to avoid the main fight! I’ll go the other way – the villains are after me, I was the one who tricked them! We have a better chance if we split up!”

“But –”

“Just go!” Midoriya didn’t give him the time to stop him. He didn’t want Honenuki fighting them alone – they knew water well and liquidizing the ground might not be the best idea against such opponents.

He kept running – as fast as he could, and Midoriya was a quick runner for a boy who wasn’t that athletic and had no superpower to help him. As expected, the water villains did not have the same skillset. They must have either remained in the water or got caught up in the fight around the fountain, because Midoriya was not pursued. He could see the others from across the plaza, and they were ok too.

That was when he spotted Mr Aizawa.

For an underground hero, not suited for situations such as this, he and Vlad King were doing incredibly well. There were so many villains, but none could lay a single scratch on the heroes.

Midoriya just needed to stay well out of the way. It was better for everyone that he didn’t get involved.

But then he caught the eye of the villain with the hands – the one they first saw.

Midoriya stopped in his tracks as the villain turned to him. This couldn’t be good.

The landslide zone was right behind him. Without a moment to waste, he turned tail and ran – up the rocky slope and as far away from that horrifying gaze as humanly possible.

He dove behind a large rock, hoping he’d be safe there – which was when the temperature plummeted, and he found his feet frozen to the ground, his damp clothes stiffening instantly.

Shivering, he fell over. Still unable to move, he could only watch as a figure marched towards him from the mist the low temperature had conjured. He winced, preparing for the end, when –

“Midoriya?”

He dared to look up, “Shoto!”

His friend hauled him up and unfroze his feet. His hot, left hand melted the ice immediately, and in a burst of hot steam, Midoriya was finally warm again.

“Thank you,” Midoriya sighed, hugging his arms against his chest, “I was in the shipwreck zone – I got soaked.” He glanced around, “Is anyone else with you?”

“No,” he said simply.

“Great – then let’s get back to the exit. Quickly, before –”

Shoto grabbed Midoriya’s arm and held him back, “No.”

“N-No? I-I don’t –”

“I’m leaving,” he said firmly. “Whilst I have the chance – I’m getting out of UA.”

He let go of Midoriya, who just stood there and stared, “But… why?”

Shoto frowned, “Why? Midoriya, you must have said it yourself – this is a prison. I don’t belong here. So, I’m leaving – before they try and turn me into something I’m not.”

“But… where will you go?”

“Where do you think? Dabi will help me.”

Midoriya didn’t know Shoto’s story – at least, not all of it. Not the truth that Shoto knew. But there was a strange excitement in his friend’s eyes when he said this – Midoriya couldn’t remember him displaying such emotion before, even if this was slight. And… he couldn’t deny, the prospect of fleeing UA was… interesting. But he couldn’t – not now! He’d never make it. The only way would be siding with this League of Villains, and he couldn’t want that… right?

“Shoto you can’t,” Midoriya pleaded. “Not now!”

“I’m not asking for you to try and stop me,” he snapped, the temperature dropping again as he said so. He sighed, exhaling steam, and then extended a hand to Midoriya –

“I’m asking if you wanted to come with me.”

Chapter Text

“We’re villains, Midoriya.”

He stared at Shoto, unsure of what to say, so instead, he only listened.

“What do you think UA will do for me? With my history and my family – there is nowhere for me to go. I won’t be a hero like Father – I won’t just slip into society and hide my face. If I stay here, I will end up somewhere worse. This is my chance to get out.”

“Shoto… I –”

“And what about you?” Shoto interrupted, a strangely worried look in his duel coloured eyes, “Do you think this world will be kind to you? Has it ever been?”

Midoriya stared at him – he hated how right he was. Quirkless, and marked as a villain, Midoriya had little hope for a bright future. He’d been ignoring it for a while now, but Shoto really brought it out into the open.

“I know,” Midoriya sighed, hanging his head, “But leaving like this will only make things worse. And what about the others? Would you just leave them behind?”

“They’ve made it very clear that they’re happy at UA,” Shoto snapped, “Class A can give them something – but you and I are different.”

“I know, I know!” Midoriya replied. “But… they’ll fail us if we try to leave. Especially with this… League of Villains around. They’ll think we’re on their side!”

“Aren’t we?”

He stared, mouth slightly open, lost for words. Midoriya couldn’t agree but he couldn’t disagree – he was so confused.

“Aren’t we?”

“I don’t know!” Midoriya shouted. He hesitated and pulled at his hair, “I don’t know. I-I… I haven’t figured it out yet, but I don’t want to be like them!” He pointed at the villains back at the plaza, still locked in battle against the two UA teachers. “I… I’m not a villain. You’re not a villain, Shoto!”

“…So, you’re on the heroes’ side,” Shoto concluded, a coldness returning to his eyes.

“No,” Midoriya retorted instantaneously. “I’m… not on anyone’s side. I-I’m on my side! But… Shoto, if I leave now, I’m throwing away any chance UA could give me. And I know whatever chance that may be is probably not the best – but I still want to know what it is… I think. I-I’m not sure yet. But I don’t have someone like Dabi on the outside. And… I think my mother has had enough disappointments as it is.”

Shoto actually gave him a soft smile, “Mine has too.”

Midoriya smiled back at him sadly.

“Goodbye, Midoriya,” Shoto nodded. “I hope you find whatever you’re looking for.”

He swallowed the lump in his throat as his friend turned away, “Good luck.”

But then there was a scream, and the two boys turned back to the plaza.

Vlad King lay in a pool of blood that Midoriya feared was his own, and Mr Aizawa’s head was in the clutches of the giant, bird-faced man with the exposed brain, his arm twisted and broken. The man with the many, ornamental hands began to stroll towards him.

“Mr Aizawa…” Midoriya breathed, and before he knew what he was doing, he’d ran down the hill to the edge of the plaza, where countless villains lay unconscious and defeated.

Vlad King’s Quirk was a peculiar one. He had complete control over his own blood and could eject and harden it at will. He had much stored in tanks strapped to his back and had used it to trap numerous enemies. But excessive Quirk use must have left him lethargic, it made sense, considering the nature of his abilities. He’d been knocked unconscious and tossed aside like a rag-doll, whilst Mr Aizawa was caught by the villain he was now in the grips of.

The one with the hands – Shigaraki, the mist villain had once called him – seemed far more interested in Mr Aizawa’s Quirk.

“Your Quirk really is so cool – to erase another’s abilities just by looking at them? So many would kill for something like that. Oh, but you have a tell – it’s your hair. It floats when you activate your power, which you have to keep your eyes open for. And the more you do that, the more you want to blink. Your student was right, you’re not suited for this fight, Eraser Head.”

Midoriya saw Mr Aizawa’s eyes flash red at the villain who held him down, but it had no effect, and he yelled out in pain whilst he pressed on his broken arm.

“But your power has no effect on Nomu,” Shigaraki leered. “Not when he has multiple Quirks.”

A million questions buzzed around Midoriya’s mind, his legs frozen and eyes wide. He didn’t know what he could do!

A few seconds later, purple smoke billowed around them, and the warp villain appeared, “I am sorry, Tomura Shigaraki. Class A seems to have no intention on betraying the heroes – they banded together, and one got out. There will be backup here soon. We have lost.”

Shigaraki stared at him for a moment, “Kurogiri… if you weren’t so integral to this mission, I would have already reduced you to a pile of atoms…” he hissed, scratching at his neck in a feverish state.

“We should retreat, whilst we have our chance.”

Midoriya started to back away. If they left – they’d leave Mr Aizawa alone!

“All this trouble and All Might doesn’t even bother to show up!” Shigaraki exclaimed. “No matter…” and he turned to Midoriya, “We can still wreck his pride –”

The villain was right before Midoriya in seconds, hand outstretched, centimetres from the tip of his nose before Midoriya could even think –

A pillar of ice erupted between them, knocking the villain back.

“Shoto!” Midoriya called out when he slid into view.

He couldn’t say anything in reply before the ice shattered into nothing but snow and dust, leaving Shigaraki free once more.

He brushed the ice crystals from his shoulders, “Well, well – Shoto Todoroki. I didn’t think you, out of all of your classmates, would act so heroic.”

Shoto gritted his teeth and glared at the villain, as though daring him to say a word more.

“We can offer you a way out of here,” Shigaraki continued, “I’ll disintegrate the tracker on your ankle and take you far away from these heroes that hold you back.”

That’s why they really wanted to liberate class A, Midoriya realised – they wanted Shoto, the rouge son of the number two hero. If he were to join their villain group, well, they’d get the attention they desired, that was for sure.

“You just tried to kill Midoriya,” Shoto snarled. “If you think I’m going to trust you after that, then you’re mistaken.”

Well, Midoriya was glad he was at least valued by someone.

“Shigaraki –” the fog villain, Kurogiri, tried to interject.

Shigaraki simply held a hand up to silence him – one of his real ones, rather than the gruesome decorations that he wore. “You really want to stay here? Your friend is clearly on their side – look at how he worries for his teacher.”

Midoriya’s eyes flickered between Mr Aizawa and Shigaraki. The hero was still awake – barely. Blood dripped down his forehead, his arm held crooked behind his back by the monster that was Nomu. Yet, he still watched the interaction.

“Let him go,” Midoriya tried, “You’re running out of time – the other heroes will be here soon.”

“See how they’ve already corrupted him?” Shigaraki continued, ignoring Midoriya entirely.

“The only one who’s been corrupted is you!” Midoriya lashed out. “Do you think this is some kind of game?! We’re not murderers – we’re not villains like you.”

“Oh? Then why are you here?”

Midoriya hesitated, which made Shigaraki grin, knowing he’d hit a nerve.

Shoto stepped forwards, “No matter what you say, you can’t convince us to join you – let Mr Aizawa go.”

Shigaraki simply sighed, and to everyone’s surprise, said, “Fine – Nomu, get off the hero.”

The mindless beast did as he was told, dropping Mr Aizawa immediately, and looking up, seemingly for further orders.

And Shigaraki pointed right at Midoriya, “Kill the kid.”

It all happened so quick – but at the same time, in slow motion.

Mr Aizawa cried out and desperately reached forwards, unable to step in. Shoto pushed Midoriya aside, about to send a torrent of ice at the attacker. Nomu was right in front of them in seconds, unphased by the ice – a great, clawed hand outstretched –

And suddenly Shoto was on the floor, Midoriya in Nomu’s grasp. It hoisted him off the ground with ease, squeezing his ribs whilst Midoriya scratched and kicked at the tough, purple skin, desperate to escape.

At which point, there was a crash and bang.

Shigaraki ordered the Nomu to wait, whilst Midoriya’s heart hammered against his chest. They all looked up at the exit, where the sound had come from –

– and there, at the top of the stairs, stood the number one hero. Everlasting smile, gone. It was All Might – and Midoriya had never thought he’d be so glad to see him again.

“Looks like this level isn’t over after all,” said Shigaraki.

In moments, All Might was down the stairs. Any remaining villains were swept off their feet in an instant – the hero moving so fast that Midoriya couldn’t even see him.

“Kindly release my student!” the hero ordered, dropping the last thug to the ground and marching towards them.

“Your student?” Shigaraki leered, “This is a member of class A, he’s a villain.”

“No, you are the villain – put him down before I make you!”

Dammit – no! The villains had said they wanted to kill All Might – meaning they must have found a way to defeat him!

Midoriya gazed at the eyes of Nomu, fixed on him unblinkingly. It could snap him like a twig at any moment. Shigaraki had said the beast had multiple Quirks – was he the weapon they had to bring this pillar of justice to the ground?

“Meet Nomu,” Shigaraki grinned. “He will be your end! He –”

But he didn’t say anything else, because instantaneously, he was separated from the heroes with a wall of ice which crept up Nomu, only stopping at the hand that held Midoriya in his vicelike grip. Shoto had come to his rescue, yet again.

All Might lunged forwards without a second thought. With unfathomable power, he aimed right at the beast’s stomach, but the punch never landed. A portal appeared at the last second, redirecting the hero’s Quirk, and obliterating the fountain.

Midoriya sensed a hint of irony in the whole situation.

Then there was another bang – a sound far more familiar to Midoriya’s ears, when in a ball of smoke of flame, Kurogiri was tossed across the plaza.

“Make another move and they’ll be piecing you together for weeks!” yelled Kacchan.

He’d restrained the teleporting villain, a deadly hand pinning him to the floor by the metal brace he wore around his neck. He must have been using his fog to obscure his real body. Kacchan may have been a brute and a bully, but he was still rather smart.

Soon enough, two other figures surrounded Kurogiri – there was Kirishima, his arm hardened with his Quirk, and mirroring him entirely, a hero student beside him, his own arms now made entirely of metal.

There wasn’t a moment to lose – All Might took the opportunity as soon as it presented itself, and finally landed a punch on Nomu’s arm. The ice shattered and took with it the entire limb.

Midoriya dropped to the ground and scrambled out of the limp hand, horrified. He felt Shoto grab his shoulder and pull him to his feet. The two backed away as they watched on. Nomu did not make the slightest indication that he felt pain. In fact, only a few seconds later, pink muscle stretched from his shoulder, knotting around itself, and growing into an entirely new arm – he could regenerate.

“You have met your match, oh so mighty, symbol of peace!” Shigaraki laughed manically, “Nomu! Kill him!”

Midoriya could only shield his eyes as the fight began. Both titans moved with such speed that he could have been blown away. They cracked the ground beneath their feet, each blow stronger than the last.

Standing here was no good to anyone, “Come on!” Midoriya exclaimed. He pulled Shoto forwards, and they ran around the scene, quickly falling to Mr Aizawa’s side.

“We need to get him away from here,” Shoto realised. “And Vlad King too.”

Midoriya’s eyes flickered across the plaza. The second hero wasn’t far – but there was no way they could get both teachers to the exit fast enough to avoid the battle waging on, especially with Shigaraki still nearby.

Luckily, they had help.

“I’ll get Sir Vlad!” and a beast-like hero student thundered past, scooped Vlad King off the floor, and charged towards the exit.

“Yaoyorozu!” Midoriya exclaimed as she arrived, skidding to a halt beside them and dropping a sword to the ground with a clatter.

“I-I’m sorry I was with Jiro and Kaminari! He short-circuited himself and Jiro’s taking him back to the others. I’ll help with Mr Aizawa!”

She had clearly been through a lot. Her trousers had been harshly ripped into shorts, possibly by a knife of her own creation (or perhaps the sword). Her jacket was unbuttoned, but she seemed unbothered by showing off her black sports bra – she needed exposed skin to create anything large. This skill was used moments later, when she managed to pull a folded-up stretcher from her stomach.

Midoriya just stared – she really was so cool.

He helped haul Mr Aizawa onto the stretcher.

“Let’s get as far away from this fight as we can,” Yaoyorozu insisted. “We should carry Mr Aizawa up to the exit – nearly everyone else has gathered there now.”

“There’s no way we’ll be able to make it up there,” Shoto retorted, when Nomu crashed into the stairs, but bounced back up again as if it had only been a playful nudge.

“Maybe I should have told Shishida to try and take Mr Aizawa as well!” Yaoyorozu stressed, obviously referring to the hero student who had swooped in to rescue Vlad King.

“He didn’t exactly wait for instructions.”

Midoriya payed little attention, eyes locked on the fight before him. Each blow sent out a gust of air that continued to be powerful enough to knock anyone in the vicinity to the ground. But they seemed to be at an impasse. Both were equal in power, and neither seemed to be on the road to victory.

Shigaraki started to scratch at his neck – this clearly wasn’t going the way he had hoped.

But Midoriya knew better – better than all of them. For All Might had a time limit – one which he had already wasted that morning, hence him being late to the USJ. Just how much longer could he hold out for?

Yet the beast started to inch backwards. His power slowly overcome by All Might’s own. And not long after, with a cry and crash, the finishing blow was dealt, and Nomu hurtled through the ceiling, leaving All Might standing victorious before them.

And no one, not even Midoriya, could deny how incredible the number one hero was.

He stood amongst the smoke and dust left in Nomu’s wake, brushing the blood of his cheek, and he turned to Shigaraki.

“No…” the villain muttered, “No, no, no!”

“It’s over,” All Might proclaimed. “Surrender, now.”

But Midoriya looked closer – amongst that dust, he could see it – the steam coming off the hero’s body; the way he trembled, ever so slightly. His weakness – his time was up.

Shigaraki’s blood red eyes flickered around the scene. He saw All Might standing before him; the hole left in the ceiling of the dome; the group still struggling to keep Kurogiri at bay; and then of course, Midoriya and the others, not that far behind him.

“I hate you…” said Shigaraki, his fists trembling as he seethed in his anger.

Only Midoriya could see the coughs All Might was repressing.

“No – no! This isn’t over!”

Only Midoriya could see the blood trickling from the corner of the hero’s lips.

“I HATE YOU!”

And Shigaraki charged. A power that could disintegrate Shoto’s ice in seconds – and All Might had no strength left.

All Might would… die.

Which is why Midoriya, in a split-second decision, scooped Yaoyorozu’s sword off the floor, and skidded between the two, raising the blade in defiance.

His friends cried out in surprise, but they didn’t know what he knew.

Midoriya pivoted as Shigaraki reached him, swinging his sword with all his might – whilst the hero stood behind him, unable to move.

Seconds before the villain’s deadly hands reached Midoriya’s body; before his blade could pierce Shigaraki’s skin, there was a flash of purple; the ringing sound of a gunshot –

– and a blinding pain in his shoulder.

Midoriya fell to the ground, rolling on his side.

Gunshots fired around him. Shigaraki was engulfed in a whirlpool of violet smoke, and before Midoriya knew it, he was gone.

“MIDORIYA!”

That was Shoto – or Yaoyorozu – or both.

But Midoriya could only grip his left shoulder, oozing red.

He heard footsteps – and a rumble like an earthquake, before the concrete rose up around him, forming a great wall between him and the others.

Midoriya had been shot – he’d been shot.

The pain was like nothing he’d ever felt before.

With watery eyes, he managed to lift his head. His eyes met those of All Might – now sunken in his skeletal, weaker form, his once skin-tight hero costume now baggy and ill fitted. And Midoriya saw the other heroes, rushing onto the scene.

It wasn’t one of the villains who’d shot him… it had been a hero –

– the purple – Kurogiri. He must have managed to escape and come to Shigaraki’s aid – perhaps redirected a bullet right at Midoriya, before disappearing all together.

All Might stepped forwards, “Young Midoriya –”

“STAY AWAY FROM ME!” Midoriya screamed, grasping the sword and pointing it in the hero’s direction, his arms shaking as he bit back the pain.

He hesitated, “It’s ok, I’m not going to –”

“S-S-Stay back!” Midoriya whimpered. Tears rolled down his cheeks whilst the blood soaked his clothes.

All Might drew closer, and Midoriya desperately tried to crawl away, not relinquishing the blade.

The hero fell to his knees before him, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Midoriya’s breathing grew erratic, “W-Well, you’ve already done that, haven’t you?!”

He didn’t mean the gunshot, and All Might knew that too.

“Y-You’ve already done t-that…”

And he dropped the sword, slipping into the darkness.

“Where’s Midoriya?!” Shoto exclaimed.

They were outside the USJ now, and they had been for almost an hour. All of class A had been corralled into a corner, and class B was nearby, but Midoriya was nowhere to be seen.

“He’s going to be ok,” insisted the police officer, or possibly detective, in the trench coat and matching hat. “Recovery Girl is seeing to him now.”

“Why did he jump in like that?” Yaoyorozu wondered aloud, “All Might barely had a scratch on him – he would have been able to defeat Shigaraki, surely…”

Shoto turned to her, his gaze cold, “He must have had a reason.” He simply couldn’t be that foolish. Or… was Shigaraki right after all – maybe Midoriya was more of the reckless hero type than Shoto realised.

He wasn’t sure how to feel about it.

“A-And Mr Aizawa?” Uraraka perked up.

The Detective nodded, “He has been taken to hospital. Him and Vlad King both had serious blood loss – but I know your teacher well. Have faith in him.” With that, he was called away by another officer, whilst they detained numerous thugs.

“You really want to stay here? Your friend is clearly on their side – look at how he worries for his teacher.”

Shoto stayed behind – why did he do that? His only chance – gone. And Dabi wasn’t coming for him – no way. Shoto would have to get out on his own, and Dabi would help from there.

But how could he do that now?

“Are you ok, Shoto?” That was Iida. His hair was scruffy and his glasses askew. It made sense – he’d ran for help, after all, and the main school was quite far from here.

Shoto looked away, “I’m fine.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t short-circuit my phone!” laughed Kaminari, who was standing just behind Shoto. There were scorch marks all over his PE kit. He tossed the brick phone up in the air and caught it again repeatedly.

“These things are indestructible,” gaped Kirishima. From what Shoto had heard, he, Bakugo and Tetsutetsu from class B had faced numerous villains alone – yet Kirishima’s phone didn’t have a dent in it.

“Mine was in the shipwreck zone,” said Tsu, “but it still works, ribbit.”

“It’s honestly impressive,” Kaminari replied with raised eyebrows.

Shoto pulled his own from his pocket. He gazed at the red number 15, painted across the back, for a moment.

“They’re kind of useless, really,” Jiro insisted. “That electric villain jammed the signal so we couldn’t even contact Miss Midnight.”

“Why is she the only other contact we have?” pondered Mina.

“Miss Midnight is our substitute teacher in case of Mr Aizawa’s absence!” Iida explained, chopping his hand through the air. “It is likely that we will be seeing more of her over the next few days!”

“Sound good to –”

Tsu slapped Mineta from the other side of the group, beating Jiro by moments, who later jabbed her earphone jacks at Mineta’s eyes for good measure.

“All in all,” Tsu sighed once they’d finished beating Mineta up and had received numerous nervous glances by class B and the surrounding officers, “it’s safe to say that was a terrible field trip.”

“The worst field trip ever,” Mina nodded.

“– of all time,” finished Sero.

After a moment of silence, a bout of suppressed giggles rang out amongst them.

“Well, this is the least bored I’ve been all week,” Jiro sighed, and they all laughed harder.

Iida opened his mouth to yell at them but was swiftly beaten to it.

“You think this is funny?” They all turned to class B, where one that Shoto didn’t know the name of, with messy brown hair, scowled at them, “Both our teachers, and one of your classmates were badly hurt, and we all almost died.”

Mina’s “But we didn’t!” masked Sero’s mumbles of “If only.”

“Settle down,” the detective in the trench coat was back. “Try not to provoke each other.”

“And by each other, you mean them, right?” snarled another member of class B.

Any smiles on the faces of Shoto’s classmates quickly faded.

The Detective sighed, “We’re going to have to have a short interview with all of you individually,” he explained, getting right to the point. “Somehow, this League of Villains knew that you’d all be at the USJ, supposedly with All Might. That means there must have been a leak of the schedule.”

“Well then, the culprit is clear,” Monoma spoke up, and Shoto scowled. He hoped he had some serious insecurities to validate the way he treated them. “It’s class A – the villains were on their side.”

“Come on, Monoma! As much as I agree that it wasn’t one of us – not all of class A are bad!” Tetsutetsu exclaimed loudly, clearly referring to Kirishima. They essentially had the same Quirk, and already seemed to get along. Shoto just didn’t understand people who could gain friends so easily.

“I need to speak to all of you,” the Detective insisted. “I want to know all your accounts. The more information we have, the more likely it is that we can get to the bottom of this quickly.”

He locked eyes with Shoto, which was when he realised – he knew this man. Detective Tsukauchi, he’d questioned Shoto after he was caught by the heroes. Shoto vaguely remembered throwing a table at him. He couldn’t believe he didn’t recognise him sooner.

The man had a truth Quirk.

If there really was a traitor among them, they’d be found quickly.

Shoto frowned at his own thoughts – traitor? What would they be betraying? It’s not like they were on UA’s side.

“I’m… not on anyone’s side. I-I’m on my side!”

It looked like Shoto would have more time to figure this out than he thought.

Midoriya found himself in Recovery Girl’s office as the sun set. She was far less stern with him than before and thrust numerous energy gummy bears into his hand when she finally released him.

His left shoulder was covered in bandages. They ran a little way down his arm and peaked out underneath his PE top, ragged and stained. He ached, but the pain had almost disappeared. Recovery Girl had said healing broken bones was a cinch – and a bullet wound, despite requiring a little surgery, wasn’t much worse. But he’d been told to take it easy, meaning he was excused from PE for at least a week. Luckily, it was his left shoulder, and he was right-handed, so his writing wouldn’t be affected.

But Midoriya was exhausted. Recovery Girl had said her Quirk tapped into his stamina, but they both knew there was more to it than that.

He bowed his head and averted his gaze even when Snipe, the hero with the accuracy Quirk, came to apologise for his injury. Midoriya knew it wasn’t his fault. He meant to hit Shigaraki, and would have, if Kurogiri hadn’t swooped in at just the right moment to deflect the bullet. Although, the hero was quite confident he did hit the villain at least twice subsequently.

Midoriya just shrugged, which hurt his shoulder. A permanent shadow seemed to linger over his face as he pushed past the heroes to wander the corridors of UA, back to the dorms.

“Midoriya!” Iida called out when he finally reached Heights Alliance and kicked off his shoes.

“Hey,” Midoriya replied simply.

“We were so worried!” he continued, following him through the room whilst everyone got up to circle around him.

“How’s your shoulder?” Yaoyorozu asked nervously.

“We saved a plate for you!” Uraraka interjected, gesturing to a plate of curry on the kitchen counter. “Let me just put it in the microwave and –”

“I’m not hungry,” Midoriya interrupted.

She blinked at him, “But –”

“You need the energy!” Iida insisted, “At least try and have –”

“I don’t want it.” Midoriya pushed past him, and the group parted to let him through. He walked right towards the stairs. He just wanted to go to bed.

This was when he came face to face with Shoto.

Midoriya stared at the stormy grey eye that he could see – the blue one was hidden beneath his hair.

“Why did you do it?” he asked.

Silence rang around them – they all waited for Midoriya’s reply.

He took a moment to answer, “You don’t know what I know.”

Midoriya noted how Shoto shifted his position – the hint of curiosity in his mannerisms. He waited as though hoping for further explanation.

“Then… what do you know?” Uraraka asked.

Midoriya turned to her. She had such concern in her big, brown eyes. Sometimes it was so hard to believe she had once been one of the most wanted villains out of all of them.

Jiro stepped forwards, “Something about All Might? You… stood in between him and that villain, right? Why…? Is something wrong?”

Ah, so… Jiro didn’t know the same secret – then… what did she know? What else were the heroes hiding? How weak were these haloed pillars of society?

“It’s best to just keep yours and everyone else’s secrets to yourself,” Midoriya replied, repeating the words that Jiro had once said to him.

He watched her hesitate, staring at him for a moment, as though trying to see the truth in his eyes. She backed off and nodded.

“So, that’s why you’re here,” Shoto realised. “Like Jiro – you know something they don’t want you to know.”

“…Among other things,” Midoriya agreed tentatively.

“Oh yeah?” Mineta spoke up, “What else did you do? You don’t even have a Quirk, what else could you have possibly –”

Midoriya gave him his most fearsome glare, which actually caused him to flinch and jump a couple of steps backwards.

“I got tired of the way people were treating me,” he barely whispered, giving Mineta a look as though to blame him of the same offence. “I hacked into my school’s security system – it wasn’t hard. I just needed to teach myself how to do it first. Most of my old classmates have black marks on their records now – I’ll haunt them forever – and one ended up here.”

A few eyes wandered towards Kacchan, who stood in the background, watching and listening.

“As for my teachers, some were fired, and the entire school is still under investigation. I’m waiting for it to close down – it’s only a matter of time. Oh, and that was after I publicly shamed a group of heroes for not doing their job properly. You won’t find the video online – they took it down.

“But excuse me for still being confused as to why I ended up here. It’s not like I got caught doing anything wrong other than being rather opinionated. And last time I checked, my Quirkless existence isn’t a crime – so, sorry if it inconveniences you, since you seem to point it out a lot.”

He crouched down to Mineta’s height and continued to look him dead in the eyes, ignoring everyone else.

“I’ve had just about enough of people deeming me useless due to the lack of a weird and wonderful trait. I have plenty of other strengths, and I won’t hesitate to use them against you if you dare to harass me, or anyone else in my vicinity again. I can land people in this place – I can just as easily get them out – understand?”

He gulped and gave a slight nod.

Midoriya just sighed, “Good.” He stood up and turned back towards the stairs. “Thank you for saving dinner for me, it’s… appreciated.”

No one stopped him – no one dared to get in his way. Not even Shoto attempted to follow him.

Midoriya reached his room and collapsed onto his bed, biting his lip harshly went he fell onto his injured shoulder.

But all he could think of were the friendships he’d just lost.

He didn’t sleep. His alarm clock shone the digits of midnight in his eyes when he finally sat back up again. He’d heard doors slam shut around him an hour or so ago. He was still in his PE kit, when he decided to leave his room and head back downstairs. He couldn’t deny – he was starving and hoped that Uraraka had put the plate of curry, that Sato made, in the fridge for him.

But when he reached the common room, he found himself blinking at the faces of a majority of his class, staring back at him.

He averted his gaze and started to walk towards the kitchen area, before a yellow T-shirt and a set of shorts appeared before him, seemingly floating in mid-air.

“…Um, we’ve been talking,” said invisible Hagakure.

Midoriya sidestepped her and tried to walk past – he didn’t like where this conversation was going. But he felt her invisible arm hold him back.

“What do you need to expel Mineta?”

He stared at her and blinked (again), “Excuse me?”

“Tsu told us what happened on the boat back at the USJ,” said Kirishima, sitting on the arm of the sofa. His red hair wasn’t spiking up like it did usually, due to the lack of hair gel at this time of night. He gritted his sharp, shark-like teeth and stared at the floor for a moment, “It’s not right. He practically suggested killing that guy from class B! Even if he did say that because he was scared and saw no other option… it’s – it’s not manly to imply killing someone to give yourself a better chance! I know we’re not heroes here, but…”

“And me and the rest of the girls are fed up too,” Hagakure added, finally dropping her arm. “We want him gone.”

“So,” said Jiro, “what do you need?”

“With our skill set, we can get you anything you want for it,” Hagakure nodded.

Midoriya gawked at them all. He didn’t know what he expected to come of his confrontation with Mineta. He’d… just had a really long day – and he just… snapped. But this?

He really needed to stop assuming his classmates would react like ordinary people. Just like him, they were more than what met the eye.

Midoriya met Shoto’s eyes. Like Kirishima, most of the gel had left his hair at this point. He still had it pushed over his scar, but with it down, he looked so painstakingly… normal. He was leaning up against a wall, arms crossed. A slight smile stretched across his face when Midoriya did the same.

“What do I need… Well, it depends,” Midoriya told Hagakure, turning back to her, and looking at where he assumed her eyes were. “How quickly do you want him gone?”

She didn’t falter, “As soon as possible.”

He grinned, “All you needed to do was ask.”

Chapter Text

Everyone acted a little differently around Midoriya now. But it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. They didn’t avoid him or back away the moment he appeared. Instead, they looked upon him with this newfound respect – which was definitely not something he’d ever experienced before.

Out of everyone, it was mainly Iida who changed mannerisms. It wasn’t much. Someone other than Midoriya may have not picked up on it. It was just the way that he didn’t even tell him off for not eating anything last night – or only smiled and nodded when they first saw each other that morning, instead of his usual, animated greeting.

Other than that, however, everyone was exactly the same. At first, perhaps a little hesitant, but before long, Uraraka was going on about the minor inconveniences of her Quirk with him – Yaoyorozu was making morning tea for everyone – Tsu was on Mineta-watch – and Shoto was as quiet and stoic as always.

They had an entire day off lessons, but they still apparently needed someone to keep an eye on them. On Sundays, Mr Aizawa would usually hover about the dorms, appearing and disappearing and occasionally doing paperwork on the table in the corner. But Mr Aizawa obviously wasn’t around at the moment, so they needed a substitute.

And the word substitute, mixed with class A – was never going to be a good combination.

Their alarms had all gone off early in the morning as usual, accompanied with what had become the daily morning scream – where everyone would wake up and make more noise than the alarm clocks in their unwillingness to get out of bed.

Midoriya felt awful, and his shoulder ached more than ever. He struggled getting dressed, every twinge of the muscle sending electric-like shocks down his arm. But he still had to make it to homeroom. Even without lessons being held, they had a busy day ahead of them – most notably, in terms of the interviews with the police after what had happened at the USJ.

But none of the happenings listed above took the prime space in the minds of most of Midoriya’s classmates. Instead, they were watching him – waiting to see what he’d do. For he’d promised he would get Mineta expelled, and quickly. He didn’t have much sleep last night, considering he’d been up thinking of a plan for a good three hours at least. And although he didn’t ever say it out loud, his personal target for expulsion was twenty-four hours – which meant he had until midnight.

Speaking of which –

“Listen up!” Miss Midnight slammed her hand down on the teacher’s desk, tapping her long, red nails against the wood. “Because of the security breach, we’re going to have to keep an even closer eye on you than usual, meaning you’ll be spending most of the day in here.”

There was a chorus of disappointed groans across the classroom.

“Complain and I’ll give out detentions!” she snapped, pointing her support item, a whip that she obviously had no plans on actually using, at them. “The support course could do with some help testing out prototypes.”

Usually, Midoriya would have been rather interested by the prospect, but the way she said prototypes made it sound like a good thing to avoid.

“Consider it a study hall,” she finished, and finally sat down – in Mr Aizawa’s chair. Well, it wasn’t like she had anywhere else to sit, but Midoriya wasn’t the only one who found this… wrong.

Mineta, sitting behind Midoriya, was the only one who didn’t seem to mind.

Midnight was one of those heroes to blame for the poor hero costume taste of class B. Her Quirk was incredibly useful for heroics – a fragrance emitted from her skin would cause anyone who smelt it to immediately fall asleep. But due to the added affect that it would work best on those who could actually be attracted to her, so, mainly guys, she dressed in a very 18+ manner. But at least she had a reason, unlike a lot of other over-the-top heroes. She also had to have a lot of exposed skin for her Quirk to work effectively. Her original costume was so extreme that Japan completely modified its regulations on the matter. But her current costume was just… stupid. She exposed hardly any skin, and instead wore a thin, white fabric over her arms and legs, that she could rip to release her fragrance. Just… why? The amount of maintenance that required was ridiculous. There were plenty of other ways to design a costume that fitted her needs, wasn’t too extreme, and didn’t need fixing every single day.

But again, Mineta didn’t mind.

Gosh, maybe, if Midoriya ever got out of this class, he would try and transfer to the support course. They designed hero costumes, support items and basically got to tinker and invent whatever they wanted if they had a good enough reason behind it. It sounded pretty fun, and Midoriya would get to yell at stupid heroes whenever he wanted! And they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it because they relied on him too much.

Midoriya blinked and realised he’d been sitting there and daydreaming for at least ten minutes in utter silence. Midnight was marking some work from her other classes, and the rest of class A were either doing their own work, also staring blankly at the front of the room, or staring at him.

Midoriya heard his phone beep.

Midnight glanced up for a moment but didn’t tell anyone off for using their phones. Midoriya took this as permission to use them.

[Hagakure -> 18] What are you going to do today?

It was an innocent question, but Midoriya knew the meaning behind it.

He pursed his lips – how could he answer this so that she understood, but any teachers reading their messages, wouldn’t?

[18 -> Hagakure] Staying in this room all morning wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.

What did he have in mind? Plenty of time in the dorms.

Midoriya had been thinking – a dangerous thing. The rest of his class had filled him in on what the Detective had said outside the USJ, when Midoriya was unconscious and with Recovery Girl. There was a traitor to UA amongst either class A or B, someone who had leaked information regarding when class A and All Might would be together. But neither class knew about their trip to the USJ until that very morning, and the villains would have needed much more time to organise such a massive invasion force.

And then he remembered the press attack, as so it had been nicknamed by his class. The school had panicked – the gates that usually protected them from such people were completely disintegrated.

And who did they know who had a disintegration power?

So, there was a traitor in the school, who had contact with Shigaraki to organise the event – and in the distraction caused, had time to sneak into the staff room, find the information they needed, and report back to the League of Villains.

To do that, they needed something for communication, i.e. a phone or some other electronic device. None of class A could access the internet. They weren’t even allowed near the ICT suite without supervision, and there were cameras everywhere. But all of their belongings had been searched before they were even allowed access to UA. No one had such a device… right?

But in a class of villains, it would be foolish to assume that no one had managed to sneak something in.

Of course, there was still the possibility that it was, in fact, someone from class B. But everyone knew that was unlikely. More than one of Midoriya’s classmates were here specifically for being thieves for hire. If Midoriya had been asked to steal the information before entering UA, and given the means to do so, he’d probably consider it at the very least. He owed nothing to the school – and hated All Might, not that whoever did do this necessarily knew what was going to become of it.

Anyway, out of everyone in the class, there was only one person who ever seemed to consider siding with the villains to get out of there – and it wasn’t Shoto.

It had been Mineta.

If Midoriya could prove that Mineta was the one who leaked the information, he’d be failed for sure. All he needed to do, was to find his means of communication with Shigaraki. Fortunately for Midoriya, Mineta’s room was right next to his.

Unfortunately for Midoriya, they weren’t going to be back in the dorms until after the interviews with the Detective now.

Of course, Mineta wasn’t actually here for being a thief, at least, not to Midoriya’s knowledge. It would be far more likely they got someone like Uraraka or Hagakure to steal the schedule, only Uraraka was eating lunch with Midoriya at the time, so it couldn’t have been her. He couldn’t account for Hagakure though, and being invisible, the security cameras probably couldn’t either.

Plan B was, after failing to find proof in Mineta’s room – search Hagakure’s –

– and frame Mineta.

Rude – but hey, Midoriya didn’t care. If it really were Hagakure, he didn’t want her to fail for it – she obviously didn’t know what would happen and did help during the USJ. Mineta suggested getting someone killed, so he’s not as easy to forgive. And, Hagakure would have just been doing what she’d always been doing – it was just another job, she probably didn’t think it through.

But that didn’t matter because Midoriya couldn’t search either room.

Hagakure didn’t send any other message for a moment, so Midoriya decided to bring the rest of the class in on the action.

Class 1-A Group Chat

[18] So, who else would rather be at the dorms?

[Mina] I think EVERYONE

[Yaoyorozu] It would have been more beneficial to continue with ordinary lessons

[Iida] At least take this opportunity to catch up on your work!

[Jiro] We could have done that at the dorms

[Mina] This is so boringggggggggg
[Mina] We could have SLEPT IN

[Sero] I vote we just sleep here

[Mina] On the desk?? No thanks

[Shoto] Midoriya, how badly do you need to be at the dorms?

There was a moment of silence where no one typed a word, and all turned to Midoriya with understanding.

[18] Well, if I want to get my work done –
[18] Quite badly, yes

[Kaminari] Midnight doesn’t have any good WEAKNESSES, does she?

[18] She won’t be as easy as Present Mic
[18] But if anyone can do it, you lot can.

Knowing glances were exchanged across the classroom, paired with grins worthy of any good villain.

[18] You should probably bury these messages before Midnight tries to read them though

[Kaminari] Hey 13

[Sero] What?

[Kaminari] Beep

[Mina] Beep beep beep

[Kaminari] Beep bop

[Sero] bop. Definitely bop.

[Kaminari] Beep beep beep – then bop.

[Hagakure] Beep-ity-beep!

And that went on for the subsequent five minutes, until they were told off for giggling too much, and the silence returned.

“Miss?” Hagakure suddenly called out, raising his hand.

“Yes?”

“Can I go to the bathroom?”

“…Quickly, yes.”

“Thanks, Miss!” And she disappeared before she could change her mind.

Midoriya was generally curious as to what was about to happen, but the silence returned for another five minutes before something changed.

“Where is she?” Midnight murmured to herself, standing up to leave the classroom.

This was when Mina cried out and jumped up onto her chair. There was a sizeable hole in her desk. “Ah! I’m so sorry!”

“It’s ok!” Midnight replied, hurrying over to access the damage.

It was in this moment, that the door creaked open, and carefully closed itself again – which was obviously a certain invisible girl’s doing.

“Have you got something to neutralise the acid?” Midnight questioned, oblivious of what was going on.

“No! I didn’t bring any – I didn’t think we’d be here for long!”

“Right – I’ll hurry to the support lab to find something,” she sighed. “Try not to move far or activate your Quirk anymore.”

Mina sniffed back tears, “I-I’ll try.”

And Midnight left.

Laughter erupted around the classroom.

“Please tell me that’s you, Hagakure,” Ojiro, sitting at the front of the room, sighed.

“What? No! I’m a ghost – duh,” sounded out, very obviously, Hagakure’s voice. If you looked carefully, you could just see the thin, metal band that was her tracking anklet, floating just off the ground.

Then, of course, Mineta spoke up, “Does this mean that you’re naked?”

Everyone stared at him.

“Hey, Midoriya?” croaked Tsu.

“Hm?”

“Can you open the window?”

Midoriya was the one sitting closest to it. He sighed and leant over his desk to open it wide.

“Wait, no!” Mineta called out, “We were all thinking it! And we’re so high up!”

“Yeah… you probably shouldn’t throw him out up this high,” Midoriya hated to point out. “Unless Uraraka agrees to help.”

“Oh, sure!” she beamed. “Midori! What’s the fancy word again?”

Over the sound of Sero ripping a long piece of tape from his elbows with his Quirk, Midoriya replied, “Defenestration.”

“Defenestration! Yay!” Uraraka exclaimed.

Which was why Mineta was slowly floated to the ground, wrapped in Sero’s tape, past several windows, through which other students gawked, and then was dropped about a metre above the ground.

“How immature would it be if I asked for a whoopee cushion?” Hagakure giggled to Yaoyorozu.

She gave her a look, “Very –” and passed one over.

“Actually, can I have two?”

“I would just like to point out that I do not approve of this behaviour!” Iida exclaimed, standing up to shout at them all.

“Yeah, we know, Iida,” Sero sighed. He got up too, walked over to the window, and used his tape to climb up and out. Midoriya seriously doubted he’d be seen again for the rest of the morning.

“Are you ok, Mademoiselle?” asked Aoyama, who sat in front of Mina. He didn’t talk much at the beginning of term, and Midoriya was quite sure this was because he was terrified of them all, but he’d slowly began to loosen up.

“Oh, yeah, fine!” Mina replied. “18 gave me some tips for my Quirk and they actually worked really well!”

“Oh, really?” Midoriya blinked.

“Yeah! About like, exercising it – try to neutralise strong alkalis in the evening and stuff. So, not only do I have more control, I’m now better at chemistry than all you losers!”

“Don’t leave me behind!” Kaminari whined, referring to the fact that him and Mina were the bottom of the class in nearly every subject.

“I could tutor you! Because I’m like, that smart now!”

It was a dramatic mood swing, when Midnight returned, and Mina was suddenly balling her eyes out. She was a surprisingly good actor.

The lingering acid was quickly dealt with, and Mina, still sniffling, pulled her chair up to the other side of Aoyama’s desk to work there instead.

Midnight retuned to the front of the room and put the pot of powder she’d used to neutralise the acid down. She narrowed her eyes as she scanned the room, and then pointed her finger at each desk as though she were counting the students behind them.

“Why are there three missing?” she murmured under her breath.

“Hagakure hasn’t c-come back from the toilets yet, M-Miss,” Mina reminded her, wiping the water from her eyes.

“Oh yes, I needed to –” Midnight had walked over to the door, likely about to get Hagakure back, when she hesitated, and glared back at them. The remaining seventeen faces blinked back at her innocently.

She marched back over to the teacher’s desk. “If you’re playing games with me, you will all be in a world of trouble.”

She was about to sit down, but stopped, and with a sigh of immense disappointment, she held the inflated, red whoopee cushion up to them all. “Very funny,” she snapped as they giggled. “Mature – really. I expected better of you all, especially after the seriousness of what happened yesterday. This isn’t preschool.”

Which is when she actually sat down, and invisible Hagakure slid the second cushion onto her seat.

Now fuming, her long nails pierced the second whoopee cushion when she slammed it onto her desk. Most of the class was laughing uncontrollably, mainly because Hagakure had drawn a mini chibi drawing of Midnight on the board behind her, looking just as angry as she did now.

“I know you’re in here, 15 – that’s detention!” Midnight yelled.

Shoto raised his hand.

“NO, YOU CANNOT GO TO THE BATHROOM!”

He blinked at her, “Miss, I’m student 15.”

Midnight cried out in frustration, “Whatever number Hagakure is then!”

A few people gasped, “Midnight knows our names!” Mina clapped; crocodile tears long gone.

Midnight’s eye twitched.

Midoriya heard Hagakure shuffle past him to stand by the window. She emitted a bright flash of light from her hand – something Midoriya didn’t know she could do (but it made sense – because invisibility would mean light passed right through her body, so it wasn’t too much of an extension of her abilities to be able to do the opposite for a split second and redirect all light back – how often could she –). It, of course, caught Midnight’s eye.

“18!” she exclaimed, “What are you doing?!”

“…Writing in my notebook?” Midoriya frowned. This was the truth – he was updating Mina’s page.

Hagakure shone her light again, expertly staying out of sight despite the floating tracking anklet.

“Then what’s the light, huh?” Midnight snapped, resting her hands on her hips.

“The… sun?”

“Midoriya doesn’t have a Quirk, ma’am,” Yaoyorozu reminded her. “It wasn’t him.”

“17?!” Midnight guessed.

Bakugo snarled at her, “I didn’t do freaking anything.”

“Then what – why is the window open?!” she marched over and stood before Midoriya.

“Tsu asked me to open it,” he replied honestly.

“It’s warm in here,” added Uraraka. This was unrelated, but also true.

Midnight sighed and leant over to it, “I would rather have the window –” This was when, reaching for the window to close it, she looked down, and probably spied Mineta in the bush, far below – “How the actual hell –”

“– Oh, hi, Miss!”

And she looked up. Although Midoriya couldn’t quite see it, he could hear what was going on – and he was quite sure Sero was sitting either on the roof, or on a windowsill a few floors up.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING UP THERE?!” she shouted at him.

“Enjoying the view!” he yelled back.

“GET DOWN HERE!”

“What’s that?! I can’t hear you!”

“Oh no!” Mina gasped melodramatically, “What if he’s stuck?!”

“Nah, Sero’s fine,” Kaminari retorted, “Midnight wouldn’t be if she tried to follow him.”

She gave him a look.

“No offence, Miss, but no one’s going to be as agile as someone like Sero at your age.”

“AND WHAT’S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?!”

There was a moment of silence, “That you’re old?”

“I AM NOT OLD!”

“Besides, that outfit’s not going to be much help,” Jiro scoffed.

“Aren’t you a little old to be wearing something like that?” Mina blinked innocently.

Jiro raised an eyebrow, “Doesn’t it chafe?”

“The handcuffs are a little tacky…”

“So are the heels.”

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” Midnight cried, stomping her foot like a child.

Midoriya looked back up from his notebook and sighed, “Miss, you know they’re not going to stop until you let them go back to the dorms. What difference does it make anyway? And look, it’s almost that ten-minute break between lessons.”

It wasn’t – Hagakure had changed the clock.

There was a tense moment of silence whilst she stared at him and pursed her lips, narrowing her eyes and trying to think of an ulterior motive behind this option.

“Don’t try and fool me – I know what you’re all doing. You will be staying here until Detective Tsukauchi is ready to interview you all,” she insisted.

Oops, perhaps Midoriya said something too soon.

“At least let me plug my phone in, Miss! I can try and text Sero to come back down,” Kaminari offered.

“Yes, thank you – there’s a plug behind the teacher’s desk, under the board,” Midnight sighed. But then did a double take, for she’d only just spotted Hagakure’s drawing of her.

“Do you have a spare charger, Yaomomo?” Kaminari asked Yaoyorozu, hurrying over to her.

“Oh, sure.” She handed hers over. Midnight was busy wiping the drawing away when Kaminari whispered something to Yaoyorozu, who passed him an extra something which he slipped in his pocket.

“Where’s the socket again, Miss?” asked Kaminari.

“Just over here,” she explained, gesturing towards it. “I can see you moving the chairs!” she yelled at Hagakure, marching over to the back of the room.

When with a bang and a flash of light, Kaminari shoved a small, metal rod into the socket, and the power went out.

Midnight stood in the middle of the class, “…FINE – Just go back to the dorms!”

There was a cheer, and everyone immediately grabbed their stuff and left the classroom at record speed, various people taking Sero’s stuff too, and leaving Mineta’s behind. Kirishima steered Kaminari away, who had short-circuited his own brain with his electric Quirk, and the door swung shut behind them.

In fits of giggles, everyone hurried down the corridors, ignoring Iida’s exclamations about not running in the halls, or waiting for Miss Midnight. They met Sero outside, gave him his bag, and Hagakure reappeared a few moments later, after retrieving her clothes from the bathroom. They left Mineta behind, laughing when Miss Midnight hurried to rescue him. To be honest, he was probably quite pleased by the deal.

“That was brilliant!” Mina laughed when they reached the dorms. She kicked off her shoes and collapsed onto the nearest sofa.

“Good luck, Midoriya!” added Hagakure, skipping past towards the kitchen for the cookies that Sato had made the night before.

With a grin, Midoriya turned and ran up the stairs – he didn’t know how long he had to search Mineta’s room. He tossed his bag onto his own bed and opened his neighbour’s door without hesitation.

He flicked the light on. Mineta’s room was a mess. There were clothes all over the floor, overflowing from his drawers. His walls were covered in hero posters – well, heroine posters, like Mt. Lady and hey, even Midnight. For a room that started out as a carbon copy of Midoriya’s, it sure was different now.

He didn’t even know where to start. But he had to begin somewhere, so he went straight for where he would have hidden a communication device that could get him into serious trouble if it were found – inside a book. But Midoriya didn’t keep looking there long, because it was very clear that Mineta’s mind was not the same as Midoriya’s. He hated to think about what might have been there had any contraband not been confiscated on the first day, and if this mysterious phone was somewhere in this pig sty of a room, Mineta would have had to prioritise hiding that upon entry to UA.

Mineta was far from dumb – he ranked quite highly in a lot of classes. He must have hidden it somewhere well.

Downstairs, in a chest of drawers filled with mainly dusty board games, was a section that had been repurposed for a different use. When everyone slowly figured out what Yaoyorozu’s Quirk was, she started having little requests for things to be made. They were always very clear that she didn’t have to do it, which is probably why she was so keen to. She’d found a new group of friends that she didn’t have to pretend to be someone else around, and she was eager to please. The drawer was filled with various items that Yaoyorozu had made across the last few weeks. Including, but not limited to, numerous marker pens (including a certain, permanent, pink one), two mini whiteboards, a few Russian nesting dolls, spare chargers, another TV remote, a windup toy mouse, an array of colourful pompoms, and a set of novelty sunglasses.

On the front of the drawer, was a piece of paper titled Yaoyorozu’s Drawer, which had a tally mark of how many times someone had asked for something, beside their student number. It was Iida’s idea – showing that each person owed that many favours to her. Despite his protests, Midoriya’s number had been scribbled out long ago.

Anyway, at some point, two separate people had requested a zip-lock sandwich bag (which had been concealing stolen cookies for a while, before being cleaned out meticulously by Iida, and for some reason, put in the drawer rather than being thrown away), and a pair of white gloves (which Hagakure had been using during a game of charades).

Midoriya had taken both from the drawer earlier that morning, and now intended put them to good use. The gloves would prevent leaving his fingerprints all over the phone if he were to find it, and the bag was to put the phone inside, obviously. Maybe he was being a little extreme, but sue him, he didn’t want to be blamed for owning the phone himself because his fingerprints happened to be all over it!

But that didn’t matter because he could not find it anywhere.

Maybe he’d been right – maybe it was in Hagakure’s room. She was very eager to see Mineta gone – maybe she had an ulterior motive.

Midoriya’s brick phone beeped.

[Uraraka -> 18] Mineta incoming!

In a hurry, Midoriya slipped his phone back into his pocket and hurried towards the door about to leave – when his phone beeped again.

He checked it – no messages.

Wait…

If he were Mineta and had a secret phone on him that he needed to check the messages of constantly, he would change the ringtone to match that of the brick phones that refused to be put on silent. That way, no one could guess that it hadn’t come from the phone the school had supplied to him, and he wouldn’t miss the messages from a crazy villain who might turn him into a pile of dust if he ignored him.

Where did the sound come from? The bed? Under the bed?

Midoriya could hear footsteps drawing near – or maybe that was just his heartbeat.

Where is it – where is it?!

He tossed the covers around, peered under the mattress, used the dim light of the brick phone to glance under the bed, checked under the –

It was under the pillow?!

Maybe Midoriya overestimated him.

How could someone be so smart in some departments and so lacking in others?!

Not wanting to hide under the bed (if Mineta came in and found out the phone was missing, the first thing he’d do would be glance under the bed to see if it had dropped down), Midoriya cut his losses, and risked stepping out of the room.

He’d only passed his own door by the time Mineta turned the corner and saw him.

“Hey,” he said as they passed.

Midoriya didn’t reply. He reached the stairs and smiled, glancing down at the smart phone in his gloved hand.

Dropping it into the sandwich bag, Midoriya shoved it and the gloves into his blazer pocket and went to see what Miss Midnight would say (hiding upstairs not long before the Detective’s interviews might be suspicious).

See? Midoriya had thought this through. He thinks everything through – every detail of every plan, meticulously planned out.

Except err, the outcome that landed him in class A, but that’s not the point.

Midoriya leant up against the wall and listened politely whilst Midnight spoke and generally told them all off for being pains, during which they all just stared at her, and it somehow never became clear that no one other than Iida cared the slightest bit about what she had to say.

Everyone just kept glancing at Midoriya from the corner of their eyes, especially when Mineta reappeared and wandered past him.

Midnight turned and glared at Mineta for a moment, and then to Midoriya, who just shrugged and mimicked Mina’s legendary innocent blink.

The class giggled and Midnight just sighed, muttering about not knowing how Aizawa deals with them all, before announcing that she’d be sitting over here and marking their art history work, in a slightly ominous tone.

Soon enough, Midoriya disappeared once more. Midnight would look up from her work, only to find he might as well have evaporated. He was in fact, already back in his room, once again sporting white gloves, and examining the surface of a smart phone under his bedside light, with his curtains drawn and main lights turned off.

Of course, it wasn’t Mineta’s original phone – not the thing he would have owned before going to UA. This had to be something given to him. It was far more advanced than the brick phones but was most certainly not the newest model.

Midoriya was just thankful he only had to tackle a four-digit password, and the fingerprints Mineta left behind on the screen gave him the numbers. It only took him two tries to get the right combination, in a familiar pattern, which he tapped in cautiously with the corner of his little finger.

It was very clear that Mineta had been using the phone for far more than just messaging – from social media to internet and even games, but Midoriya wasn’t here to frown upon his classmate’s usage of something everyone else had been deprived of.

He smiled at the messaging app. No contacts were named, but that didn’t matter, because he’d only spoken actively with one person. Midoriya saw a picture of a neat, staff schedule for class 1-A, and that was all he needed.

“A truth Quirk?” Midoriya whispered in reply to Shoto.

“I know him,” he said in an equally hushed voice. “When I was captured, he was one of the first people to talk to me – trying to figure out where Dabi was, and what happened to me.”

All of class A were sitting back in their classroom now. One by one, they were escorted from there to an empty room the next floor up. The Detective started in number order, but the system was soon lost.

Midoriya hesitated. Whenever Shoto brought something up about his past, he was always keen to ask questions about it. But Midoriya knew that the moment he started interrogating him, Shoto would close himself off again. The more he left the topic alone, the better it was.

“So, um, what kind of truth Quirk is it?” Midoriya asked. “As in… does he force you to tell the truth?”

“No, he knows when you’re lying,” Shoto explained, “even if you’re composed – he always knows.”

Midoriya nodded, “That’s an extremely useful Quirk…”

“And difficult to work around.”

The door to the classroom opened, and Detective Tsukauchi, in the beige trench coat and matching hat, smiled at them all, “Ok, so can I speak with… Izuku Midoriya, please?”

Midoriya sighed and stood up, “That’s me.”

“Good luck,” he heard Shoto whisper, giving Midoriya a jarring reminder of the USJ.

Right… he still needed to talk to Shoto about that.

First things first – this interview…

“Take a seat, Midoriya,” said the Detective once they reached the classroom that he’d set up in. It was rather small. Most tables and chairs had been pushed against the walls, so only one remained, right in the centre, with two chairs, facing opposite to each other. There was a police officer standing outside, with the face of a cat, and Midoriya found himself thinking about the nerve-wracking experience that was going to the police with evidence of his bullying.

He sat down, and nervously started to twiddle his thumbs.

The Detective noticed and smiled, “No need to be nervous – I just have a few standard questions to ask, that’s all.”

Midoriya nodded and met his gaze. His eyes were grey but… somehow warm – Midoriya could tell he was a kind and genuine man.

He asked him questions which Midoriya thought were obvious, and which he clearly already knew the answers to.

“When did you first realise something was wrong?”

“I… was talking to Kendo, the hero student I’d been partnered up with – a-about the pointlessness of having a fountain in the middle of a rescue training facility,” he laughed nervously, and the Detective did too. “Then um, I saw this weird, purple light. I pointed it out and everyone stopped. Then the villains came out of it – it was a portal. They… asked where All Might was, and when they realised that he wasn’t there, said that they were there to liberate class A.”

“How did you react to this?”

Midoriya bit his lip, staring at his hands, “I was… confused. I don’t know – it’s hard to explain. I… obviously didn’t want to go with the villains. But I can’t be the only one in this class who feels trapped in class A. The League was offering us a way out, and everyone hesitated.”

“Did you ever consider leaving?”

Midoriya met his gaze for a moment, eyes flickering towards the notebook in the Detective’s hands. It didn’t matter what he was writing down – the whole conversation was being recorded anyway.

“It’s ok,” he insisted, “You won’t be in trouble for saying that you did consider trying to leave.”

After further hesitation, Midoriya shook his head, “No… I knew it was a bad idea. I saw everyone else hesitating and told them that we needed to run – so they did.”

The Detective smiled, “Your classmates seem to have a lot of trust in you.”

Midoriya shrugged, “I don’t know about that. I’m just one of them. It’s easier to listen to someone like me, than a hero; someone that most of them have been working against for so long.”

“Don’t feel down on yourself. I’ve talked to nearly all of class A and B now, and every single person who has mentioned you, has spoken very highly of you.”

He rubbed his head, “Well, you haven’t spoken to everyone yet…”

Tsukauchi laughed, “I have been told that the warp villain, Kurogiri, proceeded to split you all up. Can you tell me what happened to you?”

“Oh, I was taken to the shipwreck zone. I think I almost drowned – twice.”

He told him all about Tsu and Honenuki saving his life, and his trick against the villains. He’d gotten so into the story, that he almost forgot to mention Mineta. Luckily, the Detective had spoken to Tsu before Midoriya, in fact, just before. So, he had something to follow up on.

“And when on the boat, when you were thinking up plans to escape, did the villains try to convince you to join their side then too?”

“Oh! Y-Yes, yes, they did. Me, Tsu – A-Asui, that is, and Mineta, all wore PE kits with the red bands below the shoulders, whilst Honenuki was in his hero costume. It was really clear who was in class A and who wasn’t. O-One of the villains said that they’d take us to dry land if we tossed the hero in first. And then… well… Mineta said it was three against one…”

There was a moment of silence before the Detective continued, “And what did you think of this?”

“That it was a horrible thing to suggest? I-I’d never do something like that. And Tsu wouldn’t either. She, err, might have slapped him, kind of. A-And Honenuki practically saved my life a few minutes later, so… yeah.”

He nodded slowly and added wrote something else down. “What happened next? You said you split up with the other three to lead the villains in the water away.”

“Right, um – yeah. They went directly towards the exit, where everyone else seemed to be, and I tried to go the long way around…”

Midoriya was incredibly careful about the information he spilled about Shoto. He skirted over almost the entirety of their interaction, jumping quickly to when Midoriya had realised Mr Aizawa had been injured. The Detective didn’t seem to think it was suspicious.

“So, you picked up the sword, and jumped in between Shigaraki and All Might?”

Midoriya gulped, “Y-Yes…”

Neither spoke for a moment, the sound of a ticking clock filling their ears.

“Midoriya, we are aware you know of All Might’s weakened abilities.”

Midoriya stiffened, “Oh…” Well, of course, they knew. It was stupid of Midoriya to ever think otherwise. He just supposed he wasn’t quite as good at remaining calm under pressure as he’d realised – he needed to work on that. At least this was good practise. He had a strong feeling he’d need to use those skills again someday.

“Yes, well, I could see how much fighting Nomu had taken out of him,” Midoriya admitted. “There were all sorts of signs, but I suppose I only saw them because I knew they’d be there. There was so much dust and smoke around him – it obscured him a bit… And then Shigaraki just lunged, and I knew he had a disintegration Quirk – I knew All Might had run out of time – I knew there was backup on the way. I-I just thought… if I could hold him off, even for just a little while, I could…”

Save him?

“That’s very heroic of you.”

Midoriya stared at him. Heroic? But he wasn’t… “Sir, no offence, but I’m not exactly the hero type.”

The Detective just smiled and shook his head, like he didn’t believe him. “And then you were injured.”

The comment quickly drew Midoriya back to the matter at hand. He clutched his injured shoulder, suddenly aching and protesting again, “Right… yeah…”

“What happened, in your opinion?”

“Err, I think the hero Snipe tried to shoot Shigaraki – but Kurogiri had seen them entering. He escaped, and blindly redirected whatever was sent in Shigaraki’s direction the best he could, and… one of the bullets hit me.”

“So, you don’t blame the heroes for this? That bullet could have killed you.”

Midoriya hesitated, gripping the bandages, just visible under the collar of his shirt.

“All Might reports that you reacted quite aggressively to him trying to calm you down.”

“Well!” Midoriya started, startled at the volume of his own voice. “Well… I’d stepped in to help. And I just got shot in the back – shoulder – whatever. Just like always…”

The damned ticking of the clock filled his ears again.

“– And then I passed out, so…” Midoriya shrugged, which sent a spike of pain down his spine. He grunted and held his injury with a wince. “So, there.”

The Detective nodded, “Thank you very much for your time, Midoriya. We may have to speak again but know that it is unlikely.” He reached towards the recording device, about to press stop –

“Wait!” Midoriya exclaimed suddenly, reaching forwards to stop him. “I-I err… I think I have some information that might be useful to you. O-On top of what I’ve already said.”

Tsukauchi blinked, pulling his hand away from the recording device, leaving it on, “And what would that be?”

Midoriya gulped, this was when he had to start being careful about this truth Quirk that Shoto had warned him of, “My friends said that you thought there was a traitor to UA amongst our class.”

“Not necessarily,” he insisted. “We’re just covering all corners, just to make sure.”

“Right, well, the thing is, I agree. T-That there’s a traitor – I mean.”

“…Ok?”

“Well, you see – no one from class A can have contact with the outside world after entering UA, unless they go through a teacher first. This supposed traitor, would have stolen a copy of class A’s timetable to give to the League of Villains. But neither class A nor B knew about the USJ until the morning prior – that’s not nearly enough time to organise the attack! The traitor must have leaked this information way before. And the only time that’s feasible, is when the press broke onto the grounds. You probably noticed, but the main gate was disintegrated – and that’s Shigaraki’s Quirk. In the confusion that the alarm caused, it must have been easy to slip away and take the information. Plus, someone could have disabled the security cameras remotely, sneaking in with the press to access the system. It’s not hard – you just have to be close enough.”

Midoriya soon realised that sounded awfully suspicious, but he kept going, stumbling over his words in a slight panic.

“B-But even if you g-got the timetable – you still need to get it to Shigaraki a-and the press was in the way and no student seemed to go anywhere near them – so they had to have done it wirelessly – l-like through a phone – sent a picture or something. B-But class A only has brick phones supplied by the school…”

He took his own out of his pocket to show the Detective. And then, slowly, pulled the sandwich bag containing Mineta’s smartphone out too. He pushed it across the table, and the Detective frowned.

“Is this yours?” he asked, and Midoriya knew this was a question that the truth Quirk would have caught him of guard with, had he been guilty, or perhaps framing Mineta.

“No,” he answered surely. “No, it’s Mineta’s.”

His eyes narrowed, “The same Mineta who suggested pushing your hero course friend into the water at the USJ?”

“Yes – exactly. See, err… my room’s right next to his. I was… upstairs earlier today – Mineta wasn’t around… We all carry our brick phones wherever we go, right? Mr Aizawa said to do so, in case of emergency. Then I heard a ringtone in Mineta’s room – but I knew he had his phone on him. I-I was curious, so I looked. I found this under his pillow and thought you might want to take a look at it. I didn’t want to get my fingerprints on it, so I wore old gloves and put it in a sandwich bag. Oh, but I did touch it when trying to figure out the passcode – it’s 2-5-8-0.”

The Detective stared, “Well then… I’ll be sure to take a look at this.”

“Ok,” Midoriya nodded with a cheerful smile. He felt a little more comfortable now that he’d gotten this bit out of the way. “Oh, and just so you know, me and my classmates spoke last night. Mineta makes all the girls really uncomfortable, and them and everyone else is kind of frightened by how he essentially suggested getting Honenuki killed.”

He stood up and pushed the chair under the table, “I assume that’s all?”

“Um, yes,” the Detective agreed, also standing up. “Yes, let me… take you back down to your class! I do have to speak to Mineta now, and I’ll be sure to have a long conversation with him and your teachers.”

“Thank you very much, Sir!” Midoriya beamed. Practically skipping, he left Tsukauchi behind to turn of the recording device. By the time he’d caught up with him, Midoriya was already at the door to class 1-A.

Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared as Midoriya wandered inside, happily humming to himself.

“Err, Minoru Mineta?” the Detective asked.

Midoriya noticed the way he tensed up when his name was called out – and how suspiciously he glared at Midoriya as he passed him by.

“Why do you look so happy, 18?” asked Midnight, who sounded rather worried.

“Is it a crime?” huffed Jiro.

And not another question was asked about it.

Mineta didn’t return after his interview with the Detective. A few other people had their little conversations with the man, like Kacchan and Shoto, but they didn’t stay for long. The class was told to go back to the dorms, and lunch would be taken to them. The sudden increase in security was frightening for some. But they only needed to glance in Midoriya’s general direction to realise that this was probably his fault, and so nothing for them to worry about.

At some point, Midnight left too. In fact, class A was left entirely to their own devices until after dinner, when their substitute teacher finally reappeared.

It was the first time she managed to gain the undivided attention of the class. Everyone was in the common room, having just finished dinner, and quickly pretended to not be looking for the mouse that Koda accidentally released (his Quirk was something to do with animals, Midoriya had sussed, and no one had figured out why the gentle soul was in class A at all).

Midnight glared at them all for a minute, and then simply sighed, now knowing better than to involve herself in class A’s mischief.

“We want to give you all a chance in life,” she began, her tone suddenly serious and almost sympathetic, “that’s why you’re here. But you have to give us a chance too. In the cases of a large majority of you, failing this class would be devastating to your future. However,” she paused for a moment, glancing at each of them in turn, “endangering the future of others – endangering their lives, is not tolerated, not for a second. Class A, class B, your teachers, other heroes – so many lives could have been lost yesterday; one of your classmates was shot.”

Midoriya instinctively reached for his shoulder and rubbing the aching muscle tenderly – perhaps he should go back to Recovery Girl and talk to her about it. It still hurt a lot.

“We couldn’t take the business of a traitor to UA lightly,” Midnight continued. “We had to set an example – to you, to the rest of the school, and the rest of the world. This is why, after extensive discussion, Mineta has been failed, and will leave the school, effective immediately.”

There was no reaction – not a gasp nor word uttered. No one broke their gaze with Midnight; no one moved.

“There will be some activity around the dorms when someone comes in to remove Mineta’s belongings, and the police might want to search his room. We’re not permitting you to say goodbye to him, I’m sorry.”

Another moment of silence.

“Lessons will begin again as normal tomorrow. 18, Recovery Girl would like you to visit her so she can check over your shoulder in the morning.”

Well, that solved that problem.

“See you then,” Midnight nodded, and with that, she turned and left, her high heels clacking against the wooden floor, and fading into the distance once the door shut behind her.

The class erupted into cheers.

“You did it!” Hagakure exclaimed, jumping up and down.

“You actually got him expelled,” Sero gaped. “And in less than a day!”

“That was so amazing!” Mina clapped.

Midoriya flushed red whilst his classmates gushed over him, “W-Well, he made it so easy.”

“What, did you frame him or something?” asked Jiro.

“N-No! No, He actually was the traitor – I thought he might be.”

“Of course, he did!” Uraraka said, punching the air, “Midoriya knows everything!”

“Just remind me never to get on your bad side,” laughed Kaminari.

“I can’t believe the villains got Mineta to steal the schedule rather than me!” Hagakure huffed.

“Or me!” nodded Uraraka.

“Yeah! All the skill sets they had available and they go for Mineta? Seriously?!”

“Exactly. What does he have that we don’t?!”

Jiro suppressed a laugh, “A poorer sense of morality?”

“My morality is corrupt, and you know it!” Hagakure retorted.

Midoriya was showered in praise. People laughed and told stupid stories – the name by 19 on the board was changed to Squashed Grapes – and Sato gave Midoriya the last of the cookies, hidden somewhere even the master thieves couldn’t find.

Iida was still up and about, trying to maintain order – insisting it was someone’s turn to wash the dishes, another’s to dry them, and Midoriya’s to take the overflowing bin bag outside.

“Aw, but Midoriya’s been so helpful today!” said Uraraka. “I’ll take it out.”

“No!” Iida snapped, dragging the bag out of her reach, “We cannot change the system! We’ve had this conversation already!”

“Yeah, Ochako – no messing with the system!” Jiro giggled.

“Take out the trash, Midoriya!” yelled Sero, tossing the bag over everyone’s heads.

Kirishima caught it and tossed it to Tokoyami, whose shadow monster Quirk, Dark Shadow, took it the rest of the way to Midoriya.

“Thanks,” he grinned at Dark Shadow, who gave him a thumbs up.

Midoriya pulled on his shoes and hurried outside. The communal bins for all the dorms weren’t far, but the shed with the food bins inside stunk, so he was sure to not stay there for long.

He wandered back much slower, pausing for a moment and gazing at the skyline, when he was just behind the dorms – it was blocked by the wall that surrounded UA, a seemingly impenetrable fortress, that he was trapped inside.

“What do you want, Kacchan?”

Midoriya turned around and there he was. He knew him so well, that he could identify him from his footfalls. Loud, heavy and confident, like he expected the very ground to give way to him if he so wanted.

They stared at each other for a moment.

Midoriya fought against the urge to back away as he stepped closer.

“You think it’s funny, huh?” he snarled, “Stealing, lying, cheating – to get what you want?”

“I’ve never done any of those things,” Midoriya retorted.

Kacchan was far too close for comfort. “Right. Did you not stop to think about what’s going to happen to Mineta now? You just ruined his life.”

Midoriya glared at him, “And why do you care? He deserved it. And if this is somehow to do with you again – because everything has to be about you – well, you deserved what you got too.”

And suddenly his back was against the wall, Kacchan’s hand gripping his bandaged shoulder.

Midoriya gritted his teeth, biting through the pain. It hadn’t been much – Kacchan hadn’t even done anything yet.

“You don’t care about the lives you’ve destroyed,” Kacchan hissed. “The teachers who lost their jobs – their livelihood! The kids in our class who will never have the opportunities in life they would have had otherwise –”

“But you don’t care either!” Midoriya dared to speak up, which only resulted in Kacchan pressing harder on his shoulder.

“You ruined my life! This place is a death sentence. I will never get where I deserve.”

“This is what you –” but he couldn’t finish that, because Kacchan had figured out where it hurt the worst. Midoriya hissed and kicked him away, which was a bad idea, because seconds later, the back of his head hit the wall again.

“You’re a villain,” Kacchan leered. “And I will stop you.”

Midoriya grabbed Kacchan’s wrist, trying to push him away from his wounded shoulder, “F-From doing what?!”

“Whatever the hell you’re planning! I know you’re up to something.”

“I’m not a villain, Kacchan! I’m not like those people at the USJ! That’s not me!” He felt Kacchan’s palm burning through his T-shirt, and tears pricked at the corners of his eyes.

“Yeah, right. You’re –”

“YOU’RE THE VILLAIN – LOOK AT WHAT YOU’RE DOING!”

And he was dropped to the ground.

Midoriya shuffled away, clutching his shoulder. Kacchan cast a shadow over him, but he… just stared, hand still outstretched, eyes wide.

“…You seriously think you deserve to be a hero, when you act like this?” said Midoriya, blinking back the water in his eyes.

He stayed silent, just… staring at him.

Midoriya got to his feet, “Kacchan, you don’t deserve it – n-not now. B-But you do deserve a chance. And that’s why you’re here.”

The wind whistled past them, the sun setting on the eventful day. Still gripping his injury, Midoriya started to make his leave.

He hadn’t gotten far before Kacchan spoke once more, “You’ve become a monster.”

Midoriya stopped.

“Maybe that’s something we have in common.”

Chapter Text

Recovery Girl hit Midoriya around the head with her cane.

“Ouch!” he exclaimed, rubbing under his hair, “What was that for?!”

“You’ve aggravated it,” the healing hero snapped.

She was examining the bullet wound in his left shoulder. It had only been two days since he was shot. The first time she used her Quirk on it had done wonders, but it hadn’t seemed to improve much since then.

“I-I didn’t mean to!” Midoriya replied honestly. He glanced down at his shoulder. It was all red, haloing a circle of scar tissue. The gun may have been fired behind him, but Kurogiri redirected it, and it ended up hitting him from the front. Midoriya was extremely lucky it didn’t hit only a little bit further to the right. This wound wasn’t serious, but it was painful.

“The muscle won’t heal properly if you keep this up,” the old lady insisted, prodding him arm in a methodical manner whilst Midoriya hissed in pain. “I can speed up your body’s healing process, but that won’t matter if you’re this tense and knotted.”

“I’m sorry, ok?”

“It’s not me you should be saying sorry to! I’ll be putting your arm in a sling if you keep ignoring my advice.”

“Ok, ok!”

Recovery Girl sighed deeply, gazing down at the pile of old bandages she’d just removed from his shoulder. She reached towards them and lifted a piece up. Unlike the rest of the white-grey fabric, this section was slightly yellowed, like it had been burnt.

She turned back to Midoriya, who avoided her gaze.

Sighed again, she said, “Why is it, that nearly every time you visit me, you’re covered in scorch marks?”

He didn’t reply, and just shrugged – which sent a shooting pain through his shoulder. He gritted his teeth and clutched it tenderly.

“I know you’re not picking these fights on purpose, Midoriya.” Recovery Girl was one of the only members of staff at UA who never used their student numbers; Midoriya was thankful for it. “You need to stand up for yourself.”

“I did,” Midoriya insisted. “I did and look what happened – I’m in class A with him. I’m not the only one here who stood up for themselves and for others and got burnt because of it. I-It’s like no matter what I do, it’s always wrong – and I-I always suffer for it!”

Silence hung over them for a while. Eventually, Recovery Girl started to unravel a new set of bandages and wrap his shoulder up again.

“When you’re wounded,” she said, “without the help of others, the injury could fester, and become infected. Even with help, sometimes it will get worse before it can get better. That’s life.”

Midoriya mulled the metaphor over in his mind whilst Recovery Girl finished with the bandages. He noticed the way her eyes lingered on the various patches of oddly coloured skin up his arms and across his chest – old scars, almost faded.

He grabbed his shirt and pulled it back on, taking care around his left shoulder as he did so. “Thanks for your help,” he said as he put his blazer on, picked up his rucksack, and left her behind without another word uttered between them.

“Just in time, Midoriya!” Iida called out when Midoriya arrived at the door to class 1-A. “Although, your tardiness would have been excused due to your visit to Recovery Girl!”

“Good to know,” he sighed, walking across the room to his desk. It was weird seeing the one behind him unoccupied. It was weirder to see that Kacchan refused to meet his gaze before he sat down. It was unlike him; he usually glared at Midoriya, just to make sure that he still knew he was despised.

The next weird thing to happen, was the appearance of –

“Mr Aizawa?!” most of the class exclaimed.

Their teacher hobbled in, covered nearly head to toe in bandages, and seeming completely unbothered.

“Morning, class,” he droned, like nothing ever happened.

“Err, is it really a good idea for you to be here so soon, Sir?” questioned Kirishima unsurely.

“Yeah, maybe you should take a few more days off…” added Kaminari. “At least.”

“Your substitute teacher didn’t seem to be up to dealing with you,” Mr Aizawa explained. His eyes flickered towards Mineta’s empty desk. “And I don’t want to be losing any more of you unless I say so.”

A glum silence fell over them, but they were strangely glad to have him back.

“Besides, the next few weeks are very important.” He just about managed to press a button, and an image appeared on the board behind him, of a large, crowded stadium, “The UA Sports Festival is to be going ahead, despite the incident at the USJ.”

It was the first time since the very first day at UA, that class A had been filled with such dread, and the atmosphere had felt so dark and gloomy.

Midoriya had hoped the event would be cancelled, but with the high profile of the class he was a part of, he could see why they were insistent on its occurrence.

“I-Is that really a good idea?” asked Uraraka.

“Yeah, what if villains get in, ribbit?” added Tsu.

“There will be added security measures,” Mr Aizawa replied simply. “The Sports Festival is a way of showing the rest of the world that UA wasn’t swayed by the attack, and that it is as strong as ever. Class B will be watched closely, as the class of hero students who survived the encounter, and you will be watched even more so.”

He didn’t explain why – but he didn’t need to. They weren’t able to see the news nor the reaction of the outside world, but it wasn’t hard to realise that people would quickly jump to conclusions, and see class A as another group of villains, as bad as those who had invaded UA.

And worse, one of them was the son of the number two hero.

“Don’t we get a say in this?” Yaoyorozu tried. “Midoriya was badly hurt!”

“I’m afraid none of you have a choice,” Mr Aizawa sighed, as though he didn’t agree on this decision either. “18 will be taking part on Recovery Girl’s discretion.”

Well, it looked like he just needed to anger Kacchan enough to make him beat him up a couple of times – which shouldn’t be hard.

But… then he’d leave everyone to face the Sports Festival alone – and he couldn’t do that.

“Other than that, classes will continue as normal,” their teacher explained. “And… I am sorry.”

“It’s cool to see Aizawa back!” said Sero, collapsing into the sofa beside Kaminari. It was the end of the day, and they were playing video games. “I kind of missed the old sod.”

“Being so determined to teach us is real manly and all,” added Kirishima, furiously attacking the buttons on his controller, “but he’s so beat up! I ache just looking at him.”

“I don’t think he should have come back so early,” said Sato from the kitchen.

He was making dinner and it was Shoji’s and Uraraka’s turns to help. No, no one knew what Iida’s method of organisation was, they’d just learnt to roll with it by this point. Anyway, Uraraka’s method of helping undid more of what Shoji made up for. He could have been chopping tomatoes on one side of the kitchen, and peeling potatoes on the other with no problem at all, his Quirk allowing him to grow extra limbs as he pleased. Except Uraraka had accidentally made a knife float up to the ceiling, and they were too scared to let her drop it at the moment. Shoji refused to retrieve it, and so Uraraka was now performing some questionable gymnastics to try and get high enough to reach the knife without having to use her Quirk anymore, which quickly made her feel nauseated.

“All I can think about is the Sports Festival,” sighed Jiro, something which everyone seemed to silently agree to. She accepted a cup of tea from Yaoyorozu, and they both sat down to watch Mina beat everybody in their video game. Bakugo proceeded to yank the controller off Kirishima, determined to do better.

“I can’t believe how early the festival is in the year,” said Kirishima, not even bothering to try and take his controller back.

“Yeah, I know right!” Uraraka called over her shoulder, wobbling on the edge of a precariously balanced chair.

“Tea, Midoriya?” Yaoyorozu asked him. He was sitting on the other side of the room, doodling in his notebook and watching the chaos.

“Oh, it’s alright – but thank you.”

“I’ve been dreading it ever since I was told I’d be coming here,” said Kaminari. “I’m just going to short out and look like an idiot.”

“I can’t believe it’s still happening!” Hagakure butted in. “And after Midoriya was hurt so badly!”

“Whatever – like Mr Aizawa said, there’s nothing we can do about it,” sighed Sero. “I just can’t wait for it to be over.”

“Revelry in the dark,” Tokoyami muttered.

“What?”

“Midoriya, can I speak with you for a minute?”

Midoriya looked up from his notebook to see Shoto standing over him. “Um, sure?” he replied.

He closed his book and stood up. Shoto lead him out of the dorms and through the school grounds. They were allowed to wander, as long as they stayed close to Heights Alliance. There were cameras everywhere, so it’s not like they could go far without every movement being watched. The doors were locked at nine o’clock on the dot, but they didn’t have to be inside before that.

“So… what’s up?” Midoriya asked unsurely.

There was a prolonged pause before he replied, “Do you see it yet?”

“…See what?”

“The chance UA could give you for your future.”

Midoriya hesitated, stopping in his tracks. Shoto was talking about what they’d said at the USJ – when Midoriya decided to stay, and Shoto had attempted to leave – but he stepped in when Midoriya was attacked. He chose saving his life, rather than fleeing this prison-like school. And… well, Midoriya couldn’t help being a little bit guilty.

He sighed, “It’s been two days.”

“…Right.”

“Shoto, what do you really want to say?”

He stared at him for a moment, running his hand through his spiked-up hair. “I… I don’t understand you. What could you possibly want from this place?”

He was confused why Midoriya wanted to stay at UA, even when Shoto gave him the chance to escape – that was what this was about.

“Look, the moment I leave, that’s the end – that’s it. Think about it! If I could leave at any time, the outside world would be exactly the same, no matter when I left. But here? This is all the time I have here – that’s why I couldn’t go with you at the USJ! I-It makes sense to stay here and see what happens. Maybe I will be given a chance – maybe it’ll be bad, maybe it’ll be good – I just don’t know!” Midoriya’s hands fell to his sides in defeat. He’d been waving them around as he spoke – he was quite an animated speaker. “I can’t know. And you can’t either. I… know you’re desperate to get back to Dabi. I know you were with him for two years a-and were taken out of that and just thrown in here. But… can’t you give this place a chance too? They’re giving us one.”

He was quiet for a while, thinking this over, his arms crossed. “But you don’t know everything – you don’t understand.”

“No – and I don’t pretend to,” Midoriya answered without hesitation. “I don’t know everything that’s going on with you – no one does. You… don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to. But if you want me to understand –”

“It’s my father,” he interrupted in a tone stone cold and sure. “And the Sports Festival…”

And that was the first time Midoriya had ever seen true fear in his friend’s eyes.

Several Months Prior

“I need you to talk to me, Todoroki.”

Shoto hung his head, not saying a word. His hands were cuffed, pinned to the metal table. He felt eyes on him from all sides – from the security camera in the corner of the room, to the mirror opposite him, clearly two-way, and of course, the detective that sat before him.

“You have been missing for a very long time,” he continued, tilting his head to try and see under Shoto’s two-toned hair. It wasn’t spiked up at the moment, and hung long over his eyes, cut poorly in a jagged fashion. Shoto turned his head further away, swallowing the lump in his throat.

The Detective didn’t speak again for a few minutes at least. Meanwhile, Shoto clenched his fists, feeling his frost creep over his skin, chilling the steel dramatically.

“We all want to help you. But we can’t do that until you help us. I’m sorry we’ve had to keep you here at the police station for the past few days, but in the eyes of the law, you are a criminal. You’ve actively fought against heroes; willingly associated with a high-profile villain; trespassed; damaged private property and committed many other minor felonies,” the Detective sighed, flipping though a clipboard on the table before him. “But it’s not too late – we can help you get through this, but first, we need you to try.”

Shoto could tell he was sincere – a kind soul who actually wanted to help. But he didn’t get it – he didn’t understand. And if Shoto tried to explain any of it to him, he could find himself in even deeper trouble. How would he know if he’d even believe him? Not with the number two hero pulling the strings. Shoto would be framed as delusional. He knew that this man had a truth Quirk – he’d overheard a conversation about it earlier. But if they believed Dabi had somehow brainwashed Shoto, the Quirk wouldn’t help.

He knew there was no passive way out of this – the police couldn’t help him because they were working with the heroes, specifically, his father. All they wanted was to know where Dabi was, and he would never sell him out.

“I don’t think we’ve formally introduced ourselves,” the Detective suddenly realised. “My name is Detective Tsukauchi. What would you like me to call you?”

He hesitated, “…Shoto.”

“Ok, Shoto it is,” Tsukauchi smiled. “How are you feeling, Shoto?”

“…Alone.”

“I’m sure you miss your family and friends.”

“I don’t have any friends.”

“What about your family?”

All Shoto could think of was Dabi. He was the only one who had ever truly helped him. And that wasn’t the only thing that made him family. No, see this was the problem – the big secret.

Dabi was his brother.

His whole family thought he was dead. A fire Quirk more powerful than Father’s – and Endeavor had tried to train him, mould him into a hero like him. The fire grew out of control – and soon after, a funeral was held. Toya Todoroki was dead. But out of the ruined wing of the house, scarred and alone, Dabi ran.

Yet, a few years later, he returned.

Shoto was the youngest of four. All three of his older siblings, including Dabi, did not inherit the combination of Quirks their father wanted. That was why they existed, after all. It was a Quirk marriage – and Endeavor wanted someone to take up his mantel, with power greater than his own – not just fire, but their mother’s ice too. Shoto was that perfect combination.

He was trained from a young age – barely five. And between Toya’s death and Shoto’s never ending training, his mother snapped. She said she couldn’t stand Shoto’s left side anymore, with his red hair, blue eye and fire Quirk, when she poured boiling water down his face.

After that, she disappeared too – sent to a mental hospital which Shoto had never once visited, not that he even had the opportunity.

And so, when Toya – no, Dabi – reappeared out of the blue, giving him his first chance for true freedom, he took it.

Endeavor knew about Dabi, after an unfortunate series of events in the back alleys of Hosu, in which they were both almost captured. But Shoto was quite convinced he kept that information to himself. If word got out that the murderous villain who kidnapped his youngest son, was actually his eldest son… well, you can see how that would get complicated.

But now Shoto had been caught, and Dabi had managed to flee, leaving him behind. Whether it was on purpose or as his only option, Shoto wasn’t sure. But the point is, Shoto was back with the heroes now, and they were the villains of his story.

“They’re all very worried about you,” said Detective Tsukauchi. “Your siblings – your father… But I’m afraid your mother was never informed of your disappearance. The hospital was very worried the news would undo all the progress she has been making. At least, that’s what it says here,” he tapped the paper on the clipboard.

Shoto still said nothing – what could he say to that?

“Would you rather speak with someone more familiar for a while? I know all of this is a great shock for you. Your father is here –”

Shoto jolted back at the information, the handcuffs clanging loudly, and the table inching towards him just a little. Ice covered more of the constraints.

The Detective was standing up, registering the panic in Shoto’s eyes, “Hey, it’s ok! You don’t have to see him if you don’t want to.”

He was here? Of course, he was here – the first time the police try to have an interview with him, and he shows up. No, no, no – he had to get out of here – no more waiting around for Dabi.

“We’re just going to talk! He’s not here!”

The ice covered the cuffs. With a harsh yank, they fell to pieces, shattering like glass. Ignoring the Detective’s frantic calls, Shoto kicked at the table, slamming it into the man’s chest and knocking him to the ground.

Alarms blared and Shoto heard the door bolt shut. But footsteps were thundering outside, and he knew he only had a matter of time.

“Please! You’ll make things worse!” Tsukauchi tried to reason with him, nursing a bleeding head as he pushed the table off his chest, struggling to get to his feet.

The mirror –

Shoto summoned a spike of ice which crashed from one side of the room to the other, shattering the mirror which he knew was two-way.

There were people behind it. After shielding themselves from falling glass, they pulled weapons to protect themselves and hold Shoto back. With a flick of his wrist, Shoto froze them in place and leapt through.

He burst through the door on the other side, immediately freezing everyone who waited for him. He paused for a moment, exhaling a breath of steam as the temperature plummeted. Then, he ran – he ran through corridor after corridor, desperate for an escape. Dabi would be waiting for him somewhere out there. He just needed a – window.

Shoto skidded and charged towards it, ready to smash it just the same as the mirror –

When a torrent of fire stopped him in his tracks.

Shoto hadn’t seen it coming. He had no time to react before a hot-red hand grasped his arm and pulled him away from the window, the heat melting his ice the moment he formed it.

Shoto kicked and scratched, but it wasn’t long before he was back in the interrogation room.

A great, booming voice yelled, “Leave us!” when Shoto was tossed into the room. The door bolted shut behind him, as were those on the other side of the broken mirror.

Shoto turned and sent a sheet of ice up from the floor. But he just stood there, arms folded, as it melted around him pointlessly, doing nothing but smashing the security camera on the wall, which was when Shoto knew he was in deep trouble.

Endeavor stood on the voice recorder that the Detective had been using, crushing it beneath his feet. Shoto didn’t know where Tsukauchi went, likely escorted away moments before they returned.

Shoto clenched his fists, his wrists still sporting the remains of the handcuffs, as he shifted into a fighting stance.

His father simply glared at him. “Look what you’ve done,” he rumbled.

“Get away from me,” Shoto hissed in reply, sending another spear of ice in his direction.

He simply held out a hand and melted it before it even reached him, the searing heat evaporating any puddles it would have left behind.

“You were my masterpiece.”

“I’m not your anything!”

“You will obey me! I am your father!”

“SHUT UP!” – another pointless attack later, and Shoto yelled, “I HATE YOU!”

Endeavor had him by the wrist again. Shoto couldn’t use his ice, and he wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing him use his fire.

“You’re lucky you’ve been given this chance, don’t waste it,” he seethed in anger.

Shoto gritted his teeth, still trying to pull away from his grip, “I don’t want any chance you could give me!”

Father tossed him to the ground, “In one month’s time, you will be sent to UA – class 1-A. Until then, you will be kept under close guard. You won’t see your siblings since you’re clearly too feral.”

“I’m not going to that stupid villain class.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

He grabbed his wrist again and pulled him to his feet. Shoto was marched to the door, which Endeavor knocked on harshly, and it was cautiously opened.

Shoto hung his head whilst he was handcuffed again, and his father steered him away back to his cell, which he was pushed into without undoing the cuffs.

He turned and saw his father at the door, “I’ll see you again at the Sports Festival – and I expect first place.”

And he slammed the door shut, leaving molten indents of his fingerprints behind.

Shoto sank to the floor, hands still tied behind his back.

No – if he were going to be sent to that horrible place, he wouldn’t make it easy for any of them – not the heroes, not the petty criminals and juvenile delinquents his classmates would end up being, and especially not his father.

Besides, Dabi would come – Shoto would be long gone before that stupid Sports Festival, and he’d drag his father’s name through the muck as he did so.

Dabi will come after him. He will. He has to.

But he didn’t.

“Dabi’s your brother,” Midoriya whispered to himself. “I-I… I almost don’t want to believe it…”

“I think Jiro knows too,” Shoto realised, gazing up at the trees around them. “I don’t know how. But I think that’s why she’s here. She doesn’t know the same secret you do – whatever it is about All Might that you have to hide. Unless there’s something else the heroes are keeping from us.”

“I wouldn’t put it past them,” Midoriya muttered.

Silence fell over them for a while, and they walked aimlessly together around the school grounds, not caring if they were told off.

Shoto wasn’t sure why he told Midoriya the truth. But… just talking about it took an unexpected weight off his shoulders.

Midoriya was, himself, unexpected. Shoto had never met anyone like him. He was kind of short, weak and, on top of it all, Quirkless. He had no power, and to nearly anyone, that alone was enough to deem him as anything but a threat. But he was smart – very smart, and Shoto wasn’t sure if Midoriya could see it. Quirks could give intelligence, yes, but he didn’t need a registered Quirk to be just as clever, Shoto was sure. And… what’s more, he saw the world in a similar way to Shoto.

He was the first person to ever understand – the first to see him as him, and not as the son of Endeavor. Dare he say it, Midoriya was his first real friend. He… trusted him.

“What is this place going to do for us?” Midoriya suddenly asked, staring up at the H-shaped building, not far away.

Shoto blinked at him. He’d asked that question himself so many times – it seemed to be finally sinking in.

“What am I going to be after all this? Just some… ordinary guy? I-I… I don’t know if I want that anymore… I don’t know if I ever wanted that.” He turned back to Shoto, “Look, I’ll admit it – being at UA it… it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. A-And I’m serious. It showed me… it showed me that I’m not… nothing – I have real power. Here, I… I think I have control.”

He wasn’t wrong – the entire class hung on Midoriya’s every word. Except for perhaps Bakugo, but it was clear that the two had a complicated history. However, if Midoriya hadn’t spoken up in the USJ, telling them to run with the heroes rather than to go to the villains, Shoto wasn’t sure if they would have. It was only because Midoriya decided that going with them was their best bet, that they did so. Mineta was the only one who went against him – and look what happened.

“I’ve never been worth more than I am here,” Midoriya said surely. “People seem to actually like me – the heroes almost seem scared of me and… well, Mr Aizawa isn’t all that bad, is he? Sure, I’ve almost died a couple of times but… well, what’s new?” he almost laughed. “But despite all that, there are only two ways out of here. Either we graduate into as normal as a life as we can get, or we fail. And… that’s that.”

They turned away from the main building, listening to the evening birds chirp for a while.

“I’m sorry for ruining your chance to get out at the USJ,” Midoriya suddenly told him.

Shoto frowned, “That wasn’t your fault. Nomu tried to kill you.”

He scoffed, kicking at a stone, “Only because I ran down to Mr Aizawa. You know, the Detective called me heroic. I said that I’m not exactly the hero type.”

“You said you weren’t on anyone’s side,” Shoto recalled, thinking back to the USJ.

“Hm…” Midoriya nodded in reply. “I’m not a hero – no, I can’t be. But I don’t want to be like those people at the USJ – I-I’m not a villain like that. So… yeah, my side. What about you?”

“Me?”

“Heroes, villains, or just… somewhere in between?”

Shoto sighed. He… didn’t really know. For so long now, it had just been Dabi – get away from the heroes, get back to Dabi. He was Shoto’s hero. But… there were times when… when Shoto wanted to run. Dabi wasn’t… he wasn’t a hero, he was a cruel, twisted villain. Did Shoto really want to be like that? Was that what he wanted to become? If he got out of UA – got back to Dabi… then what?

And suddenly he found himself asking the same questions as Midoriya – wondering if staying here and seeing what it could offer him, was the best option… But the Sports Festival loomed over him like a storm cloud, thundering in the distance. The eyes of the world would be on him – his father would be there. The very thought made his heart pound, adrenaline pumping through his veins. He had to run from this – that’s what every instinct screamed.

So, definitely no heroes. And… well, maybe not villains either.

Shoto found himself turning to Midoriya.

“…Your side.”

Midoriya almost jumped, “M-M… My side?”

“Yes,” Shoto nodded. “Whatever side you’re on – I want to be on too.”

He seemed stunned, and Shoto couldn’t see why.

Midoriya stared at him, and then at the ground, brow furrowed and eyes focused, like he was thinking about something.

Shoto cocked his head to one side when Midoriya started nodding his head, only slightly, but repeatedly. He started backing away, towards the dorms, “I need to talk to the others.”

“What?” Shoto frowned.

“Come on!” and he ran down the path, back towards the dorms.

Confused, but intrigued, Shoto followed.

Whatever it was, he wanted in.

“Hey, everyone, I need to talk to – is that my notebook?!”

Mina looked up from the book titled A with a guilty look upon her face, “Maybe…?”

Midoriya flushed red when he saw that she was looking at her own page.

“You’re so good at drawing, Midori!” Uraraka exclaimed, pulling the book off Mina. “This is amazing!” she said as though she hadn’t already seen and doodled on a majority of the pages in that notebook.

“I did try to tell them you would not appreciate this invasion of privacy!” Iida exclaimed, standing beside Midoriya and doing that karate chop thing with his hands that Uraraka kept pointing out and mimicking.

“That entire stupid thing is an invasion of privacy!” Kacchan yelled across the room.

“Just ignore him,” Yaoyorozu sighed, taking the book off Uraraka and finally handing it back to Midoriya, who hugged it against his chest protectively. “We don’t mind it, and your drawings are quite wonderful.”

He grew redder, “Thanks…”

“Did you say something about talking to us?” asked Tsu, turning off the TV before the others could start the next round of their video game, which they all complained about loudly.

“U-Um, yes…” he replied, sliding his notebook back onto the table beside his pencil case, where he’d left it. “I… um… well, it’s kind of a weird subject…”

He looked up and found everyone had stopped what they were doing to listen in. They leant over the backs of sofas and put down cups of tea, blinking at him and waiting.

“We don’t mind,” Yaoyorozu repeated, sitting down too.

Midoriya gulped, “O-Ok… um…” He paused, took a deep breath, and sighed. “What do you all want from UA?”

The question made quite a few of them frown.

“What do you mean?” asked Uraraka.

“Like… what could – where could you see yourself, after you graduate?”

“Um… home, I guess? Maybe work with my parents?”

“But I thought they didn’t earn enough money through that – wouldn’t you just find yourself in the same situation as before?”

Uraraka shuffled uncomfortably on the spot, “I-I guess I’d never thought about it that way… No one else would hire me with my track record – my parents would be my only option and… well I don’t know what t-they think of me anymore.” Her eyes welled up as she sat down next to Tsu, who pattered her tenderly on the back.

“I’ve only focused on getting through here,” Tsu admitted. “I don’t know where I’d go afterwards, ribbit.”

“B-But it can’t be… great, right? I know UA advertises all these wonderful people they’ve produced through class A. But they’re the anomalies. I’m sure maybe people like Iida and maybe K-Kacchan and a few more of you might get onto the hero course and become great heroes!” Midoriya noted how Kacchan flinched at that. “But… you can’t pretend it would be the same as it could have been, had you not ended up here… You’ll never reach high figures in hero rankings, you might struggle to get hired as a sidekick, rumours will be spread about you… The only good option is underground heroics – I mean, look at Mr Aizawa! He graduated class A! But… hardly anyone knows his name – he just does his job quietly. I don’t think everyone here really wants that.”

“Being a hero isn’t all about fame though, man,” Kirishima interjected.

“No,” Midoriya nodded, “of course it isn’t. But… y-you’re here for vigilantism, right? Being an underground hero isn’t quite the same – you can’t reach the same people. There are a set of laws and guidelines that you have to follow.”

He stepped forwards, starting to pace around the room.

“Those rules… they are the reason that most of us are here! The heroes couldn’t help us! We had to help ourselves – w-we had to…” he gestured to Tsu – “stand up to bullies –” to Uraraka – “find ways to provide for our families –” to Iida – “stop real villains –” and then to Shoto – “and… get ourselves out of tough situations, because no one could help us. And then there are those of us who fell in the wrong crowd – it wasn’t your fault that those things happened, you were stuck! And you took the blame! Even everyone with dangerous Quirks.” He glanced towards the likes of Mina and Tokoyami, “this is the power you were born with, and it’s amazing! It’s not your fault that you don’t have control. But just because they’re scared, they shoved you in here; hoped UA could deal with you. They don’t talk about the ones who fail with dangerous Quirks. Where do you think those people go, when they really can’t control their abilities, huh? Personally, I don’t want to think about it.”

Midoriya paused for a moment. He was standing by the whiteboard now, beside everyone’s names, or well, nicknames – they’d been rather butchered by this point.

“And… I don’t even have a Quirk. I’m here because I know some things I shouldn’t, and because I don’t like heroes and don’t exactly fit in, nice and neatly, into this society, I was put here too. Because they didn’t know what else to do with me.” He looked at Jiro, “And I’m not the only one with that problem.”

She averted her gaze, tapping the ends of her earphone jacks together with a slight sigh.

“So… yeah,” Midoriya nodded. “The class A system sucks – and on top of it all, they have to parade us through this humiliating Sports Festival, just to show off their high and mighty hero students, and let them beat up the villains,” he said with quotation marks. His hands fell back to his side, “I don’t know about all of you, but I don’t want to have to go through that. I don’t want to be here. I-I wanted to make a real difference with my life – I wanted to be somebody and make changes for those who found themselves with the same problems as me. But UA isn’t going to let me do that. It won’t let any of us do that.”

Silence reigned supreme. Each student hung their heads, wallowing in their own sorrows.

“There’s nothing we can do,” Sero spoke up after a while. “We’re society’s rejects.”

“We all know that this class is just a way of the heroes saying that they’re doing something about it – but it’s just a front, really,” added Kaminari.

“Why are you telling us this?” Uraraka sniffed, rubbing at her eyes. “We can’t do anything about it…”

“Can we?”

Everyone turned to Shoto, standing opposite Midoriya, on the other side of the room. He’d been leaning up against the wall like he always did, waiting and listening.

He pushed off and walked closer, “Can you do something about it?”

And all eyes were back on Midoriya.

“It depends,” he said. “Do you want me to?”

He saw how a few of his class sat a little more upright, leaning a little forward.

“Yes,” Shoto nodded, and his other friends followed suit.

“Then I need to ask you all a few more questions,” Midoriya continued. “And I need you to answer honestly.”

More nods.

“Ok… Well, can you raise your hand… if you don’t want to be here?”

Slowly but surely, every single one of his classmates raised their hands, all at different speeds as they thought the question over. Even the likes of Shoji, Tokoyami and Sato, who Midoriya didn’t know well, raised their hands.

“Right. And… if you could seriously make a difference – if you could be… like a hero – no… more like a vigilante – a serious one. Not a hero, not a villain – somewhere in between.” Midoriya began to smile, “Who’d drive the heroes around the bend – who’d be able to do more than underground heroes like Mr Aizawa, for people like us… Would you take that chance?”

Everyone stared at him.

Granted, it was more than a little sudden. Most of the class had finally settled into the idea that they were villains – end of story. But then the USJ happened, and they realised maybe villain was too strong of a word. What did that leave? It’s heroes or villains, right? So, if you’re not with the villains, you must be with the heroes. So… then why did the heroes beat them down? Why had the heroes been fighting against them for so long? And, more importantly, would they ever stop? Would they, the members of class A, spend the rest of their lives in this weird, grey area between the black and white of society?

So, for someone to stand up and say – let’s be neither. Let’s be the villains on the heroes’ side. Well… it shocked them.

But then Tsu raised her hand.

The rest of the class stared at her for a moment, her eyes fixed unblinkingly at Midoriya, as stubborn, sure and confident as always.

Slowly but surely, the other vigilantes, like Kirishima and Ojiro and Iida, they did the same. Then, so did Mina. When she did, so did Kaminari – and then Sero. And by the time nearly everyone had raised their hand, they were laughing.

“Seriously?” Kirishima grinned unsurely. He was looking at Sero – their hands were still raised.

He sighed, “Look, I’m here because I… fell in the wrong crowd, like you said. I did some stupid stuff and now, yeah, I’m here. But… I don’t know, I’d never thought of myself as like… a hero but better, before – it’s kind of cool.”

A few laughed again.

“I’ve always wanted to use my Quirk to help people,” admitted Yaoyorozu, with a tone that suggested she was admitting her greatest secret. “Just after everything that happened… I didn’t know how.”

“Heroes make people smile,” said Uraraka, smiling herself. “They used to make me smile. But then I found myself against them and I… I-I think I want a do-over?”

“Me too,” nodded Shoji, always the unexpected.

“Why wouldn’t you want to, Bakugo?” Mina asked him, using his real name for once.

Kacchan’s arms were firmly crossed. He glared at her, “It’s freaking illegal.”

“We’re illegal, man,” Kaminari sighed.

“I do agree with Bakugo,” nodded Iida. “But I raised my hand because I do want to make a difference. And… although I have denied it, I do not regret what I did. I don’t regret standing up to Stain – after what he did to my brother. All that I regret, was finding myself here. But I couldn’t just stand by and I don’t think it’s right. If… going against… the heroes, means that I can truly earn that title – save lives. I would consider it.”

Kacchan tutted, rolling his eyes, “Yeah, whatever – I’ll end up on the hero course and it wouldn’t freaking matter.”

“Did you not hear what Midoriya said?” Jiro interjected. “You won’t be the number one hero like you want so bad. Imagine if you win the Sports Festival, right?”

“I will.”

“Yeah, whatever – imagine the crowd’s reaction. You think they’re gonna be cheering your name, forgetting that they’d labelled you as a villain? They’ll hate you – and they always will,” Jiro spat harshly, but maybe that was needed to get through to him.

“I just think you’re too scared,” Sero grinned.

“I ain’t freaking scared!” he snapped. “I’d be the number one freaking vigilante and none of you would hold a candle to me!”

“And once you’re like that, maybe people would finally like you,” Mina giggled.

Kacchan leant forwards to yell at her some more, but Kirishima put an arm in front of him, holding it back. “So… what do you say, Baku-bro?”

Kacchan stared at him for a moment, before sighing and falling back into the sofa. After a moment, he raised his hand.

But there was one more person, other than Midoriya, not raising his hand.

“Shoto?” Midoriya asked nervously.

He gazed back at him, eyes wide, “I… I don’t want to be a hero like my father.”

“We know you have some kind of beef with your old man,” said Kirishima. “But you wouldn’t be like him, really. To be honest, and no offence – I’m… not that fond of Endeavor. I don’t like the way he treats villains, or victims, as a matter of fact,” he gritted his teeth and stared at the ground for a moment. “But we know you now, man. And you might act all cold and stuff, but… you’re actually a really decent guy? Honestly, other than your Quirk and looks, it’s kind of hard to believe you’re even related.”

Shoto blinked, clearly rather shocked by the statement.

“Imagine Endeavor’s reaction to you being a vigilante,” Jiro laughed to herself. Midoriya paid much attention to her words on the topic. “It’s like… he wanted you to be a hero, right? So, you go, yeah, no thanks – and then go off and be a vigilante?! That’s a serious power move, he’d be so mad.”

Oh, Jiro knew – she absolutely knew.

“Come on, Shoto!” Uraraka called out, “You won’t be a hero because of your dad – you’d be like a… villain-hero!”

“Imagine the reaction of the press,” grinned Jiro.

Midoriya didn’t miss the slight smile that grew on Shoto’s lips.

He turned back to him, “…Whatever side you’re on – so am I,” Shoto repeated, and raised his hand.

Midoriya smiled widely, and finally, he raised his hand too.

Laughter rang around them all again as they dropped their hands. Little conversations about what it would be like to be a full-blown vigilante were sparked. Shoto started smiling a little wider.

“Ok, I-I still have a few more questions,” Midoriya continued. He was smiling too.

They stopped talking immediately and turned back to him.

“Raise your hands if you’re willing to try and make this a reality.”

Everyone but Iida did so immediately.

Iida hesitated, glancing around at them all, “You’re… serious?”

Midoriya gulped and nodded.

He seemed to be deep in thought. Eventually, he said, “If this is something you really want to do… well, then I suppose I must be there to ensure nothing too serious occurs.” And he raised his hand to the cheers of his classmates.

“And keep your hands up if…” Midoriya gave them a rather worried look, grinning unsurely, “…you’re willing to do something a little crazy to get there.”

A few laughed, “I think that may come with the job,” Yaoyorozu laughed daintily.

“What kind of crazy?” asked Tsu, tapping the side of her chin with her free hand.

It is important to note that no one had dropped their hand yet.

“Well…” Midoriya began – finally getting to the point of all this. “If we wanted to do this, the Sports Festival would be disastrous. After it, everyone would know our Quirks, our faces, our names… I mean, they know them anyway – but it would become public knowledge! And we can’t let that happen.”

“What are you saying…?” Iida queried, narrowing his eyes.

“I’m saying that, before the Sports Festival – we’ve got to break out of UA.”

Chapter Text

“WHAT?!” the class erupted.

Some stood up, others just sat there and gaped. Some grinned stupidly at the idea – others just had their mouth hanging open in utter disbelief that they’d really just heard Midoriya say such a thing.

But as far as he could tell, a majority of the class was giddy with their excitement.

Had Midoriya really just suggested that they should break out of UA?

Was that even possible? How could they do it? Where would they go afterwards? Would they be able to avoid capture? Could they sustain themselves outside of UA? What if they –

All these questions were thrown at Midoriya from all directions with an intensity comparable to a tennis ball launcher on the fritz.

“Everybody stop!” that, surprisingly, was Iida, at such an unexpected volume that everyone did calm down and listen to him. He turned back to Midoriya, “We cannot do such a thing.”

“Well… why not?” Midoriya replied unsurely.

He stared at him, “Because we can’t!”

“We can’t exactly be vigilantes here, Iida,” Kaminari pointed out.

“We cannot leave UA!” Iida insisted, standing up and gawking at them all. “Can you not fathom the trouble you’d bring if you were caught?”

This was true, and painfully so. It ripped the excited smiles from the faces of class A.

But Midoriya was on it.

From Yaoyorozu’s drawer, he’d retrieved a scarcely used, black whiteboard pen. He drew a line down the middle of the board (as high up as he could reach), separating the stupid nicknames that had been there since the beginning of term, from the blank other half.

“When you decide that you might want to do something – before you even think up a plan, you have to do two things,” he started. On the board he wrote:

The best-case scenario:

The worst-case scenario:

“Best-case is that we get out and become awesome vigilantes!” Mina exclaimed, fully into this idea.

Midoriya wrote that down word for word.

“Worst-case is that we are captured, and failed,” Iida snapped.

Midoriya wrote that down too, hesitated, and then wiped off the last two words.

“Think about it,” he said, taking a step back from the board and staring at the smudge marks were and failed had been. “There are two points in time that this could go downhill –”

The worst-case scenario: we are captured

1. Before we are able to leave UA
2. Sometime afterwards

“Let’s look at option one,” Midoriya nodded, turning back to the class. “Imagine our escape plan fell through, and UA brought us back here – can you seriously imagine Mr Aizawa failing all of us?”

Iida, who seemed to represent the opposing argument here, narrowed his eyes, “Hm… I suppose UA’s reputation could be on the line…”

“Exactly,” said Midoriya, pointing his pen at him. “Imagine trying to tell the public that all of class A was failed, including the likes of you and Shoto, just because we all worked together as a team to try and escape the place that was essentially holding us prisoner. It doesn’t make any sense!”

1. Before we are able to leave UA – and things go back to normal with added security.

“I… realistically can’t see them being able to do worse than that!” Midoriya exclaimed, dropping his arms to his sides with a huff.

Iida seemed unconvinced, “Unless they failed only a small number of us as an example to the rest.”

Midoriya bit his lip – that was a good point. “…Not if we all stand up for one another. There are certain people they cannot expel – especially the more high profile of us because it would draw too much public attention. But if we all play an equal role in this, they can’t pick out an example, and if they do, they’ll struggle to justify it! UA has to give a report to the police and press as to why someone is failed. What’s going on inside class A is big news – it might not feel like it because we’re on the inside, but for everyone outside, they want to know more and more about our individual stories and who we are and stuff – especially with the Sports Festival coming up. Imagine the backlash if they expelled one of us for something stupid like trying to run away? They just can’t do that.”

“But what about the second option?” croaked Tsu.

Iida nodded, “Once we have been gone for any significant period of time, we will lose the protection UA provides. Capture would mean immediate imprisonment.”

He hesitated, “…No – not if we play the game right.”

“What game?” Iida almost hissed.

“I’ve done plenty of research into this topic before I came here,” Midoriya admitted, crossing his arms. “There are certain ways – loopholes in laws – that can seriously dampen punishments on vigilantes.”

“Wait, seriously?” Kirishima frowned. “What kind of loopholes?”

“Well, for one, there is a very fine line between vigilantism and self-defence,” Midoriya grinned. “If your opponent strikes first, then you can argue you weren’t playing hero – you were just defending yourself. That’s not illegal. And there are tonnes of little bypasses like that. They’re there for a reason! The very first heroes were selected from a large group of active vigilantes, back when Quirks started appearing. And when reforming the laws to accommodate them, some official on the inside must have felt sorry for these hundreds of vigilantes who are about to be arrested – their identities exposed, lives ruined. And the loopholes were left purposely for the smartest to evade the system. In time, a lot of them were given licences too – just to cover up the problems the laws left! But those problems still exist – you just need to know where to look.”

“But there are some problems we can’t avoid,” Iida argued. “Resisting arrest, trespassing – the list goes on.”

“True,” he nodded with a sigh, “but the weight isn’t nearly as much as it could have been. Time is also an important factor – the longer we can go without capture, the more the public knows of us, the more respect we earn! Then, when we’re caught, we have a large group of people backing us up.”

“So, the worst-case is being caught really early…” Uraraka realised.

“Yes – but despite all that, no matter how long it’s been, UA will still be held responsible for our actions. Upon capturing all of us, seeing we had heroic intent will give them good reason to simply take us back to class A. That’s the best way of maintaining their good reputation.”

Midoriya turned back to the white board, rubbing off most of the writing with his sleeve, “So, in conclusion, the worst-case scenario is –”

The worst-case scenario: We are captured and end up back at UA.

He looked to Iida, waiting for a response.

His friend simply sighed, “Ok, I agree.”

Midoriya wasn’t the only one who grinned.

“Or we could die as a vigilante,” Hagakure pointed out.

Midoriya actually scoffed, surprisingly himself with his own sarcasm as he replied, “In the span of less than a month at UA I have nearly drowned twice; nearly been crushed by a giant purple monster; nearly been disintegrated and actually shot. To be perfectly honest, being a vigilante won’t be any more dangerous to me than walking in a straight line.”

“You’re just a trouble magnet, Midoriya,” said Tsu blatantly.

“This is all well and good,” butted in Jiro, “but how do we actually get out of UA?”

“Ok,” Midoriya nodded. He turned to the white board and rubbed away his writing. “Now that we’ve established that the best-case scenario outweighs the worst-case scenario, we need to look at actually making a plan. And the first step in that, is identifying what’s in our way –”

What prevents us getting out of UA?

Mina raised her hand, “The tracking anklets?”

Midoriya nodded and wrote it down.

“The cameras around school,” Yaoyorozu pointed out.

Everyone pitched in, and soon they had a list of the obstacles that they faced:

• Tracking anklets
• Cameras
• Hero patrols
• Doors being locked at night
• The walls around UA
• Teachers being able to read the messages on the phones

“Right, and now we need to figure out how to get past all this…” said Midoriya, taking a few steps back and narrowing his eyes at the list, tapping the end of the pen against his lips. “I think the phones are quite a big problem.”

“Not really,” Ojiro contradicted, “can’t we just not use them? Leave them behind?”

“Well,” Midoriya sighed, “a communication device for us all is really useful! Moreover, there’s a chance that these phones can be tracked too. I can try to take them apart and try to undo all the systems that UA put in them, but the moment I do that, they might know what I’m up to.”

“I have an idea!” Uraraka suddenly cried, jumping to her feet. “Hold that thought!” and she charged out of the room and up the stairs.

Everyone just blinked at the spot she’d disappeared from for a moment.

“The… doors being locked isn’t much of a problem,” Hagakure announced eventually. “We can just go out windows or pick the lock.”

“I can always make a copy of Mr Aizawa’s key if you could get it for me for a minute or so,” Yaoyorozu offered.

“Yeah! That would be great!”

As Midoriya crossed the door problem off the list, Uraraka reappeared, face flustered from running, and she handed Midoriya her phone.

Wait… not her phone.

There was a bold number 19 across the back.

“Is this Mineta’s phone?!” Midoriya exclaimed.

Everyone gaped at her as she rubbed her head sheepishly, “I might have taken it back when you were pranking Miss Midnight and we lowered him out the window… I honestly completely forgot about it until now. B-But you could tinker with this phone! The teachers wouldn’t know – they’re not looking for it and won’t see something’s amiss!”

“That’s such a good idea, Ochako!” Mina exclaimed. “I swear to God, you’re such a wolf in sheep’s clothing!”

She blushed and did a little curtsy.

“This is perfect!” Midoriya beamed. “I-If I can figure out how to fix this phone, then before we escape, I can do the same with everyone else’s! As quick as I can so it’s not suspicious. Of course, if there’s any kind of warning system installed or tracker, it might be risky and could alert them as to what we’re doing…”

“Why don’t I make new communication devices?” Yaoyorozu suggested. “I can make radio earpieces quite easily!”

“Hm, I don’t know – it’s a good idea! Don’t get me wrong… But radio would be way too easy to tap into – we can use it as a backup plan though.”

She stood up and took Mineta’s stolen phone off Midoriya. After rolling it over in her hands for a moment, frowning, she said, “Well… if you can take this apart, I could make copies of all the parts and we could make replica phones?”

Midoriya gaped, “You can really do that?”

“I can try.”

Mina bounded over, took the pen off Midoriya and crossed the phone problem off with one, neat, sweeping line. “Check!” she grinned.

“I don’t think the walls are much of an issue if we can outwit the tracking anklets and the security cameras…” Iida acknowledged, sitting in a thinking pose as he stared at the board.

“I’ll just freaking blow them up!” Kacchan yelled

“Or I could float over them!” added Uraraka.

“We might have to split up into smaller groups and meet up again on the other side…” Midoriya realised. “For example, if Kacchan blew up a portion of the wall on one side of the campus, whilst Sato breaks down another section far away, the heroes’ attention would be divided, and we have more of a chance of getting away.”

Mina crossed out the wall on the list, “Check!”

“What are we going to do about the anklets though, ribbit?” asked Tsu. “That seems like the biggest problem.”

“Yes! Tell us, Sun Tzu!” Uraraka exclaimed.

“You don’t even remember who that is, do you, ribbit?”

“Nope!”

“It’s really not that big of a problem.” Midoriya sat down next to her and pulled up the bottom of his right trouser leg, ignoring Uraraka’s interjection, “I have the most basic model of the tracker – because I don’t have a Quirk to try and break it with. But if you look at, err – Shoto’s?”

He nodded, knelt down, and revealed the tracker.

“See? It’s not the same – Shoto’s is made of a different material, and it’s thicker too. That shows that they couldn’t give Shoto the basic design, because he could break it with his Quirk – maybe shatter it with ice or burn through it with fire. His is more temperature resistant. That means, Shoto could break mine off easily. And then Mina?”

She put her foot forwards and hiked up her trouser leg too. Her tracker was even bulky, and of a different material too.

“Mina’s needs to be resistant to her acid! Clearly what Shoto has wouldn’t be good enough to withstand her Quirk, meaning Mina could undo his tracker, and potentially, he could undo hers!”

“Huh, that’s a pretty cool idea,” said Kaminari.

“B-But what if I accidentally get my acid on someone?!” Mina suddenly exclaimed, clearly incredibly nervous about the prospect.

“But you’ve gotten so much better at your Quirk!” Hagakure pointed out. “And don’t lie to me! I know you’ve been hiding your progress from the teachers because you don’t want to graduate yet!”

“Wait, seriously?” Sero frowned.

“Mina… why would you do that?” Uraraka inhaled.

“I-I…” she wavered. “Class C just seemed so boring… I don’t have that much control – I’m only a little better! But… I just didn’t want to risk graduating so fast – I like being with you guys!”

Midoriya knew she didn’t want the matter being pushed any further, “It’s ok,” he insisted, “we’ll only use your Quirk as a last resort to get someone’s anklet off.”

She nodded, handing the pen back to Midoriya and sitting down beside Hagakure, hugging a pillow.

Midoriya was the one who crossed off that point on the list. All that remained were hero patrols and the matter of the cameras.

“Ok,” he nodded to himself, “this is where it gets a little more serious.” He turned back to the class. “For the cameras, we need to try and turn as much of the system off as possible. As soon as we do this, it’s going to ring alarm bells for the heroes, so they’ll rush to fix the problem. My idea is, like in the classroom when you were pranking Miss Midnight – is for Kaminari to short circuit a fuse box to cause a black out.”

“But which fuse box?” asked Kirishima.

“That’s the problem. We could take out our fuse box, no problem – but that would only disable the cameras near the dorms, which isn’t enough. The best thing to do is to either find a way to cut the power for the entire school – or shut off the receiver of all the camera feeds. To figure out which is the best option, we need to actually take a look at them.

“The hero patrols faces a similar dilemma. I think the information would be stored somewhere in the staff room – so someone needs to sneak in, write down that information, and get out without being caught.”

“So, basically,” grinned Hagakure (probably – it sounded like she was grinning), “we need to make super cool action teams to get the information!”

“Err, yeah, I guess,” Midoriya agreed.

He rubbed the board clear again, “Ok, so this is what the different groups need to achieve –”

1. Find –

“You can’t just number the teams!” Mina suddenly called out.

“…Why not?” Midoriya frowned.

“Because that’s confusing! Like, Aoyama is number 1!”

“Um… I guess so. So, just team A and –”

“Ew, gross, I don’t want to be in team B,” Jiro interrupted.

Mina inhaled sharply, “Colour code them!”

“Rainbow order!” Uraraka exclaimed, punching the air.

Midoriya was just confused, “Why are the teams rainbow ordered…?”

“Rainbow order!” Mina insisted, slamming her fists onto the coffee table in front of her and wincing when she hurt her hands.

“Everyone raise your hands for rainbow order!” Uraraka announced, thrusting hers in the air.

The teams were rainbow ordered.

Red] Find the heroes’ patrol timetable

Yellow] Find the best place to disable the cameras/shut off the power

Green] Fix the phone problem

Blue] Wander around the grounds and find the best places to break down the walls/escape from

Purple] Distractions

“I bagsy team purple!” Mina yelled, raising her hand into the air.

“Let Midoriya assign the teams!” Iida shouted back at her.

“On every team we need at least one look out,” Midoriya continued, ignoring the chaos around him. “Except for team purple. We’ll set up some code words and responses to text to each other, and purple’s job is to run around and cover for the other teams if something goes wrong…”

After far more discussion than necessary (mainly about disliking the assigned colours of the groups they found themselves in), the teams were finally put together:

Red] Hagakure & Iida

Yellow] Uraraka, Kaminari, Sato & Shoji

Green] Midoriya, Yaoyorozu & Shoto

Blue] Kacchan Bakugo Kacchan, Kirishima, Jiro & Tokoyami

Purple] Mina, Sero, Koda, Ojiro, Aoyama & Tsu

The escape was planned to go ahead on Monday evening. That left them Saturday and Sunday to complete their various tasks.

Midoriya grinned – this was going to be interesting…

The Story of Team Red

Iida had found himself in a difficult position.

His life changed the moment his older brother, Tensei, was hurt.

He was found in a dark alleyway, cold and alone, paralysed from the waist down. The doctors say that if he were left much longer, he would never have made it.

Iida remembered running through the corridors of the hero hospital, footsteps echoing around him. He fell to Tensei’s bedside and sobbed. The hero Ingenium, was no more.

It had been a famed villain that had done the deed – a maniac who believed that heroes were nothing but fakes, in it for the money; they didn’t deserve the title. He’d taken it upon himself, to dispose of these fake heroes. And of all people, that meant his brother. The kindness, most wonderful hero Iida had ever met.

And Iida remembers the blinding hatred – the face of the man that ruined his brother’s life.

The hero killer, Stain, decided to leave Tensei alive, to spread the message. But Tenya was another story. Stain was going to kill him – but they were caught. A hero appeared and called for backup immediately. Stain knew better than to risk staying behind and finishing the job. He fled, like a coward, leaving Iida behind with permanent damage to the nerves in his arm and hand. And worse, a criminal record as a vigilante – resulting in a ticket to UA, to the wrong class.

But some time had passed since the incident now, and Iida was determined to transfer to class B and make his brother proud. He’d swallowed his concerns of his villainous classmates and done his absolute best to get along. Then he learnt of the system surrounding class president, and went right down to business, determined for the role!

He organised the class, enforced Mr Aizawa’s orders… he did everything he could!

Only… he couldn’t control them. None of class A listened to him, no matter how loudly he shouted.

But they did listen, to of all people, Midoriya.

At the beginning of term, Midoriya was the first person that Iida really connected with. Iida learnt a few things about him right off the bat. He was small, weak, Quirkless and timid. His life had clearly been very tough up until this point, and Iida decided that, in a class of juvenile delinquents, Midoriya needed protecting.

And Iida was wrong.

As time went by, Midoriya changed. Or, perhaps, he just became more confident, his meek exterior melting away. He grew bitter. It soon became clear to Iida, that out of the entire class, it was really Midoriya that the heroes should have been watching – he was the real danger. And he didn’t need a Quirk to do that.

And so, Iida had found himself in a difficult position.

Because Midoriya, the one he had underestimated, was now in total control, and no one else seemed to notice.

The idea of fleeing UA was his, and everyone was eager to follow him.

Now, Iida wanted to be a hero. He wanted to do all the things that Midoriya had talked about – making a difference and helping people… And he did know that his decisions in life had limited his options; he wouldn’t be as great as Tensei, nor as trusted. He’d doomed himself from the moment he stood up to Stain. Midoriya offered him, and everyone else, an escape. It wasn’t like Mr Aizawa, who had been in class A and made it out, only not with the life he perhaps could have had. No, Midoriya was different, because he really was one of them. He was in their position too, and worse, perhaps, being without a Quirk. But he smiled and held out his hand to them, giving them all an opportunity to be better. Vigilantes, real vigilantes – not just petty criminals that had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and had tried to do the right thing, like a lot of Iida’s classmates. They would be heroes on the wrong side of the law.

The idea was so wonderful, and everyone was so desperate for a life like that, that they all seemed to agree with limited hesitation. The way Midoriya put it, there were no downsides to attempting this feat.

But Iida could still see them. He knew that if they were caught, and they were bound to be at some point, whether it be in a few days or a few years, they would be even more doomed than they were already. Currently, Iida was seen as a heartbroken young boy with a heroic family and thus, heroic potential, who had acted rashly and recklessly, unaware of the consequences. There was a way out; a way to fix this up at least a little bit. But as soon as Iida joined the rest of class A to escape, he’d be seen as a real problem – more villainous than heroic. If they were caught, Iida’s life would be even harder than it was seeming to be already.

So… why was he still going through with this?

Iida was put in team red. If there was a meaning behind the colour choice, Iida didn’t know it. It was their job to uncover the routes and times that heroes patrolled the school. He talked it over with Hagakure, an expert in stealth and well, thievery. They had two days to complete the task – three if they were to include Monday morning. For team red, they needed to get into the staff room, which would be a bad idea on Sunday, when there were no lessons and more teachers were bound to be in there. That meant Saturday was their best option. And by extension, Saturday afternoon.

Team blue said they wouldn’t be doing anything until Sunday. Team green had an ongoing project that they could only continue with when they were at the dorms, and team yellow decided to spread their tasks over the two days. When discussing this, it was Tsu who pointed out that they had an English lesson on Saturday afternoon, which was held by Present Mic.

Iida did try his hardest to get as much work done as possible, but the lesson lasted roughly five minutes. Team purple remained to run amok, team yellow disappeared to check the school’s roof for fuse boxes, and whilst the rest of the class decided to stay in the classroom and act as though nothing was wrong. Iida swallowed his pride, got up, and followed Hagakure out into the corridor.

She changed in the girls’ toilets, and reappeared as nothing but a floating anklet, which was easy to miss. Iida, meanwhile, had waited outside class A. When she tapped him on the shoulder, they both made their way to the staff room. In this time, Iida was deep in thought.

He could stop this before it went too far – tell a teacher.

Alternatively, he could sit the entire ordeal out; let the others flee without him. But… the class needed supervision. Midoriya had control, yes, but he was just as swept up and excited about the concept as everyone else. He needed grounding, and that’s where Iida believed he came into the picture. Moreover, if, by some miracle, they did succeed in becoming a team of vigilantes, they needed someone who could set some clear boundaries, and keep an eye on them – stop them if something went wrong. Iida was one of the only ones who had doubts, who could see both sides of the argument clearly and maintain the balance between… well, good and evil.

Yes, a difficult position indeed.

“Look straight ahead, I’m not here,” Hagakure whispered. “There are cameras everywhere and we couldn’t risk taking this stupid anklet off me before Monday,” she muttered bitterly. “It’s so annoying! I’m nowhere near as stealthy with this ridiculous thing on…”

Iida didn’t risk replying – not that he’d know what to say anyway.

They approached the staff room door.

“Just knock and open right away to let me in,” Hagakure insisted. “Hold out as long as you can. You need to have the attention of everyone in the staff room until I tap you on the shoulder and we can go!”

Iida nodded stiffly and raised his hand to knock.

It swung open before he made contact, “Oh, hello, Iida,” said Miss Midnight.

Iida’s shoulders tensed at the mention of his name. Of course, Midnight knew his brother well, which was likely why she failed to remember to refer to him by his student number.

She was standing right in the doorway – Hagakure wouldn’t be able to slip past.

Iida nervously stepped to the side, gesturing Midnight to walk out, which she did, “Are you looking for someone?” Midnight asked.

Iida felt Hagakure leave his side and hurry into the staff room. He cleared his throat, “Y-Yes! I hoped to find Present Mic. Is he here?”

“Hm, let me check…”

She turned and walked back into the room and Iida followed. He tried to stop his eyes from darting around the room in search of Hagakure.

“Mic, did you seriously abandon your class again?” Midnight scoffed.

There were only a few teachers in the room. That being Midnight, Present Mic, a hero Iida didn’t recognise, and a skeletal looking stranger in clothes far too big for his figure. All their eyes were now fixed on Iida and Present Mic, meaning Hagakure could continue her mission in peace.

Present Mic stood up – his glasses slightly askew. “This is the worst class that Shota’s had yet!”

“Well, he did tell you not to try them on the first day of term,” Midnight sighed.

“I didn’t try them! I had one conversation with Midoriya and suddenly the entire class knows I hate bugs and now they’re EVERYWHERE!” he grabbed Midnight’s shoulders. “They watch me – they’re in my hair, in my clothes in my food –”

Midnight brushed his hands away, “The class or the bugs?”

“THE BUGS!” and he screamed for extra effect. It even made a pile of paper scatter across the floor on the other side of the room (or maybe that was Hagakure’s doing). It drew their gaze, and Iida knew this was the time to remind them of his presence.

He cleared his throat again, “I do apologise for their actions, Sir.”

“I-I didn’t realise you were here!” Present Mic exclaimed. He pointed dramatically in his direction, “IT’S ONE OF THE ONLY TOLERABLE MEMBERS OF CLASS A – YYYYEEEEAAAAHHHH!”

Iida waited until he was done shouting. “Y-Yes, thank you. I was wondering if you could come back to –”

“He won’t be coming back,” Midnight grinned. She picked up a small carrier bag that Iida was quite sure she’d been holding when she tried to leave the staff room before he arrived. “Very honourable of you to try though.”

“Where are you going?!” Present Mic yelled.

“To have lunch somewhere a little quieter.” And she disappeared without another word.

“…So, would you return to our English –”

“There were SPIDERS in my HAIR!” He screamed again at the very thought.

Iida fought the urge to cover his ears, “Yes, sorry again. I shall have a very stern word with them all on your behalf!”

“Are you class president?” that was the skeletal man speaking.

“Ah, no, that position has not been decided upon quite yet,” Iida admitted, feeling rather proud that he’d assumed as such.

“Right, I didn’t notice that you don’t have the bands.”

Similarly to how all of class A wore red bands on the arms of their blazers, class presidents from any department sported a slimmer, gold variant, to distinguish them from their classmates. Vice presidents wore silver. Iida was not sure how this would combine with the red marks of class A. Perhaps they would overlap, or maybe boarder one another.

“If you don’t mind me asking, Sir, what do you teach?” Iida asked the stranger, who visibly stiffened at the query. “I don’t recall seeing you before.”

“I, err… Well, to tell you the truth, young man… I’m… here for the heroics department – yes. T-The Sports Festival will be here soon, and I am to help organise!”

“Ah, forgive my curiosity!”

“It’s fine.”

“What is your name? So that I may refer to you correctly in the future?!”

“Err… Mr Yagi.”

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr Yagi, Sir!”

This was the moment that Iida’s phone beeped from his pocket. He pulled it out to investigate:

Class A Group Chat

[Ochako Uraraka – 5] What homework is due on Monday?!

Ah, that was her group’s signal that something was going wrong…

“Right, right – very nice,” Present Mic interjected, running his hands through his gelled hair nervously. “Why don’t you go back to class and make sure the rest of them get their homework at least?! It’s on the t-table – I’ll put in a good word to Aizawa for ya!”

Iida hesitated – Hagakure wasn’t done with her search yet.

He glanced back down at his phone:

[Mina Ashido – 2] Don’t worry! We’ll help!

And moments later, there was a long BANG that shook the very building.

Everyone in the staff room froze – likely, Hagakure did too.

“What was THAT?!” Present Mic exclaimed.

Sensing this was something to do with his class, Iida stepped in front of the door to stop anyone from leaving, “Ah, likely at fault of the support course!”

“It usually is,” nodded Mr Yagi, which Iida was relieved about.

“It sounded a lot closer…” Present Mic realised. “Maybe I should check –”

“Err, Mr Present Mic, Sir, I –”

“HEY THERE! Are you trying to stop me from leaving?”

“No, not at all! I just thought that… maybe you needed to… talk about your phobia of bugs!”

“…Huh?”

“Yes! Fears are tricky things, and as Midoriya implied, great weaknesses! Perhaps if you spoke about, and actively exercised your entomophobia, such weaknesses could be resolved! Moreover, your problems with class A would be no longer an issue for you!”

Present Mic blinked at him for a moment, before resting his hands on Iida’s shoulders, the hero’s glasses falling a little way down his nose.

“Wow, err, thank you, Little Listener! People don’t usually stop and think about these things and, well, your class has been so difficult recently – but they’re not the only ones who exploit it! Midnight – Aizawa – my friends; they take advantage and they laugh! They LAUGH! Well, Shota doesn’t laugh – I don’t think he knows how. But ANYWAY it means a lot for a member of class A, of all classes, am I right?! – to speak to me so sincerely. Because people just don’t take me seriously – but I can be serious! I can be a serious guy! I just don’t like bugs! And I mean, who does?! They’re creepy and –”

Iida was painstakingly aware that, across the room, leaning up against a pinboard, a pen was moving seemingly all on its own, jotting something down on a sticky note.

“– they’re out for me! It’s like all the bugs in the world got together one night to plan their attack – I attract them! It’s not fair!”

The sticky note floated across the room like it had simply fallen off the board. Iida would have thought that to be the truth if it didn’t jump up behind him and slide into his pocket.

“They do – they do! They play games with my phobia! That’s SERIOUS – VILLAINOUS – CRUEL!”

Hagakure poked the back of his shoulder.

“– never understand how I feel and –”

“Yes, definitely, I completely agree –” Iida backed away, feeling for the doorknob and being careful not to walk into Hagakure. The door opened for him – “Yes and I’ll get back to my class now, bye!” and he shut the door in his teacher’s face.

Iida breathed a sigh of relief.

He turned and marched back down the corridor towards class A, nodding when Hagakure informed him that she’d hurry back to the bathrooms for a while, and that she’d meet him back in the classroom.

He was very thankful for that to be over. But he did feel guilty for his actions. He was… betraying the heroes.

However, he was doing it for his friends. He would protect them through whatever endeavours they pursue.

…He hadn’t really had friends before.

With a slight smile, he pulled open the door to class A.

That smile faded immediately.

The Story of Team Purple

Tsu wasn’t too sure why she’d found herself in the distraction team. Perhaps it was because Midoriya trusted her to keep them the slightest bit under control. Not that it mattered, because Midoriya was present in English when their moment to shine revealed itself, and Tsu had nothing to do with it.

Present Mic knew something was up the moment he stepped foot into the classroom that afternoon, after injured Mr Aizawa hobbled away, ducking his head from Present Mic’s swinging arms when he burst inside.

A few minutes past with knowing glances exchanged between them. Their first task was to remove Present Mic from the equation. They’d talked about it the night before, and quiet, timid Koda, had for the first time, decided to make his mark.

Tsu had always wondered why Koda was in class A. He may have had a frightening, brutish exterior, but he was actually very unsure of himself and shy, confining in animals rather than people, and Tsu could see the appeal. Moreover, he could talk to them, the animals, that is – they followed his orders – that was his Quirk. Tsu… somehow wasn’t that surprised when she learnt that, following several break-ins to kennels for stray dogs across the city, the release of a mistreated circus lion resulted in said lion finding a home in a well renowned zoo, and Koda in UA’s class 1-A.

Sometimes Tsu felt like she was in a zoo. People always gawked at her. They always had, she supposed. She had a natural hunch, a tongue that filled most of her mouth and resulted in a croaky, strange sounding voice, and wide, curious eyes. She didn’t really have many friends before UA – just Habuko, who started off the same as all the others – staring. And then of course UA happened. Tsu had never found more acceptance than in a class that no one else could accept. Sure, everyone was a little terrifying… Ochako was a thief for hire with plenty of stories to tell, and she was almost as good at martial arts as Ojiro, a vigilante. Then Tsu’s other closest friend, Midoriya, may seem meek at first, but he had a leashed fury inside of him, and the mind to do something with it.

Walking around with these people definitely made people stare. But… Tsu didn’t mind much anymore.

Present Mic screamed and Kyoka clutched her hands over her sensitive ears.

There was a spider in his hair.

Koda had spent the morning befriending all that they could find around the dorm, which was far more than Tsu had expected.

Their teacher, still screaming, fell off his chair at the sight of dozens of little spiders crawling their way across the table. And with one still dangling from the end of his gelled-up hair by an invisible thread, he raced out of the classroom and slammed the door shut behind him.

After a moment of stunned silence, they all burst into laughter.

Not long after, two groups deemed it safe to leave, which were Ochako’s and Iida’s teams. Ochako seemed quite eager, Iida… not so much. Tsu wondered what he was thinking about.

Tsu felt unsure now. Being numbers 4 and 5, Iida and Ochako usually sat behind Tsu, number 3, in class. She felt strangely alone without them. This is why she got up, hopped to the other side of the classroom, and sat down in Mineta’s old seat, behind Midoriya.

“O-Oh, hi!” he replied nervously as Tsu arrived.

“What are you doing?”

“Just… stuff.” He was drawing in his notebook. Tsu could just see it over his shoulder. He was an exceptionally good drawer, but he seemed very self-conscious about it.

“What kind of stuff, ribbit?”

Tsu would have liked to say there was not much point in continuing this narrative. This is because both teams’ tasks were completed with no trouble, and no distractions were needed after all. For the rest of the disrupted English lesson, Tsu simply looked through Midoriya’s notebook with him, and in exchange for the kind gesture of letting her take a peek, she informed him of the weaknesses she could think of to do with her Quirk.

Only the last part was actually true, because far sooner than expected, the brick phones around class A all beeped simultaneously.

Class 1-A Group Chat

[Ochako] What homework is due on Monday?!

“Wait, does that mean she’s in trouble?!” questioned Sero.

“Someone must be going up to the roof…” Midoriya realised with a frown.

Mina gasped loudly, clapping her hands, “Does this mean we need a distraction?!”

[Mina] Don’t worry! We’ll help!

“Sounds like it, ribbit,” Tsu nodded. “But what do we do?”

“To get them away from the roof we need to either go up there to stop them or make… err… a big noise to draw them back down?! KACCHAN BLOW SOMETHING UP!”

“SHUT THE HELL UP!” Bakugo yelled, “AND STOP CALLING ME THAT!”

“Maybe that’s not such a good idea?” Midoriya interjected, referring to the blowing up suggestion.

“Boo!” Mina yelled. “Iida’s not here! You’re not allowed to tell us off! You’re supposed to help us plan stupid things!”

Midoriya blinked at her, “…I am?”

Ignoring him completely, Mina stood up on her chair and addressed the rest of them as though this were an important announcement, “We must irritate Kacchan until he explodes!”

“That’ll take too long!” Sero contradicted. “We don’t have Kaminari!”

Tsu decided just to watch this ordeal unfold.

“Then who else is here that can blow something up and isn’t as much of a chicken as Kacchan?!”

“I’M NOT CHICKEN!” he barked, “I’m just not FREAKING STUPID ENOUGH TO BLOW A HOLE IN THE WALL!”

This was when Aoyama stood up on his chair beside Mina and bowed deeply and melodramatically. “Allow moi to be of assistance!”

Without further warning required, everyone scrambled to their feet and out of the way. Now on his table, Aoyama rested his hands behind his head and with a wink in Tsu’s direction, sent a massive, sparkling laser from the mirrored belt he wore around his navel.

This is why there’s now a large hole in their classroom.

The Story of Team Yellow

Uraraka was excited!

Gosh, it had been so long since she’d prepared for a mission like this! And this was unlike any other – this was one of the first times that she didn’t have that cloud of guilt hanging over her. The thrill without heavy feelings weighing her down as the villain Zero – Uraraka really could fly.

She was practically bouncing on her tippy toes as lunch came to an end. Present Mic soon fled their English lesson (a frequent occurrence), and Uraraka and her team were off!

She was in charge (she was in charge!), as per Midori’s instruction. Their objective – find the best place to short out the building to take out the security cameras – something Uraraka may or may not have attempted before (not at UA though, of course). There were bound to be plenty of places all over the school that could do this, but could they take out all the cameras? Probably not. That’s why, last night, Uraraka concluded that the best thing to do was to take out, not the cameras, but the connection to the cameras! Where all the feeds were wirelessly brought together and likely displayed on some kind of computer screen (ok, maybe Midoriya had helped her with that idea). That would probably be in Principal Nezu’s office, which was on the very top floor of the main building. Take out the power for the main building, and the rest of the school’s security would also be obsolete! So, where was the best bet for that? The roof, of course!

And that was where they were going.

Sero had been up there before, but he wasn’t on Uraraka’s team, so he’d told them everything he knew about getting up there. Uraraka didn’t even need to waste time picking the lock, because the door to the roof didn’t even have a latch!

Who did Uraraka have with her? Well, there was Kaminari – who was a bit of a disastrous flirt with everyone, but he was still fun! He was the one who needed to take out the power, so he needed to see what they’d be targeting.

Then, there was Sato. He acted all tough, but he was really a big sweetheart! He loved to cook and often taught Uraraka a few tricks and shortcuts! Sato’s strength Quirk activated when he ate sugar, which was why he was carrying sugar cubes in his pockets, only the stronger he got, the more his mental capacity suffered. That was why he was at UA – a few too many dangerous, accidental outbursts. But he didn’t need his Quirk to be strong – his natural muscles were good enough for what they needed, which was to rip the covers off any fuse box they needed to investigate, if the locks proved too tricky for Uraraka.

Finally, she had Shoji. He was their lookout! His Quirk made him look kind of creepy, but it was still so useful. His six arms were webbed together, and from there, he could grow even more! Like hands, mouths, ears, eyes… super cool. He also wore a mask and often spoke out of fake mouths rather than his real one – Uraraka reckoned he was self-conscious. See? So many of her classmates acted like big bad villains, but really, they were normal kids with tricky lives, just like her!

“It’s quite nice up here,” Uraraka sighed when they reached the roof, feeling the breeze in her hair. She’d instinctively glanced around for security cameras but couldn’t see any.

“Yeah!” Kaminari grinned, “Maybe we should have lunch up here some time.”

“That would be so cool! You guys down for that?” she asked the other two.

“I eat at the dorms,” Shoji replied simply. Maybe it was because of his mask.

“Maybe just one time?” Uraraka asked, hands clasped, smile wide and eyes sparkling.

Shoji just looked at her for a moment, “…Fine.”

“Yay!”

“So, what are we looking for?” Sato questioned, getting right down to it.

“Hm… a big box. Or maybe a little one! A medium sized one,” Uraraka nodded surely, her hands on her hips. They all stared at her, so she elaborated further, “With a warning sticker on it.”

“Like that?” Kaminari pointed at the wall. There was a yellow triangle there, with a warning, electrics sign on it.

Yellow! Like team yellow! Uraraka knew the colours would be a good idea!

“Perfect!” she grinned. “You really are attracted to danger!”

“Err… thanks?”

Uraraka reached out for it, about to attempt prising the cover off, but Shoji put a hand on her shoulder to hold her back.

“The warning sticker,” he reminded her.

She narrowed her eyes, pursing her lips as she thought, before clicking her fingers, and steering Kaminari in front of it.

He shrugged, and with zero fear (just what Uraraka liked to see!), reached out for the box and pulled as hard as he could. “Ah! It’s stuck!”

Sato cracked his knuckles behind him.

Kaminari backed away, and Sato pulled the cover off with ease – no Quirk required.

“…I loosened it for you,” Kaminari insisted as Uraraka jumped in front of him, rubbing her hands together eagerly.

She saw a bunch of wires and a few promising looking switches, “Ok! Now what?”

“What do you mean now what?!” Kaminari repeated. “I thought you were the expert!”

“No? I usually just pull switches and see what happens – should we do that?!”

“Probably not right now…” Shoji suggested. He had a few extra eyes and ears, so he could pay attention to their surroundings and the task at hand at the same time (get it? At hand?!) – super cool. Uraraka wondered what it felt like to have so many eyes pointed in weird directions…

“How do we know this’ll take out what we need though?” Sato acknowledged. “What if it only disables part of the building?”

“Well, as long as it takes out Principal Nezu’s systems, we’re safe, right?” Uraraka replied.

“You’re the expert,” Kaminari sighed again.

But she’d never pulled something off like this before…

Sato took a few steps back, “What if we made some more serious damage? If, on the night, we rip up some more wires and then electrocute it, it’ll be harder to revert the damage. Flipping some switches is easily solved. Even I’ve repaired a broken fuse before – it’s not hard, and we need to buy us as much time as possible.”

“Great! So… what wires do we kill?” Uraraka asked him.

“I was thinking more…” Sato turned, and everyone else followed his gaze. On the other side of the rooftop, was a much larger, metal structure, also sporting the beware, electrocution sign.

“Oh!” Uraraka bounced up and down, “If you smashed that on the night, and then Kaminari went kaboom! Maybe we will take out the whole building!”

Kaminari raised a finger, “Err, question – why am I going kaboom?”

Uraraka responded by making more sound effects.

This extremely useful conversation, however, was interrupted by their lookout, who said exactly that, “Look out – I think someone’s coming…”

“Are you sure?” Uraraka whispered.

A moment of silence, “…Yes – positive.”

Uraraka could hear it too now – the distant click clack of heels up stone stairs. She glanced around for escape routes on instinct. They were on a roof – it would be easy for her to escape with her gravity nullifying Quirk, but could she manage all four of them?!

Her next move was to send out the pre-determined, emergency SOS message to the group chat:

Class 1-A Group Chat

[5] What homework is due on Monday?!

Luckily, it wasn’t long before they received a reply.

[Pinky, the Queen of the Aliens!] Don’t worry! We’ll help!

“We have to go,” Shoji hissed.

“But where?!” Kaminari panicked.

Uraraka had no choice – they couldn’t rely too heavily on the others pulling this off.

“Come on!” She grabbed Kaminari’s wrist (which immediately gave her a static shock), and the four of them hurried to the edge of the roof.

Kaminari leant over the edge, “Are you crazy?!”

“Possibly!”

She tapped each of them on the shoulder, activating her zero gravity Quirk with a soft, pink glow. Just as the door to the roof swung open, Shoji had a hand around each of them, and pulled them off the edge and out of sight.

He was holding onto the edge with his fingertips, keeping a firm grip on the others in case Uraraka’s power failed. And she was already starting to feel lightheaded.

This was the moment a very loud BANG was heard, and not too far below them, a great beam of light shot straight through the wall, sending rubble and debris plummeting to the ground below.

They just stared in shock.

Sero poked his head out of the newly formed hole in class A’s homeroom.

“Oh, hey guys,” he grinned. From his elbow, he sent a stream of white tape towards them, which Kaminari managed to grab.

Shoji let go of the roof, and by the time whoever it was peered over the edge of the rooftop, they were already back inside the classroom.

Uraraka fell to the floor and deactivated her Quirk with a queasy, “Release!” – before clamping her hands over her mouth in a feeble attempt at stopping herself from throwing up.

“What the HELL?!” Kacchan yelled, for Uraraka wasn’t the only one clutching her stomach. Aoyama, on the other side of the room, had just fallen off his table and onto the floor. It must have been his laser that forged the hole.

“Well… that’s one way of making a distraction…” Midoriya gaped.

Momo held out a hand to help Uraraka to her feet, and gingerly escorted her back to her seat, patting her on the back and murmuring about missing the teas she had at home that would be so useful for this situation.

Moments later, the door to the classroom was opened, which revealed Iida, whose fleeting smile quickly faded.

“WHAT DID YOU DO?!” he shouted at them all, gesturing to the giant hole in the classroom wall.

“Distractions!” Mina replied, with jazz hands for extra effect.

Iida turned to Midoriya, “Why didn’t you stop them?!”

Midoriya raised his hands in surrender, “It happened way faster than I possibly could have anticipated.”

His gaze flickered to Tsu, who was supposed to be in charge of the disastrous team purple. “Don’t look at me. I had nothing to do with this, ribbit.”

Hagakure walked in, “Woah!” she exclaimed. “I don’t know what I expected but this is way better!”

“No it’s not!” Iida cried.

Hagakure just patted him on the shoulder, pulled a sticky note from his pocket, and skipped over to hand it to Midoriya.

Uraraka, meanwhile, was still trying not to throw up.

All in all, an average day at UA.

“Best distraction ever,” Hagakure giggled.

“Of all time!” added Mina.

“Worst distraction!” yelled Iida, and they all laughed.

Uraraka was feeling better by the time that they realised no teacher was coming to check on that noise. Hagakure mentioned it was because Iida told everyone in the staff room that it was probably support department shenanigans.

Aoyama had a terrible stomach-ache, and lay face down on his table for a while. Momo started making shiny things for him to make him feel better – like mini disco balls and sparkly Russian nesting dolls – a method that actually started to work.

Eventually, English came to an end. The last lesson of the day was maths, held by Mr Ectoplasm, a kind of freaky looking hero who could clone himself.

But even he had a priceless look on his face when he opened the door to class A and came face to face with a gaping hole in the wall. Eighteen students blinked at him like nothing had happened, and the nineteenth was drooped over his desk in a small shrine of sparkly objects.

Chapter Text

Uraraka skipped down the stairs that morning. She usually wasn’t much of a morning person, but yesterday’s excitement was still bubbling in her chest, and they still had a job to do.

“Morning!” she called out cheerily to the group already gathered in the common room.

“I think you mean afternoon,” Momo pointed out with a dainty laugh.

Uraraka glanced at the clock, it was just gone twelve. “Huh.” Maybe she still wasn’t a morning person…

“Team blue already left,” Midori explained. He was sitting between Momo and Shoto, the table covered in various bits and pieces and Shoto was organising and Momo was making copies of.

“What are you guys doing today?” Sero asked Kaminari with a yawn.

“Trying to find where the power reaches school?” Kaminari replied unsurely.

“Yep!” Uraraka exclaimed, popping the p. “Let me just brush my teeth and stuff!” and she left to do just that – she’d have brunch later.

They left the dorms as though they were just out for a walk, and not scouting the school for potential weaknesses in cyber security – if she could call it that. It helped that it was a Sunday. There were no lessons, and they didn’t have to wear their uniforms. That meant that the red bands of class A weren’t drawing the eyes of every passer-by – which would mainly be hero students out for a jog. Fortunately enough, none of those hero students out and about were from class 1-B, who would have recognised them regardless. Uraraka supposed that the sky was looking rather gloomy. Some rain was on the way. That was probably why there were less out than usual – not that she would know what usual looked like, because class A rarely ventured outside the relative comfort of their dorms on Sundays.

“So, what are we looking for?” Kaminari asked as they made their way across the grounds.

“Wherever the electric is – oh, there!” Uraraka exclaimed, bounding over to it.

The entirety of UA was surrounded by a large, infamously impenetrable wall. But the segment they had stumbled upon was fence instead, lined with barbed wire. There were numerous yellow stickers and signs, warning of high voltage.

Kaminari clapped his hands together with a wide smile. “My kind of place!”

“Is there a switch somewhere?” Sato asked dully.

“Probably,” Uraraka nodded, “But that’s not good enough!”

“We just need to turn the power off though, right?”

“Be careful,” Shoji suddenly interrupted. “There are cameras here, there could be someone watching us.”

“Right…” Kaminari nodded.

They started to back away, acting as casual as possible, “It would be dangerous to target this location too,” added Shoji. “The voltage is much higher.”

“I could take it!”

“Not worth the risk.”

“Well, well, well! If it isn’t class A?”

The group turned, coming face to face with three rather familiar ones, well, one in particular.

“Out for a stroll?” Monoma leered.

The Story of Team Blue

What the actual hell was he doing?!

He got thrown into this freaking school, in the wrong class, and he’s never gonna get the hell out of it because of their fricking ex-convict teacher who seems to think that he needs to get along with DEKU!

And if you haven’t realised yet, this is Bakugo, and he hasn’t finished yet.

Because if that wasn’t irritating enough, he was shut in UA with Deku, who was the whole reason he was here.

But why was Deku here? Well, it had taken a while for Bakugo to figure it out. The same seemed to go for Deku himself, weirdly enough. He thinks he’s so freaking smart, but he couldn’t even think of why he was here? Tsk, freaking typical.

Deku was a useless nobody – no power, no future, no nothing. Bakugo may not have seen it at first, but he was glad someone else did. Because Deku was a villain, and that was why he needed to be here. The above still applied, obviously, just now he actually needed taking down if he did something. Bakugo saves the day – they finally realise that he didn’t belong in class A, and those grins would be wiped right off the faces of those class B bastards.

Only that’s not what happened. Freaking Deku ended up somehow rallying class A together in some insane plot to be vigilantes and break out of UA! And Bakugo was just going along with it!

WHAT THE HELL WAS HE DOING?!

What was he doing?

Deku’s the villain – he’s the problem! He’s the…

“You seriously think you deserve to be a hero, when you act like this?”

…villain.

“Why are you walking so slow?”

Bakugo scowled at the earphone girl, with the edgy, purple hair and too much eyeliner.

“Shut up,” he snarled, shoving his hands in the pockets of his baggy trousers.

She rolled her eyes, “Is that what you say when you don’t like a conversation?” she said in a mocking voice. “Shut up and shove off?”

Bakugo marched forwards to glare down at her, “Shut up and shove off.”

“Guys, please, can’t we all just get along?” sighed Weird Hair.

Freaking Kirishima was the only tolerable idiot in this hell hole. He was here for vigilantism and spouted some noble rubbish about it when asked – saying stuff like he wanted to be like his hero idol, stop the bullies – one thing led to another and it got out of hand, the usual. Quite a lot of class A had done exactly the same thing, Bakugo had realised. Said something about society, huh?

Bakugo frowned at his own thoughts. This place was getting in his head.

“Such tensions are no use to our mission,” muttered Bird Face, with the shadow Quirk. Why the hell Bakugo had been lumped in a group with these imbeciles, was beyond him.

“Whatever,” said Bakugo, turning away from Earphones and marching on ahead.

They were supposed to be looking for weak points in the wall around UA or something. Bakugo didn’t care – he was still trying to figure out why he was following Deku’s instructions.

They walked in silence for a moment before Earphones decided to speak up again.

“Hey, what’s your problem with Midoriya, anyway?”

Bakugo glared daggers at her.

“What? We all know you hate each other. He said something about landing you in here himself. You a bully or something? What did Midoriya ever do to you?”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re really freaking nosy?”

“A few people,” she shrugged. “Why do you think I’m here?”

Kirishima decided to step in again, “Seriously, guys, come on. We’ve talked about this! We don’t need to pressurise anyone into explaining their past. We’ve all had our problems and –”

“I don’t have any problems!” Bakugo yelled. “It’s Deku who has –”

“Because you tormented him until he snapped?!” Earphones yelled.

Bakugo stared at her. “Why are you defending him?”

She snarled back at him, “I just want to know you. I don’t get you – I get everyone else, but not you.”

Nosy.

Bakugo turned and kept walking.

“Why do you call him that?” she asked.

Bakugo ignored her.

“Deku? He calls you Kacchan, and you call him Deku. I get the feeling your nicknaming skills don’t have such as innocent origins.”

Bakugo stopped and turned on his heel. “Deku means useless because that’s what he is. A Quirkless, useless, nobody!” He kicked harshly at the ground, knocking pebbles aside that ricocheted against a tree trunk.

Earphones crossed her arms, “A Quirkless, useless, nobody, who the heroes seemed to think was dangerous enough to put in this class. I can see it. You’re scared of him too.”

“I’M NOT SCARED OF DEKU!”

“You are. You so are,” she grinned. “You’re scared because someone you thought was beneath you is suddenly more powerful than you. Because he’s one of us and we’re following his idea and his instructions – and you’re scared enough to play along.”

“Why would I be scared of him?!”

She waited for a moment, as if she wanted him to think about what he just said, “Now you’re asking the right questions.”

“You’ve become a monster.”

“Maybe that’s something we have in common.”

Bakugo met her eyes for a moment, whilst Bird Head checked out the portion of the wall they were standing by.

“I think you’re just confused,” she continued, a strange compassion adhering to her voice.

“Shut up,” Bakugo snarled.

She grinned.

“Shut up!” and he pushed her.

Kirishima reached forwards to stop anything from escalating, but Earphones held a hand up to him.

“I’m a good listener,” she blinked at him. “Why are you here, Bakugo?”

It was strange, hearing his actual name again from the mouth of someone that wasn’t Kirishima. He was so used to numbers or nicknames – so… dehumanising. He felt like part of the system – shoved somewhere he didn’t belong, told to make it work, when he’d led his whole life a different way.

“I’m not supposed to be here,” Bakugo insisted, like he was telling himself that.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes I’m freaking sure! I’m supposed to be in class B!” He hit his hand against his chest with each proclamation. “I’m supposed to be a freaking hero! I’m the top of the class – the best out there! I WAS GOING TO BE THE BEST OF THEM ALL!”

“And now?”

He wavered. He didn’t know how to answer that.

Jiro put her hands on her hips, “You feel like you’ve been lied to? Like you’re nothing? Powerless? Useless?”

“No! I-I’m not –”

“You do realise you’re no better than any of us, right?” She took a step closer to him. “There’s no top of the pecking order – no best of the best. We’re all powerless. It doesn’t matter that Tokoyami could take this entire school down in the middle of the night, or that Kirishima could take the bullets that Midoriya couldn’t – or that you could blow a hole in the wall of class A, if you weren’t too chicken. In the end, none of that matters. Because we all know that the one who’s leading us has none of that.”

They all knew Midoriya had them wrapped around his pinkie finger, even if he didn’t quite see it himself.

“This vigilante thing?” Earphones continued, “– it’s crazy. It’s so crazy, that it just might work. And maybe I want it to work.” She prodded him in the chest, “Maybe you want it to work.”

“Why would I want it to work?” he hissed, staring at the ground. He felt so stupid, letting her talk to him like this.

“Why do you?” she repeated. “Exactly – I bet you’ve been asking yourself the same question, idiot. But I can see it clear as day. You want control again – control of your own future, and UA can’t give you that anymore.”

She sighed, blowing a piece of stray hair out of her eyes, “Everyone else gets why they’re here. Everyone else wants to make something out of it. Only you are swimming against the current, trying to get back to the life you thought you should have had. Tough luck, that life is gone. Get with the times and look up to see where the hell you’re going!” She pushed him. He didn’t stumble back nearly as much as she had.

With that, she huffed, turned her nose up in the air and marched on ahead.

Bakugo stared after her. The girl had guts – he’d give her that. She also may have just been promoted to the second most tolerable person in UA.

Bakugo could see how that big mouth and nosy attitude could get her into trouble. She clearly didn’t just know some secrets that she shouldn’t, she must have made a fuss about them too.

But whatever, for the first time since he got here, someone was finally speaking Bakugo’s language.

“Alright, Earphones –”

She whipped around with fury in her eyes, “Either you call me Jiro, or I start calling you Kacchan.”

Ignoring the worried looks of the other two, Bakugo started walking ahead beside Jiro. “Alright, Jiro – where do you think we’re heading, huh?”

“Oh, this whole vigilante thing? Yeah, we’re all gonna get arrested.”

Bakugo almost laughed, “Then why the hell are we doing it?!”

“For fun?” she shrugged. “I don’t know – I kind of want to see what happens. And being a semi-hero sounds pretty cool to me.”

“Yeah? Well, I’ll be a better fricking vigilante than you.”

“Yeah right – you’ll be caught way before me.”

“Is that a challenge? Because I always win.”

“Whoever wins shuts up and shoves off whenever the other says so.”

“Freaking deal.”

“Hey, guys…” Kirishima suddenly interjected, “What’s going on over there?”

The four of them stopped and looked to where Kirishima was pointing. Just up ahead was another group of their classmates, with Round Face the gravity girl, the electric Dunce and two other extras that Bakugo honestly didn’t know the names of. Speaking to them, were three bastards from class B, headed by the king bastard – with the annoying copy Quirk.

Said Copycat caught Bakugo’s eye as he stormed over, “Ah, and more clowns join the fray.”

“The hell did you just call me?” Bakugo snarled.

“What do you want, Monoma?” asked Jiro, now standing by Round Face’s side.

“Well –” just the way he said that made Bakugo want to punch him in the gob – “I couldn’t help but notice a few strange happenings recently… Right after one of your fellow, um, classmates, was failed after essentially letting an army of villains into the school, and almost getting one of my friends killed! Now, it’s not hard to miss the giant hole in your classroom wall, and then I see a strange group of you wander out of the dorms, soon followed by a second – do you see my thought process here? Well, Tsuburaba, Sen, and I, decided we, the heroes, would check it out. Wouldn’t want you letting any more of your kind into UA, now would we?”

Your kind?!

Bakugo gritted his teeth, knowing from the way that Copycat leered at him, that he knew he’d hit a nerve.

Not long ago, Bakugo would have retaliated by stepping away from his classmates, yelling about how he wasn’t one of them – he wasn’t a villain – he wasn’t part of this. But now…? Now, he didn’t know for sure.

And strangely enough, it was in this moment that Bakugo recalled the words of Mr Aizawa, back on the very first day of term:

“You will graduate when I believe you understand why you ended up here – and when you can see a better path to the future.”

So… why was he here?

“YOU’RE THE VILLAIN – LOOK AT WHAT YOU’RE DOING!”

And Bakugo grinned.

He took a step forwards and dared to look that hero scum right in the eyes as he said, “Our kind, huh?! Bet you like trying to beat us down, call us names – makes you feel better about yourself. You know why?! Because I’ve been there! I’m the best of the best! I’d wipe the floor with any of you losers and don’t you forget it! But I’m here because I wasn’t acting like a freaking hero – and I got labelled as a villain. Well, who’s the villain now, huh? Because it sure isn’t any of us! Look at what you’re doing and think for a second! If that’s even possible in your case, Leech.”

Said leech blinked – whatever he was expecting Bakugo to say, the reality was far from his estimation. “What did you just call me?”

Bakugo jabbed him harshly in the chest, like a certain someone had just done to him, as he said, “I called you a leech, because that’s what you freaking are. Someone who sucks up to the heroes and prances around in a fancy-dress rental like it’s a fricking catwalk. Someone who leeches off other people’s powers because you don’t have a real one of your own?! Do ya, Copycat?!”

One of the extras stood in between Bakugo and their leader, “Hey, back off, hypocrite. Does trying to beat us down and call us names make you feel better about yourself?”

Bakugo crossed his arms – maybe it did a little.

“Two steps forward and one step back,” Jiro huffed behind him. “At least you’re going somewhat in the right direction.”

“What the hell does that mean?!”

Kirishima sighed, “Look, guys – we don’t need this to escalate any further. Let’s just all go our separate ways – this doesn’t need to end with anymore conflict.”

“You still haven’t answered our question,” added the second extra. “What are you doing out here? Next to the power supply?”

Right, yeah, that.

“You were the one who ambushed us!” Dunce-face exclaimed, electricity sparking at his fingertips.

There was a sudden clap of thunder overhead, which made Jiro screech and Round Face jump several feet into the air.

“…That wasn’t me,” the idiot (you know which one) decided to remind them.

Bakugo stared at him, “Yeah, no sh–”

“We should all head back to the dorms,” Kirishima interjected nervously, glancing up at the storm clouds.

“I agree,” Bird-Head nodded, “I do not appreciate the sudden darkness of this day.”

“R-Right…”

The bird was the first to move, eager to get back to the light of Heights Alliance, but Leech reached out to grab him by the arm and stop him in his tracks.

“We’re not done here,” he hissed, and Bakugo knew those words he’d spat at the Copycat must have made their mark. “What is almost half of class A doing out, halfway across the school, by the mains power supply on a Sunday afternoon?”

Six-arms came to Bird-Head’s aid and pushed the Leech away, towering over him menacingly with one set of arms crossed, and the other four held ready to deck him.

“This is all just a big misunderstanding!” Round Face tried. “We’re all here by coincidence, honest!”

“Like I’d believe you,” hissed one of the sidekicks as the rain started to pitter-patter down on their heads.

“Hey!” Jiro snapped, “That’s not on! Leave her alone she didn’t do anything!”

“You’re just making this worse!” Kirishima exclaimed, “Just let us go. Stop trying to play hero in situations that you don’t belong in! Trust me when I say it’ll only make things worse!”

“And that’s the difference between us and you,” the extra continued.

Leech picked up where he’d left off, “We’ll be real heroes and this is our school, which we are protecting from the likes of you. Tell us the truth of why you’re here, and I won’t have to test your friend’s Quirk against you.”

All eyes flickered between Bird-Head and the Copycat.

“No, no, no – you don’t know what you’re doing!” Kirishima exclaimed, and now it was Bakugo’s turn to stop him from running any closer.

“Tokoyami’s Quirk is dangerous you can’t use it!” Round Face added as they all started to back away. “Not in this storm!”

At those words, the rain seemed to grow heavier, or maybe Bakugo was only now really noticing it. And it was dark.

Not once during their time at UA, had Bird-Head’s Quirk grown wild. Even at the USJ, he’d somehow kept it under control. Perhaps he was a little better at it than implied by the stupid warning signs pinned up next to every single light switch in the dorms.

But Copycat had none of his experience.

That smile of his returned, now he believed he had the upper hand. But if the Quirk gained strength in darkness, it must have been weaker in the light. And that was where Bakugo had the advantage.

“Tell us the truth,” he insisted, holding out a hand that a dark, oozing shadow began to wrap itself around.

“You can’t threaten us!” Jiro barked. “Besides, we weren’t doing anything! Listen to Uraraka!”

“Maybe I should call Mr Aizawa…” Kirishima whispered to them.

“No,” Bakugo hissed in reply, “it’s freaking fine, leave it to me.”

Leering from the back of his high horse, Leech dared to release the Quirk, and from behind him, stepped a perfect copy of himself, coloured a deep, black purple, with gleaming gold eyes, eerily similar to that warp villain from the USJ. Except this Dark Shadow was just that, shadow, rather than the fog that billowed around the teleporting bastard.

“Nice, very nice,” said the leech, examining the shadow that blinked back at him.

Bakugo noted Round Face messaging someone on her brick phone (the only reason Bakugo hadn’t blown his up already was because it was freaking impossible), and this could mean only one thing – Dry-eyes was on his way and Bakugo would rather fail class A than be stuck in detention cleaning class B’s plates for a second time.

Ok, maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration, but class B was so FREAKING ANNOYING.

How did Mr Aizawa manage to make Bakugo fear being in detention more than expelled?! It was like making a dog fear being called bad more than going to the kennels.

His teaching method could only be compared to fricking puppy training!

Hell, even the number system fitted in.

WHAT WAS THIS SCHOOL?!

Whatever, he now had the chance to beat someone up – and with a Quirk which had a fundamental weakness to light. Perfect.

“Bring it on!” Bakugo snarled, shifting into a fighting chance, palms cupped, ready to summon his firepower.

But then he felt the water trickle down his forehead, and quickly realised that despite the blatant disadvantages of the shadow Quirk, Bakugo’s own power had more immediate problem – rain.

His nitrogenous sweat was suddenly diluted and now utterly useless. The rain was growing heavier by the second and he couldn’t even ignite his explosions. Shoot! He shouldn’t have spoken out so quickly.

Luckily, (he can’t believe he’s considering this lucky), Kirishima slid in between them again, hardening his skin with his unbreakable ability. “Stop! Deactivate the power – we don’t want a fight – you don’t know this Quirk!”

Copycat let out a slight laugh as he raised both hands in mock surrender, “Ok, ok – I know I intimidate you, but there’s no need to be scared! All I ask is that you tell us the truth of why you’re here, that is all.”

“I’m not freaking scared of you!” Bakugo yelled, Kirishima holding out an arm to stop him from coming closer, but there was no need.

Without warning, the shadow lunched, it’s arms now blade-like as he slammed into Kirishima, who managed to protect Bakugo, but only just.

“Monoma, calm down!” called out one of the extras, who was just as shocked as everyone else.

“That wasn’t me!” Copycat insisted.

His shadow was still seemingly attached to his feet, hovering before him with a sadistic grin, growing larger as the storm grew stronger.

“Stop it!” he called out to the shadow, but it didn’t listen to him.

With learnt reflexes, Kirishima ducked and rolled out of the way when the shadow struck again. By this point, Bakugo had backed under the shelter of a tree, trying the best he could to dry off his hands.

“How do you control this Quirk?!” the idiot who copied it yelled.

“Years of training and discipline…” Bird-Head muttered, gawking at the looming shadow. “And even then, we were deemed dangerous enough to fall into UA’s program. You can’t simply control Dark Shadow – it has a mind of its own… You are nothing but its host.”

The shadow had been listening. It stopped attacking Kirishima, now blinking at the bird as it mulled his words over.

“Then send your shadow to attack that one!” the other extra ordered.

“And risk having two on the loose?!” Sparky cried. “Are you crazy?!”

“Turn it off, Monoma!” yelled Kirishima.

“Sen – let me copy your Quirk to cancel this one out!” said Copycat, lunging for his friend.

But the shadow wasn’t having any of it. It darted back to its host to try and stop him, but not before the two hero students had managed to brush fingertips with each other.

Bakugo thought that was that then – he’d been furiously trying to wipe the water off his hands with the underside of his shirt for nothing, but no matter, because Leech’s plan didn’t seem to work.

The shadow flickered in and out of existence, like he was trying to turn the Quirk off and replace it with the extra’s ability, but the sentient power was turning itself back on.

He was now wrestling with it on the floor, as it engulfed him completely, trying to cover his whole body and take control – like a parasite on the leech.

Bakugo let out a cry of frustration, “We need light – that’ll kill the shadow! Hey, hero sidekicks! Do you have your freaking phones?!”

They didn’t even bother taking offence, and one scrambled to their back pocket to bring out their phone and activate the flashlight. This idea was good for roughly a second, before the shadow lashed out and the phone soon lay by a nearby tree, smashed to pieces.

“Sparky – make us some light with your Quirk!” Bakugo tried.

“What?!” he exclaimed, “No way! It’s soaking wet and I haven’t used my power for a couple of days! I could fry everyone here and the school’s power source!”

With no other ideas, there was only one more thing left to ask, “HOW LONG DOES THE COPYCAT QUIRK LAST?!” Bakugo barked at whoever might know the answer.

“Five minutes!” said one of his goons – the one not mourning the loss of his phone.

If it weren’t for the fact that it was far from the heroic thing to do, Bakugo was up for just leaving him there until his Quirk wore off. Served him right for picking a fight with the wrong people.

And of course, this would be the perfect moment for Mr Aizawa to skid around the corner and cancel the Quirk out.

But no.

Because Round Face didn’t contact Mr Aizawa, she decided to message –

“Midoriya!” exclaimed most of the group when he appeared from the gloom of the trees.

Bakugo was ready to die.

Anyone but Deku. It could have been literally anyone but Deku.

But OF COURSE ROUND FACE MESSAGED DEKU!

Deku stood and stared at the sight before him, a shocked look across his dumb face.

“Monoma copied Tokoyami’s Quirk and it went wild!” Kirishima explained.

“18!” yelled one of the hero extras (hey, they looked too similar for Bakugo to bother separating the two). “You’ve gotta take his Quirk!”

“Take his…? You mean Honenuki didn’t –” Deku started before his eyes widened with some kind of realisation. He gritted his teeth, “R-Right!”

And like a freaking martyr, Deku charged forwards at the raging shadow, that had already given Kirishima a fight and had easily destroyed the extra’s phone with one movement (not that that’s particularly hard to do. If it were one of the brick phones, Bakugo would have been more impressed).

There was a higher chance than usual that Deku could have finally bit the dust, but whatever god was really out there, decided that the idiot still hadn’t completed his purpose of driving Bakugo utterly insane.

Perhaps Bakugo could have described this more heroically, but he’s not going to, because he hates Deku’s guts and this was Bakugo’s story, after all.

So, maybe there was a little bit of screaming, some mild injury and perhaps a touching moment when the hero took the hand of the villain and it suddenly became incredibly unclear which way around it was meant to be.

Regardless, there were now two idiots lying in a puddle of mud in the middle of a storm, one looking scared out of his mind and the other with a new gash to add to his never freaking ending collection (Bakugo ignored the fact that said collection was mostly his fault).

The extras helped the freed leech to his feet, whilst Kirishima came to Deku’s aid. They all surrounded him asking stupid questions like, “Are you ok?!” and other sappy remarks hailing his bravery that Bakugo didn’t pay any attention to.

“What were you thinking?!” Deku yelled at Copycat as the latter caught his breath. His two goons were still helping him to stand. “You could have seriously hurt yourself and everyone here!”

Copycat pulled an arm away from one of the extras and pointed at him, mouthing something whilst he struggled to get the words out, until he finally managed, “Y-You – you give me – give me my Quirk back!”

Deku scowled and crossed his arms, “Maybe you can’t be trusted with it.”

The only reason Bakugo was going along with this was because it scared the wits out of Copycat, and not because it gave Deku any sort of power.

“You threatened my friends, copied a dangerous ability that you had no knowledge of, and then when everyone told you to stop, you kept going!” Deku continued to yell, his voice cracking at the end in obvious frustration.

The bastard used to be so meek and irritating. Now he was abrasive, opinionated and even more annoying.

“Uraraka said you confronted them – said that you thought they were up to something? Why? You should have just told a teacher if you thought something was wrong! Everyone being here together is a coincidence – and the two groups were clearly just having separate, civilised conversations and then you just swooped in. Well, what can I say? You heroes are always so quick to start a fight,” he snapped, spitting words like venom. “I’ve told you before and I’ll say it again. We don’t want to be here. But we are, tough luck! This is our school as much as it is yours, whether you like it – or we like it – or not!”

Silence fell over them all for a while, finally broken by a bright flash of lightning, and the rumble of thunder that soon followed.

“We need to get back to the dorms,” Deku sighed. “Are you ok, Tokoyami?”

“Dark shadow is currently secure, yes,” the bird nodded. “Although I agree, we should not stay out here for any longer than necessary.”

“Maybe you should go to Recovery Girl for that cut, Midori,” Round Face fussed over him.

“I’m fine,” Deku insisted. He had a large cut across his cheek, running from just below his mouth, up to the top of his right ear. A freaking stupid volume of blood oozed from it, quickly washed away by the rain.

“Just give him his Quirk back, man,” sighed one of the sidekicks, whilst the other retrieved his broken phone.

Deku turned and glared at them whilst the rest of the group began to make their leave, “You can have it in five minutes.” And before they could complain, Deku started to walk away, saying, “Safest to leave it for a while to make sure you don’t still have Tokoyami’s Quirk when it comes back.”

They didn’t say another word against it, and class A disappeared into the trees, leaving the other three behind. Oh, and Bakugo, who had simply been watching the entire ordeal, catching Deku’s eyes once or twice whilst the events unfolded.

“What do you want?” snapped Monoma, rage dripping from his expression.

Bakugo shoved his hands in his pockets and turned away.

“Are you proud of being with that psychopath, huh?!” Copycat shouted after him, held back (and up) by the sidekicks. “You will always be villains! You’ll never wash it away! Class A will follow you for the rest of your life and there’s nothing you can do about it! You can yell all you want about being better than us, but when it comes down to it, you will never make the cut!”

Bakugo simply ignored him and stomped off, refusing to meet the eyes of his reflections in the growing puddles around him.

He stopped before Heights Alliance, the happy-go-lucky name of class A’s prison-like dorm building, and he gazed up at the sky. Fat raindrops came drip-dropping down. Such a simple force could wash away everything that made him powerful.

He looked back at the dorms, and at the warm light flowing out from them. Bakugo could just see their silhouettes as they probably fawned over Deku, shoving a plaster on his face.

There were a million other things Bakugo could have thought of, standing outside in the cold and rain – but Bakugo wasn’t the one to dwell on such things.

He walked back inside and went for a shower.

The Story of Team Green

Shoto didn’t know exactly what he was doing in this group.

Across Saturday and Sunday, Midoriya and Yaoyorozu had been hard at work, poking and prodding at Mineta’s old phone, and muttering about the mechanisms that made it up. Shoto had no hope in understanding what they were doing. He saw lots and lots of tiny little pieces with immense detail, all held together on a slab of plastic, perhaps ironically, coloured green. Shoto moved the pieces around on the table, keeping them neat and organised because that was all he could think of to do.

Although Yaoyorozu tried her best to copy it and create a new phone, she concluded that she simply couldn’t produce a working model without months and months of practise, and extensive research on the topic. This was something that, without internet or access to any books (if they asked, it would be suspicious, and they doubted there would be such a specific book hidden somewhere in the library), that seemed an impossible feat to complete in the span of two days.

Instead, they began work of resetting Mineta’s phone. They’d lost a lot of time from experimenting with the first idea, but it didn’t seem like they needed nearly as much to complete their second task.

Shoto would describe what they did – but he had no idea whatsoever. He hovered around the two, feeling a little stupid whilst he picked up on the occasional word that made sense, but not in the sentence that they was used in. When Shoto dared to ask what was going on, the two seemed very supportive and tried their best to explain, but dumbed it down to such a level that Shoto felt ashamed for not understanding after three attempts, and so began blindly nodding despite knowing nothing.

Look, Shoto may have often been called a bright kid, but he wasn’t exactly the smartest in the class. Two years off the grid hadn’t done any good to his education. How he wasn’t bottom of the class, was beyond him, especially since he didn’t bother trying at all in the first week or so.

Perhaps Shoto was just a look out – Midoriya did say they needed one per group. But Shoto didn’t know what he was looking out for. They never dared to tinker with the phones in plain sight of any of the teachers, and therefore left all of their work at the dorms. Mr Aizawa was still badly hurt from the USJ incident and spent far less time watching over them like a hawk from the corner of the common room, leaving them free to do what they wanted.

There were no cameras inside the dorms, perhaps because this would be considered an invasion of privacy, or maybe because they had never been given a reason to do so before. Shoto could also definitely see previous year groups destroying the cameras the moment they were given the chance, and UA would have soon given up on replacing them. Not that they didn’t have the budget to – UA was well known for having far more money available than they probably should. Shoto heard rumour that this was mainly down to a combination of revenue from the Sports Festival, as well as a certain mouse-like Principal with an intelligence Quirk, who had a way with the stock market.

“Ok… moment of truth,” Midoriya muttered as the phone, now reassembled, slowly turned back on.

He and Yaoyorozu high-fived when several previously hidden options reappeared on the screen.

“Are we just going to do the same to the other phones now?” Shoto questioned. He probably shouldn’t have used the word we since he had nothing to do with this.

“Not quite yet!” Midoriya replied, grinning from ear to ear at his accomplishment. “First we need to make sure that what we’ve done to this phone won’t be picked up by any kind of sensor… And more importantly – whether the teachers can read messages sent by this phone or not.”

Yaoyorozu turned on her own phone to compare the two screens. “Hm, perhaps all the groups set up here, including the individuals, for example, messages between numbers 20 and 18, are in fact group chats, and the teachers are included, but hidden from sight.”

Midoriya nodded slowly, “Right… and we have no way of making new group chats or editing the groups. So…” he picked up Mineta’s phone again and started making his way through the settings. “Ok – yes! Yes, look – Mineta sent a couple of messages to Kaminari a while back – and see?!”

“Oh, it is a group!”

“Yeah – Mr Aizawa’s in there, and Midnight – and I’m guessing that’s Principal Nezu’s contact!”

Shoto just blinked and leant over their shoulders whilst they experimented messaging Midoriya’s brick phone with some mockingly angry messages from Mineta’s. If one of the teachers were somehow able to read them, they wouldn’t be suspicious that they had Mineta’s phone, since the messages seemingly came from him.

They were extremely pleased when the message was received on Midoriya’s phone, from the contact named 19, except in a different chat location (Shoto didn’t know what he was talking about) to… where it was before…?

Oh well, they seemed happy about the result, so, Shoto was too.

“Well… do you think it’s safe to tamper with the other phones now?” Yaoyorozu asked Midoriya.

He hesitated, “…Yes – yes, I think it is. To be honest, I’m still surprised we didn’t just wipe all the data off Mineta’s phone!”

“Me too! I thought it would just result in a factory reset. You’re quite proficient with technology, Midoriya.”

“T-Thanks.”

“You can reset my phone next if you want,” Shoto offered. He needed to give some input somehow.

“Are you sure?” replied Midoriya.

Shoto simply nodded and slid it over.

The two of them were far quicker at the process a second time around, even though there was one small slip up, and they feared they’d accidentally broken it or something. Regardless, not long after, Shoto was handed his phone back, now fully operational.

“I guess mine should be next?” Midoriya supposed.

Yaoyorozu shook her head, “Perhaps leave yours a little longer. Just in case yours has extra security on it. Mr Aizawa was quite aware of your ability to tamper with these phones.”

“R-Right, good point. Um, yours then?”

“Ok, but would you like some tea before we –”

“Shoto, I wouldn’t if I were you.”

Yaoyorozu stopped, blinking at Midoriya’s words before turning her head to Shoto to see what he was doing. Shoto blinked too, and the phone on his lap blinked back at him, the black cursor against a white screen, waiting for a number to be dialled in.

Midoriya barely looked up from Yaoyorozu’s phone, which he’d already started taking apart with the various sized screwdrivers she’d made for the task. “What would you even say?”

Shoto faltered. What… was he doing? Who would he call? Who would he speak –

Dabi.

He… wanted to speak to Dabi. He was the only family he could rely on, right? He’d taken him away from Father – away from that danger. He was safety – he knew the truth behind Endeavor and the poison that was this country’s heroic system. When Shoto finally got out of UA, Dabi would be there for him.

Right?

But what would he say?

Hey, Dabi – why did you leave me behind? Why did you never come to rescue me?! You did the first time – you got me away from Father. Why didn’t you do it a second time? Why did you leave me to his grasp – to UA’s?!

This place was messing with his head!

Shoto didn’t know right from wrong anymore – and he had been so sure.

He existed to take up his father’s mantle and become a heartless hero like him. But Shoto had taken control of his own destiny when he went with Dabi, who had done the same. He was going to shake the foundations of this society and become anything but a hero – he’d make Endeavor regret what he did to his mother.

But he was thrown into UA – he’d been through so much in such a short space of time and met so many weird and wonderful people. And now… what was he doing? Thinking of leaving UA not to return to Dabi, but to become… a vigilante?

He didn’t… he didn’t like what Dabi was. Shoto had seen too many horrors at his brother’s hands and he… didn’t want to be a part of that – he never did, he just… didn’t feel like he had much of a choice. It was hero, or villain – black and white – wrong or right – no in-between.

But then these people turn around and say that he can be both – and that they’d be there too.

Now Shoto wasn’t sure at all.

He often looked in the mirror and saw two halves never meant to be whole. He brushed his white hair to cover his red side and hide the scar from view. He tried to banish his father from his life – completely erase him. For Shoto had two Quirks – his mother’s ice, and his father’s fire, forced together. But he refused to use the fire. Never. He would not utilise Endeavor’s power – he didn’t need it. He took one look at what it did to Dabi and it… it scared him.

“I’m going to take the silence as a, I don’t know,” Midoriya continued.

Shoto looked up for a moment to see him well into the process of fixing the phone.

“Y-You need to stop looking at yourself as the son of Endeavor,” he said.

Shoto’s head snapped up. He could feel the fire burning beneath his skin – he pushed it down. “What?”

“Well, that fact just seems to rule your life,” Midoriya sighed.

At this point Yaoyorozu awkwardly stood up and shuffled past. She picked up the empty pot of tea and scurried over to the kitchen to refill it.

“It does not,” Shoto snapped.

“It does. Tell me one thing that you’ve done – ever – that wasn’t a direct consequence of your dad.”

He hesitated. What did that even mean?

Realising Shoto didn’t quite understand, Midoriya added, “For example… you didn’t try at all at the beginning of term because you didn’t want to show Endeavor that you cared. You… left with Dabi because you wanted to get away from him. You fought heroes on the streets to stay away from him. You agreed to take part in this vigilante thing to spite him. Anything else?”

Shoto simply stared, mouth slightly agape.

Midoriya finally looked up for a moment, “Have you ever done anything because you wanted to – and your dad wasn’t even part of the equation?”

“I-I…”

And then there was silence again – for a good two minutes at least. Yaoyorozu didn’t reappear in the meantime, and Shoto could just hear her chatting with Mina out of sight.

“…I helped you at the USJ,” Shoto finally answered.

Midoriya stopped fiddling with the phone.

“I stayed, and I helped you get to Mr Aizawa, or whatever you were doing,” he shrugged. “Endeavor had nothing to do with that.”

Midoriya nodded, “T-Thank you.”

“You’ve already said this.”

“I know – but… thank you. You gave up your chance to escape to help. For… F-For just a moment, you forgot about him – E-Endeavor, that is.”

Shoto’s eyes drifted back to his phone. It still waited patiently for the phone number. Still staring at it, Shoto continued, “But I was thinking about him,” he realised.

“How come?”

“My… my Quirk – I never use my fire.”

“…Because you think it’s your father’s, right? Yeah – you only ever use your ice. I knew you could use both.”

Shoto frowned, “What do you mean, think it’s Father’s?”

Midoriya shrugged, poking at Yaoyorozu’s phone again. “Well, it’s not, is it? Do you think my lack of a power belongs to the distant relatives that I kind of inherited it from?”

“Um… no.”

“Exactly? A-Any power I may or may not have, belongs to me, and no one else. All of Tsu’s family have frog-like Quirks. Does her Quirk belong to them?”

“…I –”

“No. No, it doesn’t. You’ve got a duel ability, Shoto, and that’s amazing. But it’s not two separate powers, one from your mum and one from your dad. It’s one Quirk; you’ve inherited a combination and you’re just not using half of it. Like, err… you use both eyes? Even if one looks like what your mum’s probably do and the other from your dad… Actually, you kind of cover half your face so maybe that wasn’t the best example…”

Shoto just watched him attack the phone with tweezers and a small metal toothpick whilst he mumbled.

“You need to stop approaching situations and thinking, oh, what would Endeavor want me to do here, and then doing the opposite. Just do whatever’s best for you, whether he’d be happy with that decision or not. S-So… stop doing everything to spite him, and start doing it despite him.”

Shoto picked up his own phone again and glared at the blank screen, mulling the words over in his mind.

“Um, and that goes for Dabi too,” Midoriya suddenly added. “You try to act like you don’t care about what anyone thinks – but you do, a lot. Does this make any sense? I’ve been told that I kind of spew loads of words at people when they actually stop to listen to me and they hardly ever make sense so if you don’t want to listen then I completely understand should I just stop talking now?”

Shoto smiled. He turned off his phone and put it face down on the table. “You make sense to me.”

Midoriya blinked at him for a moment and then visibly relaxed, “Oh, ok, good. Just tell me to shut up if I –”

The conversation was cut short by the prompt beep from Midoriya’s phone. Shoto was a little worried that they’d been caught tampering with them for a moment, before he glanced over his friend’s shoulder and spied a message from Uraraka.

[Uraraka -> 18] Help! We were just out for a walk and Monoma confronted us! He thinks we’re up to something! We’re by the power source to the school, not far from the dorms. He’s copied Tokoyami’s Quirk and it’s getting dark!

Midoriya bolted upright upon finishing the message. He shoved his phone in his pocket and charged towards the door.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Shoto offered, startled by the suddenness of the development as he stood up too.

“No! That could just make things worse!” Midoriya retorted, pulling on his bright red shoes in a hurry. “Wait for me to come back before you do anything more with the phones!”

And with that, he disappeared.

Yaoyorozu walked back over to Shoto, glancing between the unfinished phone, the empty seat, and the door that had just slammed shut behind Midoriya.

“Um… where did he go?”

Shoto shrugged, “To yell at someone.”

“…Oh, ok. Um, would you… like some tea?”

“Yes please.”

Chapter Text

Midoriya yelled about Monoma’s incompetence for the rest of the evening and it was beautiful.

Tsu didn’t understand why people didn’t just speak their mind all the time. Life would be so much simpler if everyone were brutally honest at all times and destroyed any and all friendships. Tsu would just go and live with the frogs in a swamp and watch the world burn down from a distance. Frogs would be honest because they have little to say.

Ok, maybe the mindset of this class was starting to get to her, and global annihilation was so much more appealing than it was about a month ago.

Of course, Tsu is not actually a villain and would never genuinely want such a thing. But again, still more appealing. She’d settle with the damage class A’s plan would do to society. She also offered to jump-kick Monoma in the face for Tokoyami next time she saw him, because Tokoyami and Dark Shadow were wonderful birds that did not deserve such treatment, and Tsu would always stand up for her animal-mutation-Quirk kin.

The encounter did not remain a secret for long. Soon enough, Mr Aizawa appeared at the dorms, and Midoriya was still in an awfully bad mood. Tsu was only disappointed that she didn’t have any popcorn – but they did have Sato’s freshly made cupcakes.

“Why were so many of you out at the edge of the school when a storm was rolling over?” Mr Aizawa snapped.

Everyone else just sat back and let Midoriya take the wheel.

“Do we really need to recite the excuses for everyone? It was a complete coincidence that everyone ended up in the same place!” he exclaimed. This, so far, was entirely truthful. Team yellow and blue were never supposed to meet up, and Monoma and his crew certainly weren’t meant to be there.

“Monoma was right to say it was suspicious,” their teacher continued, his eyes narrowing. It was really the only facial expression visible since he was still covered in bandages from head to toe. “Especially so soon after the USJ. That doesn’t mean he went about it in the right way. I want to know the truth.”

Midoriya sighed, “Kacchan was arguing with Jiro, Kirishima followed and Tokoyami was out for a walk – like he always does.”

Still the truth – Midoriya had asked for as much detail as possible into what had happened the moment they’d gotten back, likely for exactly this reason.

“They came across the others by accident and stepped in because Monoma was accusing them of… of doing something!”

“And what were the others doing?”

“Well, Uraraka was helping Kaminari with his Quirk. I’ve told you I help with some Quirks here – Mina has too! Kaminari’s works better if he unloads his electricity regularly but he hasn’t done so in a while, and with the static in the air it was getting dangerous. If Uraraka could make him float, then he wouldn’t be touching the ground and it would be unlikely he hurt anyone! They decided to move away from the dorms for obvious reasons and ended up by the power source or whatever that was – they were leaving when Monoma turned up! Check the security cameras, they’ll back my story up! Sato was there because his cupcakes were still in the oven and he wanted something to do, and Shoji came for similar reasons and just in case something went wrong!”

All honest. Tsu was frankly impressed.

Ochako handed her a cupcake and she started to pick at it whilst Midoriya continued on his rant.

“Then Monoma turned up thinking he knew better and that they were up to something. When they wouldn’t tell him what he wanted to hear, he copied Tokoyami’s Quirk and threatened them with it! So, Uraraka messaged me to come and help – Kirishima stopped the copied shadow from hurting anyone and I managed to cancel the Quirk out with my Quirklessness, like I’ve done before. Except Monoma still seems to think that I can steal his ability.”

“Why didn’t you contact me?” Mr Aizawa questioned, his eyes flickering towards Ochako. “You have the phones for this exact reason.”

Uraraka swallowed a mouthful of cake. “B-Because you’re hurt, and I didn’t know how quickly you could get there…”

Also, she didn’t want Mr Aizawa asking these kinds of questions before they could think up a good enough story.

“Then you should have messaged Midnight.”

“Midnight hates us,” Kaminari contradicted.

“And whose fault is that?”

“Woah, rude,” Mina scoffed.

“It doesn’t matter,” Midoriya interjected, his arms crossed, “what’s done is done. Uraraka knew that my Quirk – o-or lack of – could cancel out Monoma’s and it worked fine. If you’d turned up instead, you could only stop it for as long as you could look at him without blinking. My method removed the threat entirely.”

Mr Aizawa simply sighed, clearly done with this situation, “18, go to Recovery Girl.”

He glared at him, “No.”

“That cut needs healing.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’ll scar.”

“I don’t care.”

Tsu shoved more cupcake in her mouth.

Mr Aizawa gave up, “1 – are you feeling better from the incident yesterday?”

“Oui!” Aoyama replied with a dazzling smile. Of course, he’d blown up the wall in their classroom to provide a distraction and had written it off as a Quirk accident that gave him a terrible stomach-ache.

Another sigh, “Good. Fine, no one’s in trouble. You’ll be pleased to know Monoma will receive detention for this.”

Mina raised her hand eagerly.

“Yes, 2?”

“Does he wash our dishes?!”

“No.”

“Aw!”

“Is there anything else you need to inform me of?”

Silence.

“…Good. Behave – message me if something else goes wrong.” And with that, he turned and left them be.

“Way to go, Midoriya,” laughed Kyoka. “I’ve never seen anyone tell the truth so falsely before.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” frowned Kaminari.

“Maybe to you, Jamming-yay.”

“I’ve told you! That’s not going to be my vigilante name!”

“If Jiro’s praising you, you know you’ve done well,” said Sero.

“The real reason that Jiro’s here is that she knew so many secrets that it scared the heroes, and she never told them the truth… truthfully?” Mina tried.

Sero nodded sagely, “There was an attempt.”

“Kyoka knew more about villain operations than the most extensive spy network in Japan, ribbit,” Tsu interjected.

Flushing red, Kyoka managed to add, “I am the most extensive spy network in Japan.”

Everyone laughed.

Midoriya finally breathed a sigh of relief, scratching at the large plaster Yaoyorozu had covered his gash with. “Ok, who wants their phone fixed next?”

Most of the class immediately fell silent and thrust a hand into the air; the others quickly followed suit.

“Me! Me, me, me!” Mina exclaimed, waving her hand about and trying to reach higher into the air, as if that would help.

“You can’t contact anyone outside of UA – no inserting new numbers into them,” Midoriya reminded them all. “I-I’m not one hundred percent sure if the Principal will be alerted to outgoing calls…”

Tsu noted how Shoto shifted awkwardly in his seat as he unsurely accepted a cupcake from Sato, who was passing them around the room.

“I’ll trade you my cupcake for it,” Kyoka offered.

There was a moment of hesitation.

“Jiro wins,” Midoriya announced to a room of disappointed people, accepting both an extra cupcake and her phone.

“Bribery,” Mina pouted.

“Was there even a second of doubt in this class?” Kyoka smirked.

“I still have both my cupcake and a promise of fixing my phone, only later, ribbit,” Tsu pointed out.

“Yeah, whatever.”

Ochako felt bad and split her cupcake with her.

Midoriya seemed to feel no remorse and Tsu respected that.

Midoriya soon found himself with a growing line of phones. The order of which was hotly distributed for no good reason and involved the bartering of cupcakes and other items of food, squirrelled away for situations such as these.

“So, it’s all going down tomorrow then, right?” Kirishima perked up as he rested his phone down at the end of the line.

“Y-Yes…” Midoriya replied with a gulp, not looking up from his work. “I suppose it is.”

The atmosphere shifted. It was an intoxicating mix of excitement, anticipation, and unadulterated fear. Midoriya could feel a great weight hanging on his shoulders, crushing his lungs, turning his heart partially to lead in the fear of it all.

“What do we… bring?” was Hagakure’s contribution.

“Err…” Midoriya started, before Iida took over.

“Pack your school rucksack with spare clothes, any money you may have, and anything else you might deem absolutely necessary,” he nodded surely. “Make sure it isn’t too heavy.”

There was a moment of silence, as everyone thought through this predicament.

“Wow, I know like, this was pretty obvious, but this feels a whole lot more serious all of a sudden,” Kaminari chuckled nervously.

“Um, I know we should have brought this up earlier but… where are we going to go if we get out of UA?” asked Uraraka, sitting down beside Midoriya and looking at him expectantly, as though he knew the answer.

He didn’t.

“I have a few options.” That was Shoto. He didn’t speak much to the rest of the class, so it must have been a shock to hear him make a contribution so suddenly. “Dabi and I moved around a lot over the last few years. I know he’s not active in this area; he won’t be a problem. But there’s an abandoned warehouse nearby – not too close to be on UA’s radar.”

“How are we going to get… food?” Uraraka continued to interrogate. “I mean, I’m happy to… you know… take some stuff, but…”

“We will not be resorting to such crimes,” Iida retorted. It was clear that, out of everyone in class A, Iida was the least keen to go through with this plan. Midoriya sometimes wondered how much he trusted him anymore… Or maybe if he regretted becoming close friends.

“We might not have a choice, Iida,” pointed out Sero, with the tone of someone who had been in that situation before.

“I can fix that problem,” Yaoyorozu interjected as she casually collected empty teacups from around the room. “Before I was, um, caught. I did start slowly moving some of my own money into a new bank account. I… felt bad for all the fake notes I was making. So, I was going to use the money to donate to where I’d wronged… Not that I ever managed to do so. At this point, tensions were high, and we all knew we were in trouble. It was too late to fix anything…” Her solemn attitude changed in less than a second when she stood up straight, a wide smile on her face and her hands clasped together, “But this comes in useful for us now! I can use the money to help us! And my Quirk can step in to make anything extra we might need!”

“I can supply the electricity,” Kaminari grinned. “I’m getting better now! We know this!”

“We should not simply rely on your money, Yaoyorozu!” said Iida, “It would be unfair on your behalf! I shall contribute as well.”

“You gotta be super careful when withdrawing money then,” Hagakure advised. “Do it real far from this warehouse place and only make transactions in cash.”

Iida nodded, not questioning why Hagakure knew this little detail.

Midoriya finished his work on the phone he was tampering with. With a sigh, he sat back after pushing it to the other side of the table. “The aim is to get a big name for ourselves. We’d have to lie low after getting out for a while, whilst the press goes wild with the information of us getting out… And it’ll be tricky to stay off their radar and not get caught. B-But I think a lot of us have experience in that matter so hopefully it’ll be ok… And then we can start on the vigilante thing – only once we’re sure we’re safe.”

“How long do you think that will take, ribbit?” asked Tsu, prodding her chin thoughtfully.

“Um, not sure? Maybe a couple of weeks at the very least…”

Mina gasped and clapped her hands, grasping everyone’s attention immediately, “We need to make vigilante outfits!”

“Well, we don’t really need disguises,” Tsu pointed out. “Everyone already knows who we are from class A, ribbit.”

“Yeah,” she scoffed, “but still! Oh! And codenames!”

“We’ve already had this conversation and it didn’t end well,” Kyoka rolled her eyes, sinking further into her armchair.

“I am Alien Queen!” Mina yelled, ignoring her.

“Why don’t we focus on actually getting out of this freaking place first, idiots?!” Kacchan shouted back.

“Bakugo is correct,” Iida nodded. “We need a new plan of action.”

And all eyes were back on Midoriya.

Swallowing his fear, he stood up, waltzed towards the white board, and accepted a white board marker from Shoji, who was already standing by the drawer.

The only sound in the room in that moment was that of the marker against the board, as Midoriya carefully plotted their escape, assigned new teams (with new colours), and soon after, watched the smiles creep across his friends’ faces.

There were only two ways this could go.

And Midoriya knew all too well, somehow, no matter how long it would take, they would end up back at UA – back in this room. Just this time, he wasn’t going to let it be so easy for them.

“Ok, first things first, let’s identify the best time to begin the plan,” Midoriya decided.

“Probably after nine, when Mr Aizawa locks the dorms up, ribbit,” Tsu replied.

Midoriya nodded and wrote that on the board. “Ok… we won’t copy his door key. It was a good idea! Just, using the windows is a safer bet. But remember, we need to get a group out of the dorms and to the main school in order to take out the power. For that to happen, there’s a specific camera I need someone to deal with.”

“YOU ARE DEAD, ROUND FACE!”

Uraraka screamed and ran out of the front door, Kacchan in hot pursuit.

She skidded around the corner to run right to the back of the dorms. Her classmates giggled and watched from the windows.

Right by one, at the window furthest from the front door, where trees lined the edge of the dorms, she activated her Quirk on herself, jumped off a tree, and backflipped above the window, accidentally kicking the security camera there, and knocking its angle so it pointed up at the cloudy, morning sky.

All the camera caught from that moment on, was a puff of smoke, as Uraraka leapt off the wall like a spider, and kicked Kacchan in the face.

Oh, this is so fun!

“Once that’s out of the way, our first team will be free to slip out of that window, run through the trees, and reach the edge of the main school building – where that hole is that Aoyama made! Debris from it took out the camera below, so, err, good job?”

“De rien!” Aoyama grinned, tossing his hair out of his face flamboyantly.

“Err, yeah.” Midoriya cleared his throat, “B-But before that team can leave, we need to start removing their tracker anklets.”

Mina punched the air, “Yes! Finally!”

“Moment of truth…” Hagakure murmured as the class gathered around.

Kaminari winced and looked away whilst Mina pulled off a glove and traced a pink finger along the seam of his anklet.

With a frightening hiss, the thick, insulated plastic began to bubble and melt. Before it could touch his skin, Mina had pulled it away and tossed it into the tray supplied by Yaoyorozu.

“I-Is it off?!” he asked, daring to take a peek. “It’s off!”

“You did it, Mina!” Ochako exclaimed, clapping her hands.

Mina positively glowed with pride.

Midoriya knelt down by the tray, “Hm, well, you melted it really well along the lockable seam, so it shouldn’t have disturbed the electrics. Hopefully, it still works and is still transmitting a location to the Principal.”

Most ignored his muttering whilst Mina was showered with praise, and she was loving it.

“Ok! If you go and put this on your bed in your room, it’ll look like you just went to bed,” Midoriya explained, handing the small tray to Kaminari, who nodded and hurried off. Midoriya narrowed his eyes and glanced around the room, “Y-Yes, um, could we do Sero’s next, please?”

“Team orange will be those who are taking the power out for the cameras,” Midoriya announced, writing the team’s title on the whiteboard as he spoke. “We obviously need Kaminari, and then you guys suggested Sato too, right?”

“Yep!” Uraraka replied. “Sato’s gonna expose the wires for us!”

Midoriya nodded and added his name to the list. “Ok… hm, right – and then Uraraka, you’ll go too, as well as… yeah, Sero.”

Kaminari gave the rest of the class two thumbs up as he jumped out the window and landed beside Sato. He nervously looked up, but soon saw that the camera that Uraraka had repositioned still hadn’t moved. He breathed a sigh of relief.

“Don’t forget your backpack,” Uraraka whispered to him as she handed it over.

“Oh, thanks.”

In silence, the four of them hurried away from the dorms, all dressed in the darkest clothing they could find.

They ran the long way around school. Midoriya had left them a good amount of time to get set up, so they weren’t in a rush. That didn’t stop Kaminari’s heart beating at a hundred miles per hour, pumping the adrenaline around his body. They did have to make sure they arrived at the perfect moment, when Hound Dog wasn’t patrolling nearby, but they had Hagakure’s input to thank for avoiding that problem.

Also, UA is a lot taller when you’re standing right at the bottom of it, preparing to climb.

The H shaped building technically had four sections of roof. Fortunately for them, the roof they required was right above their homeroom classroom, which Aoyama had blown a hole in a couple of days prior.

They hovered in the tree line, backs against the bark.

With a determined nod shared between them, Uraraka activated her Quirk on them all, Sero shot a length of tape up to the hole, and quickly reeled them all up the building at an alarming speed. Kaminari held Sero’s and Uraraka’s hand (!!) whilst she held Sato’s, as the second length of tape reached the rooftop, and the four of them made it up there, seemingly undetected.

“G-Good job, guys,” Uraraka said, trying not to hurl.

As quietly as he could, Sato began to prise the cover of their treasure chest off.

“Just wait for the signal a-and don’t make a sound!” Uraraka added, inching back to the edge of the rooftop.

“Wait, what’s the signal again?” Sero whispered back. “I wasn’t really listening – hey, wait!”

But Sato had already removed the metal covering and exposed the wires. Letting Uraraka float him again, the two pushed off the roof and made their way slowly back to the ground.

Kaminari sighed and leant against the barricades, gazing out at the distant city lights – so close, yet so far.

After a couple of minutes or so of silence, Sero, who had hopped over the barricade to sit on the roof’s edge, spoke up, “Hey, Kaminari?”

“Yeah?”

“…Why are we here again?”

“– leave Kaminari behind with Sero,” Midoriya nodded. “Sato and Uraraka will come back to the dorms and announce that their part of the mission was a success before we move on.

“Meanwhile, we’ll be slowly taking off the rest of the anklets. We can leave some downstairs on the sofas, for whoever usually stays up later.”

“But what about my anklet?” Mina questioned nervously. “I-It’ll be super hard to melt mine off! It’s designed like that!”

“Are you sure about this, Shoto?” Midoriya asked him.

Mina was the last to have her anklet removed. She had her leg rested on the table whilst she sat on the sofa, arm over her eyes and teeth gritted.

“I’m sure,” Shoto replied.

No one had ever seen him use his fire before, but Mina was too scared to look!

She gasped when she felt the heat get close. Shoto’s colder hand had already formed a sheet of ice over her corrosive skin in hopes to protect her and himself.

She dared to uncover her eyes for a moment, only to see the red-hot metal start to part. She squealed when Shoto’s other hand darted forwards again to freeze a molten droplet of metal, but before she knew it, the anklet had been torn away.

There was a synchronised sigh of relief and chorus of praise to Shoto, who smiled softly.

Mina plonked the anklet in her tray and tossed it aside on the sofa. She didn’t realise she’d feel so free without it on!

This was the moment that the window at the back of the common room was opened a little further, and two figures bundled through.

“You did it?!” Midoriya interrogated immediately.

Ochako gave him a wobbly thumbs up and everyone cheered.

The first scary part was over!

“We’ll leave the TV on, won’t turn the lights off – that kind of thing,” Midoriya explained. “Then, we will all go through that back window, follow the path through the trees, staying as far away from any building as possible, and get as far as we can without being close to the cameras.”

Midoriya shouldered his yellow backpack – this was actually happening!

“Ready to go?” he asked his remaining classmates.

He got a variety of responses, mainly in their facial expressions, but only a combination of all of them could come close to describing how Midoriya was feeling in that moment.

Some looked terrified, others more excited than they ever thought they’d be. Some tried to hide their emotion, others just looked determined.

Midoriya nodded and marched towards the window.

“There are going to be two different exit points. As a failsafe in case something goes wrong. We will all go together to the spot Tokoyami picked out from team blue’s scouting mission. Then, we will separate into these two teams, lime and indigo. I’ll be heading team lime, and Iida for team indigo.”

Iida nodded in understanding, puffing out his chest at the idea of leadership and responsibility.

Midoriya wrote the team members down on the board, rubbing away the rest of the writing to make room. He took his time to do this, listening to his classmates’ suggestions and thinking through their power-sets as he allocated team members.

Team Lime: Me, Shoto, Uraraka, Tsu, Koda, Shoji, Sato, Aoyama & Hagakure

Team Indigo: Iida, Yaoyorozu, Jiro, Kacchan, Kirishima, Mina, Ojiro, Tokoyami, (Kaminari & Sero)

“Yaoyorozu will be handing flashlights to several members of each group, but you can’t use them – they’re only for emergencies. Yaoyorozu will be with Iida in team indigo and will send up flashes of light to the remaining members of team orange, which will be the signal to take out the power.”

“This is the spot,” Tokoyami announced as Dark Shadow, much larger in size than usual, curled around a boulder in the middle of the path.

“Ok,” Midoriya replied, heart beating so fast he feared it would burst out of his chest. “Yaoyorozu, if you could hand out the flashlights now?”

She nodded and started to do exactly that. She’d made them in advance, and then ate extra servings of dinner to build up her strength.

“Right, then as carefully as you can, get close enough to the school so Kaminari and Sero can see you from the roof.”

“After they take out the power, Sero will abseil Kaminari back down the building, and meet up with Yaoyorozu, who will escort you back to the meeting place. Team indigo will wait for you there, whilst team lime goes ahead to the other escape point, since it’s a little further away.”

“We’ll see you soon!” Uraraka whispered to the other team, giving Jiro a hug goodbye.

“Don’t mess this up,” she replied jokingly as they parted.

“The meet up point is the construction site on the other side of the forest behind UA!” Midoriya reminded them. “Head in that direction and wait there until the other team turns up. Send out the coded message to the new group chat on your phones! If they take more than fifteen minutes to reply, you send out a scout group to see what happened!”

With a few more waves and understanding nods, Midoriya and the rest of team lime hurried off into the trees. They waited at the edge until they saw a brilliant flash of light from UA’s rooftop – Kaminari had taken out the power.

Now the real test began.

“Tokoyami and I have talked about the wall’s weak points that we will be targeting. The one that team indigo will be heading towards is closest, and you just have to go straight from the point where we part ways. You need to help each other climb the wall and try not to leave behind any evidence that you were there!

“Team lime, we will be going a little further and away from the hero patrol routes more. We’re going to circle around all the dorm buildings as quickly as we can, and Uraraka should be able to float us all over the wall.”

“The section is covered in vines and clearly has not had a maintenance check in a while,” Tokoyami explained. “The woodland continues behind it.”

Bakugo didn’t have time to be annoyed at stupid little things like Sparky’s incessant talking now that he was in his freaking Dunce mode. Elbows had to tape his mouth shut. – Or how bugged he was that Four Eyes was their leader – or just, Deku in general.

Bakugo had geared himself up for a fight, but it didn’t look as though he’d be getting one. Deku’s plan was too well thought out for that. It looked as though they’d all leave UA exactly as planned, and that the heroes would only know by morning what had really happened. By then, they’d be long gone.

They’d had the hero patrols drilled into their brains earlier that evening. The nearest hero at that moment in time was Hound Dog, who was likely still on the other side of the main building. He was their biggest threat, since he could smell them. Bakugo supposed that was one of the main reasons why the class was halved and split up, because that would confuse the hero if he ever picked up on their trail.

Bakugo had to admit that he was looking forward to being out of UA. Finally, he’d have a chance to properly rage again. To act like the powerful hero that he was always freaking meant to be.

Sure, he’d have to carry a few of these losers along the way, but some of them seemed at least the slightest bit competent, like Kirishima and Jiro and maybe some of the other vigilantes. Well, they would all be freaking vigilantes soon. That word still seemed strange and foreign to Bakugo. He was too used to referring to himself as a hero.

Whatever, ultimately, it wasn’t that different. Just vigilantes seemed to be a whole lot more fun.

“Can’t we use our torches?” the raccoon-eyed acid idiot whispered to those leading the group. “I can’t see a thing!”

“Shh!” Tape-Arms hissed. “Kaminari’s bad enough! We don’t need you making noise!”

“You’re speaking too!”

“Only because you are!”

“Would you shut up?!” Bakugo thundered back at them in the quietest tone he could muster (still probably a little too loud).

“We can’t use the torches because it could give away our position!” Four Eyes retorted.

“The cameras are off,” Racoon Eyes groaned.

“The heroes could still see us,” said Ponytail Girl.

This was when Jiro froze beside Bakugo, her earphone jacks twitching in the air as she squinted her eyes in the darkness.

“What’s wrong?” asked Kirishima, who had also noticed she’d stopped. Once he said that, everyone else also slowed to a halt.

“…I think I hear something,” she whispered.

“P-Probably just an owl,” Racoon Eyes insisted. “L-Let’s keep going.”

Uncertainly, Jiro nodded, and they continued.

But a few moments later, Bakugo heard a branch SNAP!

Both he and Jiro whirled around immediately, soon followed by the rest.

They all held their breath as they glanced around in the darkness. Eventually, Ponytail dared to click the on button on her torch –

– just in time to see a figure dart behind a tree.

“Go, run –” Jiro whispered.

And when no one responded to her, Bakugo gritted his teeth, forced himself away from a confrontation, and yelled –

“Run, you idiots! RUN!”

“You have a problem, Monoma,” said Tsuburaba, his eyebrows raised.

Monoma scowled at him. He was sitting on a chair by the window, occasionally glancing out of it. Class A’s dorm was right next to theirs. “They’re up to something,” he hissed, narrowing his eyes at the shadows that moved around in the light of their common room. “I just know it.”

“Yeah, well, the last time you confronted them, it didn’t end too well – and now my phone is utterly screwed. So, thanks a lot.”

Monoma ignored him, resting his chin in his hands. “I don’t care what excuses they gave their teacher. Something’s not right here. And 18 is behind it.”

“18 really saved you yesterday,” Sen shrugged, sipping at his coffee. “Maybe you should just stop provoking him.”

“Yeah, come on, Monoma!” Kendo sighed, “18 – what’s his name again?”

“Midoriya,” interjected Honenuki.

“Right – Midoriya just seems to want to protect his classmates, just like you are! It’s very honourable of you, but you need to understand that he’s trying to do the same, just maybe not in the best way. You should really try to get along with him! With his Quirk and yours – he could really help you out,” Kendo beamed, her sunshine-like smile lighting up the whole room.

But Monoma still couldn’t shake this feeling. One of class A had sided up with the villains, who’s to say the rest haven’t?

He’d taken it upon himself to do his own research, and Monoma had found a very interesting video in the depths of the internet, of 18 himself, dripping in a decent amount of slime as he yelled at the surrounding heroes, spitting words of such hatred and venom that even Monoma shuddered.

“Hm, yeah,” Honenuki nodded. “Yeah, about that – there’s something that I should probably tell –”

Monoma perked up, holding a hand out to Honenuki to stop him from talking.

There, in the shadows of class A’s dorms, he spied four figures slip from an open window and into the night.

“Um, can I speak now?” Honenuki tried to continue.

“Shh!” Monoma silenced him, leaning closer to the window – but they were already gone.

“Monoma what is going on with you?!” frowned Setsuna.

“I just saw something,” he hissed in reply.

“What?” frowned Tsuburaba.

“I saw something!”

“It’s like ten o’clock at night!” Setsuna exclaimed. “You need to stop suspecting class A of every little thing, it’s getting old.”

“I saw some leave through the window!” Monoma insisted, standing up and trying to tilt his head at a better angle to see the other dorm. “I swear!”

“You’re tired, Monoma,” sighed Sen. “Just go to bed.”

“They’re up to something,” Monoma breathed, “I knew it, I knew it!”

“Um, Monoma?” Pony interjected, tapping him on the shoulder. “You’re acting… how do you say…? Err, crazy?”

“Pony’s right,” nodded Kuroiro. Monoma’s antics had gathered quite a crowd at this point. “Nothing mysterious is at foot.”

“There is,” Monoma retorted. “Look, Setsuna – watch with me, just for a little longer, and you’ll see, I swear.”

There was a moment of hesitation, before Setsuna sighed and rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she unwillingly nodded, before taking an eye out of her head with her limb-detaching Quirk and setting it down on the windowsill beside Monoma. “Who wants to try beating me at Mario Kart when I have only one eye?!”

And so, the rest of the class wandered away from Monoma and over to their video game. Monoma would have joined in, had he not been so sure he’d seen something.

About ten minutes passed, and he started to this he was going nuts. Until –

“Oh…” Setsuna gasped from across the room, her detached eye narrowing at the sight before it and Monoma.

Two members of class A had just hurried back to the window they’d climbed out of and slipped back inside.

“Oh, that is interesting,” Setsuna breathed, pausing the game which she was winning by a long mile, and walking over to shove her eye back in her head.

“I told you,” Monoma grinned. He was right!

“What, pray tell, is going on?” questioned Shiozaki, who now accompanied them.

“Monoma was right,” Setsuna said, as though didn’t quite believe it, “A couple members of class A just ran back to their dorm.”

“Wait, really?” Awase gaped from over the sofa.

Not long after, Monoma saw him – 18, clamber out of that very same window.

He stood up tall, brushing the dirt off his knees, and looked around.

Monoma grabbed Setsuna’s shoulder and pulled her down and out of plain sight along with him, whilst the others simply sidestepped away.

Cautiously, Monoma and the rest peered back through the window, to see even more of class A flee the building, and hurry off into the cover of the surrounding trees.

“What are they doing?” Kendo wondered aloud.

Monoma gritted his teeth, “I’m not sure, but I’m going to find out.”

“What?!” Tsuburaba exclaimed, “You can’t, it’s after curfew.”

“That hasn’t stopped them!”

“Yeah but we’re the heroes. We’re supposed to follow the rules! Besides, look what happened last time! My phone!”

“Oh, shut up about your phone already!” yelled Kamakiri. “Monoma’s right – we should step in!”

“I hate to admit it, but it might be the best thing to do…” Setsuna winced, turning to Kendo. “Look, that’s my suggestion, but I’m the vice rep – we’ll do whatever you think’s the best.”

Kendo seemed unsure.

“What if they’re going to let more villains into the school, Kendo!” Monoma tried, finally tearing his eyes away from the window. He was quite sure all of class A had left by this point, and the first two never came back. “We have a chance to stop it now – I couldn’t quite prove it yesterday, but we can now! And I’ll be more careful with what Quirks I copy.”

The entire class stood up, waiting for Kendo’s verdict.

Until, finally, she deflated, “Ok, but we don’t fight them unless they fight us!”

Monoma grinned –

I’m coming for you, 18.

Chapter Text

Monoma cursed under his breath – he’d been spotted.

There was no use in being careful now, and class A was on the move.

“Let’s go!” he called out to the others as he sprinted ahead.

Shishida skidded in front of the group, activating his beast transformation Quirk to block their path. It worked in diverting them, straight into Shiozaki, who had already set up a net of vines to trap them.

The girl with the high ponytail – 20, Monoma believed was her number – however, had turned a flashlight on, and the light fell on Shiozaki too quickly.

“Follow me!” called out the girl with the hearing Quirk whose number Monoma couldn’t remember. She expertly led them through a gap in class B’s plan and darted through the trees.

“Watch out!” yelled Honenuki, causing class B to jump to the left and right. He slammed his foot down on the ground, and Monoma watched the earth ripple as the quicksand caught up with the villains.

“The ground!” warned Tetsutetsu’s red-headed friend, number 8, and the opposing side quickly split up to dodge the attack.

“I’m calling Mr Vlad!” Kendo announced, muttering about how she should have done this earlier.

“Dark Shadow!” yelled bird-headed number 14, whose frightening shadow leapt at Kendo from the darkness.

“Kendo look out!” yelled Tsuburaba.

Kendo screeched as the shadow slashed and split her phone in half, right in her hand.

“I’ve got it!” proclaimed Kuroiro, who used his black morphing Quirk to leap right inside the shadow and take control.

14 grunted as he was punched in the stomach with his own power.

There was a flash of light from eternally angry number 17, cupping an explosion in his hands, which made the shadow creature whine and disappear, leaving Kuroiro on the ground.

“Don’t attack, Bakugo!” yelled 8 when Monoma saw the villain ready to send a ball of fire at his friend’s face, “Remember the vigilante loopholes!”

17 cried out in frustration and continued to run with his classmates.

“There’s the wall!” the super hearing girl suddenly exclaimed as the boarder to UA came into view.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Tetsutetsu cried out, and he barrelled right into number 8, knocking him off path. This resulted in the latter activating his Quirk and beginning to fight back.

Monoma was hyper aware that he hadn’t seen 18 yet – where was he?! Waiting in the shadows, ready to jump out and attack when he least expected it?!

This was when he scanned the area, and realised –

“Only half of them are here!” he yelled to his classmates. “18 and the rest must be somewhere else!”

“Damn it!” yelled the villain with the tape Quirk, hauling his friend around, who was tied up with his mouth taped shut. “We need to get Kaminari over the wall first!”

“Screw that!” 17 suddenly yelled, “And screw the loopholes!”

“Wait!” 8 cried, taking a punch from Tetsutetsu, “Bakugo, don’t!”

But it was too late, with a flash and a bang louder than Monoma had ever heard, the explosive villain destroyed the wall in seconds –

– and a shrill alarm rang across the school.

“What is that?!” Hagakure cried.

Midoriya looked around in fear. The corner of his eyes had caught a flash of light in the distance. Not long after, a familiar alarm filled his ears.

“Oh, no,” he murmured, eyes settling on a plume of smoke rising into the stormy night sky, contrasted against the light of UA and the city beyond. “Kacchan, you didn’t!”

“Did he just blow up the wall?!” Uraraka exclaimed, grabbing Midoriya’s hand as he scrambled onto the top of their part of said wall. Everyone but them were over now. They’d completed their mission.

Shoji reached up and hauled himself back onto the wall. He created several new ears on the end of his tentacle like hands and announced, “I think they’re fighting.”

“What?” Tsu called up at them, “Who are they fighting, ribbit?”

“The heroes shouldn’t be anywhere near them!” Hagakure added.

“Whatever it is, it isn’t good,” Shoto acknowledged stiffly.

Dammit! It had all been going so well! What did they miss?!

“We have to help them!” Midoriya announced, starting to run down the length of the wall.

“Wait, Midori!” Uraraka called out running after him.

“We can’t risk going to them!” Shoto tried to reason with him as they all ran to keep up with him, on the floor beside the wall.

“P-Perhaps we should go to the rendezvous point?!” Aoyama panted.

“If they’re fighting, they need all the help they can get!” Midoriya reasoned, not daring to stop. He jumped over rivets in the wall, scrambling up sudden inclines as it moved with the land. This was the quickest way to get to the others.

“Up there!” someone called out.

With no more warning than that, Midoriya was suddenly pulled off the wall. Constricting vines covered him from head to toe like a spider would do to a fly. He couldn’t see – couldn’t speak – could barely breathe as he felt himself be tugged around. When he struggled, the vines only grew tighter.

The sounds around him were muffled, but he could just hear his friends’ cries as the attack began.

He could do nothing until there was a familiar drop in temperature, and the vines were yanked harshly away from him.

Midoriya took a deep breath and coughed, gasping for air.

“Are you ok?” Shoto asked after saving him yet again.

“Y-Yeah,” Midoriya replied, taking his hand and getting to his feet.

He looked around to find ice surrounding them like a jagged halo. When he turned to his left, he nearly jumped three feet into the air at the sight of the vine-haired member of class B, all but her face encased in ice.

“Class B?!” Midoriya exclaimed as Tsu’s tongue was wrapped around his waist and he was pulled away again.

“We have to get to the others, ribbit!” she announced.

“R-Right!” and Midoriya kept running.

“They attacked us first,” Shoto reminded him as they ran. “That works for the vigilante loophole you mentioned, right?!”

“Yeah! I-It does – we have to act in self-defence, and nothing else!”

“Got it!” Uraraka replied as they finally reached the scene of the new exit to UA, designed and built by none other than Katsuki Bakugo.

Idiot!

Midoriya didn’t have time to think before they were back in the fray.

He leapt to dodge Honenuki’s softening Quirk that would have trapped him in quicksand, an action that the others thankfully copied.

Speaking of which –

“Think you could outsmart us, 18?!” and Monoma leapt into view.

His hands suddenly enlarged to at least the same size as the rest of his body, and Midoriya just barely ducked out of the way with reflexes that Kacchan had been training in him since they were little kids.

“Don’t let him touch your bare skin!” Monoma warned the rest of class B as he continued his attack on Midoriya.

How Midoriya managed to consistently evade him was a complete and utter mystery.

Another wall of ice from Shoto accidentally blocked Monoma from Midoriya whilst Shoto fought his own battles. Midoriya managed to scramble away and hide behind the nearest tree, which was when he caught sight of Yaoyorozu, a little out of the way of the battle.

“Yaoyorozu!” he exclaimed, scurrying towards her.

She was stuck fast to the ground with some kind of hardened glue, and one of her arms was seemingly fused with the tree behind her. She struggled to get free, but there was no use, even when Midoriya pitched in, dropping his rucksack to her side as he did so.

“If you can defeat class B, then the others can help get me free afterwards!” she insisted, and then held her free arm out to him. “Take this.”

Midoriya blinked at her for a moment, until with a slight shimmer of light, he realised there was a metal handle protruding from her forearm.

With a slight grin, Midoriya took a hold of it and pulled, revealing an awfully familiar sword.

“Look out!” she suddenly cried.

Midoriya pivoted and blocked with the sword, just in time to block the blade of a green, insect-like hero student.

“Attacking with a sword?” he hissed at him, pushing against Midoriya as he pushed back.

“You were the one who snuck up behind me with a blade Quirk!” Midoriya retorted.

“Need some help?!” and Ojiro appeared out of nowhere, jumping down from the trees to tackle the guy with the blade Quirk.

Midoriya let Ojiro, the more experienced of the two, take the lead as they both battled the hero student. Midoriya made sure he couldn’t get away, and occasionally blocked newly formed blades whilst Ojiro took a more hands on approach. It wasn’t exactly easy to fight an experienced vigilante with a rather muscular tail thrown in the mix.

Ojiro eventually pushed him into one of his classmate’s own traps, and he sunk waist deep in Honenuki’s quicksand.

“HONENUKI!” he yelled in frustration. But the moment his classmate turned to rescue him, Shoto froze him in place, and both remained immobile.

The victory didn’t last long, however, because Midoriya soon found himself under attack by the girl with the vines again, who had somehow gotten free from Shoto’s icy prison.

But Midoriya wasn’t going down so easily this time. He slashed at the vines with Yaoyorozu’s sword, freeing Jiro in the process.

“Ha, ha!” she cried victoriously as she kicked the remaining vines away. “Not caught yet, Bakugo!”

“Oh yeah?!” he called back, fighting against Sen, whose hands could swivel at an alarming speed, as though they were drills. “As far as I’m aware, I’m still freaking better than you!”

He laughed when she got caught in a glue trap by monstrous looking Bondo and cried out in frustration.

Midoriya, meanwhile, was doing rather well, considering he had next to no experience with a sword – mainly because the blade was highly effective against the onslaught of vines.

He thought he was about to best his opponent, which, of course, jinxed the outcome immediately.

Midoriya inhaled sharply as two blades suddenly manifested over both his shoulders, crossing in front of his neck.

Monoma, covering his skin with a friend’s jacket, yelled over Midoriya’s shoulder, “EVERYONE STOP RIGHT THERE!”

That got their attention, and now all eyes were on Midoriya’s critical situation.

The sword was yanked from his hand by an invisible force, and flew to the hand of a silver haired girl from class B.

“Stop there,” Monoma repeated. “Put your hands in the air, 18. My skin is covered – you can’t take my power.”

Midoriya would have pointed out that the blades sticking out of his arms, with the Quirk he’d copied from his stuck friend, technically could have counted as part of him. But it wasn’t like Midoriya could really steal his Quirk, and Monoma’s power clearly hasn’t been cancelled out yet.

Kacchan dared to laugh, “HA! Like you’d actually kill him!”

Midoriya tried to struggle free but stopped when Monoma actually pressed the blades against his skin. “No, I won’t kill him, I’m not a villain,” he hissed.

But then Midoriya felt a hand reach for his left shoulder, where bandages poked out under his T-shirt, and Monoma squeezed.

Midoriya tried not to cry out, but he couldn’t help it.

Midoriya’s friends backed away; a few shocked yelps were shared between them.

“He’s your leader, right?” the hero student breathed, still clutching Midoriya’s shoulder in an unspoken threat, blades still raised against his neck. “You won’t be able to carry out your plan without him. So, go on! Leave him behind!”

The members of class A that were still able to fight hesitated, glancing between each other, unsure of their next move. This would usually be where Midoriya made a decision, but at the moment, he didn’t have a clue of what to do.

“Monoma, he’ll just take your Quirk!” warned a hero student with green, scaled arms and a tight plait.

“My skin is covered,” Monoma repeated. “And all of your classmates still have their Quirks, don’t they, 18?!” he laughed. “See, this is where I’m stronger than you! All you can do is take! Without stealing someone else’s power away from them, you are a useless –

“Quirkless –

“Nothing!”

Midoriya gritted his teeth, feeling his fury boil and overflow – his eyes blazing with anger only comparable to Kacchan’s.

“I am NOT –”

He elbowed Monoma in the neck, in a certain spot that Uraraka had once taught him to aim for.

“– USELESS!”

In surprise, Monoma stumbled backwards, blades parting for just a second. This gave Midoriya just enough time to pivot on his heel and punch Monoma right in the nose.

There was a gasp of shock from several onlookers as Monoma fell to the ground, blades shrinking away and blood pouring from his nose.

Midoriya just panted and stared at the fallen foe, ignoring the red speckles on his knuckles.

There was a second gasp as the girl with the silver hair was frozen, and Shoto was then right there, holding the hilt of the sword out to Midoriya, “Here.”

“Thanks.”

This was the moment that the scene of their battle was class B was flooded with light, when previously ignored lamps switched on, and the surviving cameras on the walls nearby blinked red, raising their mechanical heads and turning towards the scene.

Kacchan wasn’t the only one who let out a rather rude word as the hole in the wall that he’d made was suddenly non-existent, rising back up and rebuilding itself.

“What’s –” Midoriya started.

He caught the eye of a dark-haired girl, taped to a tree not far from Yaoyorozu. She held a phone in her hand, the light of it cutting through the darkness that remained.

“YES, KODAI!” cried out a classmate of hers with a blue and white hairband, who had somehow ended up stuck high in the branches of the very same tree.

Midoriya turned at the sound of footsteps, and backed away from Monoma as he saw a whole crowd of Ectoplasm clones surround them, alongside Cementoss, who must have fixed the wall, and Hound Dog, who must have been the one to lead the heroes to them. Midoriya could also see Midnight in the corner of his eye, and he knew that they didn’t stand a chance.

“Drop the sword, 18,” Miss Midnight ordered.

Midoriya gazed down at the blade, finally noting the blood on the back of his hand.

He let it fall to the ground.

“Midoriya?” Shoto hissed, fists still raised and clearly ready to continue the fight.

“No,” he shook his head, raising his hands once again above his head.

“It’s over.”

There was an Ectoplasm clone on each of them, whilst class B was rescued from various precarious positions, such as halfway sunken underground or halfway up a tree. Some members of class A too, needed help. However, it was noticeably clear that, had the fight gone on much longer, it would have been class A who reigned victorious.

Clutching the bridge of his nose in one hand, and cupping the stream of blood with the other, Monoma glared at Midoriya, “He’s the leader,” the hero student snarled. “They won’t go anywhere without him! You need to fail that freaking Quirk stealer! And speaking of which – give me my Quirk BACK!”

“Monoma, calm down,” one of the Ectoplasm clones insisted. “But thank you for the information.”

Midoriya’s eyes returned to being fixed on the ground. He didn’t dare to meet the gaze of any of the heroes, nor his classmates.

“Midnight,” Ectoplasm (possibly the real one) began, “I think it may be best to…”

Midnight cleared her throat, “Yes, I agree.”

Midoriya frowned as he heard her approach him, “Wait, what are you –”

He looked up in time to see her hand reach his face, and only just heard his classmate’s cries as he fell to the ground, unconscious.

When Midoriya came to, he found himself back in the dorms, lying on the sofa, the back of it shielding him from view of his classmates.

Groggily, he opened his eyes. The first thing they rested on, apart from the ceiling, was what would have been the window directly opposite him.

Except it wasn’t a window anymore.

It was completely blocked out with concrete.

That made him sit up.

“He’s awake.”

Midoriya wasn’t sure who said that. He flopped back down, rubbing at his temples whilst his classmates gathered around him, perching on the other sofas or the arms of his.

There was a moment of solemn silence.

“What happened?” Midoriya groaned, breaking it.

“Midnight put you to sleep with her Quirk,” Iida explained.

“That makes it sound like she straight up killed him,” Jiro interjected.

“For a second, I almost thought she did,” Kaminari laughed nervously. “Maybe that’s because I was still a little shorted out… It just really surprised me; you know?”

“It surprised me too, ribbit,” said Tsu. “I guess she did that in case we thought of running off again. She knew we wouldn’t leave Midoriya behind.”

Midoriya wasn’t even looking at them at this point. He covered his eyes with his hands and sighed deeply, “I’m such an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot, Midori!” Uraraka insisted, kneeling down in front of him, “You planned everything out so well!”

“I didn’t plan for class B. I planned for everything except class B – why do I always miss one option out?”

“No one expected class B to jump in like that,” Yaoyorozu insisted, sitting down on the coffee table beside Uraraka. “That isn’t on you, Midoriya.”

He sighed again, finally sitting up and feeling the blood rush from his head, which made him dizzy. “But Mr Aizawa was right. With false strengths come real weaknesses – because of my stupid prank Monoma’s been targeting us! He thinks it’s some kind of competition between us –”

“Don’t hold yourself so freaking highly,” Kacchan snapped, which made Midoriya flinch, a habit he was sure he’d gotten over. Kacchan noticed this and rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, you were the one who blew up the wall!” Mina exclaimed. “You set the alarm off!”

“Oh, so now it’s my fault, huh?!” he yelled back.

“Guys, please, let’s not argue!” Midoriya practically begged.

“Agreed.”

Everyone froze.

Midoriya bowed his head a little, watching from the tops of his eyes as footsteps approached.

Bandaged Mr Aizawa came into view.

There was absolute silence for a few moments too many. Eventually, Mr Aizawa pulled a chair over with his foot, pushing it in front of the television screen, meaning it was directly opposite Midoriya, and sat down.

The silence returned.

“I have one question for you all,” their teacher said after a minute or so. “Why?”

No one replied.

“Why?” he repeated more forcefully.

Midoriya realised that no one else would speak up – they were waiting for him. “You were in this class, Mr Aizawa – I thought you, of all people, would understand…”

The gaps in between speaking were long and tedious, as each of them mulled each other’s words over carefully.

“You were trying to escape UA? No. No, I don’t understand.” He sounded so… hurt.

“I-I’m sorry,” Midoriya insisted. “We just… we… don’t want what UA could give us. We don’t want to j-just struggle through the rest of our lives – labelled as outcasts by simply being in this class. We didn’t want to be as powerless as we were at the USJ – we didn’t want to be pushed aside by the world again! We didn’t want to go through the Sports Festival… We wanted control over our own futures, and… UA couldn’t give that to us.”

“…And you all feel this way?”

They nodded without hesitation, all huddled up together – as far from Mr Aizawa as they could get.

“What were you going to do once you were out?” he continued to interrogate. “Where were you going to go? Did you even think this through?”

“We thought everything though, Sir,” Iida replied. Midoriya quickly realised that he was following one of the fall-back plans – if Mr Aizawa were unable to place the blame on one person, no one would be failed. So, Iida was trying to ensure that Midoriya wouldn’t take all the responsibility for the matter.

But what Midoriya didn’t inform the class, was that he had no intention of taking that risk. If someone was going to have to leave for this –

– it would be him.

“So, you were just going to survive on the run?” Mr Aizawa asked in disbelief. “How is that a better life than what UA could have given you?”

The way he said that struck further fear in Midoriya’s heart. Specifically, the word could.

“I know you had a better reason than that. What did you really want to do once you were out?”

“You would know, Sir,” Midoriya replied. He finally dared to look up and meet his eyes, “You were in class 1-A for the exact same reason.”

He didn’t reply immediately – and simply stared at him, whilst Midoriya stared back.

“…Vigilantes? You wanted to be… heroes?”

Midoriya shook his head, “Not heroes. We’re not like you.” Perhaps he said that a little forcefully – maybe he just didn’t care anymore.

Mr Aizawa seemed unphased, “Every single one of you… You wanted to be a team of vigilantes?”

Midoriya exchanged glances with a few of his friends. He didn’t need to reply because they all nodded.

Their teacher was just… stunned. It was as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

Eventually, he asked the question Midoriya had been waiting for.

“Who came up with the idea?” he asked, looking right at Midoriya, as though he already knew the answer.

“It was a joint effort,” Iida answered instantly.

“No,” Midoriya retorted, “No, it wasn’t – it was my idea. It was my plan. I convinced them all to join me. It’s not their fault.”

“…Midoriya,” Iida gaped, realising what he was doing.

“You do realise that I will have to seriously consider your expulsion for this?” Mr Aizawa warned him.

Midoriya swallowed the lump in his throat, “I know.”

“Midoriya!” Iida exclaimed, leaping to his feet, not caring that Mr Aizawa was right there. “You said we’d all take the blame equally! We can’t all be expelled! Why did you –”

“Well, I lied,” Midoriya snapped. “It’s not worth risking your future. Sit down, Iida,” he practically commanded.

Iida hesitated, but did as he was told, now staring blankly at the ground.

“What about your future, Midoriya?” asked Mr Aizawa.

He blinked at the use of his real name. “What future?”

Midoriya ignored the way his classmates stared at him. He kept his gaze fixed on Mr Aizawa; whose expression did not change.

“Midoriya,” Iida repeated. “You can’t say such things about yourself!”

“Why not? Everyone knows it.”

Midoriya just didn’t care anymore. Shoto was right – UA amounted to nothing. There was no way out of the life he had been dealt. He might as well face it.

It was like… the stages of grief. To grieve life, rather than death.

There was his denial –

Midoriya strived to be a hero – whatever it takes. He ran towards the blinding light held upon the pillars that society forged, desperate to cling to them – be amongst them. But unlike so many others, Midoriya refused to see the truth. He could never be that.

Then there was anger –

He shouted at the heroes – spat at them – screamed until his voice grew hoarse. He fought back against Kacchan, dragging him down into the dark pit of failure that Midoriya had grown so used to.

He bargained –

– with the system he was swept up in. He pushed Kacchan into the river, whilst he was unknowingly being swept up in its current alongside him. He tried to find a way around class A – to squeeze out the gaps with clever tricks and twisted words.

And maybe he skipped that whole depressive stage. Because this was his acceptance.

“Mr Aizawa, please, I don’t have a place in this world,” Midoriya continued, voice devoid of emotion. “I have no power, no hope, no life, no real path to take. I’m destined to be a side character – someone for the heroes to save from the big bad villain one day and gain all the glory they could hope for. But that’s not something that someone like me can ever have for themselves. So, don’t take pity on me – I don’t care anymore. I’m a dead weight. Expel me – not them. At least they could do some good in the world. Then, at least I would have done something that mattered in the long run.”

Silence.

Mr Aizawa finally spoke up, “…I’m sorry.”

Midoriya didn’t know what to say to that, so he just stared straight ahead. Mr Aizawa happened to be in that direction.

“Midoriya, if you could be a hero, would you take that chance?”

He blinked at him. The question took him by surprise. “I-I can’t be a hero, Sir. I thought I made that clear.”

“Why can’t you be a hero?”

Midoriya wavered, “I-I… I just can’t. I’m Quirkless.”

“What’s my Quirk?”

“You… nullify other powers?”

Mr Aizawa shifted a little forward in his chair, “Yes. I make other people Quirkless. Tell me again, once that is activated, what is my power?”

“You… You’re…”

“Quirkless. I don’t really have a Quirk, Midoriya. All I can do is make sure that no one else has one either. And say what you want about that. The point is, I was able to become a hero just fine without much of a power. Why can’t you?”

Midoriya was lost for words. He tried to say something in reply – but nothing fell out.

Mr Aizawa’s gaze drifted away from him, “You all… seriously wanted to be vigilantes?”

His eyes rested on Shoto, who now sat next to Midoriya.

Realising this was a question aimed at him, Shoto braved making a reply, “This has nothing to do with my father, or Dabi,” he explained. “This is my decision, and mine alone. They don’t rule my life. I don’t care what either of them think.”

“Would you be a hero?” Mr Aizawa actually asked Shoto Todoroki. “Not just a vigilante – would you be a real hero, if given the chance?”

Shoto thought long and hard about his response. “…Sir, I… I don’t know.”

But that wasn’t a no.

Mr Aizawa nodded.

After a while, whilst silence rang in Midoriya’s ears, he spoke up again, “There is still the matter of what to do following this… escape attempt.

“First things first – Midoriya.”

He bowed his head, readying himself for those faithful words.

“You’re –”

Shoto stood up, “Mr Aizawa, if you expel Midoriya, you will soon have every reason to expel me too.”

Midoriya stared at him.

“…How many of you would I soon have every reason to expel, following Midoriya’s expulsion?”

And slowly but surely, nearly every single one of his classmates, raised their hands.

Mr Aizawa nodded.

“Midoriya –”

He flinched.

“– you’re class president.”

He stared, mouth agape. “W-What?!”

“And you have three weeks’ detention.”

Yeah, that was a little more expected.

Midoriya stood up, “Sir! I-I can’t be class representative!”

“Why not?”

“B-Because I… I… Iida should be class president!”

“Congratulations, Iida, you’re vice president.”

“Mr Aizawa!” Midoriya cried, but his teacher completely ignored him. He stood up, about to walk away and just leave them there.

“Excuse me, Sir, but why is no one else getting detention, ribbit?” croaked Tsu.

He hesitated, “Would you all volunteer to take some of Midoriya’s detention time?”

They all nodded instantly.

“Good. Midoriya, you have two weeks’ detention. No one else, only you,” and he continued to walk away. “You can have your windows back when we’ve decided you’ll behave. Don’t make us put security cameras up in the dorms.”

“MR AIZAWA!” Midoriya yelled, following him part way.

He stopped by the door, “Yes?”

Midoriya only stared for a moment, face moulded with such bewilderment that he felt as though his brain was doing jump rope. “I… Do… D-Do you really think I… that w-we… could be heroes? Real ones?”

He answered without a second thought, “Yes.”

“Even… even after what we’ve done?”

“Without a shadow of a doubt.”

“But… why?”

“Yeah, we’re villains,” added Uraraka, reaching Midoriya’s side.

“How could we be heroes if the whole world hates us?” questioned Kirishima.

“Sir, w-we can’t even live normal lives,” Yaoyorozu stammered. “How could we possibly live the life of a hero after everything that’s happened?”

“That’s exactly the reason,” Mr Aizawa nodded, opening the door as he spoke. He stood there and stared at the outside world for a moment before continuing. “No, I don’t believe any of you can graduate back into society. I don’t think any of you are prepared for that, and I don’t think you ever will be.”

With gritted teeth and a manic smile, he turned back to them. “Because you can be something bigger. You aren’t villains – you never were, and you never will be. But you can take that fire inside of you and put it to good use.”

The smile faded as quickly as it had arrived. He sighed deeply and took a step outside, letting the rest of his class approach the door, all standing around Midoriya as they waited for their teacher’s words.

He gestured around him, the best he could with the bandages that restricted him so. “We’re in a hero school, aren’t we? Well, then, if you genuinely want it…

“Let’s be heroes.”

Chapter Text

“Wait, none of them were expelled?!” Monoma gaped.

Mr Vlad crossed his bandaged arms and nodded gruffly. He clearly disapproved as much as they did.

“Sir! They attacked us, they –”

“Actually, they insist that you attacked first, and that they only acted in self-defence.”

“Well, that’s a lie!”

“I’m not sure, Monoma…” Kendo interrupted. “Did Midoriya say that? I think he’s telling the truth – he seems to be a very honest person…”

Monoma laughed, “An honest person? He twists the truth!”

Honenuki cleared his throat, “Yeah speaking of which –”

“Why are you defending him, Kendo?!” Tsuburaba butted in. “OUR PHONES!”

“Oh, would you shut up about your phone already?!” Kamakiri yelled.

Monoma'd had just about enough! “You keep moaning about your phones, 18 BROKE MY NOSE!” He pointed at the bandaged bridge of his nose, which Recovery Girl had fixed in an instant. “And then took my Quirk for good measure!”

“18 will be punished for this,” Mr Vlad insisted, which Monoma was glad to hear.

“What about the rest of them?” asked Sen, who had just snatched his phone off Tsuburaba again.

A hint of frustration crossed their teacher’s face, “18 has two weeks’ detention, but the rest will be facing no punishment.”

“WHAT?!” half the class yelled.

Monoma only stared, mouth hanging agape, “Sir, you can’t be serious!”

“It’s not my decision to make,” he huffed. “Mr Aizawa has complete control over how he handles his class. He has spoken with Principal Nezu and no changes have been made.”

“But Sir! What about 18?! He’s their leader; he needs to be expelled!”

“My thoughts were the same,” Mr Vlad nodded. “But again, my input is limited. All I know is security will be altered, the way this class A is handled will be changed, and 18 has been appointed class president, with 4 as his vice.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Well… I suppose it does make sense,” Shoda interjected. “But that sounds more like a prize than a punishment.”

Mr Vlad nodded again, “Moreover, I’ve been told that I need to consider punishing you as well.”

“Sir, no offence, but we didn’t do anything wrong!” Setsuna insisted.

“I agree, which is why I will not be handing out detentions. Well done, Kodai, for calling me. I’m aware that Kendo tried to do so earlier, but you should have done it before you left the dorms. Also, according to class A’s reports, you were overly aggressive. Again, I’m not punishing you for this – these aren’t my words.”

Mr Vlad suddenly sported a slight grin, and Monoma knew he was about to reveal a good twist on all this.

“Besides, if you’re frustrated about the way that this is being handled, bear in mind that for at least the next few days, 18 will be having detention in your dorm.”

Class A was locked up in Heights Alliance for the entirety of the following day. The doors were locked, and windows and balconies were, well, denied. Uraraka had tried the roof at one point, but Cementoss has moved concrete over the exit. They were well and truly trapped, and it was suffocating.

They were given new tracker anklets and a harsher, stricter curfew. But one thing they didn’t do, was confiscate their brick phones. It was the only thing they got away with. However, it didn’t exactly help them now.

Bored out of their minds, Midoriya’s classmates were at each other’s throats again by lunch time. The only moment of slight interest beforehand, was Recovery Girl’s visit in the morning.

She bashed Midoriya around the head (again) for letting the wound in his shoulder get aggravated (again) but made no attempt to blame him for Monoma’s broken nose.

He actually broke his nose?!

When that little fact was revealed, he received a little round of applause from his classmates.

That moment of happiness was cut short, however, when Recovery Girl noted the slim gash on his face that Monoma’s shadow mishap had caused. Midoriya had pulled the oversized plaster that Yaoyorozu gave him off long ago, since it seemed to have healed up. But Recovery Girl informed him that he’d likely have a mark there for the rest of his life. Midoriya didn’t care – he had plenty of scars, what was one more?

When she finally left, Recovery Girl took with her Midoriya’s and Iida’s blazers to have the president and vice president bands applied. Midoriya tried to resist, but there was no saying no to Recovery Girl.

Mr Aizawa reappeared that evening, in time to stop Kacchan from setting fire to Kaminari’s head, chucking the newly painted blazers at Midoriya and Iida in the process.

Midoriya glanced at the gold bands, now lying just above the iconic red of class A. “Sir, please, I don’t want to be class president.”

“You can’t back out,” Mr Aizawa said simply, already walking away. “I told you this about a week in. Come with me, 18, I’m escorting you to class B’s dorm.”

“A-Already?”

“Yes, already. Put your blazer on and come with me. 4, message me if anything else goes wrong.”

“Yes, Sir,” Iida nodded.

With a deep sigh, Midoriya gingerly pulled his blazer on, carefully around his left shoulder, and scurried over to Mr Aizawa’s side to put on his shoes.

He stood on the steps outside whilst Mr Aizawa locked the doors behind them. The evening breeze ruffled his green-tinged hair. The distant sounds of the city filled his ears, mingling with the chatter of birdsong before the night grew too dark for them.

“Come on,” his teacher instructed, walking by and not waiting for him.

Midoriya bowed his head and dragged his feet on the way to the hero course’s dorm building. It was right next door – not far at all, but he understood why Mr Aizawa still felt the need to escort him there.

Midoriya stepped inside a building almost identical to his own, only… mirrored.

“Class B, I’m sure you all know 18,” Mr Aizawa announced.

Midoriya just harshly kicked off his shoes and stomped to his side.

“I’ll be back in an hour,” Mr Aizawa replied, and just left him there.

“An hour?” Midoriya tried to protest, but he was already gone.

He turned back to class B, all sitting around their common room area and staring back at him. Midoriya crossed his arms and gave them the darkest look he could muster.

“U-Um, Midoriya, right?” Kendo asked just to make sure. Midoriya saw how her eyes flickered to the gold on his blazer, exactly the same as her own, only she didn’t have a huge number across her back and crimson red bands making her stand out as a threat.

Midoriya didn’t move a muscle, continuing to glare at her.

“Yeah, just didn’t think you’d like the name 18 – um… the kitchen’s this way,” she said nervously, pointing in the direction opposite to what it would have been back in class A’s dorm.

Midoriya didn’t even thank her, which was unlike him, and simply marched into the kitchen area and out of sight. He saw the neat stacks of dirty plates and dishes and sighed deeply. He took off his blazer and tossed it on the counter, before turning on the taps and very slowly getting to work. There was no point in doing this quickly, or else he’d find himself sitting in the kitchen awkwardly until the hour was up.

He had to do this for two weeks?! And it was meant to be three!

When Midoriya was about halfway through, he heard footsteps. He didn’t turn his head but saw in the corner of his eye a new stack of plates being added to the unwashed section.

Midoriya couldn’t tell if class B was just messy or if they were doing this on purpose.

He did a double take when the hero student who had intruded, sidestepped, picked up an unused cloth and started drying washed plates and putting them away.

Midoriya finally looked up and saw Honenuki there.

 “You’re not supposed to be helping,” he grumbled, aggressively scraping at the grime on a tray that they must have cooked chicken or something in.

Honenuki simply shrugged, “You could use it though. You guys don’t often come into detention by yourselves, there’s usually two of you, weirdly enough.”

“That’s because trouble is never the fault of one person in my class,” Midoriya sighed deeply. “And… thanks.”

Honenuki simply nodded, taking the tray off Midoriya to dry away the suds.

After a minute or so of silence between them, Midoriya spoke up again. “Um… Honenuki?”

“Hm?”

“Um… Monoma keeps… referring to my Quirk. So, um…”

He mimicked Midoriya’s sigh, “Yeah, I know. I have… tried to get the point across, but… they haven’t exactly been listening to me.”

Midoriya nodded slowly, “Oh… I see.”

“I won’t be trying again, though,” he informed him. “It’s their own fault. I’ll keep your little secret – it’s the least I can do.”

“The… least?”

“Well, you did save my life.”

Midoriya almost laughed, “When?”

“Back at the USJ?” Honenuki frowned, “It was your plan that got us off the boat, and you led the villains away from us after we got to land.”

“Well, none of those plans really worked that well in the end.”

“You got us most of the way. I think we would have been in a lot of trouble if we didn’t have you.”

It was clear that the honourable hero student wouldn’t be deterred, so Midoriya gave up, and simply nodded. “Well… um, thank you.”

“And you. You’re a nice person, Midoriya – don’t let Monoma convince you otherwise.”

For some reason, Midoriya had expected him to say something against his classmates. But no, he targeted the heroes instead. A soft smile crept across Midoriya’s face. He didn’t feel so alone around class B anymore.

“I did break his nose,” Midoriya added after a moment.

Honenuki sniggered quietly, “I know I shouldn’t be laughing because that probably really hurt, but that was a mean right hook.”

“Thanks.”

“No, seriously, I wouldn’t have managed it.”

“I still can’t believe I did that.”

“It was impressive. And I didn’t know you knew how to use a sword.”

“Err, I don’t.”

“What?! No way.”

Their conversing may have drastically slowed the washing up task, but this was the opposite of a problem. Midoriya may have actually found a friend in class B, which felt like an oxymoron at first.

They finished about forty minutes in, a good twenty minutes longer than Midoriya had even hoped, and they continued to talk even after. But that couldn’t last forever, especially since they’d given up on hushing their voices. This caught the attention of the rest of class B.

“What are you doing, Honenuki?” asked a spiky-haired boy sporting a blue and white headband. He peered around the corner of the kitchen with a confused look on his face.

“Um, talking with Midoriya?”

“Yeah but… that’s not… He’s –”

“If he wants to talk, why doesn’t he come out here!” called out an irritatingly familiar voice. “He must have finished washing up by now. Or is he that terrible at such a simple task?”

The hero student with the headband gestured Honenuki to follow him out of the kitchen.

He sighed, “Come on, Midoriya. It might be a good idea to talk to them.”

Midoriya thought that was terribly optimistic and would really rather not sit there and take class B’s insults for the next… however long he had left.

Actually, he looked up at the clock to see that he didn’t have long at all. Mr Aizawa would appear to rescue him any minute now.

Bearing this in mind, Midoriya nodded and let the two of them lead him out of the kitchen. He now found himself standing before the common room again. Glancing at Honenuki as he followed his other friend to a spare sofa, Midoriya leant back against the closest wall and crossed his arms, waiting for someone else to make the first move.

This resulted in nothing but awkward silence, in which Monoma glared at Midoriya with a mocking smile upon his face.

Midoriya blinked back at him, “How’s your nose?”

The smile faded immediately. “How’s the shoulder?”

“Um, I seem to remember that having nothing to do with you – you just decided to make it worse. And yes, it does still hurt. It should have healed ages ago, but people just keep targeting it,” Midoriya snapped.

Monoma hesitated, “…people?”

Ah, maybe he shouldn’t have said that…

“Oh!” Monoma laughed, “What have we here? Is class A not as buddy-buddy as we all thought?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Last time I checked, no one in class A has been sent here for detention after beating someone up! So, you didn’t tell anyone, huh?”

“Monoma, come on,” Honenuki interrupted. “Is this really necessary?”

Technically, Kacchan had been sent to detention for beating Midoriya up – on the first day of term. He supposed the real reason was never told to class B. Besides, it was clear that this incident occurred after the USJ.

“I’m just trying to make sure that justice was served!” Monoma replied innocently. “The only reason that I can think of for not informing his teachers, was if whoever else that was involved didn’t leave without… perhaps a threat? And we all know 18 likes to do that.”

Midoriya rolled his eyes, he knew something like this would happen. He never should have come out of the kitchens.

“Speaking of which, was taking my Quirk after breaking my nose really necessary?”

If Midoriya rolled his eyes any harder, he was quite sure they’d be stuck at the back of his head. “You got it back.”

“Yes, five minutes later. Do you copy my Quirk’s time limit just to get on my nerves?”

This guy couldn’t be any more oblivious.

Midoriya was so tempted to just tell him the truth, but he was interested to see how long this would last.

“Possibly,” was his reply.

Monoma ground his teeth for a moment. In the meantime, Midoriya glanced around at the faces of class B. None of them interjected into their conversation. Why? Maybe they were a little frightened of Midoriya – maybe they were trying not to make themselves out as a target – maybe they were just letting Monoma continue to dig his own grave whilst he searched for buried treasure.

“No matter,” Monoma eventually sighed, finally turning away from Midoriya, as if he were of no importance anymore, “your plan failed. In two weeks’ time, the Sports Festival will be here – and if you’ve ever seen it before, you’d know that class 1-A’s representative is made out as, well… the leader of the villains, which is entirely the truth! I hope you’re ready for how the world will see you. I bet your family will be so proud.”

Honenuki wasn’t the only one who pulled a bit of a face at that statement.

Midoriya had a very small family. He’d never met his grandparents – his father was essentially out of the picture, and he wasn’t aware of any sort of extended family in his vicinity. That just left Midoriya and his mum. It was extremely tricky for a single mother with a Quirkless kid who did not seem to be inclined to help whatsoever.

Midoriya hadn’t seen her since the start of UA, nor heard a word. She would be able to watch the Sports Festival on TV, but they wouldn’t be meeting in person again until a few days afterwards.

He’d been trying not to think about it… but oh, his mother would never have expected her son to reappear as the class president. Midoriya would finally be outed as Quirkless to the rest of class B, if he lasted that long, and it would end up being a complete mockery of him and his feeble skills. Midoriya was not cut out for the athletic pursuits of the Sports Festival. The world would watch on and laugh at class A being defeated by class B, who had reigned victorious since, well, probably the creation of the event. They didn’t stand a chance.

But whilst some members of class B was scolding Monoma for his harsh words, and nervously glancing in Midoriya’s direction, his mind was hard at work – thinking.

Because well… it hadn’t gone so well for class B when they were pitted against each other in their failed escape plan. The first event of the Sports Festival was designed to cut the numbers down. After all, it wasn’t just class A and B who were involved, but C, D and E as well – who were even worse off in terms of skill than the villains. The second event usually took out most of class A and a few of class B. Finally, the tournament round pitted all the remaining students against each other in spectacular, one-on-one battles. And although this all sounded like trouble in Midoriya’s case, well… if he could organise his class well enough in the first two events, he could easily ensure that the strongest members reached the finals… How many… one, two, three, four – eight? Eight matches at the beginning and that makes sixteen total finalists… And there were nineteen in Midoriya’s class. Oh, my God, they could completely take over the final. Well, theoretically… they might not get all the spots, but if they, for the first time in history, could have the villains as the victors…

…the world would have to listen.

Sure, they can boo and hiss all they like. But they’ve never seen class 1-A work together before – with a leader who’s completely Quirkless. Wow just imagine if Midoriya got anywhere near the finals! Imagine if Midoriya could best… e-even one of the hero course students!

“Hey, are you even listening?!” Monoma called out, making Midoriya blink.

“No –”

In this moment, he heard the door to the dorm open.

“Ok, 18 – time’s up,” Mr Aizawa droned.

“Yeah…” Midoriya replied, almost in a daze as he yanked his shoes on and ran out of the door.

He noted how Mr Aizawa frowned at him and lagged behind, maybe glancing at class B to ask what the hell was going on.

By the time Mr Aizawa reached the door to Height’s Alliance, Midoriya had been pacing back and forth on the doorstep, muttering to himself, for at least two minutes.

Mr Aizawa gave him a weird look as he unlocked the door and let him inside, passing his almost-forgotten blazer to him in the process. The hero asked no questions and only shook his head as he locked the door again.

“Hey, Midoriya,” Tsu croaked as he came into view. They’d been playing cards in his absence. “How was class B, ribbit?”

“I have an idea,” Midoriya breathed, ignoring her question completely.

At the word idea, everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to him, seemingly already completely on board.

“…What kind of idea?” Shoto asked hesitantly.

Midoriya laughed, “A slightly crazy one.”

“All your ideas are crazy, Midoriya,” Tsu pointed out blankly.

“Yes, but this is a different kind of crazy,” he insisted with a wide smile.

Uraraka giggled, “Are you going to tell us or not?!”

With one final glance at the expressions on the faces of his classmates, Midoriya unveiled the next step in their plan to escape class 1-A.

“We’re going to win the Sports Festival!”

Remember back before the USJ, when Midoriya finally realised why he had been put in class 1-A? He found himself with… a new confidence. A new drive. Ammunition to load and fire at the heroes, but he was completely clueless as to where he’d shoot it.

Rather ironic, considering he was later shot.

Well, with a giddy excitement for something he’d been dreading, Midoriya was walking with that confidence again – head held high, smile wide. It was this, matched with the red and gold bands on his blazer, that made people part for him in the corridors when he happily marched towards detention a few days later, which, for once, would not be with class B. But he wouldn’t have cared either way.

There was power in his powerlessness – and it was the power to change the world.

His classmates were doubtful. Even more so than they had been with the escape plan, which was rather backwards, come to think of it. It had been easier to convince them to be vigilantes, than heroes.

Midoriya knew where to fire his gun and it was not going to be an easy feat. But he just couldn’t see his life going any other way. He had never been able to. Midoriya wanted to be a hero, and for the first time, he actually had a way to get there. He just… needed everyone else to feel this confidence too.

And then came this specific hour of detention.

“Everyone meet class 1-A’s representative,” called out Mr Power Loader, the teacher for the support course. The first years froze and stared at him, shrinking away from his sly smile and toxic green gaze. “He has detention with us and will help test out any prototypes you have.”

No response.

Power Loader sighed, “Anyone?”

There was a clatter and a bang from the back of the room, and a girl on roller skates came skidding into view, “Oh, me, me, me!” she cried as she failed to stop and crashed into a table. She was completely unphased and raised her hand in the air, reaching as high as she could, “Pick me!”

Her teacher seemed unsure and this gave Midoriya some wonderful reassurance. “Just… don’t –”

“We won’t!” she exclaimed, rolling to Midoriya’s side and grabbing his hand, “Come on! You’ve gotta meet my lab partner! We’ve got loads of stuff to try out and my Quirk can only help with so much!”

She wasn’t going anywhere because Midoriya was standing still and she was running on the spot, on wheels.

“Err… ok?” Midoriya frowned and slowly started to walk forwards, letting her lead him through the vast lab. He couldn’t help but gaze around at the wonderful inventions and works in progress that lay on tables, as nervous students prodded and pocked at them, shuffling their chairs away from Midoriya and his kidnapper as they passed.

“MEI!” the roller skate girl cried. “We have a class A detention-ee!”

Another girl pushed a pair of goggles out of her face, leaving behind ringed, black marks around her eyes. It looked like she’d faced an explosion head on. Pushing pink dreadlocks out of the way, this Mei positively beamed at Midoriya.

“Hello, test subject!” she exclaimed with equal enthusiasm to her lab partner. “Tell me, on a scale of one to ten, how fireproof are you?!”

Midoriya blinked at her, “…One.”

And that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Midoriya would have stayed with the support course students for longer if he were allowed.

For the first half hour, after they’d had their fun making rocket-powered-roller-skates (which were Midoriya’s idea), and still ignoring the sideways glances from the more sane members of class 1-D, Midoriya found himself in the middle of some kind of interrogation.

“Ok, test subject!” the girl with the pink dreadlocks exclaimed. “We’ve got a lot of work to do and very little time to do it! So, we need you to help us test our amazing creations!”

“As long as I can help make some stuff too,” Midoriya grinned, gazing at the wonderful place he’d stumbled upon.

The blonde girl gasped loudly. Midoriya looked to her, expecting her to say something. Instead, she help up a hand to pause the conversation, slurping something that looked like milk from a bright red cup, loudly, with a straw. When she’d finished and cleared her throat, she continued as though nothing had happened, “You gonna transfer to the support class after class A?!”

“Um…” Midoriya replied unsurely, “I-I don’t really know? It’s not like I’m on the route to graduating any time soon…”

“Well, if you do, you won’t repeat this year, will you?!”

“I really haven’t thought that far!”

She put her cup down and rested her hands on his shoulders, “Well, you can’t!”

He blinked at her, “Um, why not?”

“Because you’re our new lab partner!”

“I am?”

“Yes!”

The other girl – Mei – was a little busier with her inventions. “Test subject!” she boomed, “Smoke bombs!”

A small, grey orb was immediately thrown at his face. Midoriya panicked and juggled with it for a few moments before finally managing to catch it.

“How hard is it to activate?!” Mei asked him, not even looking over her shoulder.

“Err….”

“Meanwhile! Let’s keep looking at the hover boots!”

And so the two of them skidded to the other side of their workbench on wheelie chairs and Midoriya was left to test the durability of a smoke bomb.

He glanced down at it for a moment, and then just dropped it on the floor. It bounced and rolled pitifully to his feet. Picking it up again, he glanced around and noticed a worn and torn target, hanging up on the wall. Picturing Kacchan’s face, he lobbed the smoke bomb as hard as he could.

It missed the target, ricocheted off the wall, and with a crash and a clutter, landed amongst the girls’ work bench.

It did not explode.

– Until Mei pocked it with a screwdriver.

Coughing and spluttering, Midoriya apologised the best he could and wandered over to them, waiting for the smoke, which seemed more like fine, grey powder, to disperse.

“Hey, is this stuff ok to inhale?” he wheezed.

“We’ll find out later!” Mei beamed – which was a little worrying.

“Y-You should make the casing a little easier to shatter. It’s too… rubbery,” Midoriya acknowledged, spying the plastic casing on the floor. “Also maybe something… biodegradable? Or err, photodegradable? Put them all in a black case when out of use so they don’t accidentally go off…”

“Ooh – he knows stuff,” the blonde girl murmured.

“Hm, well maybe we’ll ditch the smoke bombs!” Nearly everything that came out of Mei’s mouth seemed to end with an exclamation point. “Not enough time! Not enough hands – ooh, maybe we should make more hands!”

“Um, hello?” Midoriya waved at them.

They turned and stared at him for a moment.

“Aren’t I more hands?” he pointed out.

“GOOD POINT!” Mei yelled. She’d give Present Mic a run for his money and she didn’t even seem to have a voice Quirk.

“But won’t the smoke block up the cameras?” said the blonde one.

Right, names were needed.

Midoriya tried to interject, “Um, what are your –”

“True! But they still may come in useful!”

“But what if we can’t show off our brilliant gadgets! Your babies!”

This was going nowhere.

“Ah! I can’t choose between them!”

“What about the hover boots?”

“OK, YOU CONVINCED ME – LET’S WORK ON THE HOVER BOOTS!”

Midoriya just blinked at this interaction, sat down, and just watched them work. He shook his hair a few times in a feeble attempt to brush away the smoke bomb remnants – an effort in vein. He was painstakingly aware that this was what Shoto felt like whilst he and Yaoyorozu tinkered with the brick phones.

“Look, we can’t have a wire to the activation button!” Mei groaned. “Or between each boot or the jetpack! I require wire-less! Less wires!”

“Ok!” the other clapped enthusiastically. She continued grinning stupidly whilst staring at the wires weaving a cobweb between their inventions. “How do we do that?!”

Midoriya cleared his throat, “It shouldn’t be that hard.”

The girls seemed to remember he existed, and both whirled around to stare at him and wait for an explanation.

“U-Um… You want all the mechanisms to work in sync, right? But you might also want to be able to adjust the thrust on either boot to change direction… You could almost connect it to a game controller – a simple one. You’d just need a few lines of code and –”

“Wanna try?!” not-Mei yelled right in his face, leaning forwards so she was a millimetre from his nose.

“W-Well, I, err,” Midoriya stammered, “I’m not one hundred percent sure on it… I know this is p-pretty simple but it’s j-just not something I’ve attempted before, and I don’t want to get it wrong…”

“I can figure it out!” Mei concluded. “We haven’t learnt much coding yet but give me half an hour and I’ll know more than we need to anyway!”

The other girl glanced smugly at Midoriya, “Yeah… but this’ll save time – Wanna look it up?” and she dangled her phone in the small space between them, letting it swing back and forth like a pendulum.

Midoriya wasn’t allowed on the internet. He hadn’t even come this close to a device which could reach such a thing – if stealing Mineta’s didn’t count.

And that toothy grin of hers suggested that she knew this little detail too.

Activating a finger-print password, she dropped her phone into his hands.

“Toga.”

The girl flinched dramatically, yelped, and fell off her chair.

After clocking what had just happened, she jumped back to her feet, brushing grey-black dust from her knees and exclaiming, “Mr Aizawa! What are you doing here…?”

“Midoriya, you know you’re not allowed to use that,” his exhausted looking teacher reminded him.

Midoriya grinned sheepishly and slid the phone onto the workbench beside him.

“And Toga, you know class A isn’t allowed internet access,” Mr Aizawa sighed.

“He was just looking something up for us…”

“W-Wait,” Midoriya frowned, “how do you –”

Toga rolled her eyes, “Oh, I was in class 1-A last year.”

He stared, “You were?!”

“I was Mr Aizawa’s favourite student!”

Mr Aizawa did not seem to agree.

“Toga was the last to graduate from her class,” he droned. “It took her a month longer than everyone else.”

“Tricky Quirk!” she added, now skipping across the lab towards a mini fridge hidden away in the corner.

“And you… transferred to the support course? Wait – but this is a first-year class!” Midoriya was so confused.

“Yeah,” she scoffed, refilling that cup from earlier with, err, coconut milk? “I retook a year – like you’re not gonna do!”

Midoriya slowly turned back to Mr Aizawa, wondering if he was having any flashbacks to a month alone trying to teach Toga. Midoriya had now spent an hour with her and could see how –

“Wait, it’s already been an hour?” Midoriya realised.

Toga kicked the fridge shut with her foot. “We still need our test subject,” she said in an alarmingly menacing tone.

“He’ll be back tomorrow,” Mr Aizawa promised, and Midoriya now knew it was indeed possible to look forwards to detention.

“We are wasting time!” Mei interrupted with a yell. “We have two weeks until the Sports Festival, Himiko! TWO WEEKS!”

Mr Aizawa was trying to get him to leave, but Midoriya was a little more interested in, “The Sports Festival?”

“To show off our babies!”

Midoriya had so many questions.

“If you’re not on the hero course, you can bring as many support items as you want into the festival!” Toga explained, taking breaks every couple of words to slurp loudly on her drink. “It’s to even the playing field!”

Five minutes later, Midoriya slammed the door open to class A’s dorm, let Mr Aizawa lock it behind him, and stomped into the common room.

They stared at him.

“Um… you ok, man?” Kirishima asked nervously.

“You look like you were set on fire,” added Tsu.

“I was,” Midoriya replied blatantly. “Oh, and I have another idea.”

Jiro rolled her eyes, “Here we go.”

“Is it better than winning the Sports Festival?” Sero scoffed.

“Yes and no,” Midoriya grinned, pulling the plug out for the TV and ignoring the cries of misery from his classmates. “Because we’re still going to win the Sports Festival.”

“We can’t!” Mina yelled, distraught about her game (they’d only just been given their console back).

“You said it yourself! The whole world will be rooting against us!” Kaminari recalled, also more upset about their video game than the matter at hand.

Midoriya tossed the wire to the TV onto the floor. “Screw the world!” he cried with such confidence that he even he surprised himself.

They all stared at him.

“Who are you and what have you done with our class president?” said Hagakure in full sincerity.

“I mean, it’s super cool that you’re so excited and all…” Uraraka murmured, cupping her hands around a warm cup of tea, raising her pinkie fingers either side so she didn’t make it float, “but um… why would we want to win the Sports Festival?”

“Because Monoma would be really annoyed about it?” Jiro sniggered, now lying upside down on the sofa.

“Because class A has never won the first year Sports Festival!” Midoriya explained, waving his hands about animatedly. “And if we work together as a team to wipe out class B, they can’t ignore us anymore!”

Mina raised her hand, “Um, isn’t that a bad thing?”

“J-Just hear me out! You remember what Mr Aizawa said after the escape plan failed – he said we could be heroes – all of us! Winning the Sports Festival is the first step! Don’t you want that?!”

Midoriya didn’t know what he expected. But… maybe a little more enthusiasm would have been a good start.

“O-Ok, I get it…” he sighed, dropping his hands to his sides. “Being a hero to us is… well, it’s probably not the kind of thing most of us expected out of life. But I-I thought we were all in on the vigilante idea! Heroes are the same just… legal.”

“I’m afraid you’re contradicting yourself,” Yaoyorozu acknowledged, sitting down beside Jiro.

“I-I know. But I’ve been thinking –”

A few people scoffed at that.

“–and just… imagine if sometime in the distant future, we were all heroes. And… what if we just continued to do what we would have done anyway, had we gotten out of UA successfully? Who could stop us?! And if they took our licences away, then we’d just be vigilantes! It would all go in a full circle!”

That seemed to perk up some more interest.

“Besides, we’d have so much more training – we’d be so much better! How could anyone stop us?! Class B couldn’t! And we could use the Sports Festival to prove this! We can say to the world that – um – well, we’re going to be heroes, and if you don’t let us be, then we’ll do it illegally, and there’s nothing you can do about it! We could change the way the world looks at heroics; we could really help people like us! W-We could even end up abolishing the class A system, once and for all! We could force the world to re-think, make them treat us like real human beings and make something better!”

“…I suppose it can’t hurt to try, ribbit,” Tsu realised.

“Exactly!” Midoriya beamed. “Either we face the Sports Festival head on, or we just drag our feet through it like everyone has before us. I-I don’t know about you, but I think I know which I’d rather do.”

“A-And if we fail?” Uraraka questioned. “Wouldn’t we just be… j-just a big joke?”

“No,” Midoriya insisted with sheer cold determination. “And we won’t fail – because we have the advantage!”

“Oh, yeah?” said Sero, leaning back against the side of the sofa, his game controller still hanging from his fingertips, “and what’s that?”

Midoriya grinned – a grin worthy of both Toga and Mei combined – a grin which made all the others smile too, already knowing that the hero course didn’t stand a chance.

“We can use support items,” said Midoriya. “But the hero course can’t.

“And lucky for us – I have an ex-class-A friend in the support course who might just be willing to help us out…”

Chapter Text

“WINDOWS!” Mina cried with sheer bliss, falling to her knees as the morning sun poured in through the shiny glass panes.

“Cameras,” Shoto muttered to Midoriya, nodding towards the visible additions above each window on the outside wall.

Midoriya nodded. Holding a cup of tea from Yaoyorozu, he wandered towards the window they’d escaped from a few days prior. Class B could see them from out there. He had to remember that.

It was Friday. Usually, they would have maths first, followed by a session of PE in which Mr Aizawa would essentially punish them for their mortal existence. However, it was bound to be twice as bad today because they were skipping maths in exchange for a double dosage of PE. And even worse –

“Class B will be joining us,” Mr Aizawa announced.

This was met by a chorus of disappointed groans.

They were already in their PE kits and gathered in the common room, waiting to be escorted to their lesson.

Mr Aizawa was early. He took the register quickly right then and there and led them out to the same green where they’d had their Quirk assessment test at the beginning of term. Class A lined up without being told. Their teacher stood before them with his arms folded behind his back.

“Class B will be arriving halfway through,” he explained. “Before then, I want to know what you’d like to do.”

Class A blinked back at him in confusion.

“Including myself there are twenty people here with a vast array of skills and talents that we could all learn a thing or two from. I know that 5 and 6 taught some basic martial arts to a few of you. So, let me ask you again, what would you like to do?”

After a moment, Uraraka nervously cleared her throat, “Um, I’m happy to teach a few more people if they want…”

“I don’t mind helping too,” added Ojiro, much to Uraraka’s obvious relief.

“Toru has some cool moves I want to see!” Mina exclaimed, leaning forwards to grin at Hagakure down the other end of the line.

“Um, I can try,” said the invisible girl.

Mr Aizawa nodded, “Are there any other skills anyone wishes to start at whilst we have the time?”

Everyone seemed unsure, but a few more ideas were suggested, such as some individual Quirk practise and even parkour.

When the lesson began, with most of the class gathering around the more talented vigilantes for some supervised martial arts lessons, Midoriya found himself being pulled away from Shoto’s side. He glanced around to see Yaoyorozu, with an excitable look in her eyes.

“I asked Mr Aizawa,” she began, in that slightly nervous tone of hers whenever she’s about to suggest something or ask a strange question, “and… well, I was wondering if you’d want to practise fencing with me?”

“Fencing?” Midoriya frowned for a moment, before his eyes quickly widened in realisation, “You can teach me how to sword fight?!”

She smiled and nodded, “I-I used to be quite good at fencing – which was why I chose to make a sword at the USJ. And I-I know you quite liked the idea, so I thought –” she took off her PE jacket, so her arms were bear. She wore a red vest underneath, as though she’d been prepared to use her Quirk against class B today. She crossed her arms for a moment, and from each arm, pulled two, blunt, identical swords. She handed one to Midoriya, who took it with a giddy smile on his face.

They stepped a little further away from the others, standing just to the side of the long-jump sand pit.

Yaoyorozu took a fighting pose, which Midoriya did his best to copy. “Ok,” she began, “your aim is always going to be to disarm – whether that is by knocking your opponent’s blade away or forcing them to give it up. Try now – let’s see what your starting level is.”

Knowing this would result in disaster, Midoriya charged forwards. He tried to knock the sword from her grip, but before he even knew what was happening, his weapon was on the floor and the point of her blade against his neck.

“Good!” she beamed.

“Err…” Midoriya replied whilst she lowered her sword and bent down to retrieve his, “But I couldn’t even get close.”

She ignored him, passing the sword back. “You tried to knock the sword from my hand, but you aimed in the wrong place. Ok, maybe you’re not looking at this quite right. You need to be in control – of your weapon, and mine. If my blade is moving away from you, you’re moving towards me – if I’m moving towards you, you need to parry.”

“Ok… um, what’s parrying?”

“Deflecting.”

“O-Oh, ok.”

“You’re also swinging too wide and in the wrong direction. Movements must be quick and short in most cases, and since you’re right-handed, moving from left to right. Try again!”

The exact same thing happened.

“Always defend with the middle of your sword! You attack with the point or the last few inches of the cutting edge – um, that edge, this sword is blunt, sorry. Again!

“No, always keep the sword in front of you!

“Hit the blows away – don’t try to absorb them!

“You have to move forwards towards the attacker – even if it’s hard!

“Never let your opponent get behind you!

“Deflect the blow to the side to knock them off balance!”

They were at this for the subsequent hour. Yaoyorozu was clearly more skilful, but Midoriya continued to surprise her with his quick progress. They caught the eyes of their other classmates, who struggled more and more to focus on their own projects.

Until, finally, Midoriya knew just enough to be a real threat. Sure, he didn’t have the practise nor experience that Yaoyorozu seemed to display, but even she wasn’t an expert.

The point is, by the time class B trudged into view, Midoriya was certainly more dangerous than just any madman holding a sharp stick would be.

Midoriya lunged forwards and Yaoyorozu knocked his blade to the side. He jumped to the right, swerved and sliced. She met the swinging blade in the middle with her own, pushing it aside to deflect. Midoriya knew she’d attack immediately, expecting him to block, so he did the opposite and attacked again, stepping into a blow that would have cut off the end of Yaoyorozu’s swishing ponytail, had the blades been sharp.

In surprise, she took a step back, and with a movement that Uraraka had taught in a fleeting moment once before, Midoriya twisted his ankle around Yaoyorozu’s own, knocking her off balance.

Realising she would fall; Yaoyorozu shifted her blade to protect her chest. But Midoriya knew that the shock of meeting the ground would weaken her hold. So, after a picture-perfect copy of the first disarming move Yaoyorozu had used against him, Yaoyorozu saw her sword land like a javelin in the sand beside them, and Midoriya’s blade point right between her eyes.

“Yay! Go, Midori!” Uraraka whooped and clapped, alongside a few others.

As Midoriya helped the taller girl to her feet, the two realised that their last spar had been watched by not only their entire class, but all of class B as well.

“Ok, fall in,” Mr Aizawa droned, ignoring the shocked looks upon class B’s faces.

Midoriya kept his sword with him and Yaoyorozu retrieved hers from the long jump pit. They all lined up before class B.

“That was pretty cool, Midoriya,” Honenuki grinned.

“Thanks!” he replied with a smile, “But Yaoyorozu’s better than me. I’m probably at one win out of fifty-three…”

“Err, since when is sword fighting on the PE curriculum?” asked Tsuburaba cautiously, eyeing up the sword Midoriya was leaning against.

“Since I was asked,” Mr Aizawa replied simply. Midoriya was growing more and more glad to have him as their teacher as the days passed.

Then Midoriya heard something very interesting.

“What are you playing at?” Vlad King grumbled to Mr Aizawa quietly.

He only grinned and stepped away from his co-worker. “Cast your eyes behind you,” he addressed the two classes.

Midoriya turned around to see a large section of the green, incorporating some of the surrounding trees, coned off, and split down the middle with a straight, central line. In each half, were three hoops. The two hoops further away from the middle, had a coloured flag in each – only a small one, about the same size as someone’s shirt.

“We will be playing capture the flag,” Mr Aizawa explained. “Class A, verses class B.”

A few grinned at the concept and started whispering excitably to each other. Midoriya was just trying to get his head around what the rules could be before Mr Aizawa even told them.

“If you’re on your team’s side, or in one of the two hoops, further back, you are safe, and can’t be caught,” he continued. “If you are on the other team’s side, and not in the hoops, the other team can tag you, and send you to the temporary jail – the central, yellow hoop. You can only be freed by one of your team members tagging you.

“The task is to get all four flags onto your side and into your safe zones – the hoops. You cannot throw the flags. You cannot stand on your side, holding the flags; they must go straight to the safe zones. If you have been caught, you can’t leave until tagged by a free member of your team, and you cannot resist arrest. It is mine and Vlad’s call as to whether someone was tagged or not. Don’t try and argue with us.”

Mr Vlad stepped in, “A few more rules to keep things fair. Setsuna, you can’t tag anyone unless you are whole, and you can’t move any flags, unless you are whole.”

She groaned loudly and rolled her eyes.

Midoriya had seen her use her Quirk once whist he was in detention – and it was quite amazing. She could split herself up into little pieces and control the separate parts. It was a little freaky, but had to have been one of his favourite abilities in class B.

“No one is allowed to tamper with the safe zones,” added Mr Aizawa. “No trapping people in them with Quirks or moving the hoops.”

“No hurting anyone,” Vlad King snapped, whilst glaring at class A.

Midoriya thought class B needed that lesson a little more, considering they were the ones who attacked them when they tried to escape.

“No leaving the boundaries,” Mr Aizawa added, his voice suddenly a little sharper after Vlad’s addition. “Or moving the boundaries – or making it difficult to cross onto the other side or into the safe zones.”

They tried to cover as many loopholes as possible, knowing full well that class A would be exploiting anything they left behind.

“– And no just standing by the safe zones. I want you all to be moving around,” Mr Aizawa finally finished. It took them so long to list the rules that Midoriya wondered how much time they had left.

“Ok – class A over there, and class B over here,” said Vlad King. “You have two minutes to talk it out, starting now.”

“Oh, this looks fun!” Uraraka clapped her hands excitedly as they wandered over to their designated side.

Midoriya gave Mr Aizawa a sideways glance when Yaoyorozu left her sword outside the boundaries. Mr Aizawa simply stared back at him whilst Midoriya kept his own, blunt blade, and took it into the game. Midoriya just grinned.

“You losers follow my lead!” Kacchan barked, and then, in a slightly more hushed voice, “We rush them, they can’t take freaking all of us at once.”

“There’s more of them than there are us,” Midoriya pointed out, which earnt him a scowl and a silent threat from Kacchan. Midoriya was well past caring.

“You’re right,” Iida nodded. “We are at a disadvantage.”

“Well, that just means that we can use that as an excuse when we lose,” Kaminari sighed.

“But they have more trees on their side…” Midoriya pointed out, nodding towards them. “That’s more places for us to hide. Why don’t we send… team blue and yellow to rush, and team red takes the cover of the trees to quietly make their way to the safe zones in the distraction. The rest of us can stay behind to defend.”

“One of the flags is more out in the open than the other,” Yaoyorozu acknowledged, referring to the safe point further from the trees. “The distraction team could head for that one, and Iida could run in at the last minute with his added speed.”

Midoriya nodded, “Sounds like a good idea. This is only the first round – let’s see how it goes.”

“How many rounds are we doing?” Tsu asked curiously.

“As many as we can, I think,” Uraraka explained.

The two minutes had passed way quicker than Midoriya anticipated, or maybe Mr Vlad finished the timer as soon as class B seemed ready. He was definitely biased.

“You have ten seconds until the game begins,” Mr Aizawa announced.

Class A took their positions whilst class B did the same. Iida and Hagakure made sure to lag back initially, so it didn’t look like they would run across the line as soon as it started.

“– two, one, and begin,” their teacher droned, and all hell broke loose.

Midoriya had to give it to him, Kacchan was good at making a scene. He set off an explosion the second he could, sending a veil of smoke across the pitch that Iida and Hagakure used to sneak off into class B’s territory.

Kacchan was yelling about the hero course’s inferiority to him whilst he and the rest of the attack teams ran around class B’s side, letting most of them run in circles.

But they weren’t the only ones who used the smoke as a cover, and class B soon rushed their side too.

It was an exercise of dodging and evading. Very few risked attacking the other team since a simple touch would result in having to go to their jail. Uraraka was the first to get stuck in said position, so she just started loudly informing the rest of class A of class B’s movements. There was no way they could sneak up and take their flags when she was at this.

Midoriya was inevitably targeted quite early on. Kacchan found this very annoying, since Midoriya wasn’t actually doing anything for once.

Well, he was up to something. It just had nothing to do with the game. Midoriya finally had the chance to get to know class B’s Quirks a little better, beyond what he’d seen in fleeting moments during detention. He had started writing data on class B in his notebook, and was planning on using this information for the Sports Festival. Midoriya stood back, rarely engaged, and simply observed.

A few members of class B noticed this, and immediately decided that he was up to something. It visibly worried them when he simply allowed himself to be captured, sat down in the small hoop beside Uraraka, and continued to do exactly what he was doing before, now sharpening his sword with a small piece of equipment Yaoyorozu had tossed to him a few minutes prior.

“Um, can you err… not?” questioned the American exchange student with the horns, named Pony.

Midoriya just looked at her and continued to sharpen the weapon with a satisfying ringing noise.

“It is a little bit menacing, Midori,” Uraraka chuckled. She was floating above him, trying to practise her Quirk so she didn’t get as nauseous.

“That’s what I’m going for,” he grinned back.

This was the moment when, with a whoosh and a gust of wind, Iida suddenly stood in one of class A’s safe spots, holding both of class B’s flags.

“Class A wins,” Mr Aizawa cracked a grin similar to Midoriya’s.

“Wait, what?!” exclaimed Tsuburaba, who had been standing in class A’s other safe spot for at least five minutes now.

“You know Iida’s been on your side of the pitch since the beginning, right?” Tsu pointed out, passing Tsuburaba a couple of flags and starting to push him back to the other side.

The next round was never going to be as easy. In the few minutes they had available to plan, Midoriya approached his team with a new idea, but before he could say a word, Kacchan put a hand up to his face.

“You didn’t do a freaking thing last round,” he hissed. “It was my plan that worked, so back the hell off.”

“No need to be so aggressive, man,” Kirishima interjected.

“It was Midoriya’s idea for Iida to go after the flags, ribbit,” Tsu acknowledged.

“It was my idea to rush them!” Kacchan snapped. He jabbed Midoriya harshly in the chest, knocking him back a little, “Just because you’re the teacher’s freaking pet, doesn’t mean you get to order me around, Deku.”

Midoriya glared at him. “So, you have a plan?”

“We rush them again – and you’re gonna pull your weight.”

Midoriya turned to the rest of class A and ignored him. Without bothering to keep his voice down, he said, “You know team purple’s motive?”

They nodded, glancing at Kacchan unsurely.

“Ok that, with the mindset of a vigilante.”

Distractions and rule bending – find the loopholes in the rules and take advantage of them.

Jiro sighed, “Where’s a good musical backing track when you need one?”

Kacchan looked ready to strangle him. Soon enough, he wasn’t the only one.

When Uraraka ran and managed to get both of class B’s flags, leapt high into the air, and was pulled back down to Earth by Sero, class B was mildly irritated.

When Yaoyorozu made decoy flags to confuse the other team, they started to insist new rules were added.

By the time several birds swooped down to get the flags for Koda, Midoriya was on the floor laughing in class B’s jail.

“It’s not fair, Sir!” yelled Shishida from class B. “We are sticking to the rules and they are bending them!”

“Then we’ll have to give them a taste of their own medicine,” Monoma leered, and Midoriya realised they were in trouble, until –

“No,” Mr Aizawa snapped, confusing everyone who heard him, including Vlad King. “The heroes must always stick to the rules. You have a strict set of guidelines to follow, and are expected to come out on top, regardless. The villains don’t have such restrictions. If you can’t beat a team, one member down compared to yours, without bending the rules, then you’re not strong enough.”

Monoma gritted his teeth, usually dull eyes alight with his frustration.

Vlad King didn’t seem so happy either but didn’t argue with Mr Aizawa.

Midoriya simply stood up and grinned, resting his unused sword over his shoulder and waltzing back to class A’s side. They were well in the lead, having won every round so far, and Midoriya had yet to lift a finger to help.

Kacchan wasn’t pleased.

“We’re two members down,” he hissed once Midoriya was in earshot, “since someone isn’t putting any FREAKING EFFORT IN!”

“Yeah, come on, Shoto,” Midoriya replied with zero hesitation.

Shoto had been longing up against a tree trunk for the last hour. Hardly anyone had even noticed his lack of participation.

Midoriya could hear Kacchan’s anger building. Oh, he’d never enjoyed it so much before.

For the next game, class B was more determined to win.

Midoriya sat down next to Shoto just to irritate Kacchan that bit more. They watched Tsu hop through the trees, unseen, and steal the flags with her sticky tongue before anyone noticed. She sat down in class A’s safe zone with all four flags for a good three minutes before class B realised the round was over.

But the game after that proved to be a little more challenging. Midoriya was enjoying watching class B’s learning curve, painfully aware that they were learning as much about class A’s Quirks, as he was learning about theirs. They lost that round, and no one even bothered capturing him and Shoto. In fact, they completely ignored him.

This, of course, was Midoriya’s plan. Once class B started to ignore him, he’d sneak around the back and take the flags whilst everyone thought he was no longer an important player.

He left it one more round to make sure, where class B gained a very narrow victory. But despite class A still being miles ahead in terms of rounds won, Kacchan was still furious. As per usual, he was placing the failures on Midoriya’s head.

He hoisted him to his feet by the front of his shirt, “Are you actually going to freaking HELP?!” he spat in his face.

Shoto stood up to step in, but one look at Midoriya and he realised this wasn’t necessary.

Midoriya winkled his nose and prodded Kacchan’s chest with the slightly sharper sword, “What? You need my help?” he grinned.

He could feel Kacchan’s hand growing hotter. Midoriya just smiled wider, daring him to make a move in front of the teachers and the classmates whose trust he had barely secured.

Kacchan released him with a push, but Midoriya barely stumbled.

“Besides,” Midoriya said rolling his eyes. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but class B has stopped paying any attention to me and Shoto. I wanted to make sure we win the final round. But, fine, I’ll do it now. We need every advantage we can get now that they’ve got used to our Quirks.”

“Our Quirks,” Kacchan made sure to hiss.

Midoriya gave him a look, “Yes, thank you for pointing out the obvious, Kacchan – really appreciated.”

He turned around and walked away, gesturing Shoto to follow him and sit down by their tree again – this time, a little more behind it and out of sight. He could hear Kacchan’s frustrated growl, and the pop and crackle of his Quirk that he cupped in his hands. Kirishima told him to calm down, which made things worse.

Midoriya was enjoying this way too much.

When the match began, Midoriya let the two teams tussle for power for a while, before getting up, stretching, and walking right across the pitch in plain sight. He weaved through the trees, took the flags off Sero and Ojiro, who were sitting in the two separate save zones on class B’s side, and walked right down the middle to return to class A.

He ducked under Kamakiri’s outstretched arm whilst he yelled at Kacchan, making sure to wave the flags in his face whilst he wandered slowly across the middle line. Everyone just stopped and stared whilst he walked the rest of the way to the nearest safe zone and sat down, cross legged inside the circle.

“Class A wins,” Mr Aizawa grinned, breaking the shocked silence. “Give the flags back, Midoriya.”

Almost skipping because his real name had just been used, Midoriya hummed along to a tune in his head as he gave the two flags back to Kendo, who was closest.

“How did we not see him?” Setsuna almost laughed.

“Kacchan was too busy being loud,” Midoriya yawned, passing him by whilst thinking of retiring under the tree again for the few remaining games.

This was when Kacchan swung out and hit him square in the head.

Midoriya dropped his sword in surprise, reaching up to his jaw as he fell to the ground beside the weapon. He hit his head on the floor harshly and looked up just in time to see a fiery red hand outstretched before him, ready to send a painful blast in his direction.

He curled in on himself, action upon instinct, eyes tight shut.

Seconds passed and the blow never came, he dared to open his eyes and saw that the hand was still there, only held back by the confines of Mr Aizawa’s scarf.

“You make me use my Quirk despite my injuries,” their teacher hissed, more venom in his voice than Midoriya had ever heard before.

Midoriya crawled back. He felt a hand reach out to him and pull on his arm, urging him to his feet – it was Iida, who’d reached him first.

“Bakugo!” he cried whilst helping Midoriya up. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

Mr Aizawa yanked his scarf away from Bakugo. It was a relief that his hands had been freed from the cast and sling they’d been in since the USJ. Although he remained bandaged up like an Egyptian mummy, the change meant that he could actually maneuverer his capture weapon.

Kacchan didn’t say a word, only breathing heavily, fists balled tight and shaking at his sides.

Midoriya reached up to the side of his face. Other than the shock and some inevitable bruising, the pain didn’t seem to be a result of his jaw being broken or dislocated or anything like that…

“Iida take Midoriya to Recovery Girl,” Mr Aizawa insisted as he hurried over. He rested his hand on Kacchan’s shoulder, gripping it firmly, “17, we’re going to the Principal’s office.”

Iida only nodded in reply and began to steer Midoriya off the green. Midoriya was just so shocked by what had happened… he was in a daze, head spinning, pain reverberating in his skull.

“Are you ok?” Iida asked him more than once.

When Midoriya finally responded, it was only with a nod, an action which made the whole world spin. He had to stop when that happened – he felt like he was going to be sick.

Iida said some encouraging words that Midoriya didn’t process, and soon enough they were at Recovery Girl’s.

“Oh, dear,” she said when Iida knocked and opened the door. “What happened?”

“Bakugo punched him,” Iida replied. “It was the right side of his face, around his jawline – perhaps around his scar?”

“Sit down, sit down,” she insisted, and Midoriya did just that, still feeling… weird. “How do you feel?” she asked him. Midoriya didn’t reply, he just gripped the side of the chair he found himself in and blinked furiously. He felt like he was on a boat, swaying back and forth.

“Ok, ok,” she said, resting a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I think he may have hit a little higher than his jaw. Did he fall after being hit?”

“Um, yes – yes he did,” Iida replied, sitting down in the chair beside Midoriya.

“He might have landed on a rock or something hard,” Recovery Girl concluded, running her hands through his bushy hair to search for an injury – which she found almost immediately, judging by the blood on her gloved hands.

She gave him a kiss on the cheek to activate her healing Quirk, and immediately, Midoriya felt the confusion drain from his head – the world steadying like the boat had been docked.

He groaned, raising his hand to his forehead and dragging it down his face, “Ugh – what just happened to me…?”

“You have a concussion, dearie,” Recovery Girl answered, dropping a couple of gummies into his hand, which she forcefully outstretched for him. He tossed them into his mouth like tablets and almost forgot to chew.

“Bakugo punched you,” Iida said, as though he didn’t quite believe it. “I’m not even sure what you did to antagonise him…”

“My existence antagonises him,” Midoriya moaned, now trying to feel for the injury on his head. He found a damp patch of hair where the blood had come from but felt no wound. Recovery Girl’s Quirk really was amazing.

The hero sighed deeply, rooting through his hair to double check no cut remained, “Midoriya, I have seen you far too many times this term. I hope you know that your mother knows about all this.”

He inhaled sharply, “S-She does?”

“Of course, she does. She must be awfully worried about you – but I think a lot of your friends are too.”

Iida nodded insistently, “Bakugo seems rather unhinged around you, Midoriya. I can’t help but be worried for your safety! He has an enormously powerful Quirk and you seem to do little to protect yourself!”

“But there’s nothing I can do!” Midoriya replied. “I-I don’t have any power of my own – no real power! Nothing to defend myself with a-against explosions! And I-I got too confident! I thought he was past that – that he wouldn’t lash out like that in front of everyone!”

“He hasn’t hurt you before, has he?” Iida breathed.

“Of course, he has! Why do you think I went through so much effort to get him into class A?! He’s a bully he tormented me – made fun of me – beat me up – suicide baited me! A-And I knew he’d get into class B, so I made sure I had enough evidence against him and went to the police! That’s why he’s in this class – I thought that was obvious…”

Iida was silent for a moment. “He… But he hasn’t hurt you at UA, right?”

Midoriya didn’t reply, unconsciously reaching to his left shoulder.

“…Midoriya?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But…” Iida sighed, resting a hand on Midoriya’s good arm, “Ok, but I won’t be letting this continue. You’re the class president, and I’m your vice – and your friend.”

Midoriya nodded blankly, “…Thanks.”

The only good thing that came out of Midoriya’s unplanned visit to Recovery Girl, was the knowledge that his shoulder was finally on the mend. She’d let him participate in PE in an attempt to get him to move it around a bit more (that ended well), but was now finally happy to take the bandages off, which really only remained to supply some kind of support to the muscle. The feeling of his free shoulder reminded Midoriya of when he took off his tracker anklet before the failed escape.

But he was far from free, because that afternoon, after Kacchan never returned from his visit to the Principal’s office, Midoriya was called there too.

He had expected to end up here a while ago, possibly immediately after the escape plan went south, but for one reason or another, it never happened. Now, Midoriya stood before the large door to Principal Nezu’s office, swallowing a lump in his throat as he raised his fist to knock.

“Come in!” he heard a small voice call out before he even made contact with the door.

Trying to calm himself down, Midoriya turned the handle and stepped inside.

Kacchan wasn’t there.

“What a pleasure it is to finally meet you!” said the Principal of UA. “Please, sit down.”

Midoriya nervously made his way across the room and took the seat opposite to the small, mammalian Principal. He was famed for being obscenely smart, considering his possession of an intelligence Quirk. However, an inherent dislike of most humans, made him a rather terrifying being to face. Also, he’d just said it’s a pleasure to meet you, and Midoriya was a little scared about what Mr Aizawa might have been saying about him.

“How is your head?” was his first question.

“U-Um, good? Recovery Girl fixed it really quickly, I-I’m fine.”

“How about the shoulder? You were the sufferer of one of the greatest injuries sustained at the USJ, after all.”

“Yeah – it’s, err, it’s better than it has been. It just took a while to heal…”

“Well, I’m glad to hear it’s on the mends.”

Midoriya just nodded, trying not to meet the Principal’s gaze too much.

“Tea?”

He almost jumped, “Um, y-yes. Ok, um, thank you.”

The small animal clambered up onto the desk to pour Midoriya a cup and refill his own. With a sigh, he sat back down in his elevated chair and took a sip of his tea before continuing, “No need to be worried, Midoriya! You are not in any kind of trouble.”

“I’m… not?” he asked cautiously.

“Of course not!” Principal Nezu chuckled. “I’ve been hoping for an excuse to speak with you since the beginning of term. We have a lot to talk about.”

Midoriya blinked at him, holding his tea in his hands to not drink it, but to only absorb the warmth, “Um… we do?”

He nodded, “You are an incredibly unique addition to this year’s class A. In fact, I don’t think we’ve ever had someone quite like you before!”

Midoriya gazed at his reflection in his tea glumly, “You mean, Quirkless?”

To his surprise, the Principal laughed, “No, no – that is but another unexpected factor!”

He frowned, then what could he possibly –

“You are unique, because never before has someone been entered into class A, with no external recommendations or application letters,” Nezu smiled, resting his teacup on his desk.

Midoriya furrowed his brow even more, “Excuse me?”

“I am the one who put you in class A, Midoriya. No one else.”

His mouth fell agape, “But… why?”

“Oh, I think you know why,” he sighed, leaning back in his chair. “I have to say, you were first drawn to my radar through Katsuki Bakugo’s case. I accepted him as the seventeenth student and couldn’t help but read a little further into his files, specifically in search of the bright young boy who had done such damage to not only his tormentors, but the entire school that wronged him. I simply wanted to see what you had made of your life and where you were heading, maybe even to UA at one of our other departments – any one of them could suit you well.”

Midoriya put his own cup down whilst he listened to the story, in disbelief that he’d caught the attention of one of the most influential forces in Japan.

“Then I found out about that sludge villain incident,” Nezu explained. “I’ll spare you the details; I’m sure you know enough already. But to risk so much to save the life of your classmate, whom you later doomed to class A, well it showed such heroic potential – such selflessness. And I knew there was even more of a story behind all this, when I saw your retaliation against the heroes that were present, and your aggression towards even All Might.

“When I had the chance, I asked him personally about the matter, and he grudgingly admitted that he had saved this very same teenager from that sludge villain, only a few minutes prior; that he accidentally uncovered his weakness and the villain escaped. To think, despite everything that had happened, you still jumped in to save Bakugo.”

Midoriya was lost for words. Nezu spoke about all this so positively. Yet, he still insisted he joined class 1-A?

“I knew you had a lot of potential, Midoriya. You had the drive, determination and will to get what you wanted. Bakugo is in class A for no other reason than because you wanted him to be. Don’t think that I believe that Mineta left your class only because of your wish to help the heroes. I know that he left only because you wanted him to go. If you wanted him to stay, I’m well aware the police would never have found enough evidence nor reason to recommend his expulsion.”

Midoriya fiddled with his fingers nervously, “Y-You do?”

Another nod and soft smile. “Young Midoriya, do tell me, what do you think makes a villain dangerous?”

“U-Um… their… power – their reasons… err…”

“Their power? I’m surprised that’s the first thing you mentioned.”

“Well, all the biggest villains are powerful. You don’t hear about low level thugs being arrested on the street – but you do hear about the ones with the power to level skyscrapers.”

“True, very true. But I’m afraid you’re missing the point here. What kind of villain, is really feared by the heroes?”

Midoriya just found himself frowning again, eyes fixed on his tea, now going cold. “An… organised villain – that’s the real threat.”

Nezu’s smile grew a little wider, “Precisely. It’s not the thugs on the street, and not even those who can level skyscrapers. The danger truly resides in the person who can gather all those people together. No, good old supervillain from the movies, is a stand-alone figure. Often, the shadow that looms in the background of the title screen, is that of someone with little strength of their own – but someone who has the means and ideals to build something. They are a leader – a mastermind of operations. They are a promise that… defeating the villain who can level skyscrapers, is hardly the end. Midoriya, the most dangerous villains do not necessarily have power like All Might – they have power like me. They have power like you.”

“Like… me?”

“Like you. Look at myself – I have every reason to be a villain. Humans never treated me too well, as I am sure you know, after all, you are exactly the same. But no, I decided to be a hero, to teach the next generation to be better. Humans can be so naïve – they were all willing to let you carry on with life and struggle through. No one saw what I saw – the potential in you. All you needed was someone to lead.”

“…Class A,” Midoriya realised. “You knew I’d end up as class president?”

“Didn’t you?”

He hesitated. Perhaps… he did.

“The world is an ignorant place,” Nezu sighed, getting up onto the desk to pour himself more tea. “They ignored you because they thought the lack of a Quirk was the same as the lack of power. Such a backwards way of thinking. You are excluded for not having a Quirk in the same way as many are excluded for having too much of a Quirk, such as some of your classmates with heavier mutations. Humanity doesn’t understand that this diversity is what makes you all human. If that didn’t exist… oh, what a world it would be.”

He gazed thoughtfully out the window for a while, before shaking his head and turning back to Midoriya, “Sorry, I went on a bit of a tangent there, didn’t I? Now… what was I saying… ah, yes, class A. Your escape plan was an interesting move and was very nearly successful! I was impressed.”

Why was he complimenting him on trying to run away?

“Um, thanks?”

“You had everyone following your every instruction, even Bakugo! But it seems that he was holding back some insecurities and anger over the matter. Would you like him to be expelled?”

“What?!” Midoriya exclaimed, standing up, “No! You can’t!”

“Why not? He has assaulted you on numerous occasions,” Nezu said casually. “He doesn’t seem to be improving and left unchecked, will still make it onto the hero course. We can’t have a hero like that. Why should we continue to give him a chance?”

“B-Because he will make an amazing hero!” Midoriya insisted. “He will, he just needs more time.”

“Very well.”

Midoriya blinked, “What?”

“Very well – you want him to stay in your class, so I won’t object. If you, of all people, believe he still deserves a shot, then I will let him take it.”

Midoriya sat back down again, “…Oh, ok.”

“Mr Aizawa tells me that Bakugo isn’t the only one with a sudden interest in the hero course.”

Midoriya bit his lip and Nezu only grinned.

“I-I don’t know…” he murmured, picking up his tea again. “I’ve just… I’ve always wanted to be a hero – and it felt like it was the same for everyone else. They’re just so unsure and they’re really nervous about the Sports Festival and I just… I don’t know if I can convince them all to try.”

“You underestimate yourself! You convinced them to be vigilantes. From what I hear, even Todoroki wasn’t entirely against the proposition of being legal heroes. You’re on the right track.”

They sat in silence for a little while. Midoriya drank some of his cold tea as to not be rude.

“I have a deal for you, Midoriya,” Nezu suddenly informed him, breaking through the quiet.

Midoriya looked up with narrowed eyes, “…What kind of deal?”

“There are two parts to it, I must admit,” and Nezu slid a folder across the table to him. It was thin and coloured a dull beige. A sticky note attached to the front read total of five recommendations to date. Cautiously, Midoriya pulled it a little further towards himself and opened it.

“This is a member of class 1-C, general studies,” Nezu explained whilst Midoriya studied the notes inside. “You must know that I get hundreds of recommendations for potential members of class A every year, and this boy was on that list. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I decided he didn’t need the place as much as your current classmates. Regardless, he found himself at UA.”

“He failed the hero course entrance exam?” Midoriya frowned, scanning through the information.

“The exam is designed to target the possessors of more powerful and destructive Quirks, I’m afraid, since they need more immediate coaching. We usually let people who don’t make the initial cut in as second years, but this year may prove to be a little different.”

“How come?”

“I’ll get to that in a moment,” he smiled menacingly. “But needless to say, this particular member of class C has been receiving more complaints from his classmates since he joined UA, and a spot has just opened up in your class.”

Midoriya glanced back down at the file, and he stared right into the tired, blank eyes of one Hitoshi Shinso.

“Brain washing?” Midoriya gaped, “His Quirk is brain washing?! That’s amazing! Wow, he’d make such a good hero with that, that’s so cool!”

Nezu chuckled, “I must agree! It would be such a waste for him to miss out on a spot in the hero course.”

“So… why is he being recommended for my class?”

Nezu’s smile grew a little sad, “I believe, like many of your friends, Shinso faces some problems with Quirk discrimination. His ability is easily labelled as threatening and perhaps villainous. He consequently isolates himself from others and is a rather hostile individual. Using his Quirk on others to get them to leave him be has raised a few red flags, I must admit.”

Midoriya nodded glumly, “But you don’t want him in class A because that will ruin his chances?”

Nezu only laughed again, “Ah, well, Midoriya – this is where our deal comes into play.”

Nervously, Midoriya closed the file and looked up, waiting for further explanation.

“Midoriya, if a member of class A wins the Sports Festival, and you get on the podium, I will allow the entirety of your class to enter the provisional hero licensing exam, to take place this September.”

He gaped, “W-Wait, you’re serious?!”

“Of course, I wouldn’t say so if I wasn’t. If someone does fail class A before the provisional licensing exam, I can’t let them take it, but I thought that would be obvious.”

Midoriya didn’t know what to say – this was such an opportunity! More than he could have ever hoped for!

“And of course, if all of class A manages to get their provisional licences, then class 1-A would be a hero class, like class B, and this would mean that, by second year, unless more spaces open up, I can’t accept any new students. This would leave poor Shinso behind in class C.”

Midoriya was still trying to get his head around the Principal’s proposition. He cleared his throat nervously, “S-So, you want Shinso in class A?”

“Well, if I continue to receive recommendations, I may have no choice. But it would be awfully difficult if he were to ruin the dynamic you have worked so hard to achieve. Shinso will be trying hard in the Sports Festival, in hopes to get into the hero course by next year, if my assumptions are correct. So, keep an eye on him.”

“I-If Shinso makes it to first place, would that put the deal off the table?”

Nezu smiled, “I doubt he’ll be transferred before the Sports Festival, but if he wins as part of class A, as in, he works with you, I can’t say that you haven’t been successful.”

Midoriya nodded, running a hand over the bottom of his face as he thought this through, “Ok, ok… what about Toga?”

Nezu blinked at him, putting down his tea, “Himiko Toga?”

“Yes,” he nodded again. “Shinso isn’t in class A yet, and Toga has already left. If she wins the Sports Festival, having worked with us in previous rounds, then surely the same exception that applied to Shinso, applies to her.”

Nezu smiled even wider, “Very well – but you cannot extend the same rule to Mei Hatsume.”

“Deal.”

“Oh, and if Bakugo, or anyone else, wins the Sports Festival, having ignored and played separately to the rest of class A for the entire competition, you lose.”

Midoriya tensed – that could prove to be a problem, “Fine.”

“Worried?”

“Not at all,” he stood up, tucked his chair in, and gave the Principal a swift bow, “Thank you for the opportunity – and the tea.”

“Of course. I hope to speak with you again sometime, it is rare that I have such a similar mind to converse with.”

Midoriya smiled and nodded. Before he reached the door, he heard Nezu say, “Good luck, you may need it.”

He opened the door –

“No, I don’t think I do.”

– and let it slam shut behind him.

Chapter Text

“Where’s Bakugo?” Kirishima asked unsurely, standing up in front of the other members of class A when Midoriya walked back in. Mr Aizawa locked the door behind him and disappeared, perhaps to go and get Kacchan himself.

“Um… not sure,” Midoriya replied, “Why?”

“He’s gone, isn’t he?” Jiro interjected, not looking him in the eye. “Expelled.”

Midoriya took off his shoes, “Principal Nezu asked me if I wanted him to be,” he admitted. “But I said no, so, um, yeah – he’s still here. Just not sure where.”

“Wait, seriously?” Kirishima blinked in surprise, “Wow, thank you, man!”

“I thought he was a goner for sure,” Kaminari gaped. “You guys were with the Principal for ages!”

“Err, yeah, um…” Midoriya began, “Yeah – Principal Nezu said some, um… interesting things.”

“What about, ribbit?” Tsu questioned.

Midoriya walked over and sat down next to her, “He made a deal with me.”

“That sounds dangerous!” Uraraka giggled.

“What kind of deal?” added Shoto, sitting down on the other side of Midoriya.

“You’re not going to believe it,” he laughed, running his hand through his hair, not quite believing it himself.

“Don’t leave us hanging!” Mina bounced up and down on her sofa, opposite him.

Midoriya cleared his throat and grinned, “If we all work together in the Sports Festival, resulting in any one of us taking first place, and me being on the podium, in like, third or something, this entire class is entered into the provisional hero licence exam.”

This proclamation was met with numerous responses, most adequately described as –

“WHAT?!” they all cried.

“Wait, seriously?!” Uraraka stared.

“That’s what I said!” Midoriya laughed. “And what’s more – there are two people from other courses that, considering they work with us, upon taking first place instead of us, will also let us take the exam.”

“The support course girls?” guessed Shoto.

“Not quite. Toga, yes, but Mei doesn’t count. The other guy is someone who missed the cut for getting into class B – and weirdly enough, also class A.” This got a few confused looks. “His name is Hitoshi Shinso. He’s in class 1-C and he’s got a brain washing Quirk.”

“Ok, well we already have Toga on our side,” Ojiro realised. “All we need to do is convince this Shinso guy to help us and we’re set.”

“There is one problem,” Midoriya chose now to explain. “Um, if one of us takes first place independently of the rest – so refuses to be in our team or help us at all, then, err, the deal’s off.”

“…Ah,” said Sero, “You mean Bakugo…”

“Yeah… he’s not going to be very happy helping you get onto the podium…” Hagakure pointed out.

“I-I’m not asking you all to just back off and let me win if I get to the final,” Midoriya made sure they knew. “I want to actually deserve to be there, and you guys don’t deserve to face a loss like that. But anyway, there’s still something I need to know.”

He looked up at them all, studying their expressions. “If we manage to pull this off,” he began, “then class A essentially becomes part of the hero course. W-Well, if one of us fails, the same system applies – but we would start following the hero curriculum – submit hero costumes and names a-and everything! But… I’ve been trying to convince you all to join me in attempting to get into the hero course for the past few days and… well, you never seemed too convinced.”

They exchanged nervous glances, waiting for someone other than Midoriya to speak their minds for once.

It was Uraraka who stood in for him, “It’s just… I-I don’t know about everyone else, but for me, I’ve always worked against the heroes, and joining them just felt… wrong. When you had the vigilante idea, I thought it was really cool! Because we’d he heroes on our terms – not quite on their side. But, um, the other night you said some things that made sense – about like… getting the licences and still not caring for their rules. Maybe we… maybe we won’t be heroes on their terms, and we could force them to be on our terms. If that makes any sense?”

“It does,” Yaoyorozu nodded. “I think your idea is worth following, Midoriya, and we still have almost two weeks to prepare.”

“A-And if you’re still not sure,” Midoriya continued, standing up and looking directly at Shoto for a moment, “then think about it this way. Nezu won’t back out this deal – I know he won’t. So, just… imagine what it would be like, if we took the same attitude that we had in that capture the flag game, into the Sports Festival.”

A few more people started to smile.

Midoriya started to pace back and forth, “If we acted like the audience expects – like trouble making villains – and still took the finals for ourselves, it wouldn’t just be… UA trained this class well – it would be… UA has completely failed – this class does what it wants! We’d finally have our own say – the control over our future back! And if they try to stop us – then we just leave – become vigilantes like we were going to do anyway! So, what do you say?!”

The door was thrown open.

Mr Aizawa didn’t even show his face. He left them to it, knowing better than to involve himself, and Kacchan stormed in.

He took one look at the class, gathered around Midoriya, and sneered, about to march up the stairs to his room.

“Kacchan, wait,” Midoriya called after him.

He actually stopped.

“I… told Principal Nezu not to expel you.”

“You want me to be freaking thankful?!” he snapped, whirling around and baring his teeth at him.

“No,” Midoriya replied, “Maybe a little –”

He rolled his eyes and started to walk away.

“Hey, wait!” Midoriya exclaimed, running over to him whilst the rest of the class watched. “I’m sorry for purposely winding you up during capture the flag.”

“Purposely?!”

“Hear him out, man!” Kirishima interjected, “Trust me on this one!”

Kacchan growled but made no attempt to leave.

“The Principal made a deal with us,” Midoriya explained. “If one of us gets first place in the Sports Festival, and I make it onto at least the bottom of the podium, then class A becomes a hero class.”

Kacchan narrowed his eyes at him.

“But the thing is, we have to work together!” he continued. “I-If one of us makes first place independently of the rest, not helping each other at all in the first few rounds, then the deal is void.”

“And you’re freaking scared I’ll take first place without your help,” he leered. “Well, you’re right.”

“There is a chance you could make first without our help,” Midoriya contradicted. “Face the facts – if you work against us, there’s less of a chance of you making first, and less of a chance that we make the hero course. And there’s also more of a chance that I’ll go back to Principal Nezu and say that I’ve changed my mind about having you expelled,” he said with a grin, crossing his arms and raising his chin defiantly.

Kacchan gave him a toothy grin, “Alright, you freaking nerd. You lot need all the help you can get – so I’ll do it. But let me warn you now. Once we’re in the finals, you’re on your own – if you get matched up with me in the first round, you’re dead, clear?”

“Crystal,” Midoriya replied without hesitation.

Kacchan actually let out a slight laugh as he walked off, shaking his head in disbelief.

Midoriya smiled – he could do this.

The next few weeks were action packed.

Mr Aizawa must have realised they were up to something because he allowed all of their PE lessons to follow the same method that they’d started before the infamous capture the flag event. Midoriya practised sword fighting with Yaoyorozu most of the time, occasionally taking a break so the two could listen in on the martial arts training that Mr Aizawa had now taken over – they even did parkour once or twice.

Nearly all of Midoriya’s detentions were now held at the support course, to the extent where they didn’t really feel like detentions anymore. He told Toga and Mei what he was up to, and they were eager to help, on the condition that they allowed both of them to reach the tournament round, something that Midoriya only accepted once they promised that they only wanted to use their first rounds to advertise their gadgets, and if they were pitched against each other, they said they’d make sure it was Toga who proceeded, and not Mei, and they’d also ensure that any class B students who slipped through the cracks would suffer at their hands.

Yes, they were just a little scary.

With the exception to the support items rule in the Sports Festival (something that he’d double checked with through Principal Nezu – he just texted the monitored group chat addressing Nezu, and he replied with a satisfying yes), Midoriya was also busy making items for his classmates. Toga and Mei were more than willing to let the class utilise some of their inventions, since it gave them more advertising opportunities. Once Yaoyorozu revealed the logistics of her Quirk to them, they suddenly had even more possibilities to create weird and wonderful inventions, tailored for anyone who needed them.

In the remaining detentions that Midoriya had with class B, he made sure to gain as much information as possible on their opponents. He jotted down weaknesses, strengths and even minor inconveniences that they complained about loudly in his presence.

In his notebooks, Midoriya prepared plans on combating any of the hero course students. If he had to face any of them in the finals alone, he needed every advantage he could get. Speaking of which, he did the same for class A – but he’d been thinking up plans to defeat Kacchan in combat since forever, so he didn’t need to put much thought into that (most of the plans had a low success rate, but oh well).

That didn’t mean he wasn’t worried about the finals. A lot was riding on his ability to make the last few rounds of the tournament, without any Quirk to help him out.

That was when he remembered that he was a villain. And villains don’t always play by the rules. Anyway, he’d found the official rulebook in the library during a supervised study session…

There was no spoken nor written rule saying he wasn’t allowed to hack into their system and rig the tournament round.

Those two weeks passed them by in the blink of an eye, and soon enough, class A was standing in their designated waiting room, just outside the jam-packed arena.

“I’m so nervous!” Mina squealed, “Ah! What do you think the first round will be like?!”

“We’ll just have to wait and see, I guess,” Jiro sighed, although she was clearly rather anxious too.

Midoriya tugged at his PE kit. The top was short sleeved, just reaching his elbows, where the red band of class A stood out brightly on the last few inches of fabric. Just above it, was the gold, class president mark. Iida had the same, only silver for vice. But Midoriya wasn’t just wearing the plain kit. Like many of his classmates, small adjustments and trinkets had been added.

He had a sheath for his sword, strapped across his back rather than at his hip so it wouldn’t get in the way. It crossed over the large number 18 of his jacket, like he was disowning the name. Toga seemed to be quite a fashionable influence on Mei’s designs, and so the sheath and straps had been coloured red with a gold outline – the buckle connecting the two across his chest, also coloured gold. He also had a black utility belt, containing numerous little inventions that he didn’t tell his classmates about.

Most people refused to take any support items, including Kacchan, Iida, Shoto, Tokoyami and a quite a few more. Maybe they wanted to prove that they didn’t need the additions to do well, or maybe they just couldn’t be bothered.

Others accepted a few minor things. Uraraka had a bracelet that apparently helped with her nausea, as well as a retractable grappling hook on the other wrist. Mina had some specialised shoes that allowed her to somehow defy physics and skate on weak acid. She also decided not to wear gloves, and for the first time, was wearing a normal PE kit, rather than the one specially designed for her so as little acid as possible could be released. Sato had a little pouch of sugar cubes for Quirk activation; Aoyama had an upgraded (and shinier) version of his belt for more efficient aim with his laser; Jiro had a set of noise cancelling headphones that currently hung around her neck. But Midoriya’s favourite support item was Kaminari’s, a set of adhesive disks that he could stick onto targets. They would direct his electricity towards them, so he now only electrocuted what he wanted, rather than absolutely everything in his vicinity.

“How are you feeling, Shoto?” Midoriya asked him quietly, sitting down beside him in the corner of the room.

He had been watching everyone else blankly, just listening and waiting for the events to begin.

He didn’t reply immediately, “My father’s here. He said he would be.”

Midoriya bit his lip, “Don’t worry about him. He can’t touch you here, you’re UA’s responsibility, not his.”

“You know that out of everyone, they’re going to be watching me the closest,” Shoto reminded him, running his hand through his hair to make sure it spiked up in the way he liked.

“I know,” Midoriya nodded. “So… look like you’re having fun.”

Shoto raised his eyebrows and Midoriya grinned. “It doesn’t have to be you who wins. You only have to do that if you want to. I promise you, by the end of this, the attention will be spread across the rest of class A. You’re on our team, remember? You’re not facing this alone – and you’re facing it for no one but yourself. Your dad has nothing to do with it – nor Dabi.”

He gave him a soft smile and nodded.

It wasn’t long before a speaker announced that it was time for them to make their way to the entrance to the arena.

With various levels of enthusiasm, but a common buzz of excitement, class 1-A followed the signs and waited just out of sight. Midoriya and Iida, being the representative and his vice, had to stand at the front, but Shoto, Yaoyorozu, Tsu and Uraraka were right behind them. The latter was bouncing up and down and muttering excitably to Tsu. Yaoyorozu was clearly deep in thought, her eyes closed and mouth moving, with no words coming out, likely quizzing herself over how to make different objects and weapons. Shoto stood perfectly still, seemingly unbothered, but the slight chill in the air gave him away.

“HELLO and welcome to UA’s first-year Sports Festival!” boomed Present Mic to a cheering crowd. He introduced himself and Mr Aizawa, to class A’s shock and delight, as he hyped up the audience for the action-packed day ahead of them.

“And without further ado – let’s meet our competitors, taking the stage for the first time!

“Heading up in reverse order, we have the brilliant minds of the business course in class 1-E!” This was met by a half-hearted cheer when the first class made their way out into the open.

“Did you know that every class other than the hero course can take support items into the arena?!” There was no mystery as to why Present Mic made sure to mention this. “Always the wildcards of the game, give it up for the support course, class 1-D!”

“I wonder if anyone will recognise Toga from last year’s class A?” Tsu pondered.

“Not sure,” Midoriya replied over his shoulder. “I didn’t – I don’t think she got that far in.”

“Will there be any hidden gems in our next class?! It’s general studies, class 1-C!”

Shinso.

Midoriya had never spoken to him. They met eyes when they passed each other in the corridor, on the way to lunch more than once. But Midoriya didn’t know how to go about talking to him –

Oh, just to let you know, you’re in serious danger of being put into my class, which has a really bad reputation, even compared to previous class 1-A-s – which could potentially ruin your entire life. So, anyway, how was your day?

This was why he’d decided to leave it until the last moment – at the Sports Festival.

He gritted his teeth – this better work.

“AAAANNNNDDDD! The stars of the show, the survivors of the infamous attack of the ‘League of Villains’ – give it up for twenty of the most promising hero students in the country, it’s UA’s class 1-B!”

The roar that met class B’s arrival was almost deafening. Jiro even pulled her headphones over her ears in discomfort.

“Oh, here we go…” Uraraka groaned nervously.

“Finally, it’s my least favourite English class –”

“He’s going to be so biased, isn’t he?” Midoriya realised.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have been so hard on him…” murmured Yaoyorozu, who never really had anything to do with the increasingly harsh pranks on Present Mic.

“No regrets!” Mina contradicted as Midoriya phased back into whatever Present Mic was saying about them all.

“– and to stop them from reaching a villainous future. But let’s see how they match up to the rest of their year! It’s class 1-A!”

As they walked out into the arena, they were met with a vastly different welcome.

A tradition taught for years and years of Sports Festivals, and class A has always been the side the audience was against. They were met with their echoing boos and hissing, the audience playing the game and enjoying themselves, not truly understanding the effect it would have on the recipients.

Midoriya had known what was coming, but that didn’t stop the feeling of him being crushed under the pressure as thousands of eyes were rested upon him, the gold banded president of the villain class.

“Oh, boo yourself!” Hagakure suddenly cried.

“Yeah, boo!” Mina shouted, pointing both of her thumbs down at the audience.

A few others followed their lead by hollering back at the crowd. Their actions made Midoriya feel the slightest bit more comfortable.

“I bet no one can take out that stupid camera drone!” yelled Sero, which resulted in Mina swinging her arm and sending a sloppy projectile of acid at the nearby camera. She hit it on the first try, resulting in it falling out of the sky immediately and crashing to the side of their group.

The class cheered and clapped, laughing and suddenly forgetting about the exposure.

“How much money do I get?!” Mina exclaimed, jumping up and down at her success.

“I never said I’d give you any money!”

Midoriya hung back to walk next to Shoto, “Hey, I think we’re being watched,” he said, pointing up at the massive screens around the top of the immense arena. Another, surviving camera drone panned around them, and as expected, Shoto was picked out of the group. Now he and Midoriya were on view for all to see whilst they walked to the centre of the pitch.

“Give them a wave,” Midoriya grinned, doing just that.

“Not my style,” Shoto deadpanned, and gave the camera his middle finger.

It immediately switched away, pretending they hadn’t just broadcasted the rude gesture, whilst class A howled with laughter.

They were still stifling giggles by the time Miss Midnight called first place in the hero course entrance exams, Ibara Shiozaki, with the vine hair Quirk, up to make some kind of speech.

About a minute into a beautifully rehearsed speech about strengths, wilfulness and some overly religious symbolism, Midoriya found himself yawning.

“Oh, my God, just finish already!” Hagakure actually had the guts to shout up at her, an act which made most of class A gape and laugh.

“Please, everyone, have some respect,” Iida whispered back at them.

“How much trouble would I be in if I just… taped away the microphone,” Sero grinned.

“A lot – look at Miss Midnight!” Mina giggled, whilst their substitute teacher gave them the evilest glare that she could muster from the corner of the stage Shiozaki was on.

“Midoriya never said no, this means I’m allowed, right?” asked Sero, obviously joking.

“I-I thought I wasn’t allowed to stop you from doing stupid things anymore?” Midoriya grinned back at him. “You said that was Iida’s job.”

“Oh yeah,” Uraraka sniggered, “You lead us into trouble, and Iida leads us out!”

“Would you lot shut up?!” hissed Tsuburaba from class B, standing a few meters away from them.

“Only if she does,” said Jiro, rolling her eyes.

She did, eventually, making sure to turn her nose up at class A after she bowed to the audience and walked down the stairs back to her class.

“We’re barely five minutes in and everyone already hates us,” Kirishima realised.

“Well, it’s about to get a lot worse,” Midoriya grinned, watching Miss Midnight walk back to the centre of the stage, her smile fixed as she prepared to announce the first event of the games –

– an obstacle course.

Midoriya’s smile grew wider, and he wondered if Nezu had done this on purpose. This was the perfect opportunity for class A to work together and defeat a common enemy, that being, nearly everyone else.

The competitors were gathered before a starting line whilst the finishing touches were set up, such as the cameras being prepared and the obstacles being quickly checked over, any mechanics being activated.

Midoriya glanced around. He spotted Toga and Mei, who both grinned and gave him a thumbs up – yeah, they’d be fine on their own.

He turned to the rest of the class in the time they had left, “Ok, so the first event is going to be focusing on cutting down the numbers. What UA wants is to see all of class B getting through, and then probably most of class A, as well as any other promising students from the other classes. That means there will be about, err, forty? Forty-five… around that many spaces available for the second round. Remember that we need Toga, Mei and Shinso to make it through, but we can’t guarantee that there will be enough spaces for them all…” Midoriya muttered.

“Hm, I think we’ll be alright,” Tsu interjected. “Twenty from class B – nineteen from class A, and three from other classes, that makes forty-two. It seems like a good number.”

“Right,” Midoriya nodded. “But anyway, our best bet is to ensure that class B is held back as much as possible, which means we all have to work together the best we can!”

“Here,” Yaoyorozu suddenly perked up. She dropped a small earpiece in Midoriya’s hand and started to pass the same to everyone else. “Radio communications. I practised making them for our escape plan, but it was too much of a risk to use them in the end,” she explained. “Press the button to speak – make sure to be quite loud – but let’s let Midoriya take the lead.”

He grinned, thanked her, and put the earpiece snuggly into his right ear. “Ok, we need to pass each obstacle as quickly as possible, and then try to make it difficult to get through behind us.”

“But what about that Shinso guy?” frowned Kaminari.

Midoriya hesitated, and then looked to his left –

– only to find Shinso staring right back at him.

Midoriya cracked a grin, “Let’s consider this his entrance exam to class 1-A, shall we?”

“Everyone get into your positions!” Midnight proclaimed. “The event is about to begin!”

Turning around, Midoriya saw a huge door swing open behind a red archway – the beginning to the obstacle course.

“Let’s move to the front,” Iida decided, about to do just that.

Midoriya grabbed his arm, “No, wait…” He studied the archway, frowning at it, “The door’s too small… look how narrow it is! Everyone will charge at it immediately, and it’ll be jam packed – just like the corridors were when the press attack happened! We hung back then and had a clearer view of what was going on. Our best bet is to do the same now.”

The countdown began.

“But what if we can’t make it through?!” Uraraka exclaimed nervously.

“Just trust me!”

“– TWO, ONE… AND BEGIN!” yelled Present Mic.

Just as Midoriya had predicted, within seconds, the door to the obstacle course was completely impassable. From the looks of it – no one had made it through the other side yet, they’d all ran at it at the same time, from too many different angles.

“Come on!” Midoriya yelled, ushering his class forwards. “Shoto – freeze everyone in the doorway in place!”

He did so immediately, slamming his foot down and letting the ice creep ahead of them, making the floor an ice rink.

“Make a slope up behind the people – everyone, do your best to climb over their heads!” Midoriya barked, running up the icy steps.

Before he knew it, Uraraka had grabbed his hand. The two floated over the crowd, and were the first across, Uraraka’s grappling hook yanking them to safety just before the likes of Bakugo, blasting himself through the air; Yaoyorozu, using metal rods protruding from her hand to pole vault over the crowd; Sero, who swung like Tarzan overhead, holding onto Kaminari and Mina who screamed their heads off in the process.

Laughing and falling over each other, all of class A somehow made it through, but they knew they wouldn’t have long.

“Shoto! Freeze the ground behind us! Keep the ice rink going!” Midoriya exclaimed whilst they charged ahead.

Shoto lagged behind, grinning as he turned the obstacle course into some kind of winter wonderland.

“Looks like class A is going out of their way to make this as difficult as possible for everyone else!” Present Mic’s voice boomed through the speakers either side of the course.

“Damn right, we are!” laughed Sero.

“I bet I can reach the end before you do, Soy Sauce!” Mina yelled at Sero.

“I like soy sauce, ok?!” he shouted back as she overtook him. “It’s not funny!”

When Shoto finally stopped the ice, Midoriya glanced back over his shoulder – he knew the hero course couldn’t have been far behind. This was the moment when –

“BYE, IZUKU!” yelled a girl with twin blonde buns and a manic, fanged grin.

“Toga?!” he exclaimed, as she and Mei whizzed past class A on identical sets of rocket powered roller skates, “Hey! Those were my idea!”

The two just laughed, weaving past the others with surprising skill, whilst Present Mic excitably announced that class A had been overtaken.

“They’re the exceptions, right?!” Jiro questioned as they continued to run around the corner.

Midoriya had barely replied with a “Yes!” – before there was a loud scream, crash and bang. They reached the end of the corner they were on, and the entire group stopped to gawk at what UA had cooked up for them to face now.

“IT’S THE SECOND OBSTACLE!” Present Mic yelled, “Let’s see how they match up to the hero course’s training robots!”

“What is this, some kind of advertisement for how much money this school has?!” Kaminari yelled.

“The hero course is going to have a serious advantage here…” Tsu realised whilst Mei and Toga zipped around the numerous robots, struggling to find a way through the blockade.

“Then we can’t give them the chance!” Kirishima cried, charging forwards at the closest, smaller robot.

The others followed his lead, beginning to cut through the mechanical maniacs.

Ever aware that Shoto’s ice wouldn’t hold for long, Midoriya gritted his teeth, drew his sword and followed class A into the siege.

He pressed the button on his earpiece, “Everyone! Try not to take out too many robots – we need them to hold class B back! Head for the centre giant one, with the zero written on the side!”

“I’ve freaking got it!” replied the slightly static voice of Kacchan.

“No, wait!” Midoriya tried to retort. He couldn’t say any more than that, though, because he soon became preoccupied.

A robot leapt at him from the right. Without hesitation, Midoriya swung his sword and cut off its arm, before slicing again to take off the head. He noted a piece of metal plating that was tossed aside in the action – thinking it would work well as a shield, he picked it up and used the hanging wires to grip onto it tightly.

Whilst taking out a second attacking robot, Midoriya saw a flash of light, followed by Kacchan flying through the air before the towering robot he’d pointed out moments before.

Taking off the head of another metallic opponent, Midoriya spoke into his earpiece again. “Ok! Kacchan will go behind that centre robot and knock it off balance, so it falls towards us! Whilst it’s distracted, everyone else – go through its legs and to the other side. Shoto – freeze it off balance. Once we’re through, someone needs to give it one last hit, so it falls over and blocks the path for everyone else!”

He got few replies via the earpiece, but that was to be expected. Hopefully, they’d all heard him. They’d all been separated to fight different robots, but they didn’t have this time to waste. Glancing over his shoulder, Midoriya could see other groups catching up on them. Few hesitated at the sight of the robots due to the announcement Present Mic had made earlier.

Midoriya was momentarily distracted from his own fight when, following a loud bang, Shoto merely flicked his wrist to freeze colossal robot in its place, slightly tilted off its centre of gravity.

Class B must have been working together too, because a large amount of them arrived at once, alongside some other random competitors who had clearly been swept up in the moving crowd. Midoriya stopped himself from scanning for Shinso’s purple head of hair and pressed forwards.

“Come on, Midori!” Uraraka called out, waving at him as he dodged another attacking robot and hurried under the giant’s legs beside her and Tsu.

After quickly checking that everyone was there, yes, including Hagakure, Midoriya pointed up at the frozen robot. “Ok, enough force and high enough should take it out! And quickly – before the others get too close!”

“It’s mine!” Kacchan insisted, but he never got the chance.

Not even a second later, there was an explosion unlike anything that Kacchan could conjure, when Yaoyorozu set off a cannon, the projectile hitting the robot on the back of its head and sending it and shards of hail-like ice crashing down before the hero students.

Everyone just stared at her whilst she grinned smugly at her work – the great boom of the falling robot sending an icy gust of wind through her hair, jacket undone and hands on her hips.

It had to be illegal for someone to be that cool.

“That was excessive, but awesome!” Uraraka cried, punching the air.

“Let’s keep moving,” Shoto insisted. Midoriya noted the build-up of frost on his right side and his slight shiver. He knew he couldn’t rely on Shoto’s powerful Quirk for the rest of the obstacle race.

With a nod, Midoriya gestured them all to move forwards whilst Present Mic yelled about the repercussions of the new obstacle the rest of the competitors faced.

“What’s with the metal?” asked Tsu as she hopped alongside Midoriya.

“Shield,” he answered simply.

What the rest of his class didn’t know, was that he already had a shield, but not on him. One of the support girls’ favourite inventions had been a retractable shield, hidden inside an arm brace that Midoriya was saving for the tournament rounds. He didn’t want to risk giving it away early or damaging it – since he’d have to be fighting the people who were currently his teammates soon enough.

“Woah!” yelled Kaminari, bringing the entire group to a halt.

Midoriya, almost out of breath, stopped before the next obstacle – a chasm.

Present Mic was screaming something dramatic but Midoriya wasn’t listening.

They had to get to the other side, but the only paths provided were numerous thin but sturdy wires that linked the beginning to pillars rising up from this seemingly bottomless pit. The most direct route was clear. If class A could take the centre path, and then make it impassable for any who tried to follow them, class B would lose a significant amount of time, having to follow the longer options.

“Ok, here’s what we’re going to do,” he began. “A few people will go over first and wait in the –”

“You’re taking too long!” barked Kacchan, who took off with another bang, soaring through the air and landing at the next pillar with ease.

Midoriya scowled at him from a distance. He continued to speak into the earpiece. “Wait at the first pillar. We’ll be cutting off the most direct route across after we take it ourselves. Everyone but me and… Uraraka – get to Kacchan as quickly as you can!”

They didn’t hesitate, already using their powers to speed across. Iida balanced expertly on the wire and used the engines in his legs to propel himself over. Tsu’s natural frog-like abilities made climbing over just behind him an easy feat. Others needed a little more help. Whilst Midoriya watched the path behind them nervously, Yaoyorozu used a zip-wire to take less competent people in this situation such as Aoyama, Koda and Mina, across one by one.

“Ok – when you’re all over, cut every line you can reach except from the centre two! Then move onto the next pillar and do the same thing! Uraraka and I will be right behind you. Kacchan needs to stay with the group to fight off anyone who manages to pass the two of us!”

Kacchan was quick to retort, “Ha?! They’re going to get past you idiots easily!”

“Yeah, well if you LISTENED TO ME, we wouldn’t be in this situation!” he snapped. Kacchan didn’t reply.

From Present Mic’s commentary, Midoriya knew vaguely what was happening to the hero course behind them. The blockade they’d worsened was clearly proving to be a challenge, but some had started to slip through.

Despite this, he and Uraraka managed to pass to the first pillar without any problems. He dropped his makeshift shield by his feet and drew his sword, swinging it above his head the second that the first competitor to get through, skidded to the edge of the chasm.

Sword still held in the air, Midoriya stopped.

It was Shinso.

He must have slipped past whilst the hero course focused on battling the robots, helping each other out.

“Come on, we need to go!” Uraraka insisted, but Midoriya wasn’t going to let this opportunity slide.

Shinso gritted his teeth and glanced around. He spied the next intact wire, away from Midoriya, and realised it wouldn’t get him across nearly as quickly as these ones would. Despite that, he started to run towards it.

Midoriya dropped his sword, cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “HEY, WAIT!”

Shinso hesitated.

Midoriya turned on his earpiece, “Yaoyorozu! Can you attach that zip-line contraption to the wire and send it back to me?”

“I can try,” she replied without question, leaning down to do just that and sending it back across with as much force as she could muster.

“What are you doing?!” called out Jiro.

Toga and Mei had just gotten through, showing that class B could be there any second. Not at all phased by the lack of wires, the girls’ used upgraded versions of Uraraka’s grappling hook to get across.

Midoriya only just managed to reach Yaoyorozu’s zip-line. He took it off the wire, hurried to the other side of the pillar, and sent it back to Shinso. He seemed more than a little confused but was clearly smart enough to realise this was not an opportunity to miss out on. As soon as he had a hold of it, Shinso didn’t hesitate to throw himself off the edge of the cliff, push forwards and whizz down the line, taking Midoriya’s hand when he reached their pillar.

“Stand back,” Midoriya insisted as he picked up his sword again, swung it as hard as he could, and cut off one line after the other.

“Why did you help me?” Shinso questioned immediately.

Uraraka was quicker to answer than Midoriya, “Because you looked like –”

And then Midoriya remembered –

Name: Hitoshi Shinso

Quirk: Brainwashing

–  Gains complete control over a person’s actions if they answer any question from him.

“Stop your friend from getting any further,” Shinso ordered.

Uraraka, her eyes glazed over, quickly turned around, and with all the skills of the villain she was, leapt forwards to pin Midoriya to the ground.

Luckily, his shield was just within reach, and he barely managed to block her attack.

“Stop her now or my class cuts the lines on the other side!” Midoriya ordered, dodging and evading a brainwashed Uraraka. His hand was on his earpiece, so everyone on the other side could hear his threat.

Shinso hesitated before the wire that he was now attaching the zip-line apparatus to. The first line went slack when Sato ripped it from the wall, leaving only one option behind. Whether or not they’d actually do it didn’t matter – they didn’t have this time to wait around and class A was not a group to take risks with.

With a scowl, he told Uraraka to wait, without releasing her from his hold. She took a step back from Midoriya, still staring blankly forwards, mouth slightly agape. Midoriya continued to hold his sword and shield up, ready to defend himself at a moment’s notice.

“Tell me,” Shinso hissed. “Why has the president of class 1-A been staring at me and following me around for the past week?”

Midoriya didn’t reply.

Shinso grinned, “I’m not going to brainwash you.”

“I haven’t been following you.”

“Right,” the smile faded from his face, “what do you want?”

“I want to help you.”

“Me? What would the likes of you want from someone like me?”

Midoriya knew he didn’t have time for this, and he could see some of class B arriving at the chasm’s edge from the corner of his eye – in the other, he spied class A starting to make their way to the end of this obstacle, knowing full well that would be what Midoriya wanted.

“I know about you,” Midoriya began, choosing his words carefully. “I know you don’t get along with class C – I know they’re scared of you – I know you’re a lot like me.”

“I’m not a villain,” he hissed.

“Neither am I.”

Shinso scoffed like he didn’t believe him for a second.

“Look, I get it! People judge me because of the nature of my Quirk – they jump to conclusions, and honestly, with the way they treat me, they’re the villains. Does that sound familiar?”

The general studies student hesitated for a moment, the aggression fading from his face and demeanour relaxing a little. “What’s your Quirk then?”

Midoriya had guessed this might be coming. He was planning on avoiding the question, but then he saw Setsuna catching up to Monoma and the others struggling to find a quick way to Midoriya, and he knew he was in trouble.

“I’m Quirkless, ok?!”

Shinso looked surprised, “Wait… you’re – you are –”

“Completely Quirkless – no special ability at all, yet I’m the representative of the most infamous class in all of Japan – I know, it confused me too. But the fact is, I had to work hard my entire life to get anywhere close to where I wanted to go, and that didn’t work out too well, because look at where I am now! This Sports Festival is my only shot to prove that I’m more than a Quirkless loser, ok?! I’m not a villain – and neither are a lot of my classmates. All of them deserve a chance and that’s why we’re here. So, do you want in on that chance or not? Because we’re just about out of time.”

Shinso, wide eyed and seemingly nervous, glanced between Midoriya, Uraraka, class A behind him and class B in front. He gritted his teeth and clicked his fingers.

Uraraka blinked, “Huh? What just happened?!”

“Alright – fine!” Shinso exclaimed, “Tell your classmates not to cut the line!”

Midoriya raised his hand to his ear – the only one that remained on the next pillar was Yaoyorozu. Everyone else was almost all the way across. “Yaoyorozu! Go, we’ll meet you on the other side!”

She seemed unsure, but nodded, tucking the knife that she had ready to cut the other wire into her boot, and turning to run after the others.

“Shinso – throw the zip-line over the edge!” he ordered.

“What?!”

“Class B will get it! Do it now!”

“You’re crazy!” he yelled, tossing the zip-wire apparatus as far as he could into the pit.

“Uraraka, make us all float! We need to get moving!” Midoriya insisted, and she did just that.

Uraraka reached towards the one remaining line and started to pull herself over, propelling herself through the air. Shinso copied her and Midoriya was just behind him, painfully aware of their approaching enemies.

The second that Uraraka released her Quirk, trying not to gag, on the final pillar, Midoriya turned to see Monoma and Setsuna on the column behind them, piecing themselves together with identical splitting Quirks. They must have split themselves up into pieces, floated each part over, and then reassembled on the other side.

Knowing it was futile, Midoriya cut the line to their pillar too.

He spoke into his earpiece, “Ok, who wants to get back over here and hold the hero course back?”

He knew exactly who’d answer the call for a fight and zero words were needed. In seconds, Kacchan rocketed back over to their pillar, yelling about how useless and slow Midoriya was, as he gave the two hero students a face full of fire.

“Go, go, go!” Midoriya exclaimed, and Shinso and Uraraka leapt forwards to crawl over the longest section of wire yet, all the way to the other side. It was the only one that remained connected to that specific pillar, since class A had been cutting as many sections of wire as they could in the wait.

But they were only halfway before Kacchan slipped up.

“No stolen Quirks to help you this time, 18!” yelled Monoma, soaring through the air and piecing himself back together in seconds. He turned off Setsuna’s Quirk to activate something else, but Midoriya wasn’t going to wait around to find out.

“Uraraka, deactivate your Quirk!”

“What?!” she yelled, but did it anyway, she and Shinso gripping tightly onto the wire.

Hanging upside down, holding onto the wire with his legs – one hand holding the line and his makeshift shield – the other swinging his sword.

It sliced through the wire just before Monoma could touch him, and with simultaneous screams, Midoriya, Shinso and Uraraka could only hold on for dear life as the cut line started to swing towards the cliff at an alarming rate.

“QUIRK, QUIRK, QUIRK!” Midoriya yelled at Uraraka, struggling to hold on.

She slid down the wire, tapped the top of his head and then brushed her fingertips across Shinso’s shoe. Their descent slowed as all gravity was nullified, all too terrified to speak, Uraraka hooked her arms through each of the boys’, and activated her grappling hook to haul them all up to safety.

“That was nuts!” yelled Mina as she reached out to take Uraraka’s hand.

The three of them collapsed on the other side with collective sighs of relief.

Midoriya, breathing heavily, looked up to see Monoma clambering back up to the last pillar – clearly having used Setsuna’s Quirk to climb back up, but with some struggle.

In seconds, Kacchan flew back over to them, “The vine girl’s here!” he warned, “They’ll be over in freaking no time – let’s move!”

Shinso held out a hand to Midoriya.

He grinned and took it.

Shoving his sword back into his sheath and shouldering the shield, Midoriya raced after the rest of class A, Shinso right beside him.

They ran up a set of stone stairs, turned a corner, and then –

“But will class A be able to defeat the final obstacle?! That’s right! It’s a MINE FIELD!” yelled Present Mic.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” groaned Jiro.

Toga and Mei were the only ones there but had clearly not gotten far. Midoriya knew that they didn’t have their set of hover boots with them on the first round, and their roller skates were definitely out of fuel. Still, they were clearly having fun, struggling to weave around the not-at-all-discretely buried mines, whilst still on wheels. Toga screamed when she rolled backwards into another one, which blew up in her face with a cloud of pink dust. Mei laughed at her, and promptly did the same.

“Ok,” Midoriya sighed, utterly exhausted at this point, “Well, let’s all just try and get through this as quickly as possible. We’ll definitely all get places in the next round at this point. For now, whoever gets to the end the quickest gets first place, how’s that?”

“Bet you one yen I can get to the end before you!” Mina yelled at whoever would listen.

“GIVE ME THAT SINGULAR YEN!” Hagakure laughed, hot in pursuit as they started to hopscotch around the mines that the support course girls hadn’t already blown up.

“See you in the next round then,” Shinso grinned at Midoriya.

Midoriya smiled back, knowing that he’d done the right thing. He nodded, and Shinso ran on ahead.

“Midoriya?” said Shoto when he noticed him lagging behind.

“Go on,” Midoriya gestured ahead, “Just catching my breath – I’m in no rush. Beat Kacchan for me.”

Shoto smiled and nodded, turning to attempt just that.

Midoriya sighed. He couldn’t see or hear class B yet, but he knew they wouldn’t be far.

Turning back to the mine field, he decided he better just face it sooner rather than later. He was about to toss his shield aside since this was the last obstacle and it served no further use.

This was when he had an idea.

People had been more careful at the beginning of the mine field, even Mei and Toga – hence there being far more mines there. Using the edge of his shield, Midoriya started to dig these up quickly and carefully, pushing them into a mound.

Shoto and Kacchan were close to the end now, as were Toga and Mei, who had stopped racing really and were just messing around at this point.

Midoriya braced himself, wrapping the loose wires attached to the slab of metal around his hands securely. With one last look behind him, at the sight of Monoma, Shiozaki, Setsuna and a few others finally coming into view, Midoriya grinned and threw himself onto the pile of bombs.

“WHO’S THE SLOW ONE NOW?!” Midoriya yelled as he pretty much landed on Kacchan’s back, slammed his shield onto a nearby mine, and propelled himself even further forwards, leaving both him and Shoto quite literally in his dust.

He had to do some kind of flip that he’d never attempted before upon landing – so that the sword tied to his back wouldn’t cause any problems. It was a miracle that he ended up on his feet.

Barely ten seconds later, Midoriya charged back into the stadium to a less than appreciative welcome –

– in first place.

Shoto was second – a fuming Kacchan came third. Midoriya didn’t pay too much attention after that.

“That was amazing, Midoriya,” croaking Tsu as she hopped over to him.

“Thanks,” he sighed, still trying to catch his breath. “My whole life flashed before my eyes – it really sucked.”

Shinso arrived not long after a very scorched Toga and Mei hobbled in. He gave him a swift nod as he separated from the group of class A students that he arrived with to lean against the wall and stay mostly out of sight.

Present Mic seemed to be trying to pretend that this hadn’t happened, and was heavily focused on class B, back in the mine field, who were battling each other now in the same spirit that class A had decided upon – might as well fight for higher finishing positions at the end.

Midoriya joined the rest of class A as they cheered the last of their group on.

Poor, unfit Aoyama had been on the wrong side of more than one unstable mine, and despite the huge head-start for the last obstacle, the first of the hero students, Shiozaki, and behind her, Honenuki, had just whirled around the corner in the tunnel that led into the arena, and were gaining on the last member of class A.

They yelled supportive words at him, grinning ear to ear as he reached the end and fell face first over the finishing line, moments before class B.

They all cheered loudly, ignoring the audience’s greater enthusiasm for Shiozaki’s relative success. Sato hoisted an exhausted Aoyama up onto one of his shoulders as they all chanted his name.

And Aoyama was loving it.

For just a moment, Midoriya forgot about it all. He forgot about why he was here – what he needed to do – what he had just done. He forgot about how the audience was staring, frowning, some even booing still. Right now, all that mattered was this small victory.

Right now, it felt like… whatever they had to face next – they really could do it.

Chapter Text

“A cavalry battle, ok…” Midoriya muttered to himself, brain whirring as he tried to get his head around their next event.

The UA Sports Festival was always a hive of activity. With three years of classes to get through, the event was spread over three days. Since the first-years duked it out on day one, all the hype had been leading up to this, and the school did their best to spread the event out.

Round one was over, and Midoriya was relieved to see that it was indeed forty-two competitors that made it through to the second event. That meant they had all of class A, all of class B, Mei and Toga from class D, and Shinso from class C. Everyone else was out of the competition, which they probably didn’t care much about.

The exhausted students were then given a break whilst the organisers set up for event two, and meanwhile leaked as much money from the audience as humanly possible, through stands, snacks, souvenirs and various other goods.

Midoriya could barely focus on the food during their lunch break. Whilst Uraraka spoke animatedly with Toga and Mei, Shoto sat beside Midoriya in supportive silence.

Now, they were back in the thick of it, given five minutes to separate into teams of between two and five, which would assemble to support one member, their team leader, on the top, with everyone else holding them up from underneath. They would wear headbands with various points on them, the higher up the ranks they got in the obstacle race, the more points the individual would be worth, and therefore the more valuable the headband. All they had to do was steal headbands from other teams, and the ones with the most points at the end would advance to the finals, simple enough. Only…

“And the points for first place…” Midnight grinned, “is ten million!”

Everyone fell silent.

– and Midoriya burst into laughter.

He – he was going to be worth ten million points! If the universe didn’t hate him enough already!

Midnight clearly didn’t expect this to be their reaction since all of class A was now laughing with Midoriya about his misfortune.

Clearing her throat, she announced that they now had some time to choose their teams and plan a strategy. She wished them luck in a way that seemed as though she was only addressing the hero course, and a large timer was displayed on the screens around the arena.

Midoriya wiped a tear from the corner of his eye, “Ok, ok – we’ve got to come up with a plan here.”

Toga and Mei wandered over, waving at Uraraka excitably, who they seemed to get on with really well. Shinso wasn’t far behind them.

He tapped Midoriya on the shoulder, “I’m either going to brainwash people to be on my team or somehow convince them with people skills that I don’t have,” he admitted. “And from the reaction you just had to the ten million thing, I can’t help but think that you have a plan.”

Midoriya faltered, “We’ll see about that – ok, so, here’s what’s going to happen.” He turned around and addressed the entire group, painfully aware that, not far away, class B was also gathering. “Class B is going to distribute their power across groups and one of those groups is going to be very heavy in terms of defence. An attack group will strike first to take the ten-million-point headband from me and give it to that defence group. The rest of the class B teams will then focus on removing all our headbands whilst we’re focusing on the large points and put us out of commission by err… gluing us to the ground or surrounding us with quicksand – stopping us from moving. Only once we’re unable to attack, will they turn the tables in the last few minutes and jostle between them all for the sixteen available spots in the final, so four of them will miss out.”

They all stared at him.

He grinned and clapped his hands together, “And we are going to do almost exactly the same thing.”

Mina raised her hand, “Err, what do you mean by almost?”

“We need to prioritise certain teams so that they definitely get through to the final,” Midoriya sighed. “Sorry, but because of the deal with Nezu, I have to progress through. That’s why Shinso’s going to be on my team.”

He blinked at him, “I am?”

“Yes – and the second team that definitely has to progress is Mei’s and Toga’s, since that was part of our deal with them.”

They grinned and high-fived.

“Look, can I give you all my idea and then you can tell me if I should change it?” Midoriya asked nervously.

“I thought that was what we always did?” Iida frowned at him.

Midoriya ran a hand through his hair, “Oh, ok – um, so, I think Uraraka should join Toga and Mei and they should be a team of three.”

“YES!” Uraraka cried, punching the sky – probably because that meant she definitely progressed to the finals, or maybe because she’d found a couple of new best friends. “I-I mean… yay?”

“And we need engine boy!” yelled Mei, pointing at Iida dramatically.

“…May I ask why?” Iida frowned.

“Ok, fine,” Midoriya nodded, completely ignoring Iida. “Then we need to spread our power levels out efficiently amongst all the different groups. So… if you guys could just get into groups of two to four or five and we’ll go from there.”

There was immediately bubbles of excitable chatter as friends separated into groups and pushed each other around to different teams. Iida was immediately attacked by the three girls who’d essentially kidnapped him.

“Um… who’s with us then?” Shinso asked.

Midoriya’s expression did not change as he said, “I did not think of that.”

Yaoyorozu spontaneously appeared at his side like some kind of fairy godmother, which Midoriya could totally see her being. “If I join the two of you to reach the finals,” she said, “We may find ourselves in a fencing match in front of all these people.”

Midoriya stared at her, “Yes.”

So, now there were three people on his team.

Soon enough, when Midoriya looked up and saw Shoto standing amongst class A and just looking lost, Midoriya smiled, rolled his eyes and waved him over.

That made four.

Midoriya didn’t need to do much to the teams that were made up afterwards. He did think that Kacchan’s team, including him, Kirishima, Mina and Sero, was a little strong, but Kacchan was so fired up with the idea of defeating Jiro’s team, who had this idea where she and light-weighted Tokoyami would sit on top of Shoji, as some kind of impenetrable fortress. Midoriya didn’t have the heart to split them up, nor did he have a better idea.

Hagakure was also frighteningly excited for the event, and had picked the two, strong looking boys, Koda and Sato, to lift her up, and Aoyama to stand at the front to shoot people with lasers, which, to be honest, wasn’t a bad idea either. The last team included Kaminari, who’d very dramatically been left out of Kacchan’s team, and was singing songs about his loneliness as a joke, until he realised that Tsu and Ojiro had already decided that they were teaming with him.

“What happens if the top few teams don’t make up the numbers right?” Tsu asked Midoriya. “If there are too few or too many?”

As a joke, which she seemed to take seriously, he replied, “The last team plays rock paper scissors.”

He turned to the others, now assembled in their teams. “Ok, so, make sure your team leaders, the ones who are sitting on top, are standing nearer the front so I know what’s going on here… ok. Right, so team Uraraka – your job is to distract the other teams the best you can. You’re able to move fast, so keep the other teams off us and take the higher value headbands from them nearer the beginning.”

“You got it!” Toga exclaimed, shoving what looked like a jet pack onto Uraraka’s back.

“Team Hagakure, you have our best defence, so you need to need to be focusing on stopping class B from taking the headbands, rather than just distracting them.

“Then team Jiro – since your earphone jacks and Dark Shadow can easily steal headbands, you need to run around behind the other teams to take as many as possible without them noticing.”

“Looks like we’re going to get more points than you, Bakugo,” she grinned.

“Ha, yeah right!” he retorted.

“And err, well, Kacchan – could your team just… look, it might be difficult for you – but act as aggressive as possible.”

A few people stifled their laughter.

“HEY!” he yelled, “What’s that supposed to mean, huh?!”

Midoriya moved on, “Finally, team Kaminari – try and take out as many teams as possible. It’s against the rules to knock them over on purpose. So, err… bear that in mind.

“Meanwhile, my team will be doing our best to protect the ten million points. Shoto will be freezing some of class B’s teams in place if we get the chance, so listen with your earpieces in case I need to warn you of anything! If we ever lose the headband, just –”

“TIME’S UP!” Present Mic yelled, “Assemble into your teams, let’s get this party STARTED!”

“– just try and get it back to us the best you can!” Midoriya shouted as they started to part ways, “Don’t fight each other until my signal near the end!”

“We’re going to die immediately,” Shinso hissed through gritted teeth.

“Oh, don’t be so pessimistic,” Yaoyorozu smiled as they all helped Midoriya clamber on top. Shoto was at the front, with Shinso to Midoriya’s left, and Yaoyorozu to his right. “Here, this could help!”

“…Did you just hand me a knife?”

“Yes!”

“…What is wrong with you lot?”

Midoriya was handed his headband by Miss Midnight, who scowled at the weaponry that Yaoyorozu had made. Midoriya just tied his headband on and drew his sword.

“Look, I don’t want this,” Shinso laughed nervously.

“Pass it back to me then and I might find use for it later,” Yaoyorozu offered.

“How diligent of you…”

“Are you all ready for the battle to begin?!” Present Mic howled across the stadium.

The audience whooped and clapped, clearly ready to see the hero course take down the villains.

Midoriya grinned and readied himself – this was going to be fun.

“THREE – TWO – ONE – LET’S GO, GO, GO!”

Within barely two seconds, he felt the need to retract that statement.

Class B wasn’t going to waste a moment – and from their randomly allocated starting positions around the arena, immediately began by charging at Midoriya’s team.

“Honenuki, now!” Monoma called out, leading to his teammate slamming his foot on the ground and sending a ripple across the floor to trap them.

Midoriya’s team didn’t need instruction to dodge, but moments later, Shiozaki, also on Monoma’s team, struck, sending her vine hair towards them to engulf Midoriya once again and take the points.

“I get what the knife was for now!” Shinso exclaimed when Midoriya slashed at the vines with his sword.

“Would you like it back?” Yaoyorozu asked.

“No, I’m good!”

Midoriya would have struggled a lot more, had the rest of class A not been there to cause class B some issues. They had clearly planned to rush them, but class A swooped in at the last moment to prevent a majority of the teams from getting any closer. Even better, Midoriya had more people on his side, and some of class B’s groups were smaller, two in fact, only had two people each, with Rin, firing his scale Quirk from the back of beast Shishida, and Kamakiri wielding his blades from on top of undeniably strong Pony.

“Midoriya!” Shoto called out.

Not expecting it at all, Midoriya yelled out in surprise when a detached hand swooped in out of nowhere and stole the headband. He lashed out with the sword, but it was too late – Setsuna’s hand had already returned to her body and Kendo had secured the ten-million-point headband.

“Yeah! Good job!” exclaimed Tetsutetsu, fronting Monoma’s team.

“Bondo, now!” called out Monoma.

Another team appeared behind Midoriya, and right at the front was giant Bondo, the one with the glue Quirk.

“Shoto!” Midoriya shouted, “Get ready to –”

“RACOON EYES, NOW!”

And Kacchan’s team skidded in front of their opponent. With a nervous cry from Mina, she waved a bare, pink arm to send a veil of acid between them and Bondo. A pop and sizzle – and the acid melted the glue into nothing.

“YEAH!” she yelled triumphantly.

“Tape Arms!”

Sero, without complaints over the nickname, gritted his teeth and trapped the team in a net of sticky tape, tying them together.

“Shoto – now!” Midoriya finally had the chance to say.

On top of the tape, Bondo and his team had now been frozen in place. There was no way they’d be going anywhere, anytime soon.

Ignoring Present Mic’s very biased commentary over this situation, Midoriya growled at Kacchan as he took the frozen team’s headband for himself, rather than giving it to currently pointless Midoriya.

What had happened to Monoma, meanwhile? Well, Toga had.

Mei wore one hover boot and Toga had the other. Uraraka bore a jet pack, and when she floated their entire team, they could literally fly. Iida had whizzed onto the scene – Toga snatching Monoma’s headband to pass it to Uraraka, and they took off with a bout of laughter.

This left Midoriya the chance to chase after Kendo’s team.

“Don’t let him get too close!” their class president instructed. “We can’t have him stealing any of our Quirks!”

“Stealing Quirks?” Shinso pulled a face of utter confusion.

“Did 18 keep that little detail from you?” grinned Setsuna. “You’re on the wrong side, man!”

“But he doesn’t – you’re… OH MY GOD!”

“I think he gets it,” Shoto deadpanned, about to –

“Don’t let him freeze us!” yelled Kendo.

The girl with the silver hair thrust a hand forwards and Midoriya felt his entire team be pushed backwards by an invisible force – ah, Yanagi had telekinesis.

“This team is too strong for this game,” Midoriya murmured to his teammates, “We need to take them out, and quickly!”

Still facing Kendo, Midoriya raised his hand to his earpiece, “Tsu – I need your team over here!”

Kendo narrowed her eyes at him, trying to figure out what he was up to. She enlarged both her hands, ready to fight whatever was coming next, which was her biggest mistake.

Onto the back of one of those hands, Tsu’s long tongue stuck a small, white disk.

Kendo had only clocked its existence – only just seen that Tsu’s team included Kaminari, before the latter gave her finger guns and a wink, sending a narrowed stream of electricity right at that disk, and electrocuting the entire team.

Tsu and the others had already backed off by the time that Shoto was close enough to freeze them again.

Midoriya ripped the ten-million-point headband, and Kendo’s original one, away from the ice, leaving them behind to wallow in defeat.

“Put the headbands on so that the numbers face backwards,” Yaoyorozu suggested.

Midoriya did just that.

For the next few minutes, Midoriya and his team focused on the two smaller class B teams. They were a big problem because of how fast they could move. By the time that they too, were netted by Yaoyorozu and frozen by Shoto, Monoma had finally realised that only his and one other class B team remained.

But that didn’t mean class A was definitely in the clear. Judging from Hagakure’s disappointed cries, Awase, from the other class B team, had managed to weld the group to the ground and take the headbands they’d collected. The team had then moved onto Jiro’s group, and Kuroiro had leapt back into Dark Shadow, so Tokoyami’s own Quirk was now fighting against them. Kaminari, by this point, had all but shorted himself out, and Uraraka’s team had just landed, having been out of fuel, and one hover boot had been damaged by Rin with his scales before Midoriya had been able to stop them.

“Kacchan – I need you to take Sen’s group out of action! They’re the only ones left other than Monoma and they’re causing too much of a problem!” Midoriya spoke into his earpiece.

“Take them out yourself!” he snarled back.

“Well you’re picking up stray headbands and we’re a little preoccupied!” Midoriya snapped, deciding to ignore any angry retorts to better focus on the matter at hand.

Monoma’s team had come to face them again.

“I don’t know how you managed to convince all the other courses to play along,” Monoma hissed. “I can’t say I’m glad to see class A’s back up to twenty members.

“Shinso’s aiming to transfer to the hero course,” Midoriya replied coldly. “Don’t be so quick to judge.”

He turned to Shinso, “Then why are you siding with the villains?”

Shinso just snarled back, “Because – wait, what’s your name again?”

“Midoriya.”

“– Because Midoriya actually offered to help me. What’s your excuse?”

Midoriya tried not to grin.

“My excuse –”

Monoma’s eyes glazed over.

“Yes!” Midoriya exclaimed.

“Give us your headbands!” Shinso ordered.

Unfortunately, the rest of Monoma’s team realised something was amiss. Before Monoma could take off their team’s stack of points, Shiozaki pinned his arms to his sides with her vines and Tetsutetsu started yelling at them, asking what he’d done.

Maybe Shinso could have taken control of him as well, but it wasn’t to be. Before Shoto had the chance to try and freeze them, Iida charged onto the scene, Mei and Toga screaming with roller blades on one foot each, and Uraraka grasped a handful of Monoma’s unprotected headbands as they passed, knocking him harshly on the head by accident in the speed in which they passed them by.

Monoma blinked furiously and Midoriya realised the mistake made even before Shinso swore under his breath.

With an angry cry, Monoma reached forwards, his hand splitting away from his body and grasping at the only headband he could before Shoto could create an ice wall between them.

Kacchan came into view in a whirl of smoke and sparks – Iida skidded around to join the fray again, but before anyone could do a thing –

“TIME’S UP!”

– Present Mic announced the end of the cavalry battle.

They all stopped in their tracks as the audience roared.

Wide eyed, Midoriya dismounted from his team, heart thumping against his rib cage as he took off the headband to see –

Ten million points.

“We won,” he gaped. “We won!”

“In first place, it’s team Midoriya!” Present Mic yelled as they celebrated. “Class A’s president sure knows how to strategise – because second place is team Bakugo, closely followed by team Uraraka!”

The audience clearly had mixed feelings, but class A was over the moon. Everyone who was still free to actually move was cheering and clapping, knowing that everyone they desperately needed had made it through to the finals. Now all they needed was –

“But all hope is not lost! For team Monoma SQUEEZES into fourth place!”

– anything but that.

Midoriya face fell as he realised that last headband had been just enough for Monoma’s team to pull ahead of Tsu’s.

Ignoring the rest of the commentary, Midoriya glowered at Monoma as he appeared at the edge of the ice wall that Shoto had made, leaning against it and grinning, “All hope is not lost,” he repeated.

“We’ll just see about that,” said Midoriya.

We’ll see…

“How long do we have?”

“I don’t know, but let’s assume not much.”

Toga slid her laptop across the table in the waiting room. Midoriya was expecting just a phone, but this was way better.

He was already well into his project – but it had been quite a while since he’d been able to practise such a feat, and if he was caught, he may just find himself, and the ex-member of class 1-A, in a world of trouble.

Immediately after the cavalry battle, and they were released for their second break, Midoriya said he’d be talking with Toga about some of the support items he’d be using in the tournament round. Whilst Mei was distracted, chatting with Uraraka, the rest just said they’d see him later, not thinking anything else of it.

In reality, what was hidden in Toga’s case of extra support items, was her laptop, and Midoriya had just broken through the firewall.

After the second round, when the finalists were determined, someone had to input the names into a system which would randomly allocated battles in this year’s tournament. However, Midoriya knew full well that there was a way to make the allocations a lot less random. He’d watched plenty of Sports Festivals before, and far too many times had perfect opponents been selected for a good show. Such as… someone from class A who had been facing off against a particular hero course student for the rest of the competition, and somehow ended up fighting them in the final of the tournament round, since all their previous opponents had been a bad match up. Of course, the battles were a little rigged – they needed the drama. This was a televised show, after all.

All that meant one thing – if there was a way to manually alter who fights who, then there was something to hack into, and a way to change that.

Five minutes later, and Midoriya found himself sitting before a copy of the tournament bracket. He clapped his hands together and Toga gave him a little cheer.

“Oh, we can’t have that…” he grinned, dragging Honenuki’s name away from his own. “No, no, no – you can fight… Uraraka. Sky verses earth – let’s see how that turns out, huh? And if you beat her… you can fight Kacchan, who can burn Shiozaki to a crisp.”

“Oh! Put me against Mei!” Toga exclaimed, pointing at the screen.

“Sounds like a plan,” Midoriya laughed, and swapped her away from Iida to do just that. “Ok… no, I don’t want to face Shinso. I’ll face… I’ll face Monoma – let’s see if he actually took my advice and learnt how to fight Quirkless.”

Toga giggled manically before slurping from a juice box loudly. It was blood orange.

“Ok, and I want to fight Yaoyorozu after that – if she can beat Mina. I’ll leave that one as it is. If I win that…. No, Shoto will murder me – I fancy my chances with… Hm, who will get that far? Probably Iida, that sounds at least the slightest bit –”

His screen went blank.

Midoriya pursed his lips, hands hovering above the keyboard.

“…Did it run out of charge?” asked Toga.

“Nope – I… think I was just found out. Let’s get out of here,” Midoriya said hurriedly, shutting the laptop down and ushering Toga out the door.

“Did you… fix what you needed to fix?” Yaoyorozu asked curiously when the two of them walked back into class A’s waiting room, where they’d all gathered. Toga disappeared soon after with Mei in tow, and Shinso was nowhere to be seen.

Midoriya laughed nervously, “Err… well, I guess we’ll just have to wait and find out.”

A few exchanged glances unsurely as he sat down.

“So… what’s the plan?”

Midoriya blinked at Shoto, “What?”

“What’s the plan?” Shoto repeated. “What next?”

“U-Um… we wait to find out who’s fighting who?”

Iida stepped forwards, “There are four members of class B left in the competition. What do you know about them?”

Midoriya wavered, “Oh, oh, right. So, err… there’s Monoma, we all know him well. From what I’ve gathered, he can copy three Quirks at a time, and have them available to him for the next five minutes. He has to turn off one Quirk to activate another. So, bear in mind that he will choose the three most effective powers against you from his classmates. If he touches your skin, he gains your power, and loses the ability he copied first. You’ll always know your Quirk better than Monoma does. It may be better trying to force him to give up one of the powers he’s copied in exchange for yours.”

“We want him to be against you then, right?” Tsu asked. She was no longer in the competition and Midoriya felt kind of bad for it.

“Yeah, and I have a feeling he’s not particularly good at fighting without powers… Anyway, the next person who got through is Shiozaki – the girl with the vines who did that introductory speech.”

A few people sniggered as they recalled that.

“She’s a huge problem,” Midoriya explained. “She was first in the hero course entrance exam and has amazing control over her Quirk. But her vines are weak against fire or brute strength. We just have to hope for a good match up.

“Then there’s Tetsutetsu – he has a steel Quirk that’s weirdly similar to Kirishima’s. In fact, it’s kind of exactly the same… Except that the metal has some different strengths and weaknesses. Fire could prove to be a huge problem to him – I doubt he does well in intense heat for too long.

“Finally, Honenuki. He’s the only member of class B who knows I’m actually Quirkless – although I doubt that’s going to last much longer… He’s a recommended student, meaning a pro hero recommended him to be in this school and he took a different entrance exam. He’s easily as strong as Shiozaki. He can make anything softer – so turn the entire pitch into a mass of quicksand. Most support items won’t work against him and if the match goes on for longer than a few seconds you might be in trouble. Knock him out of bounds as soon as you can or find a way to stay off the floor. Bear in mind Monoma might copy his Quirk.”

Kirishima grimaced, “They all sound like really tough opponents – how are we going to best them?”

“Luck of the draw,” Midoriya admitted. It really was luck – he had no idea if his plan to rig who was fighting who had even worked. “But we have some really strong people here too. Class B is probably talking it all through right now – thinking the same thing as us! Also, we out number them. Mei and Toga agree to forfeit after using their match to advertise their support items, so we don’t have to worry about them – and it doesn’t matter if Shinso wins, because our deal will still go ahead.”

Midoriya stood up, adjusting the retractable shield that was now attached to his arm. “Other than that, we’re fighting each other. It doesn’t matter who wins, as long as it’s not class B.”

“But what about you?” asked Shoto.

“Me?”

“You have to be on the podium, remember?”

Kacchan stood up too, “No one’s forfeiting any of their matches against freaking Deku.”

“What?” Kirishima frowned, “But he has to make it to the podium, man!”

“If he can’t hold his own then he doesn’t freaking deserve the chance it’ll give him!”

Midoriya hated how much he was right, “It’s ok – and Kacchan’s right. We’ll just have to see what happens, but it would be unfair if you just gave up.”

A voice rang out through the speakers, calling them all back to the stadium.

“Good luck, guys!” Hagakure exclaimed, “We’ll be cheering you on – ignore the rest of the crowd!”

They parted ways in the corridor, the rest of class A waving them goodbye and shouting encouraging words as they disappeared up to the stands.

Midoriya and Iida led the remainder out into the stadium once more.

“Nervous?” he asked Midoriya.

“A little,” he admitted.

That was all they said. The nine members of class A walked out through an entrance opposite to the other seven. It was definitely done on purpose. Shinso, Mei and Toga entered behind the hero course, as though to show that they were on the good side, and class B wasn’t nearly as outnumbered as they might have seemed to be.

They lined up on a raised stage in the middle of the arena. It was made of concrete, and Midoriya could already tell that this was going to be painful to fall onto. A large, white boarder line indicated where they were forbidden to go past, and whilst Midnight reminded them of the rules, Midoriya scanned the crowd.

He’d been so focused on the previous two events, that he had yet to appreciate the sheer volume of people – so many eyes, focused on them. On him, the gold-banded class president of 1-A. And more than that – the cameras were the tunnels for eyes all over the country, if not the world.

He knew his mother was one of them. He wondered what she thought of him now.

“Without further ado!” Midnight finally exclaimed, “Let’s reveal our tournament bracket!”

She waved her whip, and the screens across the stadium lit up.

Midoriya’s plan had worked.

He couldn’t suppress the grin that spread across his face when he saw that nearly all of his changes had been successful. Did Nezu know…? Oh well, he clearly hadn’t made an effort to reverse the damage dealt.

“The first match will go ahead in five minutes!” Midnight proclaimed. “Competitors may prepare a strategy and ready themselves! Good luck!”

A timer appeared just below the tournament bracket, and they filed back off the stage. Once they were out of sight, class A erupted into cheers.

“OH, MY GOD!” Mina yelled. She then squealed loudly, jumping up and down. “I’m against Momo so I’m losing immediately but oh my God!”

“This is the best thing that could have happened,” Yaoyorozu gaped.

“Hey!”

“All our strengths are matching up to their weaknesses…” she realised, ignoring Mina.

“Oh, what a wonderful coincidence,” Midoriya smiled, clapping his hands together.

They all stared at him.

He grinned a little wider, “So, I’m going to go stalk Monoma to see what Quirks he’s borrowing – have fun thinking up strategies!”

And he turned on his heel, waving goodbye over his shoulder before any of them could question what he had just done.

The game was on.

Chapter Text

“WELCOME to the first tournament match of the UA first year Sports Festival!” Present Mic yelled as the crowd thundered around him.

Monoma walked up the stairs, his expression serious and sure as he came face to face with 18 and his cocky smile.

“This is going to be a good one, folks! It’s the strategic head of the hero course, hot on the heels of class A for the entirety of the competition – Neito Monoma!”

The roar of approval greeted Monoma’s ears.

He was the good guy. 18 may have had a similar Quirk to him, but he was the villain. Monoma would prove that he was more than this. He was not powerless – he would win this competition and show the world that the villains could never win!

“VERSES – someone we really should have been watching out for from the beginning. It’s the class president of 1-A – Izuku Midoriya!”

Inevitably, the audience began to boo and hiss.

Yes, Monoma would be victorious – he’d take down the leader! But he had to be careful… 18 could have stolen any one of his classmates’ abilities and could give that up to take Monoma’s whenever he wanted.

“Are you READY?!” cried Present Mic. “Say it with me, folks!”

“THREE –”

Monoma shifted into a battle stance.

“TWO –”

18 drew his sword.

“ONE – BEGINNNN!”

They both charged immediately.

“And they’re off –”

Monoma had thought through what Quirks he needed carefully, and his classmates were more than willing to help. But there was a secret that he was sure 18 didn’t know of – there were some Quirks that Monoma simply couldn’t copy.

“Midoriya is gaining fast and that sword of his looks pretty sharp!”

Shiozaki’s vines took days of meditating in sunlight to grow – but Monoma only had five minutes with that Quirk. It was useless to him. Bondo’s glue Quirk had a mutation around his face, where the glue would be released from holes around his eyes. Monoma didn’t have that – so no glue Quirk.

In the end, Monoma had –

Kamakiri’s blades.

Shoda’s double hit.

Honenuki’s softening.

“What will Monoma do?!”

As soon as 18 was close enough, Monoma slammed his foot onto the ground and let the concrete melt into a quicksand-like trap. But 18 must have seen the ripples approaching on the floor, because he dodged in an instant.

“So close! Looks like Monoma has a trick or two up his sleeve! Why? Let’s give him a little introduction, shall we?!

“Neito Monoma, his Quirk – Copy! He can copy the Quirk of anyone he touches, but only for five minutes!”

18 still hadn’t revealed what Quirk he had, so Monoma kept trying to trap him – force the secret out into the open.

“Monoma must have copied some of his classmates’ powers that he believed were best suited for his fight against Midoriya,” the other presenter, class A’s Mr Aizawa, droned.

“But did he make the right decisions?!” Present Mic yelled dramatically.

Monoma wasn’t nearly as powerful as Honenuki was with this Quirk. He could only send out one wave of softening at a time. He couldn’t just control the entire battlefield. 18 must have realised this because he was dodging with great efficiency and quickly gaining ground.

“Midoriya’s getting closer! Let’s hope Monoma has something to protect against that sword!”

What did 18 have?! Maybe the gravity Quirk? That wouldn’t make sense! He’d have to touch him anyway and by then he could just take Monoma’s ability!

Could Monoma copy whatever 18 had on him? He didn’t know all of class A’s Quirks, no matter how hard he’d tried to study them when given the opportunity.

Perhaps it was the Quirk similar to Tetsutetsu – so 18 could protect himself against Kamakiri’s blades – an obvious choice for Monoma. But he’d thought he’d take Todoroki’s Quirk and defeat him in an instant!

No matter because he was now too close for comfort. From the time that class A had tried to escape, Monoma knew that Kamakiri’s blades did not count as part of him, and 18 couldn’t steal his Quirk by touching them.

“Midoriya dodges and –”

He dropped Honenuki’s Quirk to use Kamakiri’s, 18’s blade crashing against his in mere moments.

“Monoma blocks it!”

The double hit Quirk that Monoma had in his figurative back pocket meant that if he were to attack, activating the power would make the force of that attack land again, even if Monoma had backed away from his opponent by this point. All he needed to do, was strike 18 with the strength of Kamakiri’s Quirk, quickly deactivate it to use Shoda’s, and slowly force the enemy backwards in the shock of it.

However, none of this mattered if he couldn’t land a hit.

“Hey! Midoriya’s pretty good with that thing! Monoma’s playing on his terms! Can he still come out on top?!”

Rather than continuing to push Monoma’s blade back with his own, 18 hit it aside and jabbed at Monoma’s chest. He stumbled back as 18 struck again and again, never quite touching him, but was frighteningly close. Monoma kept trying to strike back, but 18 parried the blow away in an instant.

Monoma formed another blade on his other arm, trying to protect himself.

“Looks like Monoma’s struggling here! But will Midoriya be able to hold up against two blades?!”

“Midoriya may not be an expert,” said Mr Aizawa, “But he’s far more familiar with this style of fighting than Monoma.”

He hated it, but the grumpy teacher was absolutely right! Monoma should have borrowed Setsuna’s Quirk – but he had been so worried about 18 touching his skin and stealing the ability!

Realising he was now far too close to the edge of the pitch for comfort, Monoma cried out and kicked 18 backwards. It bought him just enough time to switch to Shoda’s Quirk, and before 18 could recover, he was hit again.

“Midoriya is hit backwards with an invisible force! That looks like Nirengeki Shoda’s double hit Quirk to me!”

“Class B must have been keen to help Monoma defeat class A’s president…”

Monoma switched to Honenuki’s Quirk. The ground before him rippled and softened. He saw 18’s foot sink into the edge of the liquid concrete – he finally had the upper hand – he’d –

There was an explosion with no warning to it – barely even a sound.

Monoma shielded his eyes from a plum of black-grey smoke or ash or something. This must have been the Quirk 18 took – was it Bakugo’s?! There’s no way he let him take it! Why didn’t he use it earlier?!

“Huh?! What just happened?! I can’t see a thing!”

Knowing he was in serious trouble here, Monoma took out the blades again, backing away from where he was sure 18 had been stuck to the ground as he waited for the cloud to disperse. And then –

He felt the air move around him, and the coolness of metal against his skin. 18 gripped Monoma’s arm, and he felt the blades shrink away into nothingness in an instant.

The smoke faded quickly, leaving behind the view of Monoma struggling against 18’s grip, his sword against his neck in an act that was surely purposefully ironic.

“You can’t use your Quirks, give up!” 18 yelled in his ear.

Monoma let out a cry of frustration.

“Give up!”

“OK, FINE, I YIELD!”

“Monoma surrenders!” shouted Miss Midnight, “Midoriya wins!”

The crowd erupted into a confused frenzy – applauding yet clearly disappointed in the result.

“What was that, huh?!” Present Mic exclaimed as 18 took his sword away from Monoma. “Where’d the cloud come from?! Is that Midoriya’s Quirk?!”

“You know it isn’t his Quirk,” Mr Aizawa sighed exasperatedly, “It was clearly a smoke bomb. Midoriya must have some in his utility belt.”

“A smoke bomb?” Monoma gaped, running his hand across his neck, where the sword had been held.

“Then what’s Midoriya’s Quirk?!”

Monoma glared at 18 – this was where the villainous version of Monoma’s own copy Quirk was revealed. He may have been defeated, but this wasn’t over – the audience was against 18, and the rest of his class would still have to face some of the strongest members of class B yet! He wouldn’t hold this winning streak for –

“Midoriya doesn’t have a Quirk.”

“…What?” Monoma found himself saying aloud, gaping at 18 as he slid his weapon back into his sheath, the fearsome expression on his face not wavering for a moment.

Monoma wasn’t the only one who was shocked. The volume of the entire stadium dimmed dramatically as they realised this… this unreal truth.

Mr Aizawa continued, “Midoriya is Quirkless – but he is also an adept fighter. He is quick to pick up new skills, and his leadership in class 1-A is unquestioned. They’re all trying so hard – working together – because he told them to. He doesn’t need any power at all to be the most dangerous member of that class.”

With a slight smile, 18 brushed the dust that the smoke bomb left behind off his shoulder. He turned away from Monoma and marched across the arena to his exit – holding his head high triumphantly.

Monoma could only stare as he walked away – the gold bands on his arms glinting in the sun – the red sheath of his sword crossing over the bold 18 on his back.

Shoto walked through the halls to his first match. He was smiling.

They’d cheered and clapped as Yaoyorozu faced Mina in the first match that did not carry such heavy stakes. Yaoyorozu won, of course, but the amount of progress Mina had made over these short weeks had been undeniable. It was hard to believe that she was put in class A for a dangerous, uncontrollable ability – one that she had now seemed to have all but mastered.

Since both girls were members of class A, the audience seemed to forget which side they were on, and for once, the match felt unbiased and well, entertaining. Midoriya’s fight just felt… sad. Monoma looked so shocked, and the audience almost seemed sorry for Midoriya, despite him being the indisputable victor.

Shoto was also against someone from class A – Sero. He knew it wasn’t going to be much of a fight, Sero’s Quirk just wasn’t a good match up against Shoto’s own, but he’d give him a chance – at least a few moments to show off his capabilities.

He was in no rush – the arena had to be patched up from the puddles of acid Mina had left sizzling slowly on the concrete’s surface. But… he needed some air – so he left the rest of his class a little early.

Midoriya was scared.

He had been sitting by Shoto whilst they watched the match, but Shoto could tell that his friend was trying to distract himself. After all, his charade of having a Quirk was finally up – and he was back to what he’d always been – Quirkless. Not that it mattered, but it clearly had a huge impact on Midoriya. Shoto could feel the stress radiating off him.