Izuku arrived at the gates of UA the next day with his notes from the first years' portion of the Sports Festival. There were a couple more of them then, but he wasn't confident enough in his ability to guess which of the students had since been expelled, so he brought them all. Beyond that, he also had the notes he'd made on Eraserhead and the other known members of the UA staff, though he doubted he would be able to ask them any questions about their quirks while he was there.

In addition to all that, he had a basic format for each of the tests: a rescue scenario where uncontrolled quirk use would result in the deaths of at least half of the victims. He was still toying with the idea of a villain presence, trying to decide whether that would make things needlessly difficult. He knew that some of his preparation was going to involve reviewing actual situations heroes encountered in the field, especially those that either made or broke new heroes. That was what Eraserhead wanted them tested on, so that was what he intended to do. First years or not, they needed to understand the life they were signing themselves up for.

At the very least, they couldn't be entirely ignorant of the risks once they came out of the test. If they were, Eraserhead was well within his rights as their teacher to expel them, and it would probably be better for everyone involved. Izuku understood the sort of impossible situations heroes faced, and he wasn't even a hero student.

Eraserhead met him at the gates again, not even blinking at his shirt, which read 'business casual'. It was a refreshing change from the typical frowns he received.

"Is there anything in particular you need to get started?" he asked, looking at the bag on Izuku's shoulder. "Other than whatever you brought with you?"

"Um..." Izuku picked at the strap. "Access to the internet or to case notes on rescue mission in natural disaster zones? And I need to know what sorts of resources there are for these tests. The environments, the potential victims, things like that. I don't want to actually put people in danger for this, so I may have to rethink a few things if real people are going to be used as victims."

"I'll pass that along. Normally we have other members in the class play the victims in a rescue scenario, but I'm sure Nezu has something for that somewhere around here. If not, he'll probably make sure it still happens. As for the environments, there's the Unforeseen Simulation Joint, where we do most of our rescue training. It's split into sections that correlate with specific sorts of natural disasters: earthquakes, shipwrecks, fires, mountain rescue. Things like that."

Izuku nodded, his mind already spinning away with potential possibilities. "And urban environments? I assume that's part of the earthquake scenario, but what about in general? Different training grounds?"

"Most training grounds on the campus proper are stripped-down urban environments. Concrete buildings, blank facades. No point in building too much up where kids are just going to bring it down again."

"Is it a full urban environment?" Izuku asked. "And how much trouble would it be to completely isolate any of these places?"

Eraserhead frowned. "What do you mean by a 'full urban environment'?"

"Oh!" Izuku blushed. "I mean, does it have underground things? Sewers, subway train tunnels, those sorts of things. I just—" He tried to find the right words for what he was asking for. "Not everything can happen above ground, and so I just wanted to know if any of the underground scenarios are feasible before I really start getting into things. I know that Rokuda-san has a Tunneling quirk which could be useful for underground rescues if she understands what she's doing and where to tunnel, but in an avalanche or tunnel collapse scenario, not knowing or caring what she's doing could easily bring everything down on her and everyone she's trying to rescue. For that matter, I might need a bit of an understanding of the mental state of each of the students to better tailor their scenario to them, and to know how far I should push something before it's going too far."

"Problem child."

Izuku stopped mid-thought. He had passed Eraserhead, who had stopped moving a couple meters behind him and was staring at him. He winced. "Was it the bit about students' mental states? I'm sorry. I don't mean to be creepy, and I wouldn't use them for anything bad! I just want to make sure I'm not going to step on any triggers or cause a lot of psychological problems." He winced again when Eraserhead didn't reply. "I mean, I'm specifically putting together situations where they are going to lose if they don't think about what they're doing. And they'll probably still lose if they are thinking about it. That's what the Kobayashi Maru was. An unwinnable test that was supposed to measure character and one's response to a crisis scenario."

"I think I know why Nezu is so insistent on letting you have everything you want."

Izuku stopped picking at the strap on his bag. "Why?"

Eraserhead shook his head. "I think I'll let him tell you that. Or you'll figure it out on your own." He started walking again, and Izuku scrambled after him. "As for the mental states of my students, most of them have had at least one session with Hound Dog at this point as it's mandatory for any of them that have been out in the field, regardless of whether or not something happened, and they've all had their work-study experience. Anything he can't tell you, I can, so let me know what you need after that."

"Yes, sir."

The underground hero led him to a small room off what was apparently the teachers' lounge. Ordinarily, it seemed like it was supposed to be some sort of in-school suspension room as there were desks with blinders pressed up against the walls. Another desk, clearly for whoever was meant to be overseeing the students, was pushed into the corner. There were files stacked neatly beside a laptop Izuku assumed was connected to the school network.

"This is where you'll be working when you're here. Nezu is going to arrange for a visitor's badge that will allow you access through the gates and to this room. I'll get it to you before you leave tonight. When will that be?"

Izuku glanced at his phone. "Seven-thirty, I think. Maybe eight o'clock. My mother wants me back before nine and getting home only takes about a half hour from here. I checked."

"Okay. Those are the files for my students," Eraserhead said, pointing to the stack beside the laptop. "If you need anything else, there's a list of extensions next to the phone. You can call Nezu, or you can call me, and we'll help you get what you need. The teachers' lounge is what we came through, so if you just need to talk to a teacher, there will be at least one there and available to you."

Izuku nodded and moved over to the desk, taking out his own notes, and setting them next to the laptop. "Is there anything else I should know?"

"I think that's it. I'll be back to escort you out, but until then the space is yours."

And then he was alone in the room.

Izuku wasted no time pulling up the files of the students he didn't yet know well enough to create their tests. While he didn't intend to make fully impossible situations for any of them, he was going to force them into a situation where their quirks would not help them, and he needed to know the limits of the quirks and how versatile the students were with them.

Some of the situations were simpler. Takawa Ryoji had a fire quirk, which wouldn't function correctly in a downpour. When he crosschecked the capabilities of the training grounds, Izuku found there were a number of them that could simulate extreme weather. And perhaps it didn't even have to be that extreme. Takawa-san's quirk worked sort of like Kacchan's, where he secreted a flammable substance and ignited it. This made him mostly fireproof, as he had to be touching the secreted oil in order to ignite it. His favorite method seemed to be lighting his fists on fire. If not weather conditions, trapping him in a place where producing and igniting flammable materials would only make the situation worse would probably work well. Considering the student was fireproof, it wouldn't be particularly life-threatening for him to be caught in the middle of that, but it would be for anyone else. Izuku made a note of the possibilities so he could check with Eraserhead about which scenarios he would prefer.

Yoshino Fuu had an earth-mover quirk, so the less-than-ideal location for her would be on a ship or at the top of a high building. That, or an earthquake. If the earth were already moving, adding a counter movement to it would be more destructive or debilitating than helpful. The further she was from the ground, the more strain it put on her trying to move the earth. Her file noted she was good about using her quirk to trip people up or to move large pieces of debris, but Eraserhead had also noted a lack of care in her rescue work. She didn't devote as much fine control to moving the earth when there were people under it as she did when moving earth while it was under an enemy. The greatest degree of difference was that people wouldn't die if she moved the ground under them in most cases, but they definitely would if the boulder pinning them in place moved in just the wrong way. She had not put a lot of effort into learning how to mitigate that damage, and Izuku could see why she was on her last chance in the hero program along with the rest of Eraserhead's class.

As he went through the files, he noticed a distinct lack of versatility in all of the students' usual fighting styles. Izuku could think of many ways they could have used their quirks, subtle ways in which to improve with them and be better for hero work, but it was like they had never even considered the option of doing more than the most obvious use of their quirks. It was frustrating, incredibly so, to look at all of these hero students doing the bare minimum to get them where they were in life while he had to fight for a fraction of the possibilities they had handed to them. Their quirk specialists probably praised them, told them their quirks were wonderful and powerful and perfectly suited for heroics. They hadn't had a doctor look them in the face at age four and tell them to give up.

The more he looked at them, the more he wanted to actually make the situations impossible. At the very least, impossible for them to use their quirks as they wanted, which would effectively render them quirkless unless they chose that moment to innovate with something they hadn't bothered to fully explore with more than ten years of practice.

And, he was willing to admit to himself, there was a latent competitiveness that he never really had the luxury to explore before, a desire to come out on top, to beat people at their own game. It wasn't like he had access to any information the students themselves didn't have. If anything, they should know their own quirks in and out. They should have the benefit of more complete and comprehensive information on him, and he still intended to win. At the very least, Izuku was going to make it nearly impossible for them to succeed. He didn't even think Eraserhead would be upset with him if he did make the situations completely unwinnable. Losing was a part of heroics too. Sometimes villains won, sometimes disasters struck, sometimes you come up against a situation where everything is against you. If they decide to quit partway through or attempt their usual methods in these tests, they probably aren't cut out for heroics after all.

He was probably going to have to take a while and think about the bitterness welling up inside of him. He hadn't realized how much it hurt him to see people living the same dream as him with less than a quarter of the trouble he had faced thus far. Having Saitou and Hayashi on his side helped, but he knew it wouldn't be enough in the end. His record was too tainted to get him into a hero school, even if the matter of his quirklessness wasn't an issue.

Idly, Izuku wondered if any of the hero students were like Kacchan, living with a record that shouldn't be clean, but is. He wondered if there were people like him in their wake, people who were abused, left behind, and pushed down just to make the hero students look better in the end.

"You're still here?"

Izuku glanced up suddenly, meeting Eraserhead's gaze accidentally. He ducked his head and glanced at the time on his phone.

"Oh. I didn't realize it had gotten so late." It was a quarter after eight, which meant he had lost four hours to his research and planning, as well as the growing seed of resentment he needed to rip out by the roots. "My mom didn't expect me to be out this late."

"Do you need a ride home?"

Izuku considered it for longer than he probably should have. It was just a formality, and Eraserhead was a good hero, someone who cared about people and their well-being, even if he didn't always show it. "No," he finally replied. "I should be fine."

Eraserhead frowned at him, but didn't offer again, which he was grateful for. He wasn't sure he'd have the strength of will to turn the man down again, and he refused to put the man further out of his way than Izuku's presence on campus was already causing. They didn't really talk as Eraserhead walked him to the gates of the school.

"I left most of my notes behind, if you wanted to review them," Izuku said as he paused at the gate. "I've been thinking of a few different ways I could approach the tests, either attacking their weaknesses or making it dangerous for them to use their quirks the way they have been, either to themselves or to whoever they're trying to work with. Which do you think would be better?"

"I think you should do whatever you think is best. Within reason, of course."

Nodding Izuku turned to leave again. If that was the case, he already knew which scenarios he was going to go with.

If the thought of other people's lives in their hands wasn't good enough to push them to go beyond, maybe facing a threat to their own lives because of their quirks would be more effective.

Over the next couple of weeks, Izuku crafted the specific scenarios he envisioned for each of the remaining members of Eraserhead's class. It was a lot easier than he expected it to be, especially since there were already training grounds that could handle the sort of scenarios he wanted to create. He also spent some of the time he wasn't working at UA or in school talking with Saitou and Hayashi about the intense bitterness he hadn't realized he'd been holding. When he first brought it up, Hayashi insisted it was a discussion they should have in person, so they were sitting in the same coffee shop they'd first met.

"From my point of view," Hayashi said, "your feelings are perfectly legitimate. I mean, you've only told us a small fraction of what you've had to deal with, and it is unfair."

Izuku hadn't told her anything about the work at UA, as it was probably in the contract Nezu had him sign not to mention the work he was doing to anyone. He desperately wanted to tell her that he was suddenly in the unique position of having something over on these students and they wouldn't know it until after their tests. Tests that their own histories told him they would fail.

"I know, but is it right to resent people for not living up to the potential I see in them? It doesn't seem fair to them," he admitted, already aware that was exactly what the students would say when they failed the test.

"I suppose it would depend on who you're talking about. The average person on the street, that might be a bit unfair because they really aren't allowed to use their quirks openly, but for the people who are, especially for heroes, they know they have to be accountable for everything they do. Or don't do, as the case may be. At the very least, they should be accountable for it." Hayashi frowned down at her cup. "Unfortunately, there are plenty of people who get into the hero business for the glamour and the prestige and don't bother to pay attention to the consequences of their actions, except where it would affect their public image."

Izuku winced. "Do they last very long?"

She sighed. "Most don't, but there's still a few who hang on a lot longer than they should. Or are still in it because they have the kind of fame they want, so they don't really care about anything else. And while it's more obvious with daylight heroes, the underground isn't without its assholes."

"Sounds like there's a story there," Izuku muttered, turning his cup in an idle circle.

"Not much of one." Hayashi shrugged before taking another sip of her coffee. "The thing about the underground is that, while we aren't part of the ranking system, we do still have a kind of internal hierarchy. It's mostly based on merit, so you have to be willing to put in work to be considered part of the upper echelon, but another part of it is connections. Nobody really talks about the nepotism in the underground, but it is a thriving beast that lots of lower echelon heroes have died trying to fight. And I don't mean that figuratively, unfortunately."

He choked on his drink, reaching instinctively for a napkin as the tea he'd been drinking spilled out of his mouth and down his chin. "What?"

"Power politics are dangerous, and people get caught in the middle of things like that. When we're working with the deadliest demographic of villains—those who operate outside of the spotlight—any little mistake can get someone killed." Hayashi grimaced. "And sometimes the 'mistakes' aren't really an accident or bad information. Sometimes it's someone getting rid of their competition. Sometimes it's someone going in without back-up because they don't want to lose credit for all the work they've put into a case to someone in the upper echelon who comes in at the end."

Izuku stared down at his teacup. Underground heroics was where he expected to end up if he managed to become a hero in spite of everything telling him it wasn't possible. He'd been interacting with people in the underground for a while online, which was how he'd met Saitou, Hayashi, and Eraserhead. None of this had even been mentioned before. He would have remembered something like that.

When he thought about it, maybe the references to that part of the underground were more subtle. Maybe they were in the jokes that everyone seemed to know, in the threads he rarely visited because they weren't about quirk analysis or active hero work. Maybe he hadn't seen it because he had a naive expectation of heroics, that the people involved would be good people because they were heroes.

He should have known it was more complicated than that. He should have realized that a lot of people didn't go into heroics for the sake of saving people, especially since he had the glittering example of Kacchan who only wanted to go into heroics for the fighting. And because he wanted to use his quirk all the time.

"What do you do, then?" he asked. "I mean, if things like that are rigged against you, if dying is a real possibility, how do you avoid that?"

"Well," Hayashi said, taking another sip of her coffee. "The first thing most of us have to do is abandon our pride. It's a nice thought to be higher up in that hierarchy and there are a lot of perks to it, but the simple fact of the matter is that most of us don't get that opportunity."

Izuku refrained from pointing out he couldn't abandon what he didn't have in the first place because he was actually learning to have pride in his work. At the same time, though, he couldn't see himself getting upset that someone else got the credit for his work if the people were safe. It would be annoying, but honestly nothing new. His childhood alongside Kacchan had proven well enough that he wasn't going to be known for anything good as long as he was quirkless, and that little fact of life wasn't going to change anytime soon.

He would get credit for the tests he was creating though. Nezu and Eraserhead had specifically ensured that the students would know who made the tests they were taking. And the dark, vindictive part of himself he had only recently discovered was looking forward to their faces when they realized how badly they underestimated him.

Hayashi Koharu knew that there was more going on with Midoriya than he was telling. The conclusion he had come to about himself, it couldn't have come from nowhere, and she didn't really believe the story he told he about reviewing the current UA first years' performances in the Sports Festival. It was too convenient, too clean, and too impersonal for him to realize the deep well of bitterness he had uncovered in himself. Something else must have happened recently.

She wondered if it had something to do with that boy who played the part of his main bully. Bakugou Katsuki was exactly the sort of person who did well in regular hero programs. Moreover, he was expected to go into heroics in the future, and no amount of intervention on her part had managed to change that. Bullies shouldn't become heroes, but he was going to get away with everything he'd done as long as he kept his record clean for the next two years, and she wanted to break something because of how unfair that was to Midoriya.

When she had met Green on the forums, she thought he was young but intelligent and driven, always striving for something just beyond what he could do. Seeing his goals journal proved just how exceptional he was and hearing he didn't even have a quirk to back up any of what he was doing impressed and terrified her. Especially when he confessed his interest in underground heroics again.

She had lost friends to bad information because the person providing the information wanted to move up in the hierarchy. She had watched operations go sour when they should have been fine because the people involved couldn't work with one another without sabotaging themselves. She had seen how poorly the hierarchy truly worked for those on the bottom and she didn't want Midoriya to be one of those people.

There were four names at the top of the Underground hierarchy. Sir Nighteye, whose agency was considered one of the best investigative operations in all of Japan. Nezu, who was a class all his own when it came to information and the application of that knowledge. Eraserhead, who was best known for his unorthodox but professional fieldwork, and Radar, a strike force leader best known for his ability to keep track of the players in a battle and coordinate the heroes in the most efficient manner to capture them. Everyone wanted to be in their place or have the distinction of being specifically picked by one of them for assistance in any matter.

She had never been picked to work with any of them. Being noticed by one of them was more or less a ticket to the upper echelon, but very few people actually got their attention without doing something particularly exceptional and not losing the credit to someone else. She had given up wanting it for herself. She still entertained fantasies about being able to prove the things she had accomplished in her career without risking her life, but she never tried to gather the evidence to back it up because it wasn't worth it for her in the end.

But for Midoriya, Koharu was willing to do a great many things. And word on the street was that Sir Nighteye was looking for a new protege since his last student had debuted as a spotlight hero recently.

Perhaps it was time to figure out if she could cash in any favors that would put the kid somewhere close enough for Sir Nighteye to notice him. Short of figuring out if she could recommend Midoriya to UA, that was probably the best she could do.

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