The first thing Katsuki did, after entering Class 1-A, was put his feet on the desk. The second thing he did was tune out Glasses's ranting. Katsuki watched Glasses's sister bounce around the classroom making friends with everyone, and wondered how different this reality would be from the others, if [BLEEP]ing Toga was Iida's SISTER. That had been a difference he hadn't expected. Izuku was talking to Round Face; they seemed to be getting along well. HalfnHalf showed up and didn't talk to anyone.
"I'm not here to make friends." he'd told Izuku and Knife. "Hello! I saw you during the exam. Your explosions are so manly!" Stupid Hair told Katsuki, who just glared at him. "I'm Kirishima, and this is my friend Kaminari." Stupid Hair said. His friend waved.
"I'm Bakugou. You have a stupid face." Katsuki told the potential friends. Anyone who wanted to be his friend would have to earn it. Then, the teacher had rolled into the door in a bright yellow sleeping bag. What the [bleep]?
"We're skipping orientation and going straight to the class assessment. Whoever comes in last is expelled. You may call me Aizawa-sensei; welcome to UA High School." the teacher said. He looked like a hobo, and wore a stupid scarf. Runes, strangely enough, did not appear to find this concerning. Katsuki made a point of glaring at everyone; HalfnHalf was doing the same. Wait, ball toss with your quirk?
"DIE!" Katsuki shouted, launching the ball over seven hundred meters with an explosion. Then Round Face got infinity. Tch.
The people doing the worst appeared to be the invisible girl, Izuku, and Runes. When it came to the ball toss, Izuku was stopped by Azawa-sensei.
"You have a perfectly good strength-enhancer quirk, and you haven't used it once." he pointed out. This was, Katsuki realized, because Izuku had literally gotten it the day of the exam. He didn't have much practice. Katsuki, reluctantly, turned to the mostly-faded, flickering ghosts.
"Help him out a bit." he said. They'd been hanging around him for the past few months, since they'd found out he could see them. He avoided talking to them unless necessary, because ghosts were creepy, [bleep] it. HalfnHalf was the only one who noticed him speaking, but he didn't say anything, probably because he was trying to avoid an offer of friendship from Dunce Face (who had already said five stupid things and lived up to his appearance). Izuku concentrated, and felt the power ripple up his arm, feeling a strange sort of control. He flicked the ball, and a shockwave of energy snapped through the air. "Awesome." he said. Aizawa-sensei gave him a look.
The group was picking up their bags to go to Foundational Hero Studies when Katsuki noticed a notebook in HalfnHalf's bag. It had a stylized flame symbol that Katsuki knew he'd seen someplace.
"What's that symbol from?" he asked.
"None of your business." HalfnHalf said.
Teaching Hero Studies was none other than All Might himself.
"I AM HERE! ENTERING THE ROOM LIKE A NORMAL PERSON!" Izuku freaked out like any fanboy, which Katsuki found odd--he saw the other nearly every day.
"Today, we're having 2v2 battles; wearing your hero costumes, no holds barred. One group will have thre members, as we are an uneven number with 21 students. One side will act as villains, the others will be the heroes. The heroes' goals are to deactivate the fake bomb; the villains' are to either capture both heroes or have five minutes pass. Teams are assigned randomly."
Katsuki and Izuku had designed their costumes together; the one part he had refused to elaborate on were the orange lines crossing on his vest. They were actually detailed, scrunched-together lines of runes that cast auras of protection, stamina, speed and similar. In fact, Katsuki had managed to translate improvements to everything except his quirk, which was powering the runes through whatever nitroclycerin sweat his shirt soaked up. As the quirk powered the powers, he couldn't power it with the power. He'd also sent in a similar request for Izuku's costume (which looked like a green rabbit) except Izuku's runes were hidden. He had to make sure someone could give him a proper challenge.
The Iida siblings had similar color schemes to each other in their costumes, but where Glasses wore armour, Knife had a resistant, skintight suit, which allowed her to, when turning into other people, assume their clothes without ruining her own. Parts of it on her back, legs and arms folded up to allow for mutation quirks, and she wore a massive device around her neck that had a stylized fang design. It was equipped with syringes, tubes, and similar ways to store blood. Her boots could be easily kicked off, and each held a knife as did a sheath at her waist.
Predictably, Katsuki ended up against Izuku and HalfnHalf, on a team with Glasses.
"As much as I want to blow HalfnHalf's face in--I don't care what his name is--Izuku is the more dangerous opponent. Glasses--I don't care what your name is--you should probably guard. I'll fight Izuku, you keep the bomb away from HalfnHalf." Katsuki said.
"I am not sure of the moral ramifications of pretending to be a villain." Glasses said.
"Just--think of it as practice for undercover situations. Or something. Let's explode these guys' [bleep] faces!" Katsuki said. Glasses said something about profanity, waving his arms.
"Be careful, you could hit your hand on something. And villains don't care about--tch--profanity." Katsuki said.
"Stay out of my way. I'll freeze the building, trapping them, then go up and deactivate the bomb." Todoroki told Midoriya. He hoped to be able to tell Zuko, tomorrow, that he won the exercise.
"What if that doesn't work?" Midoriya asked him.
"It will work." But then again, Zuko had, last week, broken into a Fire Nation stronghold and been forced to improvise while rescuing--sorry, capturing--the Avatar. Zuko was very stubborn; couldn't he realize he had no obligation, not even any moral ground to listen to his father? Zuko even told him to use his flames, which was stupid. Zuko didn't have a choice, having only fire, and Todoroki had no choice on Tuesdays--but that was Zuko's fire, in a way, it didn't count.
"Fine. What's your plan?" Todoroki asked. Midoriya began talking at super-fast speed, and Todoroki had grudging respect. Zuko's plans mainly consisted of: break in, hit people, break out.
The building was encased in ice, but Katsuki had been ready. He'd seen HalfnHalf's actual glaciers firsthand in other realities.
"What's really cool about these simulation buildings, is that the temperature is adjustable." Katsuki said, ripping off a wall panel and messing with wires.
"How did you know about that facet of the area?" Glasses asked. Spells, Katsuki thought, looking for what he could modify to his advantage. He knew nothing about wiring, but a good deal about using magic to mess with such wiring.
"Is the ice supposed to melt so quickly?" Izuku asked. "No. It isn't." The two entered the building, and stopped before the stairwell to the second level.
"You go around the other way." Izuku said, and the two split up. Todoroki found the bomb room, guarded by Iida, and iced the entire thing. It melted, seconds later, and the bomb still ticked. It was really, really hot.
"Give up, hero. Your efforts are in vain; we, the all-powerful villains, will bring the city to ruin." Iida said. Zuko gave better villain monologues. Speaking of Zuko...he'd said there would be situations in which he could not use his ice; that was what his fire was for. Nope. That was what his escrima sticks were for. And even if he couldn't make ice, he knew a good deal about waterbending. Iida's engines revved as he dashed at Todoroki, who dodged, tripped him with one stick and hit him with the other before using the capture tape. Now, to defuse the bomb--
Todoroki had not counted on the floor exploding.
Katsuki encountered Izuku in the corridor.
"Ready, Kacchan?" Izuku asked. Katsuki charged. Explosions rattled the overheated area, and green lightning crackled as Izuku dodged. Katsuki grinned. Izuku could just beat him while quirkless--now, he would be near unstoppable. A real challenge, for once! [bleep, Katsuki was losing. "Hey, know what these are for?" Katsuki asked, motioning to his gauntlets.
"If the idiots in the support course made it the way I was thinking, they'll be full of nitroglycerin." Katsuki said. Izuku's eyes widened.
"You have bombs on your arms!" he said.
"Yup. Dodge." Katsuki swung. Izuku dodged. The ceiling blew up--and Todoroki was launched through the roof. All Might ran, and just managed to catch him--he had burns on his ice side, his shoulder was dislocated, and two fingers were broken. He was also unconscious.
"Oh [bleep]. I did not mean to do that! [bleep[bleepbleep]!" Katsuki said in horror as All Might rushed Todoroki to Recovery Girl.
"He moved the fire from the explosion to protect me." a rattled Iida said.
"I hope he'll be okay." Asui--no, it is Tsu, stop calling me Asui--said.
The class agreed, after some discussion, that Todoroki was the MVP.