The episode started with a TV show host asking the question 'Is sexiness required for hero work?' and introduced his guests, Mount Lady and Midnight. He welcomed them and had them take a seat.

"He seems to be missing something," Aoyama pointed out.

"What?" Mineta asked.

"He only has two woman for the guests. Yet he never said that he was referring to only female heroes."

"Oh, I guess I thought that was implied..."

"You would." Jirou muttered.

"Well, why don't we ask the ones we have here to balance it out then?" Kaminari asked with a smirk. He turned to where the teachers sat. "So tell us, is sexiness required for hero work?"

Aizawa sighed "Kaminari that's not an appropriate-"

"Well, I'm not sure we can answer that without bias, since we're all very attractive here." Present Mic cut in with a smirk of his own. It disappeared when Recovery Girl whacked his knee with her cane.

"To give a serious answer, of course you don't need to be conventionally attractive to save people. Looks can help gain certain sponsors and such, but that doesn't make it a necessity, it just makes things easier. Which applies to a lot of things in life, really."

"True, very true." Mic said, still rubbing his knee. "Plus, coming up with an iconic gimmick can be just as useful in some cases."

The class was nodding along now. Those who were less confident about their appearance felt a bit relieved, while those more confident felt like they'd already known this on some level. Momo's feelings were a bit contradictory. She knew she was attractive, so she'd never anticipated problems brought on by picky sponsors, but also felt relieved that her teachers agreed she wouldn't be forced to flaunt it if she didn't want to in order to be a good hero. She always worried about that a bit, and it had increased after what she saw of her possible future internship.

Todoroki, meanwhile, was having a bit of an internal freak out. The conversation topic had reminded him just how much he'd seen or heard about people being attracted to his father, including one memorable occasion in which he decided to look up the term 'bara' after he'd overheard it while following his father around. He came to regret that decision.

The host brought up Midnight's first costume, and how it had been so skimpy that it had caused new regulations to be put in place for hero costumes.

Jaws dropped as the picture of Midnight's early outfit was shown.

"Oh yeah! I remember when that debuted. I was watching one of the hero news networks, and when the footage of Midnight in that costume came on my mom made a weird sound, then ran up and threw a blanket over the TV." Midoriya recalled fondly.

Midnight replied by saying there were a number of people who complained that clothes acted as an obstruction when using their quirks, so it wasn't really a matter of sexiness being needed, but that the need came to be seen as sexy.

"She has a point. There are a number of cultures that don't place the same sexual value on nakedness as our own does, such as seeing topless outfits as acceptable for any gender. So certain heroes being seen as more inherently sexy is strongly related to our own cultural biases." Nedzu said. "Plus, if there are heroes that are less conventionally attractive but still have quirks that would benefit from less clothing, I imagine that they would face much more backlash for having a 'sexy' costume compared to someone who considered more attractive."

Mount Lady made a comment about Midnight liking it like that, which caused the two heroes to start bickering, and it eventually lead to the two physically fighting. Around the time the fight started, it was shown that Mineta was watching the show from his room, red faced and trembling.

"Okay, you can't blame me for this one. That whole episode was so set up to lead to something like that! They probably advertised it just to get that kind of audience. And what I choose to watch in my own room is my business!" Mineta defended.

"It did seem that way, yes." Momo agreed. She was really going to have to be careful with the appearances she booked when she became a pro.

"Hmmm, I suppose while attractiveness isn't a requirement for hero work, I should clarify that the media really loves to focus on it when it comes to female heroes, so it can certainly feel like one." Recover Girl said.

The scene changed to 1-A's homeroom, where Aizawa was reminding the class that there was only one week left before finals. He reminded them there would be both a written and practical portion. As soon as he left, both Ashido and Kaminari declared that they hadn't studied at all.

Aizawa's palm smacked into forehead while the other students giggled.

"How can you be so calm? You're smiling up there!" Kaminari whined to Ashido.

"Ah well, I always seem to do the same even if I study, so I just decided not to worry about it!"

"Ashido! Kaminari! Such unpreparedness is completely unbecoming for future heroes! When we get back, I will create a class study group and as class president I insist that you both join it!"

Ashido looked like Iida had just announced he was planning to torture her. Kaminari grinned. "Guess we're in this together!"

"Aw don't feel bad, I'll come with you!" Hagakure offered.

Kaminari complained that he didn't have time with the sports festival and then the internship coming up so soon afterwards. Tokoyami agreed it really was one thing right after another recently.

"Which makes it a good thing that you all have a week to catch up on studying." Aizawa gave his class a stern look.

Sato talked about his own worries for the test. Mineta smugly said he was only worried about the practical, since he was 9th in the class rankings.

"Huh, I wouldn't have guessed that. That first scene made it look like you'd be too busy watching cat fights on TV to study." Jirou snarked.

"Hey! I can focus on other things too! I'm multi-dimensional!" Mineta whined.

Ashido and Kaminari were very surprised, and apparently betrayed. Ashido whined that she thought he was 'one of them' while Kaminari said guys like him were only likable if they were dumb. Mineta just kept smiling.

"See? I'm breaking the mold by not fitting into the stereotype of having sexy interests and being dumb!" Mineta said, puffing out his chest.

"Does that get negated if start acting less perverted like you have been recently?" Tsuyu asked.

Mineta opened his mouth to answer, then shut it after a moment and looked down in thought. The show continued while Mineta began to have a minor existential crisis.

Izuku drew their attention to himself by calling for them to do their best so they could all go to the summer camp. Iida was quick to join in, saying he had high hopes for everyone. Todoroki said the tests shouldn't be hard if they had paid attention in class. It only served to make Kaminari even more dismayed.

"Yeah Todoroki, be nice! Staying focused isn't easy for everyone!" Kaminari whined.

"Exactly! It's so much harder to pay attention when you have to sit still for so long." Ashido agreed.

"If being able to move around a bit while in class would be helpful you could bring something to toy with." Mic said.

"As long as it doesn't cause noise or something." Aizawa amended.

"Really! I'm totally gonna bring in my squishy key chain from now on!" Ashido declared excitedly.

"Sorry if we made it worse." Izuku scratched the back of his head in embarrassment, but the two were quick to wave off his apology.

Momo graciously offered to help Ashido and Kaminari with the written test, but suddenly grew gloomy when she said she couldn't help with the practical.

"Oh my gosh, you're the best Yao-Momo!" Kaminari cheered, his eyes sparkling just like they had on screen.

"And of course you can help with the practical! It's like that Gran Torino guy said, sparing with different people will help us get better." Ashido assured her.

"Oh yes, of course, you're right." 'I don't think that's what my other self was doubting though, given how the internship and Sports Festival went' She smiled despite this thought. "And it's no trouble Kaminari."

'Why weren't they as excited for my study group?' Iida thought with a pout.

Momo was brought out of her funk when Jirou asked to get in on the study session too, citing her troubles with math. Sero and Ojiro also asked to join, and Momo was so touched and excitedly invited the whole group over to her house. She started asking questions about their preferences in a way that drew attention to how much richer she was compared to most of her classmates. The others were put off by that briefly, but found her enthusiasm too charming for it to last.

Momo started to feel disheartened again when she saw that she was starting to make them uncomfortable, but it soon switched to a pleased smile when they put that aside so easily due to her happiness. When someone's mind started talking about 'warm fuzzies' she actually blushed.

"Can we still come over in real life?" Sero asked eagerly.

"Of course!" Momo easily agreed. "I would love to have you!"

"Does it have to be for studying? Because just coming over to hang out sounds like it would be fun too." Ashido said. Momo smiled brightly.

"I'm sure mother could be persuaded."

"Basking in this radiance is even better in person." Kaminari sighed dreamily.

Kirishima teased Bakugo about how much of a difference there was between him and the generosity Momo was showing. Bakugo angrily offered to beat the knowledge into him.

"I'm okay with going to Yaoyorozu's. I love a good sparing session as much as anyone but I think Bakugo would be a little too intense for me." Ojiro joked. Bakugo snorted.

"Good you know to stay out of the kitchen if you can't stand the heat."

Aoyama laughed at everyone panicking and trying to cram so close to the actual tests. Shoji pointed out he could stand to cram a bit himself given how low his ranking was.

Aoyama sniffed. "I know myself well enough to know that I benefit more from relaxing before a test than stressing about it. Don't criticize my system so easily!"

Shoji held up all his hands in surrender. "Just want to make sure you're taking things seriously."

A little later, Izuku sat with his friends and classmates in the lunch room. He expressed his worries about not knowing what will be in the practical of the final exam. Iida tried to comfort him by saying it probably wouldn't be something too crazy.

Sato gave him an incredulous look. "Iida have you not been paying attention? This school thrives off of crazy!"

"Hm, that does seem like a naive comment, all things considered." Iida admitted.

"Maybe now that you faced Stain things seem less crazy by comparison." Todoroki suggested. Iida let out a huff of laughter.

"There might be some truth to that."

The kids continued to talk about the upcoming test, but were cut short when something hit Midoriya in the back of the head. That turned out to be Monoma's elbow. He made comment about the size of Midoriya's head, then brought up them meeting Stain and how it was another sign that 1-A just needed to be in the spotlight all the time.

"Ow!" Izuku said. It honestly hadn't hurt much at all, but it had taken him by surprise.

"What is this guy's problem?! Why is he making everything into some weird competition?" Hagakure demanded.

"He seems to have difficulty conceiving of the idea that just because it gained media attention does not mean it was not harmful or dangerous to those involved." Tokoyami said, giving the screen a very disapproving look.

"I know competition is generally encouraged, but he consistently tries to take it too far." Momo agreed.

"He really shouldn't talk about something he doesn't really know about." Todoroki said lowly. His first friends had almost died that night. He didn't like the idea of the whole thing being used to mock them.

"Oh my gosh, just think about what he would have done if you guys had gotten all the credit you deserved for that fight though." Sero said with a sudden grin. Kaminari cackled.

"That would have blown his mind, and he would have blown a gasket!"

Monoma started going on about how 1-A seemed to draw trouble, and if it didn't stop then those around them might get drawn in and become victims too.

"Well if I wasn't worried about that before then I am now." Mineta muttered.

"I doubt Monoma has really thought about the gravity of what he's saying." Iida said stiffly.

Izuku gulped as Monoma's words hit a nerve. With how recently everything about All for One and One for All had been explained, he couldn't help thinking about how much that applied to him in particular. No matter what happened, he would be on AfO's radar due to having OfA. What would he do if AfO or Shigaraki tried to drag his mother or his friends into things in order to get to him? Or what if the others got hurt trying to protect him? He wasn't sure he could handle that...

He only stopped when Kendo came and hit him. She scolded him, then apologized for his behavior. She then told them she'd heard from an older student that the practical test was going to be against robots, like the entrance exam. Izuku fell into a muttering session as he thought about he should have thought about how early information gathering could be part of the test. Monoma tried to scold Kendo for giving away the information, so Kendo hit him again and dragged him away.

"You know, the more I see of Monoma the more I dislike him, but the more I see of Kendo the more I appreciate her." Ojiro observed.

"It probably has something to do with her always showing up when Monoma is getting weird. The contrast makes her seem even better." Jirou theorized.

"Even if I don't go to Uwabami for my internship, it would be nice to work with Kendo again. It seems like she would be a good person to get to know." Momo said. "Maybe I could approach her about improving the relationship between our too classes."

"An excellent idea! I would be happy to lend you my support as class president." Iida declared. "As for Midoriya's theory, I didn't even think about how the test may technically begin before the actual start time. UA is truly exceptional!"

Ashido and Kaminari were very relieved to hear they would be fighting against robots. Shoji pointed out their quirks would be hard to control against people, but the two were confident they would be fine against robots.

"You jinxed it." Jirou accused.

"Hey!" Ashido protested with a pout.

"It does seem premature to assume things will be easy, this is UA after all." Momo reminded her. "Plus, wasn't a similar comment made before we were threatened with expulsion during the first day quirk assessment?"

Ashido's eyes widened when she remembered that, and the later reveal that their teacher hadn't meant it to be a ruse at first. "Oh no."

While the students continued to talk about the exam, Midoriya was shown remembering what All Might said to him about the evils he may have to face one day. He knew he had to make everything count now.

"You're determination continues to inspire me, my boy." Yagi smiled at his successor, and Izuku beamed back.

"I would hope you were already making everything count." Aizawa said dryly. "But I see what you mean. In any case, just don't run yourself into the ground like you did before UA. That won't do anyone any good."

"Yes sir." He'd try to follow that, but he knew he'd do whatever was needed to live up to the legacy that had been bestowed upon him.

Bakugo took issue with what Ashido and Kaminari were talking about, and yelled at them to learn control if they were so worried about it.

"I can certainly agree with that. I'll be very disappointed if I have people visiting my office because students didn't bother to put enough effort into learning control." Recover Girl's glare made the pair flinch. "I'm surprised your teachers haven't said something similar already."

"Eh, maybe we have and they just didn't show it. Or maybe we figure whatever we have planned for the practical would do it for us." Present Mic said with a shrug. Aizawa nodded his agreement, which made Ashido and Kaminari look even more nervous.

Bakugo then turned his attention to Midoriya. He told Midoriya he kept 'rubbing him the wrong way', which Uraraka noted might have something to do with the 'Bakugo inspired' moves Midoriya showed off. Bakugo declared that this time he'd beat Midoriya indisputably, and gave the same challenge to Todoroki before storming out of the room. Aizawa was shown watching as Bakugo stomped down the hall, and said to himself that the boy had gotten worse than he thought.

Bakugo flinched at his teacher's words. He'd already been thinking about how All Might's version of victory and failure might be more accurate than the one he grew up with, and now his home room teacher seemed to confirm it. Aizawa clearly didn't find his strong desire for complete victory a good thing, at least.

"You okay dude?" Kirishima asked.

"...I don't know."

"Um," Midoriya spoke up hesitantly "I'm not trying to go against you here Kacchan. I'm just...I need to get better in general, you know?"

Bakugo thought about that. He thought about how Midoriya had moves inspired by him, but was never shown to have thoughts about looking down on him because of it. He also thought about everything that All Might had revealed recently, and he could almost laugh at himself. He would be number one, he would never stop striving for that and wouldn't let Deku stop him, but now he knew there was so much more for the nerd to worry about.

"I get that."

The scene changed to the day of the study session at Momo's house. The group stared in awe at the front gate to the house, and continued to feel out of place in the rich surroundings once they got inside and sat down at a huge table. That went away once again when a very happy Momo came in.

"We can study at another location if it does make you uncomfortable." Momo said, fidgeting a bit.

"No, it's okay, we were just surprised, I think." Ojiro clarified. "I mean, the only house we've seen that's as big as yours is Todoroki's, and we only know about that because of the memories." Plus, when seeing the memories of Todoroki's house they weren't exactly focused on the décor.

"I'd love to come over for real, I'd just need to get used to it. Which won't be hard since we've gotten the first surprise out of the way here." Jirou reassured her.

"Oh good. I mean, yes! Of course you can come over once we leave here, I'd be happy to host any number of study sessions and such."

Kaminari looked at Momo, and could swear he saw her sparkling the same way she did on screen.

A short montage was shown, of students studying in different ways and showing various levels of frustration. That lead into the written exam itself, were everyone looked either focused or nervous. Except for Bakugo, who had started fiddling with his pencil.

"How can you be so relaxed about such a big test?" Sero asked incredulously.

"If you studied properly then what the fuck is there to be nervous about?" Bakugo retorted.

"As scary or annoying as Bakugo can get with his confidence, I kinda wish I had some of it for tests." Ashido whispered. Hagakure giggled.

"Yeah, he's got so much of it you'd think he'd be able to share."

Ashido and Kaminari thanked Momo after the test, with Kaminari being excited that he didn't leave anything blank.

"You're quite welcome! I'm glad I could help, or will help in the future I suppose." Momo said with a big smile.

Aizawa just thought to himself that they would need to work on Kaminari's standards.

The scene changed to the practical exam. Aizawa, Mic, and a number of other teachers stood in front of the students, who were wearing their costumes. Aizawa explained that he expected them to have gathered information ahead of time for this. Kaminari and Ashido started going on about the robots again.

"So early information gathering really is a part of it!" Izuku said. 'But, assuming the information was right, what kind of robots would require so many teachers to be here? Surely having Recovery Girl here would make more sense in that case, but I don't see her.'

All of a sudden, Principle Nedzu popped out of Aizawa's scarf, and said they'd be doing things differently.

The students in the room were just as surprised as the students on screen by the principle's sudden appearance.

"I didn't realize you're capture weapon was big enough to hide someone of the principle's size." Midoriya said faintly. Aizawa just nodded.

"You let the principle hide in your capture weapon?" Yagi asked. Aizawa gave him a look.

"Have you ever attempted to stop the principle from doing something?"

"...good point."

Principle Nedzu climbed down from Aizawa's shoulder while explaining that they wanted to focus on combat between people, so the training would be closer to real fighting. So the students would be put into groups of two and each group would go against one teacher.

"What?!"

"Against the teachers? But they're all pros! We're no where near that level yet!"

"Yeesh, calm down listeners, Our tests may be hard, but they are never impassable. I'm sure there will be rules to make it more even." Mic reassured the kids.

It was explained that each group was already decided on, based on various factors, along with who they would be facing. Momo and Todoroki would be fighting Aizawa.

"Oh my. Well, I can't say I'm not nervous about fighting against our homeroom teacher, but I'm sure we'll make a good team." Momo said to Todoroki. The boy nodded.

"We'll figure something out."

Then it was revealed that Midoriya and Bakugo would be on a team together, and that they would be fighting All Might.

There was dead silence as the students stared at the screen. Bakugo's jaw dropped while Izuku stared at the screen in horror.

"Okay, I'm very suspicious about what factors went into picking these teams." Sato broke the silence. "Because that really doesn't sound like it will end well."

"Yeah, this is kinda feeling like a mixed message here again. You guys keep saying you don't want Midoriya to get hurt so much when he uses his quirk...but I feel like this will end with him getting hurt a lot." Mineta said slowly.

"I'm confused too. I mean, I know Bakugo says things like 'die' and "I'll kill you' a lot, but he seemed more serious about it that last time." Kaminari agreed.

"I wouldn't kill the nerd." Bakugo said, voice firm. "I'm definitely not gonna be happy working with him, but I won't kill him."

"That is likely the logic behind making the two of them work together." Aizawa said. "It's clear that there are issues between them, and I may be banking on the necessity of passing to force them to get past them enough to work together."

"But, if that's the reason, then it's not fair! Not to Deku at least. He'd work with anyone, even Bakugo when he's being scary, but Bakugo is the one who doesn't want to work together at all. So doing it that way only benefits Bakugo, not Deku!" Uraraka complained. Izuku was still too frozen to have any kind of reaction to his friend's words.

"I believe I've said before that life and hero work aren't fair." Aizawa retorted, but then he took a deep breath and let it out. "Still, you make a good point. I'm not sure why I or others would ignore how one sided the antagonism seems on that front."

"It's possible you aren't ignoring things, but that the other you is just misinformed or misinterpreting things." Nedzu said." After all, the 'you' that decided these teams wasn't privy to the kind of relationship Midoriya and Bakugo had before coming to UA, and has only seen them closely interact in a few specific circumstances. For instance, he heard Bakugo's threats while in the classroom, but would not have seen how frightened Midoriya looked because of them. Given all that, it would be understandable for this other you to misunderstand the nature of the tensions between the two."

"That could very well be." Aizawa said. Though he hated the thought that he could misread the antagonism between the two so gravely that he would think they shared equal responsibility for it. "I can understand putting them against All Might, however. Gran Torino directly said that Midoriya's reverence for All Might and his quirk have held him back, and Bakugo's desire to be number one causes its own hang ups. Still, knowing what I know now, I wouldn't try to force you together like this." Maybe if he was working with the ones in this room, since his own Bakugo seemed to have done some soul searching recently, but the ones on screen really didn't seem ready.

"For now, I suppose we'll just have to watch, deal with what comes, and try to learn from it the best we can." Iida said with a decisive nod. That ended discussion for the time being, though Midoriya and Bakugo ended up sharing a tense, uncertain look before things got going again.

The scene changed to 'a few days ago', with the staff of UA having a night time meeting about Stain and his possible connection to the League. It was shown that the rise of these villains was what made them decide to change the test and focus on more realistic fighting. There was some doubts about if it was a good idea, given the complaints that could follow from people being hurt or if fighting a teacher would be too much at this stage.

"W-well, it's good to know that the early information gathering wasn't incorrect due to lies or anything, just last minute changes." Izuku managed to say, still tense from the knowledge of what he'd be doing for the practical exam.

"Of course, we need to take the climate of the hero world into account when preparing out students. And it's practical in its own way, you sometimes get bad intel in the field too after all." Nedzu said.

They agreed they would have to give the students a handicap, but also agreed that the best way to protect the students would be to train them to be stronger. That lead into discussing the teams. He started with Todoroki and Momo, saying that Todoroki relied too much on his brute force and Momo needed to learn to make decisions more quickly. So he would fight them and erase their quirks to force them into a position to work on those things.

"Well, it's nice to have solid advice on what to work on once we leave here." Momo said.

Todoroki hummed and nodded. His father had drilled perfect quirk usage into him, but he hadn't thought about how that would leave him lacking in other ways, not until recently. He would need to work on that.

"I thought you guys were all about keeping us out of fights." Bakugo challenged.

"That would be ideal, and we'll try to make that an option once we leave here. But we need to make sure you are prepared for if a fight becomes unavoidable." Yagi said.

"Better to have the tools and not need them than need the tools and not have them." Mic agreed.

Bakugo grunted, hiding his relief. All the talk the teachers did about avoiding things and keeping them away from the League had started to make him worry the teachers would try to shield them from everything. Good to know the teachers realized they weren't extras or babies.

Aizawa then moved on to his decision for Midoriya and Bakugo to work together. He said All Might would fight them, and confirmed that he chose them as a pair based on how badly they got along. He told All Might to instruct them well, then things moved back to the present.

"Hm, it would seem you were correct in your other self's reasoning for putting them together. Do you also still agree that he shouldn't have?" Nedzu asked.

"I'd agree that my other self isn't seeing as much of the picture as he probably thinks he is, and that could definitely lead to problems here." Aizawa confirmed.

Bakugo ground his teeth, angry that he found himself agreeing with round-face for once. He could deal with his own shit, and didn't need Deku to do it!

Nedzu went on to explain the other team ups. Kirishima and Sato would fight Cementoss, Tsuyu and Tokoyami would fight Ectoplasm.

"Oh man, that's not gonna be easy." Sato said.

"He's our teacher and a pro, so yeah, definitely not. But with my hardening and your strength I bet we can figure something out. And either way the fight is gonna be manly!"

"Ha, that's true!"

"It will be an honor to work with you." Tokoyami nodded at Tsuyu.

"Same, kero."

Iida and Ojiro would fight power loader, Uraraka and Aoyama would fight Thirteen.

"An interesting match up for certain." Iida said.

"Definitely. We aren't as familiar with Power Loader, so that could cause problems." Ojiro pointed out.

"Be that as it may, I'm sure we can succeed! We'll just have to think of a strategy that is workable in many scenarios."

"Oh my gosh we're gonna fight Thirteen!" Uraraka squeaked. She wasn't sure if she should be mortified or start fangirling.

"I'm sure we will put on a dazzling display!" Aoyama seemed to fall on the more enthusiastic side of things.

Ashido and Kaminari would fight Nedzu, Jirou and Koda would fight Present Mic

"Nooooo, I really did jinx us!" Ashido whined. Kaminari gave her a puzzled look.

"What do you mean?"

"We're facing a teacher that our other teachers are afraid of! Even All Might!"

Kaminari's face paled. "Oh... but! They said there would be handicaps and stuff! So maybe it will be okay..."

"We're so screwed." Ashido continued to whine.

The other pairing wasn't too happy about their match up either.

"We're fighting Present Mic? Ugh, I can feel my ears ringing already." Jirou grumbled, rubbing her ears.

Koda wrung his hands nervously. How would he convince animals to stay and help them if they were too scared by the teacher's yelling?

Snipe would be facing Hagakure and Shoji, Midnight would be facing Mineta and Sero.

"Oooo, I bet ours is gonna be stealth mission! He'll have a hard time targeting me because of my quirk, and you'll be able to use yours to figure out where Snipe is and stuff." Hagakure bounced a bit in her seat as she spoke. Shoji nodded thoughtfully.

"That's not a bad idea given our skills, but it could also mean he'd be expecting it. We'll have to see how it goes."

"Well, even if we lose, at least we'll have someone pretty to look at while we do it, right?" Sero joked, and nudged Mineta with his elbow.

"Not gonna argue that." Mineta said with a grin.

Nedzu explained that, to win, the students would either have to put a pair of handcuffs on the teacher, or one of the students would need to escape the area. They would have 30 minutes to accomplish this.

"Only one person has to escape? Not both?" Tsuyu put a finger on her chin.

"Oh! Is that to simulate someone going for back up?" Izuku guessed.

"Going for back up, acting as a distraction, getting a civilian out, just running away so you can fight later, the retreat feature of this test can symbolize a number of things. It's important to remember that not all battles are won by a direct confrontation after all. You need to be willing to consider many options." Nedzu explained.

"Plus, seeing which option you choose, and how well that choice fits with you fighting style and abilities, can tell us some things too." Aizawa added.

"How much you wanna bet us using handcuffs instead of capture tape has something to do with Midnight?" Mic joked.

"Honestly, it's probably just another way to make things more realistic." Yagi said. "Though, after working with her for a while, I wouldn't put it past her."

Kaminari said it sounded similar to their combat training exercise. Mic pointed out that it would be different because they would now be up against someone way better than them.

"That's a good point. Aside from a few individuals that had some kind of prior training, we were all going into the first combat training with the same amount of experience. Is that why you chose to face us yourselves? To simulate a larger difference in skill or power, like we might face with the upcoming villains?" Momo asked.

"That's part of it I'm sure, but I'd see it as being for your own safety as well. Your teachers are not only more experienced than, say, the older students would be, they also have finer control than most other students. One would hope that would cut down on the number of injuries." The look Recovery Girl sent the few teachers in the room seemed to tag on 'it had better anyway'.

Jirou said she had a hard time imagining them as 'better', which made Mic scold her.

"I thought you were worried about it because of how good your hearing was?" Uraraka pointed out.

"Sometimes when someone makes a comment that leaves them that wide open for a sassy comeback, I just can't help myself." Jirou smirked slightly. Mic barked a laugh.

"I can appreciate that!"

Thirteen said that this exam would be much closer to a real battle, and to think of them all as villains.

"That may not be the best idea to encourage, given the last villain that some of our classmates fought against." Tokoyami said.

People thought back to how Stain looked after fighting Midoriya, Todoroki, and Iida, and a few people shuddered.

"Yeah, definitely don't take that villain comment too seriously." Mic said.

"It will be fine. It's not like you're trying to kill us, so there wouldn't be a need to go so far." Todoroki said. He probably meant it to be defusing or comforting, but delivering it in his usual flat voice made it miss the mark.

Iida decided to try and salvage it. "Those were very dire circumstances! I'm sure we'll have no trouble restraining ourselves when we have the knowledge that it's just for training."

Gazes shifted to either Midoriya or Bakugo, as people remembered just how far the two of them had gone in the name of training before.

The teachers explained that, if you believed you could fight and win, then it was fine to do so. But if you get into a fight where there is a big difference in skill or power, then it would be smarter to run away and get help. Aizawa singled out Midoriya, Todoroki, and Iida, saying they should know what he meant.

"I was starting to feel like that was aimed at us." Izuku said "But does Aizawa know about how that fight really happened? I don't remember if it was ever stated who all was informed about the whole truth."

"If the story is that Endeavor saved you, then I'm likely referring to how I believe you should have tried to get away sooner so that didn't become a necessity." Aizawa said.

Iida vowed to never make the same mistakes he did with Stain again, and Midoriya mulled over the options of running and fighting.

Bakugo snorted. "You should know better than to think I'd agree to running, nerd."

"Yeah, I should, but they did say only one of us had to escape...though I probably also know that the other you will be...very upset if cut off your fight by running."

Bakugo pressed his lips together and said nothing. He didn't think he had too. Given his challenge to Deku earlier, they both knew that his other self's reaction to such an event wouldn't be pretty.

All Might declared that their decision making skills were being tested too. All Might then revealed that the support course had made super heavy weights for all the teachers to wear to give the students a better chance and to make fighting a more reasonable option.

"...you know, I don't think that's going to do much to stop All Might." Mineta said.

"In my prime it likely wouldn't have, but with my current health I'm sure such heavy weights will slow me down as well." Yagi said.

The looks the students sent him said that they didn't really believe him.

As All Might adjusted his own weights, he muttered that they were heavier than he thought. Then he revealed that the weights had been designed by Hatsume Mei.

The students were clearly surprised when All Might was shown to struggle a bit with the weights. Even with everything they'd learned about All Might's health condition and quirk, sometimes they still had a hard time believing that the Symbol of Peace could be fallible and vulnerable.

"She keeps popping up." Iida noted when he heard Hatsume Mei's name. Maybe it would be a good idea to swallow his pride and ask her about possible support items for himself in the future.

Bakugo seemed to take offense to the purpose of the weights, and said that All Might was underestimating them. All Might laughed before getting a really intense look on his face, and he said 'I wonder'.

Izuku flinched slightly at the look, and Bakugo grimaced.

"Bakugo, I feel the need to remind you that, even if All Might's health has declined, he is still a formidable opponent with great strength and many years of experience. You should accept the handicap, especially since the other you doesn't know about All Might's condition. Confidence is useful, but having too much will cause you to misjudge situations, which could get you and those around you seriously hurt." Aizawa lectured.

Bakugo ground his teeth. It's not like he didn't know that, at least he did here and now, the part about All Might at least. It was just...it's not like he could say that in front of everyone! It felt too much like admitting defeat before the battle had even begun!

Aizawa watched the expressions play across Bakugo's face, and it occurred to him that Midoriya might not be the only student whose reverence for All Might might be hindering their development. This also made him wonder if adding Midoriya into the mix would end up pushing things over the edge.

Kirishima and Sato would be up first. Aizawa told the others to either watch the matches or think up strategies among themselves. Students split off to talk strategy. Mineta wanted to strip Midnight and Sero called him a scumbag.

"Seriously, priorities dude." Sero said with a roll of his eyes.

"Yeah, even I can hear how it sounds now. And it doesn't even make sense as a tactic because ripping her clothes will make her more able to use her quirk." Mineta admitted.

"You just saved yourself a tongue lashing, kero."

The scene changed to Recovery Girl and Midoriya in the monitor room. Uraraka entered and was surprised to see him. Midoriya said he wanted the chance to watch everyone, plus Bakugo walked away from him when Midoriya tried to talk to him.

"See! Told you the problem was one-sided! Deku was totally willing to reach out!" She declared.

"Uraraka..." Izuku trailed off, feeling like he should say something, but wasn't sure what. It wasn't like this pairing was totally useless to him, he did need to get better about overly idolizing All Might, like Gran Torino said. And if this really did get Bakugo to be a bit more flexible and tolerant, that was good right? But he didn't want to admonish her when she was being supportive, and he was still nervous about how Bakugo might react to anything he said at this point.

"Didn't look like he tried super hard, but, given everything Bakugo said recently, that was probably just Midoriya recognizing a lost cause." Ojiro said. Hagakure nodded.

"Yeah, if Bakugo won't listen then he might as well try and get pointers from watching others."

Bakugo hunched his shoulders and didn't look at anyone. 'It's not like I need any help!' A part of his mind snarled 'Not even against All Might?' A different part taunted.

Aizawa found himself frowning again. The other him would probably look down on that as a half hearted attempt by Midoriya, but he himself had a better idea of just how many times the boy had fruitlessly reached in the past, only to get the same or worse results. Under those circumstances, plenty of people would have given up on that completely a long time ago.

Uraraka revealed she had a similar problem, but for different reasons. Apparently, Aoyama was too caught up in his reflection to do much talking. So she'd come to do the same thing as Izuku.

Aoyama blushed "Ah, perhaps I do get distracted too easily. My apologies."

"It's okay, you just gotta work on it in the future." Uraraka said.

The first trial started. Kirishima and Sato talked, and they decided that capturing would get a higher score than running.

"And when exactly did we say anything like that?" Aizawa arched an eyebrow at the pair.

"Well, you didn't, but fighting is always manlier than running isn't it?"

"This isn't a test of 'manliness', it's a test of whether or not you can judge when to run or fight and how you handle whichever option you choose."

Both boys flinched a bit at their teachers sharp tone. Mic clicked his tongue.

"You gotta remember that no one option is better every time, each situation is different."

The boys had to suddenly dodge when a tall concrete slab suddenly appeared right in front of them. Cementoss was shown kneeling further down the street. The pair decided to fight their way to Cementoss in an attempt to capture him. Sato ate some sugar to make himself stronger, which resulted in a quirk explanation. Including a bit about his cognitive function going down when he used sugar for power.

"Hey! Not cool! I hadn't told anyone about that yet!" Sato complained.

"We're gonna be training together for years, so we probably would have figured it out eventually." Todoroki pointed out. Midoriya decided not to mention the fact that he'd already theorized something similar based off his observations of Sato.

The students ran at their teacher head on. Cementoss put up a crazy amount of barriers in a very short amount of time. Kirishima and Sato let themselves go all out as they bashed through them.

"Oh I can feel that." Sato said, flexing his hand. His quirk made him much stronger and a bit dumber, but that didn't mean he didn't feel the affects of punching a foot thick wall of cement.

"I don't, not much anyway." Kirishima smirked.

"Lucky you."

Uraraka cheered them on from the monitor room, but Izuku quickly surmised that Kirishima and Sato wouldn't be able to win like that. While they had amazing quirks, they could only use them for so long. Cementoss didn't have that issue, so every minute that passed put the student pair at a greater disadvantage.

Kirishima and Sato looked disheartened, and Izuku rushed to say that didn't mean they had no chance. Kirishima bounced back quickly.

"Heroes fight at a disadvantage plenty right? We could still make it, and if we don't, then we'll know what we have to work on. That's pretty much why we're here right?" He didn't notice the contemplative look Bakugo sent him.

"You know, I sometimes wonder if we shouldn't organize study sessions where we just sit and listen to Midoriya talk about whatever we need to study. He's always got good points, and it'd be way less boring than normal studying." Kaminari joked.

Izuku said the key to this test would be in how the students dealt with their weaknesses, and Recover girl agreed with him. She advised them to think about their compatibility with the teacher they'd be facing.

"Do you think it's better or worse to be facing a teacher you know better?" Ashido asked, thinking of her vague but menacing knowledge of the principle.

"I'd imagine it could go either way. If you are more familiar with the teacher than the teacher would also be more familiar with you. And being less familiar with the teacher means they are likely less familiar with what you can do." Iida said.

"I think it's better to focus on the weaknesses portion, since Recovery Girl is implying that each teacher is meant to address a weakness we have." Izuku said.

That percolated in the back of the students minds as the show continued.

Just as Midoriya predicted, it wasn't long before Kirishima and Sato's quirk time limit came up, and they were overrun by Cementoss's quirk. Cementoss warned them they needed to learn how far they could push their own strengths.

"Okay now I'm feeling it, definitely feeling it now." Kirishima griped, shaking out his now aching hands.

"Ugh..." They weren't sure if it was from some of his 'lowered cognitive abilities' somehow leaking over or the sleepiness his on screen self was claiming, but either way Sato seemed pretty out of it now.

'Wait, is Sato experiencing a more intense version of a sugar crash?' Midoriya wondered.

"Note to self, find current limits, then work on expanding them." Kirishima said.

Kirishima and Sato were shown to be unconscious after that last attack, and Cementoss called the fight, much to the surprise of those who hadn't been watching. Recovery Girl got up, complaining about already having to work.

She did the same thing in real life, minus the complaining. Kirishima was now holding his head as well, and slumping in his seat a bit.

Uraraka was in shock over how one-sided the fight ended up being. Izuku said that their quirks were just too ineffective against Cementoss. It dawned on Midoriya just how hard this test would really be, and that didn't make him feel any better about having to face All Might.

"Don't get too lost in your head. That won't help either." Bakugo said.

Midoriya startled a bit, but calmed quickly. "You're right, it won't."

Tsuyu and Tokoyami were shown about to start their own test. Tsuyu theorized that Ectoplasm would wait for them near a gate, but instead they were set upon as soon as the test began. Ectoplasm told them the teachers were trying to crush them with everything they had. The episode ended there.

"Hm, this will be a very trying test." Tokoyami said.

"After seeing all those clones coming at you that's all you can say?" Mineta demanded.

"Either we'll win or we won't, I just hope it doesn't hurt to much either way, kero."

The kids (and teachers) were all eager to see how the other matches would go, so they only had another stretch break before moving on to the next episode.


A.N.

The thing about Inko throwing a blanket over the TV when Midnight came on TV in her early costume is a thing my own mother used to do. There were a few movies where she approved of most of it for the family to watch together, but they had a few more graphic scenes she didn't want us kids seeing at such a young age. So when those scene came up she'd hold up a pillow or blanket to block the screen until the scene was over.