Chapter VI: A Glimpse of the Competition
"Okay, class. Today, we're assigning class representatives. I don't care how you do it, as long as you get it done before lunch break," droned out Aizawa, who then plucked out his trademark sleeping bag from the floor, zipping himself up in it.
Soon enough, he was fast asleep.
After a few seconds of silence, someone in the class finally spoke up.
"So, guys, how do we do this?" asked Hagakure from the front, turning back to look at her classmates.
Most of them shrugged, 'til Hagakure met Iida's eyes.
"I think that we should just do this through a democratic vote!" suggested Iida, raising his hand up high.
"But won't everyone just vote for themselves, anyway?" pointed out Mineta, arguing against Iida.
"This is why you should just vote for me instead! If I'm class rep, I'll make every girl's skirt shorter by 10 centimeters!" he continued, raising his fist in the air, lecherous smile on his face.
He was then shot with bad looks from all of his classmates.
Izuku, who was in front of him, formed a small wooden hammer in his hand.
A small bonk then resonated throughout the room.
Once the class had turned towards the source of the noise, they were met with the sight of their grape-headed classmate knocked out on his desk.
Turning to the rest of them, Izuku began to speak.
"If you guys don't have any other suggestions, I guess Iida-san's wins out. Do whatever you want, Iida."
With a nod, the tall, eager teenager told the rest of the class to write who they were voting for in a piece of paper, which he then collected and put into a small box (courtesy of Izuku himself.)
After tallying the votes, the election came to a conclusion.
Midoriya Izuku - 3 votes
Yaoyorozu Momo - 2 votes
"Well, this means that Midoriya-san will be our Class Representative, and Yaoyorozu-san will be our Vice Representative. Please take care of us," said Iida with a bow, before returning to his seat.
"That sounds like a good idea! Midoriya-san's pretty strong, and Yaoyorozu-san's pretty smart!" exclaimed Kaminari, expressing his approval for the election's outcome.
"Tch. I could've done a better job, but whatever," scoffed Bakugou, which was basically putting out a similar message of approval.
Well, it seemed that everyone in the class did approve of the end result.
Apart from Izuku himself.
"Yaoyorozu-san, swap with me?" asked Izuku, looking back at the girl two rows behind him.
"E-eh? Why?" she asked back, pointing to herself.
"I know you want this more than I do. I don't want this at all, and but I'll be fine helping you," he answered, even offering a bit of compromise.
"Well, if that's what you want, then I guess I have no choice?" said Momo, accepting the offer.
"Thanks, Yaoyorozu-san."
"Thank you too, for believing in me, I guess?" she said embarrassedly, to which Izuku gave a small smile to.
After a few moments of enjoying the wholesome moment, as if on cue, Aizawa stood straight up from his sleeping bag, wasting no time whatsoever.
"Are you guys done here?" he asked, still in the yellow cocoon.
The class nodded, a bit startled to answer properly.
"Alright. Go and get lunch. Good luck with your classes later this afternoon," he replied, walking out the door himself.
The class responded positively as he was on the way out, and then they followed suit.
Izuku, seated with his usual group plus Yaoyorozu, was happily slurping down some noodles while listening in on the conversations of his classmates.
He was broken out of his trance-like state when he heard his name mentioned.
"I must congratulate you on being nominated to be our class reps, Midoriya-kun and Yaoyorozu-san! But tell us, Midoriya-kun, why would you want to give your position over to Yaoyorozu-san?" asked Iida.
"Well, I'm not really good with people and I don't know jack shit about leading them. So I thought I could learn a thing or two from Yaoyorozu-san," said Izuku, looking at the girl in question.
"I see! What a humble mindset! Maybe this is the kind of thinking we need to take in order to be one of the best!" exclaimed Iida, raising his voice a little.
The rest of the table sweatdropped.
"Well, that, and I'm a bit too lazy to think about what I can do for the class. I'm fine with helping Yaoyorozu-san do whatever," said Izuku, who then resumed the consumption of his noodles.
It was everyone else's turn to sweatdrop.
"Well, you could use some fucking fast decision-making skills in your life, Ponytail. I noticed yesterday that you were hesitant as fuck," commented Bakugou, quite surprisingly, before eating a large spoonful of curry.
The girl got a bit embarrassed, evident from her rather shocked expression and the slight tinge of pink on her cheeks, but she knew that this was true. She needed to think faster on the fly, instead of just planning out for everything.
"Calm down with your language, Bakugou! And even if you say that she didn't think fast enough, they won yesterday, did they not?" countered Iida.
"Yeah, but that's because she was against shitters in the first place. The Sugar Guy and Tape Face. What if she pulled me? Or Green? Or Icy-Hot over there?" said Bakugou, tossing a look towards Todoroki, who was peacefully slurping up his soba over at another table.
The bicolored boy was puzzled as to why Bakugou would talk toss that look towards him, but Izuku reassured the confused Todoroki by looking at him too and mouthing the words don't mind to him. He nodded in response, and proceeded to continue enjoying his noodles.
"Aren't the three of you too strong for anyone to beat anyway?" asked Ochako, eyeing the two out of the three students in question.
"Anyone can beat us. Anyone can beat you. It's just that we figure out how to beat other people quickly, and a lot of people don't really know how to do it the other way around," said Izuku, looking up from his nearly-finished bowl.
"I kind of understand where they're coming from," said Momo, who had stayed silent for most of the time.
"Sato-san and Sero-san were rather quite simple to beat, because their quirks weren't really versatile compared to mine and Ochaco-san's. I'd have a harder time if someone did something unpredictable, so I need to work on thinking on the fly, because I wouldn't know what some villains would have in store for me," continued Momo, looking back at what All Might had told her during the battle exercises.
"I see! Truly insightful from our class representatives! As expected of them!" exclaimed Iida, voice raised a little harder this time.
Before they could tell him to lower his voice, all the hustle and bustle that was in the canteen was suddenly interrupted by the loud sirens of what sounded like an alarm.
"It's a code red! Someone or something has infiltrated the U.A. Barrier!" said an upperclassman from behind them, which didn't really help ease the panic of the students.
Everyone then began scrambling towards the exits, not even bothering to form an orderly line.
Well, Izuku doubts that most people would be able to do so in that situation.
But still, it was getting people trampled, so he knew he had to do something.
He could've sworn he heard Bakugou scream at someone already.
He looked out the window, and after a few seconds of looking around, he realized that there wasn't really a threat outside U.A.'s missing front door.
It was just the media.
He has to say, though, that seeing some ashes in place of the huge door that was supposed to be there was a bit alarming.
Quite literally.
"Midoriya-kun! Uraraka's getting trampled! Some other students are, too! We should do something!" said Momo, who was luckily safe beside him.
He nodded, thankful that she had snapped him out of his thoughts again.
"Make me a megaphone. I'll get the people to calm down," requested Izuku.
She nodded, and made one from her thigh (which was a pleasurable sight to see for Izuku, but he doesn't really want to think about that right now.)
Handing it over to him, he then threw a grappling hook to the top of the canteen and latched onto it, making sure he was at the highest possible point of the canteen.
"Hey!" he shouted through the mic, grabbing the attention of everyone in the cafeteria.
He then made a grappling hook which attached him to the ceiling, so all the people there could see him.
"Calm down. Look outside. It's just the press. You're kinda running over your classmate there," said Izuku, pointing towards a group of people who were more tightly compressed than the others.
"I think y'all should go back to your classes. This time, do it orderly, alright?" said Izuku, who then dropped down from the ceiling after he had made his point.
Everyone then rushed to make lines with their classes, especially the upperclassmen, because they didn't exactly want to be shown up by some freshman.
Once everyone was walking back to their respective classrooms, Izuku and the classmates at his table began to gather themselves to head back to their room.
"Quick thinking, Midoriya-kun! I was about to get trampled!" said Uraraka, thanking the boy for helping her out.
"No problem. I couldn't have done it without Yaoyorozu-san," said Izuku, looking towards his fellow class representative.
"Don't worry about it, I didn't do much. We make a nice team, eh?" jested Momo, nudging Izuku with her elbow.
"Oh! That's right! I forgot about it, but the two of you have really similar quirks! It's kinda fitting how the two of you both became class reps, ehe~" said Uraraka.
The two students in question looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders in sync, and then they kept walking back to their classroom.
Once they got back, they were met with Aizawa-sensei already standing in front, and the rest of their classmates who weren't with them during the incident.
"Midoriya. Yaoyorozu. Good job back there at the cafeteria," said Aizawa, sounding as proud as he could.
There wasn't much emotion behind the man, but any positivity towards them was something to be appreciated.
"Thank you, sensei," said Yaoyorozu, bowing her head. Izuku emulated her gesture, and the two of them went to get seated.
"I came here to check on the rest of you, since a code red just happened, but everything seems to be fine for now. Good luck on your classes for this afternoon, and Yaoyorozu, Midoriya, the two of you have to attend a meeting with the faculty and 1-B representatives after school hours. Take care, 1-A. I'll see all of you tomorrow," said Aizawa, finishing his last sentence as he walked out the door.
"Yes, sensei!" said the class in response, and Aizawa was lowkey glad to hear them.
The rest of the day went by noticeably quick.
Their afternoon was rather uneventful, because they only had the more normal classes to attend to.
Midnight's costume was something everyone was slowly getting used to, which had helped them take Arts more seriously, and Math class had them work on a worksheet in pairs that were randomized, so Denki, Mineta, and Jirou were happy to be the lucky people to be the partners of Momo, Tenya, and Izuku, respectively.
Bakugou also did great at teaching Uraraka the things she couldn't understand, but it was rather loud compared to the other three.
People would expect nothing less of him, of course.
Everyone else was fine, and the rest of the day went by without much problems.
Izuku told Uraraka that she'd have to go home with Bakugou and the others, because he and Momo had their meeting or whatever to attend to.
She knew that, and after a few goodbyes, Iida, Bakugou, and Uraraka went to walk to their stops.
Meanwhile, Izuku and Momo were walking towards the faculty room, where they were told they'd be having the discussion.
"First day as class reps and we're already staying late after school, huh?" said Momo, looking at the taller boy next to her, trying to do whatever she could to appease her current boredom.
"Tell me about it. Should've given this job to Iida, or some shit," said Izuku, sighing a bit heavily.
"I'm sure you'll do great, Midoriya-kun. I guess getting to know our fellow representatives in the Hero Course would also be a good outcome of this... thing?" said Momo, to which Izuku could only agree to.
Izuku was somehow curious as to what the students in Class 1-B were like.
Judging from what he's seen so far, the people in 1-A have quirks that are very straightforward, and he wonders if Class 1-B has more interesting quirks at their disposal.
As the two of them had finally reached the door of the faculty room, Momo knocked, and the two of them entered quietly.
They were met with the eyes of Sekijirou Kan, The Blood Hero, and a girl who had a similar ponytail to Yaoyorozu's, albeit a bit smaller. Her hair was strawberry blonde in color, and her eyes looked kind and gentle, sort of like a big sister.
The other representative was a boy who was rather stocky in build; he had gray hair which was swept to one side, and he looked rather anxious.
Once the two of them closed the door behind them, they were greeted by the Principal.
"Good afternoon, Midoriya-kun, Yaoyorozu-chan. We're glad to have you join us today," said Nezu, comfortably sitting in his rather disproportionate office chair.
The two of them bowed, offering their greetings in return, and then they filled the remaining seats around the table.
Seeing that all of them had settled down, the Principal cleared his throat to speak.
"So, 1-A, 1-B, we're here to talk about your scheduled Rescue Training in the upcoming days. Since we have an issue with, erm, All Might's availability, he can only be there for about 3 hours, tops. Kan and Aizawa couldn't decide whether to have you do joint training or have one session at a time, so they kind of brought you into this," said the principal, chuckling as he finished his last sentence.
The representatives of each class then glared at both of their homeroom teachers.
Aizawa and Kan could do nothing but rub the back of their heads sheepishly and apologize.
"With all due respect, Nezu-sensei, I do think that it would be quite difficult for All Might to handle teaching forty students at a time, even with the help of another teacher. I doubt that he would be able to manage to get the information through all of us within just three hours, so I think it would be the best solution to have us do separate sessions instead," suggested Momo, leaning in closer to get her point across.
"While that sounds really reasonable, Yaoyorozu-san, this would mean that Class 1-B would be behind in schedule by one meeting, since unlike Aizawa-san, I actually told my class to attend the campus opening ceremonies," said Vlad King, gesturing towards Eraser, who rather looked unfazed.
"I mean, I saved a lot of time for my class by doing so. You can always just use a vacant period to help catch up, no?" rebutted Eraser.
"It would be a bit of a struggle finding a period to use USJ that wouldn't overlap with other Hero Classes. You do know that the third years are practicing for large-scale rescue missions at this time of the year, right?" replied Kan, tone getting a bit more aggressive.
Aizawa grunted in response.
"I don't think any Hero Class is missing any lessons before the Sports Festival, so why not just catch up sometime after it? The Quirk Assessment Test isn't really much, anyway," suggested Aizawa.
"Sir, I think that Aizawa-sensei has a point. If it's only lessons we need to catch up to and not training, it would be pretty easy to catch up with 1-A's pace," added Kendou, looking over at Vlad King.
"Even your students can see where I'm coming from, Vlad. I think it would be the most rational to go with that plan," said Aizawa, voice sounding victorious.
"What about you, Nezu-san? What can you say about this?" asked Vlad, turning to the intelligent animal.
"Well, I think it's rather sound, Vlad. I'm afraid I don't really have anything else to say, and I agree with Aizawa's proposal," he replied, twiddling with his thumbs.
Kan sighed in defeat.
"Well, alright, I guess that works. 1-B, please allot a vacant period after the Sports Festival for an extra session to catch up with 1-A. It's just one lesson, so I'm pretty sure the others won't mind," said Kan, turning to the two representatives of his class.
The two teens nodded in response.
"I guess that's our meeting for today finished, then. I don't know why they would drag you into this, but I guess that's just our homeroom teachers getting a bit competitive with each other," said Nezu, chuckling at the thought.
"Thank you for having us anyway, Nezu-sensei. It was wonderful to meet all of you," replied Momo, looking around at the other teachers that were there, and the 1-B students.
"No problem. I'm Kendou Itsuka, and this is Shoda Nirengeki. You're Yaoyorozu-san, and this is Midoriya-san, right?" said the strawberry blonde, to which the green boy nodded to.
"Glad to meet the both of you, too," said Izuku with a smile, bowing.
"No need to be so formal, I'm sure we'll get to know each other well in the next few years," said Kendou, waving off the boy's formal demeanor.
"You were the guy with the highest score in the Entrance Exam, right, Midoriya-san?" asked Shoda.
"Oh, yeah! I forgot about that! I was like, fifth place with sixty-five points, but your score was like double mine!" exclaimed Kendou, marvelling at the feat.
"I just did what I knew I could. Bakugou had like ten more villain points than I did, but he didn't have any rescue points, so there's that," said Izuku, trying to humble the achievement.
"You were, Midoriya-san? Color me impressed. What was the practical exam all about?" asked Momo, quite curious.
One thing about being a recommended student would be taking a different exam from everybody else, and you wouldn't really be able to get to know someone there, since the atmosphere of the exam was insanely pressuring to even try and socialize in.
Well, he remembered that one tall guy trying to interact with Todoroki, but he wasn't here.
"The exam was all about blasting robots. Then, when the results were out, they told all of us that there was this hidden mechanic about rescue points, and how people in the faculty would give you rescue points based on what you did to help other people," explained Kendou, taking her attention off the green-haired teen for a while.
"Midoriya-san here had something like 60+ rescue points and 60+ villain points. That's crazy, if you think about it, because we only had ten minutes to stay on the battlefield," added Shoda.
"He must've been moving around quite a bit, then," said Momo, putting a hand over her chin in thought. She tried to imagine how he'd navigate so quickly from one area to another, wondering how he'd used his quirk to augment his mobility.
Maybe through the grappling hooks she saw him use in the canteen earlier?
"Say, what about a little sparring match, Midoriya-san? I really wanna know how you fight, and what better way to find out than fighting you myself, right?" said Kendou, interrupting Momo's train of thought.
Momo was taken aback by the sudden offer, but he did wonder how someone strong from 1-B would fare against Izuku.
They probably wouldn't be any different from the strong ones from 1-A, but she was rather curious as to what kind of quirks they would be able to see from the other class.
"Sure. Today was pretty boring, anyway," replied Izuku, taking up the girl's offer.
"Great! Where do we do this?" asked Kendou, looking around. The four of them were already walking towards the station, but after Itsuka's little challenge, they knew they'd have to stay on campus for a bit longer.
Seeing the familiar silhouette of one of the battle cities they used for their Indoor Battle Training, Kendou pointed to it.
"Why not over there? It looks pretty close, too," she suggested, to which Izuku nodded to.
Once they were there, Kendou jogged up a little up in front of them, taking her position.
"Why don't we try it here, Midoriya-san? Anything goes. Winner pins the other guy to the ground first. Does that sound good?" she suggested, doing some stretches to limber herself up.
"Sure. Let's let Yaoyorozu-san and Shoda-san call the start of the fight for us," said Izuku, to which Kendou and the other representatives nodded to.
Once Izuku was done with his own stretches, Momo and Shoda called out in unison.
"Go!"
The two students then rushed each other upon hearing the signal, getting closer and closer within each other's range.
Once Kendou's right hand grew to what looked like four times their usual size, time seemed to slow down for Izuku.
'I'm assuming that's her quirk. She probably trains it with something, like martial arts or some shit, just like Ojiro,' thought the green-haired teen, looking at the hand which was seemingly preparing itself to hit him with a palm strike.
Hopping to the right to not get scooped into her hand as the attack missed, Izuku began forming a flask of oil with his left hand. He subtly tossed it under Kendou, planning to use it later.
He then heard a small 'tsk' from Kendou, which signified that she had been expecting him to hop the other direction.
Swinging widely to try and strike him with her left hand, Izuku sidestepped it once more, snapping his fingers to free the oil from its containment.
He then kicked behind her shin, making her knees bend a little bit forward. Another kick would send her to the floor, the oil being quite the slipping hazard.
Hitting her back hard on the way down, Kendou grunted. Trying to fight her way back up, Kendou kicked both of her feet upwards, with intent to get out of the pool of oil under her and hit Izuku on the way there. Izuku reacted by jumping above her to cross to her other side, making sure to pass over her hands. Mid-air, he quickly formed something that would let him get a massive advantage.
Kendou had done the same, and as she smiled at the thought of having another window to strike, she felt something tight fasten her wrists together.
Looking down, she discovered that her hands were now bound by carbon fiber wires.
Her huge hands couldn't do anything if they couldn't move around, right?
Kendou knew this, and in a last ditch effort, she had shrunk her hands to try and grow them again, in hopes that the action would break the rope that had bound her hands.
Pulling her in close while she was still distracted, Izuku gave her a swift elbow to the face, which had caused her to stagger. Desperate to fight back, Itsuka sloppily kicked forwards, which had caused Izuku to catch her leg. Knowing that she couldn't really fight back anymore, Izuku slammed her on the concrete floor using her leg as leverage, holding it up to prevent her from attempting to fight back once more.
"I win, Kendou-san," said Izuku, who had also lowered himself to make holding the girl down easier.
As he stood back up, he offered her a hand, which she willingly took with a smile.
"I guess you do. Geez, I'm sorry for doubting you, Midoriya-san! You're really strong!" said Kendou, rubbing the back of her head sheepishly.
"Don't worry about it. You weren't so bad, too, y'know. You looked like you knew what you were doing," he replied.
"My quirk's rather simple, so I just try to make up for it by knowing martial arts. Speaking of which, what's your quirk? It was so confusing fighting you, y'know?" asked Kendou. He fought as if he was quirkless, but with a lot of gadgets that could aid him in combat. Kinda like that one hero from before quirks were a thing. Was he called Nightman? Darkman? Itsuka couldn't remember.
"Oh, my quirk's called Pocket. Lets me make anything that isn't alive as long as I know what it's made of and how it works," answered Izuku.
"Seems really handy if you can deal with fighting Quirkless. You practice any martial arts? You were moving really fast earlier! Got me sweating a bit," chuckled Kendou.
"Some, yeah. We should try and spar quirkless sometimes," said Izuku, who had began to walk back to Momo and Shoda.
"Sounds like a good idea!" said Kendou, following the green-haired boy.
Midoriya schooled her, and she couldn't do anything against it.
But she was grateful for it.
At least she knew that she had a lot more room to grow.
"That was amazing, you two! You were both so fast! My eyes couldn't keep up!" exclaimed Shoda, the usual anxiety of his face replaced by excitement and awe.
"As expected from my fellow class representatives. Both of you looked really cool!" added Momo, her smile showing a mix of satisfaction and relief.
'Well, I kinda knew he'd win. Kendou-san put up a good fight, though. If Izuku was a lot slower, she probably would've won.'
She chuckled at the thought.
But, alas, fortunately for 1-A, their Vice Representative was something akin to a Pro Hero.
Well, not that she'd tell anyone.
It was their little secret, after all.
"Midoriya-san, you're something else. You put me in my place," said Kendou a bit playfully.
"Hey, you asked for it. Now that that's out of the way, why don't we head back home? We have some hectic days ahead of us, anyway," suggested Izuku, to which all of them agreed to.
"Tell me about it. Rescue Training, the Sports Festival, and then the internships are coming up. Well, I guess that's what we should've expected from Hero School," replied Kendou, who had began walking behind Izuku and Momo.
Shoda-san nodded along, and the four of them began to converse with each other, telling their fellow students the basic things about each other, like their quirks, their likes and dislikes, and some things they noticed about their homeroom teachers.
They also talked about some of their classmates, and how the four of them all instantly agreed to ditch Monoma and Mineta the moment they could.
Eventually, they reached their respective stations, with Shoda-san going first, followed by Kendou-san.
After that, Izuku and Momo were left.
"Guess it's us two again. You wanna grab dinner together?" offered Izuku, getting on the train.
"Sure. It feels like shit being alone after school, anyway," said Momo, following suit.
The two of them then sat together on the train, talking about whatever they could to pass the time. Izuku taught Momo a thing or two about assembling small, complex machines, and in turn, Momo told him about her techniques on how she remembers the structures of things faster.
Eventually, their stop came, and the two of them went out to decide where to go eat.
Momo wanted to eat at some fancy bistro in the upper parts of town, insisting for it to be her treat, but thankfully, Izuku managed to convince her to try the Chinese food place which was close to her apartment.
She ended up enjoying it, and in order to thank Izuku for introducing that place to her, she wanted to buy him food from there next time.
He ended up accepting the offer, because who doesn't want free food from a cute girl?
After saying their goodbyes, they went off to their own apartments, wanting to finally rest and end the rather boring but still tiring day.
Just as he was falling asleep, Izuku made a mental note of what's happened that day.
'I've met people from 1-B, we have Rescue Training tomorrow, and I have this gut feeling that something's going to go wrong tomorrow. But eh, how bad could it be?' thought Izuku, before finally drifting to sleep.
If the future him was there right now, he'd probably slap the present Izuku in the face, because he just went and jinxed something.
A/N: Hey y'all. Happy Holidays! I've been busy catching up with college and chilling these past few days, so I was a bit slow on this chapter. This is just the build up before the USJ Arc. I'll probably squeeze all of that in one chapter too. Hope you liked this chapter, and hope you leave a review and a follow. Thanks, everyone, and I hope y'all enjoy life.