The hero team tried to slip in, using stealth to their advantage. I fretted from my spot in the monitor room, rocking on the balls of my feet.

"Relax."

It was my partner for the match-ups—Todoroki. He eyed me, almost annoyed, through his ice armor. "Just focus on yourself and what you're going to be doing for our fight."

I didn't respond. Not bad advice, but he didn't exactly know what I had invested in this first round.

Underdeveloped-quirk Midoriya against an extra angry Bakugou was like a kid against a Japanese hornet. This wouldn't be pretty. Maybe even deadly.

In moments, the encounter on the screen went from stealth-focused to explosion-filled as Bakugou jumped at Midoriya. I clamped a hand over my mouth. Smoke went up, obscuring our vision from the camera. But Midoriya had grabbed Uraraka and leapt away, effectively dodging. His mask was spent, though. The assault continued and—

And Midoriya grabbed Bakugou's arm, using his newfound strength to flip him onto the ground.

I gasped, shocked. It hadn't been with his quirk, but Midoriya had just countered Bakugou. The blond laid on the ground, either shocked frozen or catching his breath.

Uraraka diverged, breaking for the weapon.

Bakugou swung and failed once more.

"Dang, he's not even using his quirk," Kirishima whistled. "And Bakugou got the highest scare at the entrance exams. He's doing really well."

He was definitely the underdog who hadn't failed yet. Bakugou got more irritated and Midoriya shot down another hall to create some distance.

I sighed in relief. "That's a good strategy. Bakugou's going to go after him and completely forget about the mission." He'd take himself out of the game, but Bakugou would be more of a threat than Midoriya would be a help in retrieving the weapon.

"Bakugou's a little too good at playing the villain." Kaminari laughed nervously. That was an understatement. He'd been the villain of my story since the day he first called me chubby.

It was a game of hide and seek, but as time ran out for the hero team, the whole class knew they would have to change up their strategy. Bakugou knew this too, and cornered Midoriya.

My nerves had settled some after seeing him perform so well, but I didn't like the look on Bakugou's face as he aimed his gauntlets. He prepared to pull a pin.

All Might pressed the walkie-talkie. "Bakugou-shounen, don't pull that—"

I watched in horror as he didn't listen, sending a magnified blast down the narrow hallway. Midoriya had to brace for impact. I looked to All Might, eyes wide. I wished he had listened to me and stopped the whole thing before it started.

Kirishima seemed to be thinking the same thing. "Sir, isn't this getting a little out of hand?"

"I'll give them some time." He pulled up the speaker for Bakugou and Midoriya to hear, forbidding Bakugou to unleash his other gauntlet.

The fight went on, Bakugou showing off some flashy flips.

Even Todoroki seemed impressed. "He doesn't seem like the type to strategize, but he's actually pretty intelligent."

I scowled. When you're around Bakugou as much as I was, it was hard to listen to the compliments. He got them a lot, and they fueled him.

"He changed the trajectory of his jump with a small burst, and it doubled as a smoke screen so he could attack from behind."

The smart girl, Yaoyorozu, chimed in. "That took a lot of precision, physically and with his quirk."

Kaminari groaned. "I hate how talented this guy is."

I gritted my teeth. Me too.

Midoriya took some hits and was forced to retreat. No one could fault him. Instead, they were rising questions, asking All Might to end the fight. The pro hero remained silent.

Why?

Then to our surprise, Midorya charged Bakugou.

"He wasn't running away before," I realized. If he had, it had been a bad move to run out into the open only to come right at him again.

"They're going to kill each other!" It was Kirishima. Part of me thought he was right.

"Please, All Might." I braced myself, unable to look away from the screen.

The boys met to swing, Bakugou causing an explosion. At the last moment, Midoriya swung up, taking the full blow into his side, but sending a powerful attack through the roof. In the other monitor, Uraraka used the debris to get in Iida's way, floating and dropping herself onto the weapon.

"They won!"

As the smoke cleared, we saw the damage that had been done unto Midoriya's body. Two ruined arms, and singed flesh.

The class, sans an injured Midoriya, went through a critique of the battle. After all, the whole point of the exercise was to learn. I couldn't help noticing how despondent Bakugou was. I'd never seen him that way before. But what was I supposed to do, ask him if he was alright? He'd just kicked the crap out of Midoriya. I knew better than to think he felt guilty—he was just mad he'd lost. But maybe he would finally stop accusing Midoriya of cheating to get into UA.

Anyway, I had to focus. Team B was drawn next as the villain team against team I, which was the blond kid with the thick tail and the invisible girl, Ojiro and Tooru.

The four of us broke into teams for a quick strategy meeting, giving us a chance to prepare in the weapon room. I took the time to examine the rocket as Todoroki waited for the bell to chime so we could start.

"Tooru's quirk was practically made for this," I commented. "Ojiro's probably going to try and distract us so she can sneak by and touch the weapon." He looked bored—I guess he knew this already. "So what do you think we should do?" I had a few ideas myself, but I didn't exactly know the extent of his quirk.

"Let me handle it," he said.

Did I hear him right? "You know, this is a team challenge." Besides, I had one of the few quirks that could foil invisibility.

He didn't seem to hear my objection. "I'll just make a barrier." Before I could stop him—not that I would have, but still—he took a step. Ice shot from his foot, coating the floor and surrounding the entire room, walls and all. I shivered, wishing I'd designed a winter coat into my costume.

He froze the door shut, too, so I couldn't tell if he'd confined his power to the room we were in or the whole building.

"Doesn't this tell them exactly where we are?" I tried to argue, hugging myself as the temperature dropped.

"It doesn't matter if they find us."

The test started and we waited around the weapon. I tried to take a page from Yaoyorozu's book and kept my guard up the entire time, though it wasn't easy when I could see my breath.

Soon we heard banging at the door. Not the best strategy, but Todoroki had made it so that they didn't have a choice. Ojiro burst into the room, having used his tail to break the door down. But Todoroki had already sent another wave of ice, catching his feet before he could react.

My partner gritted his teeth. "I didn't get the invisible one."

"She didn't come inside with him," I said. "They sacrificed Ojiro's movement to get the door open."

He moved to reseal the door.

"Wait a second," I muttered. We could win that way, but we'd have to let the time run out. If we incapacitated her now, we could win via immobilization and have it over with in moments.

I'll tell him to attack now to the left—no?

My gut churned and pulled. To the right, then. Now?

No.

Now.

I pointed. "There, on the right wall."

Todoroki spared me a glance but listened, sending a wave of ice. This time, it wrapped around two invisible legs.

"C-cold!" Tooru cried. I winced, realizing she was probably naked.

"Sorry," Todoroki said.

A voice crackled over the speaker system. "The hero team is incapacitated—Villains win!"

I sighed, because I hadn't gotten to do much. I didn't really feel like a hero. Todoroki pressed his hand onto the ground, and steam rose into the air. He was melting the ice, I realized as it quickly turned to water.

"What even is your quirk?" I breathed.

Todoroki got MVP, of course. No arguing that. "However," All Might added. "You also subjected Miss Ryuuzaki to the cold. Perhaps there was another way to succeed. Make sure you exhaust all possibilities to find the best options. Don't forget what your peers have to offer."

"Jeez," Kaminari said. "So far only the villains are getting MVPs."

"It's easy to be a villain," I said.

It didn't stay that way as the exercise continued. Once more, we stood in the monitor room to observe.

Todoroki looked at me as the next teams were strategizing. "How did you know where she was?"

I furrowed my brow, still a little irked at him. He was better than Bakugou, but I could tell he didn't play nice with others. "My quirk." I didn't explain any further just to annoy him.

By the time a few matches passed, I was starting to get a feel for everyone's quirks and names. There were some really impressive kids—except for Mineta. I wasn't sure how he got into the same hero course as Todoroki and Bakugou.

When the class finished, All Might went to go check on Midoriya, and I shot the blond another glance. He was really out of it, eyes down and silent. I would have thought he loved this kind of class, loser or not. And hell, I thought I would have enjoyed seeing him get knocked down a peg. Instead I felt the urge to go and talk to him.

I shook my head, deciding against it. He didn't respect me—not even as a rival. I'd just make him feel worse, and who knows who he would take that out on.

The bell rang, and Aizawa-sensei reminded us to take care of our cleanup duties before he high-tailed it out of the classroom. I had chalkboard duty, which wasn't that hard because it was only the second day.

"Woah, Bakugou—Where're you going?" Kirishima called.

I turned from wiping down the board. The blond was on his way out the door. "School's over—I'm leaving."

Ashido hopped up beside him. "Wait, you can't go yet. Aren't you going to wait and see Midoriya when he comes back?"

I shook my head at her from across the room. They didn't know yet what would set him off. The subject of Midoriya was sure to. Bakugou scoffed, enraging me.

"You need to apologize to him, Bakugou." I clenched my fists, dropping the erasures onto the teacher's desk. "You really hurt him this time. He's been in the nurse's all day."

He tilted his head back and glared. "Shut up, Chubby, I'll—" I blushed hard at the insult, realizing the whole class had heard.

"Woah," interjected Ashido. "Woah, woah, woah, you can't just call a girl chubby!"

"Did I seriously just hear that?" The punk girl, Jirou, scowled from the back of the room. She hopped up and crossed her arms. "Shove off it, Bakugou. And apologize to her, right now." Shocked, I watched as four or five of my new classmates, including Asui and Mineta, dropped what they were doing to chastise him. Where was this in elementary school!?

"That was just mean," Kaminari said. "And she's not even chubby!" He winked at me, and I wasn't sure if he was trying to make me feel better or if he was trying to flirt.

"Shut up, all of you!" Bakugou appeared genuinely surprised, but also defensive, and he slammed the door behind him. At least he didn't try to explode anyone.

I had never seen such a thing in all my life. I just watched my bully turn into public enemy number one.

"Yo, what's his problem?" Kirishima asked. I realized it was directed at me when he added, "You guys went to the same middle school, didn't you?"

I sighed. "Bakugou's always been this way. He's got a major complex of some kind." How else to describe him? Most of the people in my life just knew how he was.

The blond boy—Aoyama—hummed wisely at his desk. "Narcissistic personality disorder."

I laughed, which had probably been his goal. "Could be." The rest of the class seemed off-put, but my mood had suddenly improved as we went back to our tasks.

Moments later, the door slid back open. Midoriya padded into the classroom in a sling and two wrapped arms. He was swamped by his worried classmates, me included.

"Imagine the look on all of our middle school classmates' faces," I said when I had the chance. Midoriya laughed, then realized Bakugou wasn't in his seat. I rubbed the back of my neck. "You just missed him. It's probably for the best. He's not in a good mood."

He sighed. "That's exactly why I have to talk to him."

I furrowed my brow as he ran down the hall and out the building.

"Drama alert!" Uraraka cried from the window, practically pressing her face to the glass. "Midoriya and Bakugou have made contact outside."

The practical and non-nosy half of the class went back to work, some even packing up to leave already. Asui, Ashido, and I hopped next to Uraraka to watch.

"They're just talking?" I frowned.

"Bakugou looks like he wants to punch him, kero," Asui noticed. But he turned around and walked away.

"Childhood friends turned to enemies," Uraraka gushed. "How tragic."

I wanted to correct her, that they had never been friends, but I thought that would hurt Midoriya more than anything.

Could Todoroki just freeze the entire building to stop Tooru? Absolutely. But I wanted to have Hotaru at least do something.

One of my favorite parts of the show was when Bakugou got behavior checked by the other 1-A students. It was great character development. Big fish in a small pond thrown into a big pond. I love it. He's such a dynamic character.

I want to thank F.B.100, loop2, Emocean, and YourHomeGirlJen for being wonderful people and reviewing.