Sinking her teeth into the soft bandage, Ryuko quickly yanked her head back, tearing through the fabric before spitting out a few strands of cotton. And then she continued wrapping layers upon layers of fabric around her forearm. The pain was gone. The bleeding had long since stopped. And her costume, brand new and probably expensive, was torn, everything below the elbow missing. But if All Might asked her one more time if she needed to go to the nurse's office, she was going to drive her knee into his crotch, consequences be damned.
She understood he probably had to ask her.
For legal reasons.
Or because he felt incredibly guilty.
But it wasn't like she broke every bone in her goddamn arm.
Not like that Midoriya kid.
A broken finger? No sweat. She'd broken her thumb once or twice. But breaking every bone in his arm? After one punch? Every time he used his Quirk? She didn't have a degree. But it didn't take a genius to realize Midoriya had no clue how his Quirk worked or how to control it. If she didn't know better, it was almost like he'd gotten his Quirk for his birthday or something. But that was bullshit. Quirk weren't like presents or coupons. You couldn't just get one. Shut them off, maybe, but remove them?
"Congratulations!"
Unaware of her current train of thought, All Might addressed the nineteen remaining students of Class 1-A, "Both teams fought valiantly! Unfortunately, or rather fortunately for the hostages, the heroes were the winners of the second match! There were some minor injuries, yes, but hero work doesn't come without sacrifice," predicating the statement with an obviously genuine chuckle, he gave the losing team a thumbs up, "Now then, can anyone tell me who the MVP was? How about you, young Ida? Care to share your thoughts on the match?"
Just a little bit earlier…
"I ~really~ wish we could have fought Todoroki!"
Picking up another sheet of manufactured metal, Toru Hagakure slid it into position atop the others, "Well, Tokoyami's kinda cute. But Ryuko's scary!" her bare feet, invisible even to herself, stepped over the dummy hostages, "I don't think she even knows how to smile!"
"I'll admit…Matoi is stern."
She disliked speaking ill of other people.
Yet Momo reluctantly found herself in agreement with Toru, "But perhaps she simply has a hard time opening up," she'd known Matoi for barely a day. Less than that if one considered orientation. But she couldn't recall Matoi socializing. As a matter of fact, Uraraka's attempts at exchanging phone numbers hadn't gone well. But she had friends at UA, Asui and that girl from the general education course. She'd seen them eat lunch together. And Matoi had definitely smiled at something Asui said.
"I suppose we can try talking to her after class," manifesting another tungsten sheet, Momo stacked it atop the others, "Maybe invite her – "
"Oof!"
Clang!
"Whoops, sorry!"
As the piece of tungsten barricade slipped from Toru's hands, Momo closed her eyes and mentally went over their strategy. The stairwells were blocked. As were the windows in this room, the room across the hall and the window near the eastern stairwell. And she'd just finished barricading the door. Yet she was nervous. Training under the supervision of private tutors was one thing, but genuine combat against her classmates? Momo ignored the butterflies in her stomach and focused on something useful.
Matoi and Tokoyami.
The former posed an immediate threat, but the latter's Quirk gave her pause. She'd only caught a glimpse of his Quirk during the assessment test. There was far too much she didn't know. Could he use it to fly? Was it strong enough to grab anything heavily than balls? It was fast, but how fast? Since it was technically nothing more than a shadow, did that suggest it could slip beneath doors and through cracks? Maybe she should have gone with something more airtight than metal plates and barricades. Perhaps spackle and plaster could have worked to seal up –
"LOOK ALIVE, KIDS! SHOW US YOU'RE THE EMBODIMENT OF GOOD! OR EVIL! LET'S GO!"
The number one hero's voice came through the receiver in their ears loud and clear.
But especially loud.
Looking at the digital watch counting down from fifteen minutes on her wrist, Momo took a deep breath, held it and exhaled, "Are you ready, Hagakure?"
"~Almost~ Just…don't look, okay?"
She wasn't planning on looking.
It was the furthest thing from her mind.
"I…don't think there's anything to look at," Momo muttered to herself, eyes drifting the other way, hand covering her face on the off chance she saw something.
"All done!"
A pair of gloves and sneakers were tucked away in the corner of the room near the crash test dummies functioning as their hostages, "And don't worry! I remember the plan perfectly!"
"Good," she could hear her heartbeat. The tension was enough for sweat to trickle down her face. Adrenaline flushed through her veins. She had the urge to create something, if only a matryoshka doll or two, to steady her nerves. But through sheer willpower and focusing on the exercise, Momo refrained from doing something she'd quickly regret. Her lipid supply was already dangerously low from creating everything necessary for their plan to succeed, "Wait for my signal! We'll only have one chance at –"
CRASH!
A distant groan, muffled by several floors of concrete and steel rebar.
CRASH!
Another thud followed the first, only closer.
"Darn it – " as a third barricade met an untimely demise, Momo refrained from cursing, " – she's tearing through them like paper!"
"I thought you said they could stop an elephant!" Toru's invisibility didn't prevent her from stammering, out of outrage or nervousness she didn't know.
"They can," Momo's attempt at defending her Quirk faltered when another barricade sounded like someone kicked it against a wall, "But I never expected -"
She covered her mouth when the door down the hallway opened, creaking upon rusted hinges.
A bead of sweat dripped from her chin.
As footsteps slowly approached their room, stopping on the other side of the door, Momo swallowed the lump in her throat.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then, for whatever reason, the footsteps continued down the hallway.
Momo's knees wobbled when the ominous presence slowly moved away. Matoiand Tokoyami were really taking the training exercise seriously. But as that thought was overwhelmed by the hastily constructed blockade further down the hallway shattering into countless pieces, followed by a door opening and closing, she belatedly remembered they were supposed to be the villains. And Matoi a hero. But that didn't stop her from holding her breath for nearly half a minute after Matoi and Tokoyami moved to another floor.
"Ah," holding a hand over her pounding heart, she reached for something to steady her nerves, "That was close."
"Hey," hidden behind a stack of crates despite being completely invisible to the naked eye, Toru cupped her hands around her mouth and whispered, "Do you think they knew –"
She didn't get the chance to finish when part of the ceiling collapsed.
"Aw, my bad."
Riding atop the resulting avalanche of debris, dust curling around her costume and a crimson sword about the same length of her arm stabbed into a chunk of concrete, Ryuko's grin was downright vicious, "Am I interrupting something?"
Back in the Present...
"Me? I…well…"
Taken off-guard by the spotlight suddenly thrust upon him, Ida took a moment to clear his throat, "…well, precluding the result, I would say Yaoyorozu. While it's true her team didn't win, she anticipated Matoi and Tokoyami's strategy and prepared countermeasures. She also efficiently utilized her and Hagakure's Quirks. If it weren't for Matoi's willingness to behave like a villain, she likely would have won."
"An excellent deduction!"
All Might granted Ida a nod of approval before clicking the pen in his hand, "It might seem uncharacteristically villainous, but sometimes a hero must act accordingly to throw evildoers off their game!"
Just a little bit earlier…
Ryuko's elation lasted as long as it took her to spot the twenty-millimeter artillery cannon.
"On the contrary," with some measure of satisfaction, Momo braced one hand against the recently materialized weaponry, "You fell right into my trap!"
A quarter of a pound of gunpowder detonated, sending a nitrile net flying across the room.
Ryuko didn't know if she laughed or cursed because crashing through a ceiling only to find herself staring at a cannon wasn't something that happened every freaking day.
Even so, at the same time, she flew into motion, gloves crinkling around clenching fingers and lips drawn into a determined snarl.
And she swung.
Two fervent swings became four, then eight and finally, sixteen. Her arm moved back and forth, slicing through the nitrile webbing before it so much as touched her. And by the time Yaoyorozu realized her surprise attack failed, Ryuko stomped a foot against the ground, smirked and aimed her less-jagged-than-usual sword at the faux villain while tattered webbing rained around them, "Nice try! But looks like your trap failed!"
Another bead of sweat joined the several already trickling down Momo's face.
Matoi was fast.
Which meant it was time to move onto Plan B.
"Who said that was my trap?" her forearm sparkled as lipids broke down and atoms restructured themselves into metal and plastic. It was personally abhorrent, but she was supposed to be a villain. Her grimace turned into a smirk as a fake grenade fell into her fingers, thumb twitching against the pin, "Surrender or everyone die!"
Ryuko's brows furrowed into something vaguely resembling a frown.
"Heh, go ahead," but what emerged was something between a chuckle and snort. Her lips curled into a grin villainous in every way, shape and form. One far outmatching Yaoyorozu's stereotypical bluster reminiscent of a movie villain than a genuine criminal, "If you want to kill yourself, by all means, don't let me stop you. But you're going to be the only one dying today!"
Momo actually gasped, "You wouldn't!"
"Fine – call my bluff. Pull the pin. Let's see who's right. You. Or me," she countered with a malicious smirk.
Click!
"Got her!"
And then everything turned on its head.
As something snapped around her wrist and Toru jumped for joy, Ryuko's mind rebooted. What the hell just happened? Still processing the last few seconds, she looked down at her wrist and noticed a handcuff. A thick handcuff trailing to an even thicker chain wrapped around one of the pillars supporting not only the ceiling, but the entire building. Her confusion turned into embarrassment as she pulled on the handcuff, which refused to budge even an inch.
And then she pulled harder, "Come on! Seriously!?"
"I wouldn't bother, hero," posing with her hands on her hips and a smirk so villainous that All Might, halfway across the urban environment, decided to award her extra points, Momo mentally repeated to herself this was only a training exercise. But she still felt incredibly guilty, even if she buried it beneath a smile, "Those handcuffs are solid tungsten. Your Quirk is strong, but unless you're All Might, you're not going to be able to break them."
Momo said more.
A lot more.
But if she was being honest with herself, Ryuko stopped listening around the point Momo's speech devolved into something one of those Saturday morning cartoon villains repeated every episode before they were defeated by the power of friendship or some other stupid bullshit.
"Oh my god, enough monologuing!"
Actually, genuinely, annoyed by Momo's over-the-top villainous bragging, especially after Hagakure joined in, Ryuko flexed her knees, shifted her center of balance, breathed through her nose and lurched backwards. For barely long enough to notice, her feet left the ground, dust curling around heeled boots and fluttering skirt. In that scant moment, individualized strands of black and red danced in front of her eyes. Time slowed to a crawl as Yaoyorozu and Hagakure realized her strategy. But they were too late to stop her. Because the moment she landed, she stomped her foot against the slackened 'tungsten chain, swung her arm as far as possible in the other direction and sliced through the supposedly unbreakable metal as easily as pretty much anything else.
"Oops!"
Ryuko smirked, a piece of chain dangling from the handcuff still attached to her wrist, "Guess I foiled your backup plan's backup."
Toru, despite wearing absolutely nothing, blushed, "That's totally not fair!"
"Like I care what some hostage-taking villains has to say," despite the noticeable weight on her arm, Ryuko kept her sword pointed at Yaoyorozu for one simple reason – she had zero idea where Hagakure was standing, "The only thing I care about is how badly I'm gonna need to kick your sorry asses! Too bad that's never gonna happen!"
"THE HERO TEAM…WINS!"
It took Momo a moment to realize All Might had spoken.
"…what?"
They…lost? But how? Sure, Matoi was putting up more of a fight than expected, but she still had a few tricks up her sleeves. Momo looked at her watch, which showed seven minutes and a handful of seconds remaining. They had plenty of time. So why did they lose? Biting her lip, she turned around, the breath leaving her lungs at the hostages no longer tied to a pillar. Impossible! Matoi hadn't gotten anywhere near the hostages!
"Aw, man!"
But upon Hagakure spotting Tokoyami standing inside the designated zone out on the street, Dark Shadow gently setting down the hostages, the truth slapped her across the face.
"How could I have fallen for such an obvious trick?" Momo collapsed, despondent not over losing, but how they'd lost, "And after I worked so hard coming up with a good plan."
"Hey."
While Yaoyorozu slowly sunk into spiraling depression over being outplayed by someone who'd improvised almost every step of the way, Ryuko shook her wrist, mouth twitching as the thick chains jangled. The handcuff was definitely real. And heavy. And her wrist was starting to chaff, "Not to ruin your moment, but you mind getting rid of this thing?"
"I wish I could, Matoi," Momo sighed, "But I was so worked up acting like a villain I forgot to imagine a key."
The handcuff and tattered chain suddenly felt several times heavier.
"…you're kidding me."
Back in the Present...
"However – "
If there was one thing All Might knew Ryuko appreciated, it was honesty. It wasn't always pretty. Or nice. But she preferred the cold, hard truth over lies, " – while unnerving villains through intimidation can be useful, especially when buying time for your partners to get into position, a pro hero must keep an open mind before attempting to bluff hardened thugs or criminals."
"Sir, I thought Matoi and Tokoyami's strategy was well thought-out," Momo raised her arm, "It was a standard distract-and-rescue operation. What could they have done differently?"
"An excellent question! Indeed, every day, heroes utilize distractions and subterfuge to maintain the upper hand over evildoers," the symbol of peace's smirk widened imperceptibly as he clicked the pen and looked not at Yaoyorozu, but her fellow students, "But there is a time and place for everything," there was nothing technically wrong with Ryuko's strategic villainy. It was an excellent plan. In fact, if memory served, Endeavor utilized a bluff of a similar nature last year, "A hero should always work to assure civilians they're safe. Civilians aren't like us. They don't wake up in the morning expecting to be thrown into dangerous situations. They don't always know what your Quirks are. Ryuko might have been fast enough to save the hostages, but how would the hostages know that?"
He wrote something down.
A relatively minor deduction on their score, "All it would take was for one of the hostages to scream for someone to get seriously injured. Or worse. Remember that."
Tokoyami sighed, "Understandable."
Ryuko refrained from rolling her eyes, "Yeah, I guess I might've overplayed things."
"Great!"
With his limit approaching and only two matches finished, All Might jotted something down, "Onto the next match! Our heroes will be Team I and the villains will be Team F!"
