"Get out of my way, Yaoyorozu."

Momo stared down Katsuki Bakugo. He held her gaze for a moment before scoffing and trying to shove her aside. In a single motion, she drew a pike from her chest and slammed its end on the ground.

Bakugo's head jerked around. "The fuck-"

Momo smiled sweetly. "You do anything like that to my friend again, and it'll be your head on this pike."

She swept by him without another word. That ugly viciousness was unbecoming of her, but it was a language that got through Bakugo's thick skull.

In any case, she had homework to review.

/~/

Dummies.

They had to fight metal, robotic, dummies in rotating pairs. There were different kinds too; a quick sweep showed Kimi about three different makes, the most common being a heavy armored one.

Aizawa stood to the side with a clipboard in hand to record their scores. Scoring was based on how much time they took to render the dummy out of commission; if they took longer than a minute, the dummy would automatically deactivate, failing them. Each person would have four different partners and have an average score pulled from that.

Sero and Iida just finished, scoring a whopping 43.7 (the amount of seconds they had left). Aizawa scribbled it down and called, "Kirishima and Midoriya!"

She glanced around, but Kirishima found her first. "Hey."

"Yeah, you're gonna have to tell me your quirk." Kimi admitted, cutting to the chase. "I went first for the previous matches and was knocked unconscious, so I didn't get to see anyone else in action."

He laughed. "I make my body hard and hit stuff."

She eyed him. "You're entire body?"

He shot her a sly, teasing smile. "Just which part are you interested in?"

"Careful," Momo called from the side. "She might castrate you."

That only caused Kimi's blush to deepen. She spluttered, but Momo was already gone, so she settled for a sigh. "Ignore that."

"Should I be worried?" said Kirishima, though the shit-eating grin on his face did nothing to demonstrate worry. "Anyways, what's the plan?"

Ah, that was a conversation she was comfortable with. "We smash it to bits."

His grin turned feral. "I like that plan."

They entered the ring, facing the dummy- it was a common armored one. The cluster of mechanic parts roared to life, bending and unbending its knees and waving its arms. Kirishima's skin seemed to stiffen in a way, before hardening into sharp angles. He charged forwards and slammed a fist right into the chestplate of the dummy, producing only a metallic thunk.

"Ow! Damnit!" He whirled around. "Hey, Midoriya! Don't just stand there!"

Kimi ignored him, casting her mind back to a darker time. She was ten again, staggering out of the villain hideout leaving a trail of blood. A little digging uncovered the memory pooling in her mind as a black pit of despair, and she dove right in.

Isolated in her suffering. No one to help her. She was going to die alone; there was no one to save her.

Just Kimi.

She cradled the lonely, cold feeling, adding fuel to the icy flame until the chill spread through her veins. Her eyes snapped to the dummy, the hunk of metal. Emotionless. Immune to pain.

You should feel cold too.

A thin sheet of frost swept over it, crackling crystals of ice crawling up from its legs, multiplying exponentially to encase the entire dummy in frost. Gears whirred in protest, the waving of its metal arms snapping off some of the ice, but the it consumed every untouched space with a hunger.

With icy eyes, Kimi watched the freezing show.

"…I should've been worried," muttered Kirishima.

She glanced at her partner who did a double take at whatever expression was on her face. "It's brittle now; go for the joints," she told him.

The brazen grin was back in an instant. "You got it."

He shot forwards. Stone-hard fists smashed against the neck-joint of the dummy, relentlessly beating it until it finally gave out, and the head of the dummy fell to the ground.

Kirishima strode back over to Kimi, extending his fist. She blinked at it for a second before bumping it with her own, just as Aizawa announced their final score of 32.6 seconds. With what was almost a sigh, the ice within her thawed.

Kimi's eyes met the mismatched ones of Todoroki, and she jerked her thumb over her shoulder and said, "My ice is prettier than yours."

He rolled his eyes and looked away. "He's just jealous," she told Kirishima.

He barked a laugh. "I like you, Midoriya. I should beat the crap out of you sometime."

Kimi flipped her hair. "You can try."

/~/

"Ki-mi-ko!" Momo sang, making her way over. "You keep getting knocked unconscious, so we haven't had a chance to talk."

"Yeah, um, sorry 'bout that?"

"Forgiven," she said easily. "So, what d'you think they're gonna score?" She motioned to the pair before them.

Bakugo and Mina Ashido scowled at each other, the expression looking fierce on the former and petulant on the other.

"Thirty or so seconds."

"Really." Momo snorted. "With the way they've been going, it'll be a miracle if they can get stay in the twenties."

Just as she said that, Bakugo abruptly turned away, launching himself at the dummy and thrust his palms into the head, a string of explosions going off.

The head was blown clean off.

Bakugo brushed past a stunned Mina Ashido, who hadn't had a chance to react.

"Forty-one seconds!"

Kimi blinked. "Well, damn." Looks like I'm picking up Bakugo's crude language.

"So…tie?"

"No way. I was closer."

Momo huffed, handing her a couple coins. "Fine, let's bet on the next."

Turns out, the next pair was Kimi herself and Tsuyu Asui, so betting was a little awkward. Bet too high, and she'd look arrogant. Bet too low and if she was right, it'd look like she purposely held back.

She settled for a nice, "Twenty-five to thirty seconds." which seemed to be the average.

"I have full faith in you," stated Momo. "So Forty-five and up."

Blushing a little at her confidence in her, Kimi nodded. "Deal."

"Asui, was it?"

The other girl tilted her head. "Please, call me Su."

"Well, Su, your quirk is…an elongated tongue?"

"My quirk is frog."

"Your quirk is…frog."

"Yup."

Okay then. The new dummy was another of the standard armored ones. Asui didn't seem to have the raw power of Kirishima, so it was up to Kimi to do the heavy-hitting.

And what was good for heavy hitting? Well…

"Damn," Kirishima whistled as a five-foot sledgehammer materialized in her hands. I was wishing for power, but the universe went a little overboard.

She heard someone mutter, "It's taller than Mineta," which elicited a snicker from her. Steadying her feet, Kimi broke into a run.

The awkward weight of the hammer turned what was supposed to be a sprint into a stagger, and she had to jerk her own weight to a side to balance it out.

"That's not going to work," she said, turning to Su. "Any ideas?"

Her large eyes blinked. "My tongue's not very strong, but I guess I could launch you forwards with it."

She vanished the hammer to ease the burden on Asui, planning to re-summon it at the last instant. Then she was whizzing through the air, bringing the hammer down on the head and crushing it with the force of mass times acceleration.

She huffed, a little out of breath. "Thanks, Asui."

"It's Su. And good job."

Walking back into the crowd of onlookers, Kirishima called, "Nice one!" and she flashed a grin back. Yaoyorozu walked up to her with an air of smug satisfaction.

"You scored forty seconds- I'm closer, so I win."

"You know, I don't even care; I scored forty seconds."

She paused. "Oh, right. Good job."

That was the third highest score, Iida and Sero's whopping 45 coming in first, followed by Bakugo's single-handed victory at 41 seconds. However, they were all pretty much beat in the next five eight seconds by Denki Kaminari telling his partner, Mina, "I got this," walking up to the dummy and short-circuiting it.

52 seconds.

Mina threw her hands up in the air. "Sensei, how about next time you just don't bother calling me."

"She's unlucky," Momo murmured. "And we didn't even have time to place bets."

Kimi flinched as Iida's ears practically perked up and he sped-walked over. "Placing bets is not good student etiquette," he scolded.

"Right," said Kimi. "Hey Momo, let's just discuss who's gonna win and give money to whoever's closest."

"Cool."

Iida appeared to be in physical agony. "That-that-"

Kimi cut him off. "Oh look, it's my turn again. I don't feel like betting, ahem, discussing how I'll do with money on the line."

Momo pouted. "Fine. Hey Jiro!"

Kimi headed over to Uraraka. Without even her having to ask, the brunette said, "I can levitate things."

"Oh. Thanks."

She looked faintly amused. "Got a plan?"

"Make my hammer lighter?"

"Kay."

As Kimi repeatedly whacked a hunk of metal, she reflected on what it said about her for this to be the greatest fun she'd had in a while.

39 seconds. The two girls exchanged high-fives.

Sauntering back over to her group, Kimi asked, "Who won the bet?"

Momo raised her hand with a triumphant smirk.

"I said forty and above," Jiro said, a little dazed. "She said thirty to thirty-nine. All you had to do was take one more second."

"…Sorry?"

Momo nudged her. "Don't be."

Sensing the danger to her wallet, Kimi refrained from making any more bets. Jiro, on the other hand, refused to quit until she won it all back.

Personally, Kimi thought that would be rather unlikely.

/~/

"Midoriya and Todoroki."

They took their positions before the dummy, Kimi offering him a tentative "Hey."

He dipped his head in acknowledgement.

This was her designated 'mutated dummy'; everyone got one specifically picked for them. Kaminari had gotten one without any chinks in the metal to be impervious to his electricity, and Bakugo's one was shock-absorbent. Kimi barely had time to wonder what would counter her, before Todoroki snapped into motion without a word.

With just a shift in his stance, a streak of ice slammed into the dummy, before…

Sliding right off.

Narrowing her eyes, Kimi registered the faint gleam of water on the metallic surface. It's heated. This wasn't a counter for her; it was one for Todoroki.

Not to waste a single second, Kimi re-summoned the sledgehammer (maintaining creations took too much energy) and wished for a burst of power through her legs and arms.

Even as the hot energy coursed through her limbs, Kimi could feel a chilly emptiness creep into her core; she was out of wishes for the day, and wasn't willing to use One for All and hospitalize her for a simple exercise.

So this was the only hit she got. Kimi launched herself into the air, trembling arms driving the hammer downwards.

It bounced right off the head, and the hammer dissolved into nothingness.

She dropped into a crouch to avoid the swinging arms and ducked out of its reach, sprinting back to Todoroki. "I'm out of commission," she told him. "All up to you now."

"That is merely inconvenient," he…assured her? More spears of ice raced towards the dummy, once again merely sliding off the surface.

"It's got a heated surface- use the other half of your quirk; overheat it or melt it or something instead."

"That will not be necessary," he said calmly, even as the next barrage slid right off. Like it had before. And the time before that.

Kimi's expression was flat. "Really."

A soft snarl escaped his lips, two sets of ice streaking forwards this time. They crashed into the dummy from two sides, but a jerk of its arms was enough to dislodge the ice.

"Your fire, Todoroki. Use it!" Kimi felt like she was going mad with frustration; and it wasn't even enough frustration for another wish! The solution was so obvious, and why he kept trying a failed tactic was completely baffling.

"No."

"Why?!" she burst out. "Look! Use your eyes! Can't you see it's not working?"

"It'll have to run out of heating energy eventually," he replied stubbornly. "I refuse to use my left side."

Kimiko once again wondered why that was. Not wanting to rely on his flames and under-develop his ice was the reason she'd stuck with, but it sure as hell didn't apply now. So was it arrogance? Sheer stubbornness?

"Damnit!" she growled. "This is not the time for pride!"

Todoroki's eyes flashed. "Be quiet."

"But this is ridiculous!" She protested. "You're not going to outlast it!"

"Attacking a dummy," he pronounced, "is still combat."

What.

And with that, he was back to shooting ice. Kimi watched, dumbfounded, as he threw his frustrations into more ice, flat-out refusing to even consider using fire. Oh god I want to throttle him. And finally, she realized.

This mutated dummy was designed for both of them.

It countered Todoroki, who was paired with her. And Aizawa knew that without a pair, her quirk (which lacked pure, raw power), was relatively helpless when put against a suit of metal.

If Todoroki, her partner, was stumped, then so was she.

She didn't throttle him, but she shook his shoulders (which she'd have to settle for instead). "Use. Your. Fire."

He shook her off. "Get your hands off me!"

She seethed, overcome with the urge to stamp her foot childishly. There was just something utterly infuriating about watching something do the exact same thing over and over, expecting different results. She never would have expected it from the prodigious Shoto Todoroki.

"You don't use your fire in combat situations- is that it?" Her eyes narrowed. "Well that's ridiculous. Why would you handicap yourself like that?"

He glared.

"I mean, if you learn to switch between both sides for combination moves, then both quirks will be developed. You don't have to practice them individually."

"That's not what this is about."

"Then what is it?"

He swirled to face her, and Kimi was taken aback by the emotion in his eyes.

He was seething hate at her, intimidating in a way Bakugo could never manage. Todoroki was all frost and jagged ice; cold, sharp and commanding. In contrast, Bakugo was a petulant child throwing a tantrum.

Finally, he declared, "You wouldn't understand."

Channeling her inner Bakugo, Kimi spat, "Bullshit! You're supposed to use everything you have at your disposal to achieve your goal; what the hell are you doing-"

A soft whirring cut her off, and Kimiko stared in numb disbelief as the metal dummy shut off, slouching into its deactivated position.

A minute was over.

They'd failed.

The aftereffects of her heated emotion had her ears ringing; Kimi was still in shock as she walked back to the sidelines, leaving Todoroki frozen behind her.

/~/

They were the only ones to fail. No one else even came close, the lowest being Mineta and Jiro's 27 seconds.

Shoto couldn't move, trapped in his own collapsing world.

It wasn't the fail, which wouldn't be weighted heavily. It was the feeling of his power failing him- of success slipping through his fingers like the melting of an icecube in his hands.

Mostly, he felt like he was burning.

He was burning in his father's flames- he was standing within them, consumed by the fire. Was he never going to escape the need for his flames, and therefore his father?

The thought of being dependent on him was like dragging a knife through his gut; it was physically painful;, unbearable.

Shoto refused to rely on his father's power; he'd prove that his left side, and therefore Endeavor, wasn't necessary. He didn't need him to become a great hero.

But he'd failed. So did that mean…?

No, he thought venomously. I'll get stronger, cleverer. I'll never give in.

Resolve reinforced, Shoto strode off the field.

/~/

A/N. Bakugo was certainly insufferable in the beginning of the series. I find him an interesting character; a ball of anger and pride with a lot of directions for character development. I haven't settled on a path for him yet, so we'll see how he grows.

Reviews are, as always, loved.