Bakugou refused to respond over the intercom, and eventually just turned it off, leaving me completely in the dark. Thinking over what I was facing, i decided on a course of preparatory action.

Once I had finished, I starting thinking out the rest of the assignment.

"Bakugou has a natural tendency towards troublemaking, but that's actually perfect for this exercise. Following that train of thought, I ought to act more like a villain as well. This too is simply another trial to become a splendid man worthy of the Iida family name. Put myself in a villain's shoes." Doing my best to imitate the notions of villainy, I practiced my best evil laugh. Cloak myself in darkness. "I Am now…extremely evil!"

From the corridors I heard a stifled, tinkling laugh in a familiar voice. Uraraka was hiding behind the corridor entry. Just as expected.

"So you've come, Uraraka!" I cried in my best imitation of super villainy. "I know you'd come here alone as soon as Bakugou bolted off! Yours is a quirk that causes whatever you touch to float. With that in mind, I moved to counter you by giving this floor a thorough cleaning!" I had removed everything she could possibly use against me before hand, to ensure Uraraka would have no chance to attack me. "Now there'll be no little tricks you can try. You've made an error in your calculations, hero!" And I added an extra evil laugh; Uraraka looked both impressed and like she was trying not to laugh.

She turned on her intercom. "Deku! I got discovered by Iida, sorry." She was starting to inch back. "Now he's inching closer."

I moved forward towards her, trying to think of what to do next. I don't want to get rough with her, but…

The entire building suddenly shook, as if someone had let off a real nuclear weapon in the basement. We both trembled as the floor shook beneath us.

"Is that Bakugou!?" I cried, breaking character. "What is he doing?!"

In the moment I was distracted, Uraraka had run forward, towards the nuclear weapon. I jumped in the way. "Oh no you don't!"

But before I knew what had happened, Uraraka was floating - over my head!

"You can float yourself too?!" I cried. That was unexpected - but a true hero had to adjust.

"Release!" cried Uraraka, releasing her floating and falling towards the weapon. "It takes a toll on my body, but how do you like my special move?" she called back at me. Infinity and flying - quite a combination! But I couldn't let her win.

I jumped into a action and seized the weapon, moving it out of the way so she flipped over and hit the wall, missing her target.

"As long as you can't touch me, you're no threat to me!" I cried. "So I'll just hold out like this for all the time I need! Hehe!"

Uraraka looked annoyed at me. She tapped her headpiece and muttered the situation to Midoriya. I took a stance, preparing for her next move.

Somewhat to my surprise, she grabbed a column by the wall, saying "OK!"

I found myself confused.

The floor exploded in the middle in between us, an avalanche of upward force so powerful that the entire floor had blown up.

Bakugou, what on earth are you doing now!?

Then I realized that this wasn't an explosion like Bakugou's. It was an invisible force - the same kind of force that had - knocked out that robot at the entrance exam.

Midoriya's power.

And opposite me, Uraraka had lifted a column and was holding it like a baseball bat, aimed straight at the debris from the destroyed floor.

"Sorry, Iida! Here's my new improved super move!" She called, and with a swing, batted a huge mountain of debris straight at me. "The comet home run!"

"You call that a home run?!" I retorted, moving out of the way to avoid getting crushed. What was that supposed to -

My attention had been distracted. Uraraka was going over my head, floating herself straight to seize -

"THE WEAPON!" I cried, but it was too late. Uraraka had touched it, and we had…lost.

Uraraka slumped down in pain. I rushed forward, now that the exercise was over, and put a hand on her back as she began to vomit from the strain of floating herself. Poor girl, her own power hurt her so badly…

Midoriya's attack and once again put him in the hospital, so myself, Bakugou and Uraraka were the only fighters called into an interview with All Might.

"Hm, I'd say the best in this match was…Young Iida!" said our Sensei. I gasped in shock.

"But weren't the winners Ochako and Midoriya?" asked Tsuyu Asui, the frog girl who sits in front of me.

"I wonder why I could think so? Who knows?" asked Sensei.

"I do, Sensei!" piped up a tall, dark haired girl in an open-fronted red shirt. "It's because Iida was the one who adapted the most to the situation. Having watched the fight, Bakugou's behavior was clearly driven by some personal grudge, and thus totally arbitrary. Furthermore, just as you said earlier, a large range attack in an indoor arena is foolish. The same reasoning goes for MIdoriya. As for Uraraka, she let her guard down mid battle, and her final attack was too reckless. We were trading the paper ache dummy as an actual nuclear weapon, so that kind of attack would have been unthinkable. Iida devised a counter-strategy against his opponent. Because he correctly supposed the match would revolve around the core. While he was too slow in reacting to that last attack, I believe the hero team's so-called Victory was because this was training, and didn't respect the spirit of the trial."

There was dead silence.

"W-well, young Iida might also have been a bit too stiff. But otherwise you nailed it!" said sensei.

"We should always start with the basics and devote ourselves whole-heartedly to learning. That's the only way we'll become top heroes," said my new friend, whose name we learned later on was MOmo Yaoyorozu.

After class, we all returned to homeroom. Midoriya didn't recover or return until the end of the day; Bakugou remained sulking over his loss all day. Uraraka recovered quickly, and we were free to hang out alone together the rest of the day.

As class got out, I noticed our classmate with the bird's head sitting on a desk - Tokoyami. "Stop sitting on the desk! You're disrespecting the school!" I called. Tokoyami didn't listen to me.

I noticed that Midoriya had returned, his arm in a sling. Uraraka ran up to check on him.

"Deku, your wounds! Are they not healed yet?" she cried.

"Ah, don't worry. This is just because my physical strength is a bit sapped. More importantly, Uraraka, where's Kacchan?"

Kacchan? Oh, Bakugou. Midoriya, as soon as he learned that Bakugou had left early, ran off after him. As far as I could make out from my classmates reports, Bakugou and Midoriya had gone all out in a brutal fight against each other, Bakugou mostly aggravating Midoriya and very, very angry with him. And yet despite all that, the first thing Midoriya wanted to know when he returned…was how Bakugou was feeling.

I wasn't quite able to understand what that meant at the time.