The second day of school was far more familiar than the first. At least in the morning. It was a day filled with just regular school classes, English, math, science, and others. Izuku found he had an easier time with school work since he received One For All. He'd always been bright; he had to be because his teachers had never really cared if he got a topic or not before moving on.

But recently he was breezing through the workload. And UA was supposed to be on a different level than most high schools. He needed to ask All Might if the quirk had made him smarter too. Stronger and faster, sure. Why not smarter? All Might would know.

After lunch, they were all supposed to meet at Ground Beta. It was their first Heroics Class, and no one knew what to expect. Izuku was talking to Iida and Uraraka on their way from lunch. The three of them had become friends of a sort or at least had the potential to get there. They were discussing what they thought their heroics class would be that day.

"I'm not sure, but a school like UA would put us all through training or an assessment before they put us up against each other in battle exercises. To jump straight in would surely be irresponsible," Iida said.

"Who knows, it could be anything," Uraraka said. "Maybe we'll fright more robots!"

Izuku was about to comment when there was a "Tch," from behind them. They all; turned to look and saw Kacchan. "If you losers need basic training before we fight, go back to middle school." His eyes narrowed in onto Izuku. "You better hope we're not against each other you lying nerd. I'd enjoy destroying you." The 'like the good old days,' was left unsaid.

Izuku being naturally bubbly and awkward said, "We'll both do our best, Kacchan!"

Kacchan did not like this answer and stormed off towards class.

"Yikes, what's his problem?" Uraraka said.

"Indeed, he is so disagreeable! We should all strive to get along with one another as classmates and hopefully friends."

They both looked at Izuku for an explanation. He sighed. "Kacchan and I used to be friends when we were kids. He's very strong and powerful, but just a bit rough around the edges." There was silence from the other two. "No, really, he's like an onion. Layers!"

"You're saying Bakugo is Shrek?" Uraraka asked, trying (and failing) not to laugh. Izuku wished he could deny it. But it kind of fit. Izuku was just glad Kacchan was out of earshot. That comment would have probably cost him if Kacchan had heard it. Assuming that Kacchan could even put a scratch on him these days.

After regaining their composure and getting to Ground Beta with the other students, they waited for their teacher. After a few minutes, the door burst open and All Might strode in and said, "I am here! Walking through the door like a normal person!"

All Might was not walking through the door like a normal person. Normal people were not 7 feet tall and didn't strut when they walked into a room. But it was All Might, and the entire class was talking to each other about how cool it was to be taught by the number one hero. Even Izuku was excited because despite seeing All Might all the time when he trained, he still got a thrill from working with him and learning from him.

"Good afternoon, zygotes! Welcome to Foundational Heroics. I'll be your teacher this year and I believe in jumping straight into things. But first, costumes! Take your case and get dressed and return here as fast as you can."

Everyone was excited to see their costumes. Izuku was no exception. His mother had worked pretty hard on it, with his input into the design.

Izuku got changed and admired himself in the mirror. The bunny ears and smile mask were homage to All Might's hair and smile. It was a green jumpsuit with red shoes and a red belt—gloves as well as elbow and knee pads. Izuku thought the costume was pretty good.

Especially when he looked around at some of his classmates, some of them had decent costumes, but the suit of armor Iida wore couldn't be too practical. Izuku was sure he'd trip over his own feet and fall on his face if that were his costume. Was Iida expecting to block swords and arrows? A few were pretty martial arts-like but nothing special. Kacchan's was pretty fitting, though.

The boys arrived back outside the changing rooms before the girls. Soon the rest of the class came out as a group. Izuku looked at their costumes and decided that some of the support designers must have had brain damage to give skin so much skin-tight and exposed skin to these kids.

Was the invisible girl naked? He could only see shoes and gloves. Why would she have visible shoes and gloves if the rest of her costume was invisible? Was she expecting to do pro hero work in the nude?

After a few minutes of chitchat and admiring themselves, All Might got their attention. "Today we will be having battle trials!"

The students were excited by this but had questions. Everyone spoke at once asking about things like if the losers would be expelled or if it was against robots.

All Might answered all the questions and said the teams were going to be randomized. All Might realized that there was an uneven number of students and said, "Would anyone be willing to go twice?"

Izuku's hand shot in the air, and it was not the only one, Bakugo, and the angry-looking Ice Quirk guy (Izuku was pretty sure was named Todoroki) also volunteered, but All Might chose Izuku. It was nice having him a mentor. Bakugo scowled when he was chosen, and Todoroki's face stayed neutral.

Groups were made, and Izuku was paired with Todoroki (who was indeed the boy with the ice quirk) as well as Yaoyorozu, who he enjoyed talking to the day before. It was interesting that he was paired with the kids who got second and third in the assessment. And he thought they were both recommendation students. Random teams mean some pretty powerful ones, he guessed. Izuku was happy to be working with both of them.

The first match happened to be his and Todoroki's as the heroes vs someone named Hagakure who turned out to be the invisible girl and Asui (who seemed frog-like and told him to call her Tsu) as the villains. It didn't seem to be a fair match, even with just Todoroki's quirk.

They moved out to the staging area and have a few minutes to plan while the villain team prepared. Izuku was looking over the blueprints of the building and said, "So, Todoroki-kun, let's make a plan. What are you thinking?"

"This will be easy. I doubt you'll even be needed. Save your strength for the second match."

Izuku started to say something, but then stopped himself after a deep breath. "Well, let's break that down. This is a team exercise. What are you planning to do? Just freeze the whole building and everyone inside it?" Izuku asked half-jokingly.

"Yes."

Izuku blinked. "That's not the best idea, Todoroki-kun. Surely there is a better use of applied force as opposed to using overwhelming force. If this were a real situation you couldn't count on being able to freeze an entire apartment building, the collateral damage and potential civilian causalities are too much to risk! You'd be destroying people's homes and property to catch two people. Not to mention there's a bomb in there. Who knows if ice will set it off? It sounds like something Endeavor would do, and who wants that, am I right?"

Todoroki didn't seem to be paying attention until Izuku mentioned Endeavor. For the first time, Izuku saw some real emotion on his classmate's face, anger. "I'm nothing like that man."

"Well let's prove that! With our quirks we should be able to take them pretty easily. Both will be weak to your quirk, I'm guessing. Hagakure is seemingly naked, to increase her stealth capabilities. Why else would she only have gloves and shoes showing on her costume? And she may take them off so she can be completely invisible. And Tsu was rather frog-like, she could be cold or colder-blooded. You wouldn't want her to go into hibernation or something would you?"

Todoroki paused for a moment. "That's irrelevant. They are playing the villains and the building is empty so there is no need to worry about collateral damage."

"Come on, we could work together to beat them. No need to overwhelm and maybe hurt them."

"You can do whatever you want, but I am going to win this as fast as possible. There's no need to drag it out."

Izuku was getting a little annoying at the other boy's obstinance. "If you want it to be every man for themselves, fine." Izuku moved away from the ice user and muttered to himself. "He wants overwhelming force… Well, two can play that game."

Izuku took a deep breath, and the second All Might announced that they could go Izuku had activated Full Cowl at 80% and he quickly searched the first few levels and found the bomb on the third floor. He put his hand to it, and All Might announced that the heroes won.

Tsu was staring at him with shock at how fast he'd just appeared. She had no chance even to react. Izuku shot her an apologetic look. "Sorry, Tsu." Izuku was proud he didn't stutter when he said her nickname, despite not knowing her too well. "Todoroki was going to freeze the whole building and I thought that might not be good for you and your quirk and if Hagakure took off her costume she'd be invisible and naked in the middle of an iceberg. I wanted to go a little slower but he was not willing to compromise. No hard feelings?"

"I'm a little disappointed not to have done anything but appreciate the concern. Cold and I do not get along, kero."

Hagakure ran back into the room, or Izuku assumed she did when the door opened on its own. "What happened? How'd you get here so fast?"

"I'm just really fast, had to get here as soon as possible so Todoroki didn't ice the whole building."

"Oh man, that would have sucked."

All Might's voice came over the comms, "Well done heroes, please return to the viewing room for a debriefing."

They returned to the rest of the class, and everyone was talking. Todoroki had made his way back. He was not looking happy, but he never really looked happy, so who knew.

"Well done all of you! Can you tell me why you did what you did? Villains first."

Tsu spoke up. "Well, I was on to be on defense and we decided to send Hagakure to scout the hero team and attempt to ambush them. But Midoriya was too fast."

"Indeed, your strategy had merit. Now heroes, why did you act as you did? You know this was a team exercise?"

Izuku looked at Todoroki who said nothing. Izuku sighed. "Well, I thought we would all have a better experience if we worked together but Todoroki wanted to freeze the entire building, which was overkill for this exercise and would have caused unneeded property damage and not to mention affected our classmates negatively. Hagakure seems like she is naked, with only her gloves and shoes visible, which she took off to try to get the jump on us. And Tsu has all the strengths of a frog so logic dictates she'd have the weaknesses as well, such as extreme temperatures. Further, there was a bomb in the building, would freezing it set if off? We had no way to know. Todoroki did not want to work together, he said I could do whatever I wanted as long as I stayed out his way and that he wanted to win as fast as possible. I probably twisted the meaning of his words, but it worked out in the end."

"Well, it's an important lesson for you all. Sometimes the enemies you face will be more powerful than you. Dealing with overwhelming force is always difficult but I'd ask everyone to work with their partners for the rest of this exercise!"

A few groups went, and Izuku enjoyed watching their quirks in action not having sound was disappointing, but the battles were still easy to follow. There were some exciting quirks in his class. Finally, he was called to go again with Yaoyorozu. This time they would be on the villain's team, and they were facing the redhead with shark teeth, Kirishima, and Iida.

Izuku was pretty sure that Kirishima had a stone transformation quirk which would be a good foil for his lower-powered smashes. Izuku would need to make sure he didn't hit the other boy too hard but needed to figure out fast what was hard enough. Iida had a speed quirk, but with slower acceleration than Izuku's power, and it didn't seem like there was enough room for him to achieve full speed in the confined environment.

He looked at Yaoyorozu and smiled as they walked towards the building where the bomb was being hidden. "Any thoughts on where and how to defend the bomb?"

Yaoyorozu smiled. "I do have a few ideas. I can make quite a few kinds of traps."

"Your quirk is so amazing, Yaoyorozu-san! Let's get as many traps down as we can! Staircases first and then hallways. We should add some around on other levels too so they won't know which level we've hidden the bomb on." The building was five floors tall, and they hid the bomb on the fourth floor. "We should especially trap the fifth floor because several teams so far have placed the bomb on the top floor."

Yaoyorozu nodded and smiled. Different traps were already falling off her exposed skin. "You're significantly faster than I am. You start trapping the first floor and staircases, and I will work on the fourth and fifth. Find me when you need more or if you have ideas for some traps.

Izuku nodded and grabbed a roll of what he assumed were tripwires and other traps. There was a rather large bag of marbles, some flashbangs and airhorn-type traps which could be attached to trip wires, as well as a few other items.

He used Full Cowl to reach the lower levels of the building and went to town. He thought it would be useful to places a bunch of marbles near the entrance, and to add a bunch of trip wires so not only might they slip, but they might also trip. He attached two wires to flashbangs too, to give the heroes a proper welcome. This all reminded Izuku of the old movie, Home Alone.

Izuku was glad for Full Cowl because it allowed him to set up the traps faster than he would typically be able to. At one point Izuku ran out of materials, having laid more than a dozen traps on the first floor and one of the staircases. He left the other without surprises so he could reach the lower levels as needed. And he had a plan for trapping that staircase involving hot tar when he was finished using it.

They still had about five minutes left, and when Izuku found Yaoyorozu, she had several other traps developed and handed him more supplies. Yaoyorozu was not only very smart but also incredibly creative. He was happy that they were able to work together better than his first partner.

When All Might signaled the heroes to enter the building, Izuku was finishing up laying a few perfunctory traps on the third floor. He wandered over to the small barrel of sticky liquid that Yaoyorozu had made for him, saying tar would take too long to cool, and poured it down from the top floor. He wandered back to Yaoyorozu in the bomb room, two stories down via the fire escape. "So, do you think we should wait here or do you want to harry them some?"

Yaoyorozu smiled. "What do you have in mind?"

"Well, I have a pretty good idea where all the traps are downstairs. I could go and pay them a visit. Do what villain does, monologue a bit while you finish the defenses on this room." The room they chose had no windows, so even if the heroes surveyed the building from the outside, they wouldn't see the bomb.

His partner nodded, and Izuku zoomed off down the fire escape since the staircases were all otherwise occupied. He slowed down when he reached the second floor, and then jumped off so he could flank the heroes by entering in the front door. There was no way they could have gotten past all the traps on the first floor yet. As he approached, he heard someone swear, and they had probably tripped over a wire or marble.

Izuku quietly opened the door and stepped into the building. Avoiding the traps, he walked over towards where the heroes were. He announced himself seeing as neither had noticed him behind them, "Well, well, well. Seems you little heroes have found our big old death trap. Are you enjoying our surprises so far?"

"Dude, these traps are seriously unmanly," Kirishima said.

Izuku just laughed slightly maniacally, and Iida said, "Surrender now, villain, and you will not be harmed."

Izuku just smiled. He held out his hands in front of him and said, "Very well, come and capture me."

Izuku closed his eyes as Kirishima rushed towards him. Izuku threw a leftover flashbang between the hero pair. Izuku took advantage of their temporary blindness to run back outside. Iida's seemed to be already recovered from the flash; maybe his helmet offered protections? Izuku sent a lower-powered punch over toward Iida, pushing him back with the air pressure and sending marbles everywhere down the hall, and then zipped out the front door. Immediately he jumped with Full Cowl and quickly reached the roof where he reentered the building. He made his way down the second un-sticky staircase, carefully avoiding the traps he set, He figured that the heroes would have headed towards the stairs with the sticky stuff in it first. He got to the third floor and heard someone opening and closing doors.

Izuku snuck nearby as quietly as he could and saw a shoeless Kirishima searching the room. Izuku looked around and saw an unexploded flashbang and gently picked it up. Kirishima was deep in the room, so Izuku threw the flashbang in and immediately slammed the door shut. Which in theory should have caused the redhead to look in his direction, towards the flashbang.

"Aw, man. Not again!" Kirishima said. Izuku smiled and let out another of his best evil villain laughs.

"Don't worry hero, I'll go easy on you."

"You're brutal, Midoriya!"

"I'm a villain, what do you expect?"

Taking the capture tape from the flailing boy's waist, Izuku activated Full Cowl and wrapped him quickly and tied it off.

"Kirishima of the Hero Team has been captured!" All Might's voice rang out.

"Dang it! Good job, Midoriya."

"Thanks, Kirishima! You too! Splitting up was the right move. You'd never have gotten close if you stayed together."

Izuku activated his communicator, "How are things going Yaoyorozu-san?"

"Good, I think Iida is nearing this room."

"Do you need backup? I can be there in a flash."

"Actually, I'd like to see how the traps I made for the hallway outside the room work out. I tried a few new ideas."

"Of course. I'll wait for your signal, if you need me."

Izuku sat down next to Kirishima and made small talk. The other boy was a little sore that his shoes had gotten stuck to the first stair up the staircase. He asked Izuku what the goop on the stairs was and Izuku honestly had no idea. Hopefully, Yaoyorozu had a solution to get Kirishima's boots unstuck. They stopped talking as they heard several small explosions from above them. It did not sound like Iida was having a good afternoon so far.

"You guys really trapped this place well."

"Yeah, Yaoyorozu is a genius. She can make anything."

"That's crazy, bro! No wonder you dominated. There were so many traps! I almost cried when that second flashbang hit!"

Izuku smiled, and All Might called a timed victory for the villains.

Izuku untied Kirishima and helped him out the fire escape, which was more comfortable than going down the trapped stairs. They met Yaoyorozu at Kirishima's boots, and she dissolved the goop ob the stairs. Iida was looking a little worse for wear but had a self-deprecating smile on his face when he saw Izuku.

Izuku looked down and saw that his costume was a little damaged, probably from his quirk use. He'd need to upgrade the material to withstand his power better. He was sad his mom's costume wouldn't last, but he got to use to, and that was what mattered.

"Well done villain team! Quite an ingenious defense! Any MVP suggestions?" All Might asked.

"I think Yaoyorozu was the MVP this match, All Might. She had a great plan and the traps she made were ingenious. We were able to expend limited physical effort to delay and stop them due to their having to deal with it all. If it wasn't for Yaoyorozu's plan, I'd probably have just punched my way out of it."

All Might laughed. "Indeed, I've often been fond of brute-forcing things, but your defense was incredible! Sometimes heroes can't afford just to punch their problems. I agree young Yaoyorozu is the MVP.

There was one more group going after his and Yaoyorozu's fight, and it was anti-climatic. Kacchan made short work of his opponents without seemingly talking to his partner, the French boy with a belly laser. Izuku was not surprised that Kacchan won, but it was interesting to watch nonetheless.

Not a bad first day of classes, if Izuku did say so himself. He didn't even have to fight Kacchan. That was always a good day in Izuku's books.

Bonus

Shouta sat in the teacher's lounge with his earbuds in; he was preparing to watch the day's heroic classes on his tablet.

First up were Midoriya and Todoroki. Shouta was not a fan of that pairing. Too much raw power there. Against Asui and Hagakure. But the teams were random. Unlike when the students saw, this version had audio, so he could hear the planning of the villain team and the argument that the heroes were having.

Shouta wondered if Midoriya knew that he had insulted his partner's father. It didn't seem like he knew that Todoroki was Endeavor's son. But Todoroki's response did worry his teacher's instincts. Teenage drama was one thing, but the way he said, "I'm nothing like that man," it made Shouta wonder if there was more going on there. He'd keep an eye on it. Todoroki was remarkably closed off for a fifteen-year-old boy.

When the trial started and immediately ended with All Might declaring the heroes the winners, Shouta was at a loss. Todoroki had his hand raised halfway and then he looked back and saw Midoriya was gone.

Problem Child. Shouta sighed and decided to have a larger drink; then he was planning when he got home.

He watched the follow-up discussion and hated that he had to agree with a lot of what Midoriya was saying. Todoroki indeed could have frozen the entire building, but that was overkill.

Midoriya's method was also overkill, but it was a very clean operation. If it happened like that in the real world, Midoriya would have easily saved a lot of lives with no collateral damage or even harmed villains. He sighed.

All Might walked in and said hello. Shouta grunted a greeting back at the hero. He figured it couldn't hurt to talk to the other man about the battle trials.

"Question: how should we deal with problem children whose abilities seem to be so much higher than their classmates?"

"Are you talking about Midoriya? He was something else in the trials today, wasn't he?" All Might said, not bothering to hide the pride in his voice. Teachers weren't supposed to have favorites, but if Hizashi and Nemuri were right about Midoriya being All Might's kid, Aizawa supposed he could understand it.

"Not just Midoriya, but Todoroki as well. And maybe Bakugo too. I haven't watched all the trials yet."

"Yes, I was concerned by Todoroki's first impulse for overwhelming force. I understand where he gets it from, knowing his father, but Endeavor's way is not always the best course of action."

That was an understatement; Endeavor had one of the worst, if not the worst records on collateral damage of pro heroes. Fire quirks were not the best for some mission types. But that didn't stop Endeavor.

"I was glad to see young Midoriya exercise restraint. I think he wanted to give the other team a chance to fight back — or at least do something. But he couldn't do that without risking his classmate's health. Who did approve nudity for young Hagakure's consume, if I may ask?"

Shouta grunted. He'd like to question the support company who made most of the female student's costumes. They may be heroes in training, but they were still fifteen.

"It's a common problem with support companies. Many female heroes have this kind of issue starting out. Some embrace it, like Midnight but others don't want that kind of attention. Support companies assume every female hero wants to… strut their stuff to get popular. How do you know Midoriya wanted to give the other team a chance?"

"Ah! Well, you haven't seen his second fight yet."

"Second fight?"

"There were 19 students and Midoriya volunteered to go twice."

Shouta sighed. Imagining the drink he would have later getting larger by the minute. "Who was he paired with?"

"Yaoyorozu. They followed her plan and set up over a hundred traps around the building. They stopped Iida and Kirishima handily, but without overpowering them with brute force."

"It's good to know Midoriya can modulate his power to not overwhelm his classmates."

"Indeed! We worked on that for a while to make sure he got it right once he was strong enough to use his quirk safely."

"Right, I forgot you trained him," Shouta said. Might as well try to get the inside scoop on the latest betting pool if he could. He might not need a few thousand yen, but better him than Hizashi or Nemuri.

"Yes, I mentored him for a few months prior to the entrance exam."

"How did you meet him?"

All Might froze at the question, which just increased his suspicions. "He... ah... he was involved with a villain attack once, I saved him?"

Shouta had no idea why that sounded like a question and waited for the other hero to elaborate. He did not. Well then. "I see. You seem to care a great deal about a boy you met less than a year ago."

This flustered All Might again, and Shouta didn't want to admit that Hizashi and Nemuri might be right. There's nothing worse than a preening Present Mic.

"Well, you see..." All Might trailed off.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I understand your need for secrets with your enemy list. Especially when it comes to family."

"Ah, yes. Of course, that's the reason!" All Might said, relieved. Then a confused look came over his face, and he coughed up some blood and said, "Well, I'll leave you to the video footage. Let me know if you have any questions."

He moved to leave, and the door opened and in walked Hizashi and Nemuri. They watched All Might all but flee the room.

"What was that about?" Midnight asked.

"Isn't it obvious? Shouta was intimidating the number one hero!"

Shouta let out an amused huff. "You know I hate it admit when you idiots are right, but there is totally something going on between All Might and Midoriya. Something doesn't add up."

Yamada's YEAHHHH drowned out Midnight's laugh. "I knew you'd come around to team Dadmight."

"We're not calling it that. But it's the only thing that makes sense. Their quirks are practically the same, ridiculously overpowered, and you should see how proud and flustered he got when we were talking about problem child. He didn't admit anything other than being his mentor but there's something else there, I'm sure of it."

"You should approach Midoriya about it! We've got to know. There's 50,000 yen on the line."

Shouta rolled his eyes at his friends and put his earbuds back in. "There's no way I will do that, and you won't either. Bother All Might not a student."

The noise-canceling effect of his earbuds was blessedly advanced, and he didn't hear anything else his friends said as he continued to watch the battle trial.

It was going to be a long night.