"I can't fight Uraraka!" Izuku wailed, then let his head fall forward, landing on the table top with

an audible thunk.

The pain in his forehead did nothing to distract from the ache in his chest, the crushing lead weight of having no good options constricting his lungs until it seemed like it would break his ribs and crush his heart. Beside him Hatsume put a hand on his back, rubbing back and forth across his shoulders. Across from him Shinsou was silent, and that made Izuku even more nervous. Not knowing what his friend was thinking made everything worse.

The three of them had claimed one of the waiting rooms within the labyrinthine stadium, and were now seated around one of the tables. Hatsume and Shinsou had dragged him here once they found him wandering blindly off the field before the side games, head in a fog as he contemplated having to fight his own teammate. Neither of them seemed overly concerned about their own fights, and they were both surprised to find that Izuku was so distraught.

"You can so," Hatsume insisted, the tips of his fingers digging into the tense muscles beneath them. "You beat Explody Boy and his quirk is way more impressive, Floaty Girl should be no problem-"

"It's not about her quirk!" Izuku protested, sitting back up to look at Hatsume earnestly. "She's my friend! She helped us in the cavalry battle! Not to mention all the help she gave me with getting into the hero course and at the USJ! How can I fight her when I'm only here because of her?"

"You're here because you're smart Mido," Shinsou contradicted, drawing Izuku's attention onto him. His gaze was steady, but his expression seemed carefully neutral. "Your strategy got her through the USJ attack just as much as her quirk got you through, and everything else you've accomplished is the same. Don't let yourself think she's carried you; you've carried yourself."

"She's still my friend," Izuku said quietly. He wasn't quite ready to let go of his other objections, but he knew Shinsou wouldn't hear any more of his own self depreciation. "I owe her-"

"What?" Hatsume shoved his shoulder a little to make him look at her. "You think you owe her a victory? You gave her a victory in the cavalry battle! You helped each other, don't start thinking there's some kind of debt there now!"

"I want to be her friend though," Izuku squirmed. "It doesn't seem like friends should go all out against each other. It doesn't seem right."

"Then go easy on her," Shinsou said, and when Izuku looked back at him he was looking off to

one side as though suddenly disinterested. "Throw the match. What's it to you?"

"I can't do that either!" Izuku shook his head. "I can't risk losing my chance to help you!"

Shinsou looked back at him, suddenly surprised. "You're not . . . worried about looking weak?" he asked hesitantly.

"We agreed I'd take my chance to shine early," Izuku reminded him. "I won the obstacle race, and we won the cavalry battle. I've proved myself already, there's no reason for me to go all out in the tournament besides helping you. You and I won't be matched against each other until the semifinals, so the only reason I need to win is to get that far."

"So you're agonizing over this not for your benefit, but for mine," Shinsou speculated blankly. Izuku nodded vehemently.

Shinsou took a deep breath, then let it out slowly and deliberately, like he was trying to exhale more than air. Then he looked back at Izuku, gaze steady once more.

"When you both saw that you were matched against each other in the opening round," Shinsou said, "you looked over at her, right? What did she do?"

Izuku looked away. "She smiled and gave me a thumbs up," he said quietly.

"Then it doesn't seem like she's as concerned about this as you are," Shinsou told him. "She's a hero student, and has been for longer than you. You've competed against each other, right? In class? She's used to going all out against people she considers friends. Don't let yourself think that this can't or shouldn't be a real fight."

Izuku swallowed. It made sense. No matter how much he felt like he owed Uraraka some kind of courtesy, this was a competition. They all had things to lose and gain from their performance here, just like they did every day in hero basic training. He didn't want to hurt Uraraka, but at the same time, he couldn't afford to lose to her.

"OK," he said, once he had considered it. "I'm just going to have to beat her then." "You got a plan?" Shinsou asked, sounding like he already knew the answer.

"I know what to do," Izuku confirmed. "What about you Shinchan? How're you gonna approach your fight with Ashido?"

"Not sure," Shinsou admitted, rubbing the back of his head. "I don't remember her as being too quiet though, so I think I can handle it."

"You're going to have to cast out your mind repeatedly," Izuku said, tugging on his lower lip. "That's going to be tough, especially since any time you take between attempts will be time she has to attack you physically. Ashido's got pretty good mobility, and she can fling her acid pretty far."

"So I'll need to be fast and keep moving," Shinsou surmised.

"Not necessarily," Izuku shook his head. "Ashido can move fast, faster than you probably, but its hard for her to change direction quickly while using her acid. She can't turn on a dime, she has to make big loops that will give you time to recover. If you stay in one place and just dodge her so she slides right by you, it might be enough to tire her out, and make her frustrated enough to respond."

Shinsou considered this. "That could work," he said, after a moment. "It'll be like a bull fight, except I don't have a cape. And the bull has a projectile attack."

"You can have the cape when you get into the hero course," Hatsume laughed. "I'm sure Midoriya's already got ideas about your costume."

"It won't have a cape," Izuku said immediately. "Capes are too showy."

"Says the guy who can't even decide what he wants his own costume to look like," Shinsou said with a sly grin.

"I'm working on it!" Izuku insisted loudly, but only earned himself a round of laughter.

After a bit more strategizing they finally decided they might as well watch the tail end of the side games, so they abandoned the waiting room and headed for the stands. Izuku was lagging a little behind the others, trying to shake his lingering feelings of unease, when suddenly they rounded a corner to find Uraraka coming from the other direction.

"Oh!" she said in surprise, then smiled. "I was just coming to find you guys! You all set for your first round matches?"

"I think we've got a pretty good idea of what we're doing," Shinsou informed her. "What about you?"

"I'm super pumped!" Uraraka said cheerfully. "With me and Midoriya fighting, there's gonna be a lot of unconventional strategy on display!"

"I'm sure you'll do great," Izuku said, trying to sound encouraging rather than nervous.

"Both of us!" Uraraka said enthusiastically, but after that her face softened into something less energetic. "Anyway, I just wanted to say good luck. Give it your all out there, because I won't hold back!"

At those words, something unwound in Izuku's chest. It would be one thing if Uraraka expected him to hold back and acted accordingly, and he hit her with an unexpectedly strong attack. He had been afraid that would be the case. However, if she intended to go all out against him, he would give her the same compliment. He would give as good as he got. That would be the only fair thing to do.

Slowly and deliberately, keeping eye contact with Uraraka as he did so, Izuku nodded. *

Ochako had to admit, she was nervous about fighting Midoriya.

She had come to the conclusion early in her acquaintance with Midoriya that he tended to sell himself short. He didn't really seem to think much of his own skills as an analyst, and note taking when other people used their quirks seemed to be less of a habit born of discipline and more a product of how much he enjoyed it. He'd taken out three villains at the USJ in the time it took her to maneuver herself to open the door to the control room, and he barely seemed to register what he'd done. During the crash course in heroics he'd thrashed almost the entire class one by one, but referred to this as "winning a few times" and attributed most of that to luck. He'd beaten Bakugou, one of the strongest fighters in class, and still considered himself to be behind everyone else.

Ochako didn't really see where this deficit of self confidence had come from, aside from the fact

that he was quirkless. There hadn't been any quirkless kids at her middle school, but she vaguely remembered a girl from elementary school who'd never been seen using a quirk, and so had been called quirkless by the other students. Even though she insisted she had a quirk she simply didn't use, her classmates hadn't been kind when she'd refused to show them. They had not called her 'quirkless' as a compliment.

Still, it didn't seem like someone as clever, strong and capable as Midoriya would have been a target of bullying. Sure he and Bakugou had gone to the same middle school, but Bakugou was cruel to everyone, so why would anyone prefer him over Midoriya? Leaving aside the quirkless thing, it didn't make any sense to her that Midoriya would be so timid.

The fact of the matter was though, he lacked confidence. That made his complete nonchalance about going against her all the more nerve wracking.

Midoriya had been nervous enough for his hands to shake while fighting Sero, even after beating him three times in a row. He'd insisted that beating Kirishima twice was a fluke, even though he'd only lost once. He and Ochako had each chalked up one victory against the other, but that was all they'd had time for, so she wasn't about to say she knew what she was doing. Midoriya, however, had met her gaze head on when she'd wished him luck in their tournament fight, with no sign of nerves or uncertainty.

Did that mean he was growing in confidence? Or that fighting her was no challenge at all? Ochako didn't want to think about it.

The exam fight had merely been held in a circle drawn on the ground, but for the tournament fights Cementoss had constructed an elaborate platform with two sets of stairs. The ring was a rectangular area surrounded by a cement border, with huge torches at the corners. The ground inside the ring, however, was loosely packed earth, which suited Ochako just fine.

"Are you all ready for the first fight of the tournament?" Present Mic's voice rang out over the stadium. "Let's hear it for our two competitors!"

The crowd obligingly cheered in unison, screaming and shouting their enthusiasm, and even from the shelter of the entryway Ochako felt the force of their gaze.

"First up, the transfer student that dominated the first two rounds, it's Izuku Midoriya!"

The crowd went wild as Midoriya walked onto the field. Characteristically, he didn't seem to be enjoying the attention, and he looked around nervously at the crowd as he took up position in the ring.

"And his opponent, an entrance exam top-fiver and another superstar from the cavalry battle, it's Ochako Uraraka!"

Ochako walked forward, trying to tune out the tumultuous applause as she forced herself to put one foot in front of the other. She walked up the cement stairs and into the ring, coming to stand opposite Midoriya. As Mic explained the rules they faced each other, and Ochako noted that even though he was clearly conscious of all the eyes upon them, he didn't look scared. She planted her feet and concentrated on doing the same.

"Ready?" Mic called, his inflections weird and dramatic enough that under other circumstances, it would have made Ochako laugh. "Begin!"

Immediately Ochako shot forward. There was a chance, if she caught him off guard, that she could win this fast. All she had to do was touch him, and once she made him float, getting him out of the ring would be easy. He was fast, but she was lighter on her feet, especially with those boots of his, and that meant she might be able to catch him by simply running after him.

Midoriya backed up a few steps, but he was clearly wary of the line, so he waited for her to get closer than he might have to make a move. As soon as she was close enough she leaped forward, hands outstretched, but before she could touch him he dived sideways, body twisting around hers but never getting within arm's reach. They ended up with their positions switched, and Ochako whirled around to see him backing up towards what had formerly been her side of the ring.

"Uraraka's not wasting time folks!" Mic narrated as Ochako took off after Midoriya again. "She needs physical contact for her quirk to work so a close range fight is right up her alley! Let's see how Midoriya plans to beat her while keeping his distance!"

Ochako ran at him again, this time keeping low to the ground so she could change direction easily. Again Midoriya stayed in place, waiting for her to lunge at him before throwing himself out of the way. She skidded to a stop, a little closer to the line than she had been the last time, and turned back. Midoriya was backing up again, his mouth a wibbling line of anxiety but his eyes narrowed and shrewd.

Was this his strategy? Was he luring her closer to the line each time, hoping she'd overshoot and land herself out of bounds? That would take time, and more than a few attempts at charging him on her part. She had to mix things up. She couldn't let herself settle into a pattern.

Again she ran at him, and again he stayed in place waiting for her, but this time when she'd covered about half the distance between them she snapped her hands together and made herself float. The familiar feeling of weightlessness overtook her, and the next time she pushed off from the ground she went soaring into the air. Her stomach roiled in protest, but it took significantly less time to clear the remaining distance between them, and she canceled her quirk at the peak of her arc to send herself down onto him.

This time Midoriya didn't dodge left or right though. As she came at him from above he dove forward, slipping by underneath her and rolling into a crouch as Ochako came down to Earth on top of the place where he had just been. As Ochako turned he popped back to his feet, switching their positions again. She glanced at the line, to see that she was even closer this time. Damn it.

"Midoriya's a slippery little thing!" Mic said admiringly. "But he'll need more than speed if he's going to do some damage to his opponent!"

"Are you going to attack me?" Ochako goaded. "Or are you going to play keep away all day?" Midoriya didn't answer her, simply rising to his feet and waiting for her to rush at him again.

Ochako had considered her options carefully before she'd ever stepping onto the field. On the first day of class Iida had beaten her by removing every single item from the room they were fighting in, leaving her nothing to use her quirk on. This ring was very similar, completely devoid of any loose objects to float. That didn't mean it had no ammunition. Ochako bent down and dug her fingers into the soft ground beneath her, coming away with a handful of dirt.

Curling her fingers around her prize to make sure her quirk got as many individual pieces as possible, Ochako thrust her fist upward, tossing a shower of sand and gravel into the air. As predicted Midoriya watched the cloud of loose earth stay in place above her, taking his eyes off Ochako as he waited for something to happen. In this moment of distraction she darted forward

again, keeping low to the ground so as to stand the greatest possible chance of escaping his notice. She dove at his legs this time, angling her body almost parallel with the ground, but it was no good. In a motion almost like a skip Midoriya leaped over her hands, leaving her sprawled on the ground.

"Nice piece of misdirection by Uraraka!" Mic praised. "These two are clearly trying to outthink each other!"

Ochako grabbed another handful of dirt and pushed herself up, whirling to face Midoriya before he'd come to rest. This time she didn't throw her attack up, she threw it at Midoriya's face, forcing him to cross his arms in front of himself to avoid getting an eyeful of gravel. He thrust his arms out and down, dispelling the worst of the dust cloud, and as a result was barely in time to dodge Ochako's next assault.

She was getting closer. She just needed to keep at it.

"Uraraka's really kicking up dust!" Mic commented as Ochako picked up another handful of

the ground. "It's getting hard to see down there with all this literal mudslinging!"

It was getting hard to see. Ochako didn't cancel her quirk between attacks, so the handfuls of dirt burst into clouds of dust and then hovered in the air. As she attacked again and again, doing her best to beam Midoriya in the face with every projectile, the air became thicker and thicker with suspended particles. Eventually the crowd was obscured completely, and she could only see the bounds of their arena when she got close to them. Not that the judges could really see either. She would have to push Midoriya free of her cloud if anyone was going to notice.

After a few minutes of this Ochako paused. She had fallen again, overbalancing when Midoriya dodged her. She'd almost had him, but he'd evaded her by inches. As she pushed herself up she coughed, choking on dust, and pulled her shirt over her nose so she could pant. It was getting tiring, keeping all this debris in the air, after exerting herself so much during the cavalry battle. Still, this was her best shot.

She looked around, realizing she couldn't see where Midoriya was in all the floating dirt. She took a deep breath, then let her shirt fall.

"Did you lie to me?" she called out into the air.

There came no response, the only sound was the roaring of the crowd outside her wall of dust and the harshness of her own breathing. Even Mic's commentary had halted as he waited for some change in the view. She didn't think anyone outside the ring could hear her, but that might have been the false intimacy created by the cloud.

"Well did you?" she demanded angrily. "I said I wasn't going to hold back and you agreed! I thought we were going to take each other seriously!"

Again there was no response, no words or even movement to betray Midoriya's location. Ochako bent down and grabbed another handful of dirt, bigger than the others, and tossed it upwards, adding to the obstruction above them until it was nearly blotting out the sun.

"I don't want you to go easy on me!" she insisted. "I want you to take this seriously! Either fight me, or walk out of the ring and stop wasting my time!"

Silence reigned, until it seemed almost as if Ochako was already alone.

"This is part of being a hero!" Ochako screamed, uncaring if anyone but Midoriya could hear her.

"Fighting people you'd rather not fight, giving it your all even when you feel pity for the other person! If you have any respect for me-"

She was interrupted by the dust in front of her shifting, swirling in the air as though propelled by something moving toward her. Before she could react suddenly Midoriya was bursting through the obstruction between them, leaping onto Ochako and knocking her to the ground.

It didn't matter though. He was within reach.

"Ha!" Ochako said as she jabbed her fingers into Midoriya's chest, even as Midoriya's hands went to level with her own. "I got-"

"Don't scream," Midoriya said quietly, his grip closing on the little fingers on each of her hands.

Ochako barely had time to brace herself. In the next instant Midoriya was bending both her pinkies backward, and Ochako sucked in a mouthful of dirt as she tried not to cry out. She'd been injured in training, and she'd broken bones before, but the muffled snap of both her fingers breaking and the unnatural angle they ended up in made her want to retch. Pain brought tears to her eyes, but she blinked them away.

Midoriya was floating.

Ochako shoved at him, trying to push him out of the ring, but he grabbed onto her wrists and held fast. Desperately she tried to free herself, but every time she got one piece of herself loose he grabbed another. She rolled, dragging Midoriya behind her, trying to find the nearest line. She just had to push him over.

"I do respect you Uraraka," Midoriya said, even as he manhandled her as best he could with no leverage. "I do take you seriously. That was why I had to come at you with my best strategy."

Ochako panted, inching her way across the ground. With all the dirt still in the air it was hard to see, hard to breathe, and harder still to stop her stomach from rebelling. With Midoriya also floating, she was close to her limit.

"It's true I didn't want to fight you at first," Midoriya admitted as Ochako swallowed bile, "but I got over that long before I ever came to face you. I owed you, and others, that much."

Ochako could feel her body getting weak. If she didn't cancel her quirk soon, she would be incapacitated. Her fingers hurt, her head pounded, her stomach was desperate to reject its contents.

"So I'm sorry for hurting you," Midoriya said. "I truly am . . ."

Shakily, Ochako brought her hands together. She couldn't keep going like this. She had to cancel her quirk.

" . . . but a five point contact quirk . . ."

She pressed the tips of her fingers together, creating a steeple with her hands just like she always did when canceling her quirk. All her fingers touched. All by two of them.

". . . needs five points of contact!" Midoriya finished, and Ochako realized in horror what he had done.

He had made it impossible for her to connect her pinkie fingers.

He'd completely taken her ability to cancel her quirk.

Desperately Ochako pushed her hands together, trying to move her pinkie fingers at all to make them connect. It was no good, they were too broken, and the angle made it impossible to mash them together by force. She tried grabbing one pinkie with the other hand to straighten it, but it hurt a lot and Midoriya kept getting in her way. Even when she managed, gasping with effort, to bend one finger back the right way, it simply flopped uselessly backwards again, the bones and tendons snapped clean.

"I'm sorry," Midoriya repeated as Ochako fell backwards, darkness creeping in at the edges of her vision. "Uraraka . . ."

If Midoriya said any more than that, Ochako wasn't awake to hear it. *

When Midnight had announced he would be advancing to the next round, Izuku didn't really feel like a winner.

He hadn't wanted to hurt Uraraka, but his strategy depended on her not being able to connect her fingers. She, like Shinsou, had used her quirk a lot during the cavalry battle, and was already skirting exhaustion going into the tournament round. He'd known that if he could just make her use her quirk enough, then floating him would be the last straw.

He'd been right, of course. That didn't mean it felt good.

As he'd walked off the field he'd looked at the section of the stands reserved for other competitors, to see Shinsou smiling down at him and Hatsume giving him a thumbs up. Most of the others had also been giving him various signs of approval, but Asui and Iida had been watching Uraraka get carried off the field with looks of concern. Izuku didn't blame them, he'd been pretty concerned himself until Midnight had stepped off the stage to make sure Uraraka's airway was clear until the bots arrived to take her to Recovery Girl. As they'd vanished into the depths of the stadium, Izuku felt his stomach twist in sympathy.

Now he was waiting outside Recovery Girl's temporary nurse's office. He hadn't felt it was right to just go in when Recovery Girl had said Uraraka was ready to see people, so he waited for Iida and Asui to go in first and then tell him if Uraraka wanted to see him. He wouldn't blame her if she didn't. He wouldn't blame her if she never wanted to see him again.

"Midoriya," Iida poked his head out the door to beckon Izuku in. "She's asked for you."

On shaking legs Izuku walked into Recovery Girl's office. Recovery Girl herself had stepped out after seeing to Uraraka, but there was still a curtain closing off the back corner of the room. Iida led Izuku to the curtain silently, then drew it aside.

"Midoriya!" Uraraka said brightly. "You did great!" "Thanks," Izuku said numbly.

Whatever he had expected, it was certainly not Uraraka in such good spirits. She was sitting up in bed, smiling cheerfully at him and sipping from a carton of chocolate milk. Her eyes had dark bags under them, but she didn't seem all that tired. Asui was sitting in a chair beside the bed, and Iida took the chair next to her.

"Your strategy was amazing Midoriya!" Uraraka went on when Izuku failed to match her

enthusiasm. "I really fell into your trap didn't I?"

"No, no!" Izuku held up his hands in denial. "That's not it at all! Your strategy was really good too, not many people would have considered using the ground itself as a weapon, and really my strategy would have worked no matter how you used your quirk so the only way to avoid playing into it would be to fight quirkless and that doesn't-"

Izuku was cut off by Uraraka's laugh, which rang out loud and happy through the office. It was quickly followed by giggles from Asui and a good natured chuckle from Iida. Izuku stood there, staring at the three of them, feeling entirely wrong footed.

They were just going to laugh? After Uraraka had been hurt? After Izuku had hurt her?

When Uraraka's laughter had died down, Izuku rubbed the back of his head. "I'm sorry I hurt you," he said, a little slower this time. "You honestly did really well, it was pretty touch and go there for a while, and I only really won because you overused your quirk so much in the cavalry battle."

"Midoriya," said Uraraka, her voice warm but chiding, "you did exactly what you were supposed to do. You took me seriously, just like I asked you to. You didn't hurt me any more than you needed to in order for you to win. You fought smart and you fought hard and you gave us both a chance to show our stuff."

At Uraraka's words, the knot in the pit of Izuku's stomach loosened. He still felt bad for hurting her, but it felt better knowing he hadn't hurt her spirit. Her fingers looked fine now, after Recovery Girl's healing, and she was just as chipper now as she ever had been. She was still Uraraka, and he was still welcome in her life.

"You both did very well," Iida chimed in, adjusting his glasses. "As a Class Representative, I commend you both on your excellent work!"

"It was a really cool fight, ribbit," Asui concurred. "Even if we couldn't really see the end of it."

"So don't talk about our epic battle that way!" Uraraka concluded, giving him a thumbs up. "I'm sorry I didn't get farther in the festival, but I'm super proud of both of us!"

"I'm proud of us too," Izuku agreed, letting a small smile creep onto his own face. "The way you kept fighting there at the end, and you didn't even scream when I broke your fingers."

"Oh yeah," Uraraka said, looking at the ceiling contemplatively for a moment. "Why did you tell me not to scream?"

"Oh," Izuku said, having almost forgotten that part. "I didn't want everyone looking over you to see where you were hurt. If you didn't scream, it would look like you just passed out from quirk exhaustion, so no one would see how I beat you."

"Why didn't you want them to see?" Uraraka asked, confused.

"Well, I mean," Izuku squirmed, wondering if this would sound arrogant. "I didn't want any villains who might be watching to see what I did. I didn't want to broadcast your weakness on live TV."

Uraraka looked at him for a moment, eyes wide. "Midoriya," she said quietly, and then her eyes were welling up with emotion, tears gathering at the corners. "That's-"

"Extremely forward thinking of you!" Iida said, standing up from his seat and making jerky

gestures of emphasis with his arms. "Of course, I would expect someone who was once planning to do support work to be worried about the dissemination of information like that! Your dedication to protecting your fellow heroes, even at a time like this, is incredibly admirable!"

"Thank you," Izuku dipped his head at the compliment. "I just wanted to make sure to keep things in perspective, you know? This might be a big chance to get scouted, but it is still just a school festival."

"You've got a point, ribbit," Asui said. "While we were watching I was listening to what the other girls were saying, and all of them think you struck a really good balance between taking Uraraka seriously and not doing unnecessary harm. They all really admired you for it."

"The crowd was saying the same thing," Iida began, but Izuku found himself drifting into his own thoughts.

A good balance between respecting his opponent and minimizing harm? They admired him? All of the girls in class? He had of course always tried his best to be respectful of female students, both by taking their contributions seriously and speaking up when someone was unfair to them. Mineta's machinations from earlier in the afternoon came to mind. Was it possible that all of that, and not only this fight, had earned him something of a reputation?

Abruptly Izuku bowed to the other three, halting whatever Iida had been saying. "Sorry," he said hurriedly, "I have to go!"

"Go where?" Uraraka asked even as Izuku turned and ran to the door.

"I have to go talk to Yaoyorozu!" Izuku called back to her, then darted out into the hallway, leaving his three friends staring blankly after him.