The night is spent on drafting up the vaguest of plans. He doesn't know much, but he knows one thing. He needs to change the rules. And he has an idea on how to do it.

The rules are fluid, at least he thinks they are. The Principal suggested the test only this year. Izuku did his homework and checked that it was the first time in UA's history to ever do a test like that. Before that it was robots all the way through. Which should mean that he'd be open to suggestions. Especially if they would be presented by a majority of the student body.

He sleeps four and a half hours, but that's enough, it's enough, really, it's all good. He does his morning run, eats breakfast with his mother and goes to school.

He sits in his seat anxiously awaiting homeroom… when Yaoyorozu comes to the lectern.

"I am the Hero Team leader," she says, and Izuku's blood freezes. Yaoyorozu is a formidable opponent with a versatile quirk. It's gonna be… hard. Someone starts clapping, another person whistles, another makes a comment about how brave she is to come forward with it without knowing who the Villain Team leader is. Yaoyorozu's eyes narrow. "And I would like to ask the Villain Team leader to do the same, come clean and not hide behind the mask of anonymity." If it's even possible, Izuku's blood goes from freezing to zero Kelvin. The entire world seems to slow down as the panic takes a hold of him. Somehow, despite that, his blood is loud in his ears, creating an impenetrable wall of sound. No one moves. People look around trying to spot the villain. They're looking at him. They're looking at him. They're looking at him—

He stands up so fast his chair scrapes loudly on the floor.

Well. He didn't think that through. Even if people weren't actually staring at him before, they sure are now. His mouth is dry and his tongue seems paralysed.

After a few seconds he finds his voice.

"I'm— I'm the Villain Team leader," he says, barely meeting Yaoyorozu's eyes.

For a moment there's silence. And then someone laughs. Kacchan laughs.

"Ohohohoooh—" he nearly chokes on his 'oh' laughing. "And to think some of y'all thought there would be any challenge whatsoever!"

The class starts whispering, but Izuku isn't focused on them, he's only focused on Kacchan.

"I will make you eat your words," slips out of his mouth unbidden. Everyone stops again to stare at him, including Kacchan who turns in his seat slowly to stare him down. But… But Izuku refuses to give up, refuses to back down. He has a list of goals and he will complete them. He will make All Might proud. "I will make you eat your words, Kacchan."

However, before Kacchan, or anyone else for that matter, can answer him, Aizawa-sensei enters the classroom, and is surprised to be immediately noticed by everyone.

He looks at Yaoyorozu, then at Izuku, then back at Yaoyorozu, then flattens his stare on everyone else.

"Good reaction. Also don't tell me what's going on, I need to give you an announcement, so if you could move Yaoyorozu…"

"Sorry, sensei." Yaoyorozu steps down and goes to her seat, and Izuku collapses into his own. He wonders what the announcement is. Something to do with the exam maybe?

"Starting today until the exam, there will be no foundational heroics classes." The class gasps. "This is to give you time to prepare on your own. The other lessons will also be compressed from 50 to 40 minutes and the recesses from 10 to 5 minutes so as to shorten your schedule. Other classes will follow the same timetable." He nods to himself. "Aside from that, all of you will be pulled out of your classes one by one to discuss something important to your development and your ability to pass this exam." Aizawa-sensei zips himself halfway into the bag before he finishes speaking, and all the way to the end as he collapses on his side, having decided the homeroom might as well be over.

Izuku's brain accelerates. If they have that much time after school they should be able to gather people today. From what Aizawa-sensei said, lunch should stay the same, which means enough time to discuss the first advertising speech and hopefully convince more of the Business Course than Shibasaki.

Okay.

He can do this.

He will make Kacchan eat his words.

Lunch comes entirely too fast and too slow at the same time. Izuku has some trouble spotting Shibasaki, but when he does, he's relieved to see two full tables of students eagerly awaiting him.

There's fifteen people if he counted right, and that might not be much but it's something.

"Hi," he sits on the spot reserved for him, and before he can utter another word Shibasaki reaches towards him and clasps something on his uniform. He blinks bewildered and looks down to see a nametag with his name and surname on it. "Uh…" He looks back at the group and notices everyone has nametags along with pronoun pins. "Okay, this is already looking great," he says with a smile.

"We might not be good for fighting, but we're good for organisation," pipes up—he has to squint to see the surname— Sorimachi. "And not that we don't believe in you but we've already made a ten step plan to win this thing." She's wringing her hands together, and her smile is a little strained. She's like him, he realises, nervous, but driven, and he can respect that.

"That's good," he says, and several people look surprised. "Let's compare our plans and make something cohesive then."

"Can you summarise your plan in less than five words?" ask someone who's too far away to see anything but their shiny she/her and they/them pins.

He thinks. "Yeah, actually." She leans forward, he does too. "Let's fist-fight Nedzu."

He expects shocked gasps, not the cheer that rings out in the cafeteria, but he's only pleasantly surprised.

"Okay, so here's my plan…"

That went well, he thinks when he gets up from the seat and goes in the Support Course's tables direction. Now, hopefully, he'll find someone reasonable, and everything will be okay.

His nerves are a little fried, to be honest, because he feels like everything is going a tad bit too smoothly.
I mean, he got the support of fifteen people from the Business Course, if he gets that many from the General Education and Support Courses he'll be set to actually try and win!

"Midoriya!" someone shouts after him, and he turns around. Shibasaki is running in his direction, and when he finally catches up he wheezes, bowing down to put his hands on his knees. "I," he gasps, "Figured," he wheezes, "That I'll go with you!"

"Oh, but don't you want to finish your lunch? I can do it alone," Izuku asks frantically.

"No, no, no, you're one person, we can't expect you to do the recruitment alone, and we realised that too late, hence why I was running after you!" he straightens, and flashes his perfectly white teeth at him in an open smile.

Izuku smiles at him too, tight-lipped and nervous, but he nods. "Let's go then!"

They take… maybe ten steps, before someone runs at them full speed.

"Hello! My name is Kusunoki Shigeko and I one hundred percent agree with the plan!" The girl half-yells the moment she's closer to them.

Izuku looks at Shibasaki. Shibasaki looks at Izuku.

"I didn't tell her," they both say at the same time.

"Of course you didn't!" Kusunoki smiles at them. "My quirk did!" she says pointing at her ears with both hands.

"Do you have super hearing? That is soooo cool! And if you agree with the plan we could use you in the active duty espionage team without you even leaving the base, of course depending on how far your quirk works, and—"

"Woah, mutter, mutter, slow down, my guy!" Kusunoki waves him down and he stutters out an apology. "My quirk is Clairaudience. It basically means that I can 'hear' if someone's speaking about what I want to know about, and what I currently wanted to know about was why our lessons are shortened!" She flashes them a peace sign. "Here comes you and your plan for… a secret exam? If I understood correctly?"

"How about we sit down somewhere near your class so we can discuss it with multiple people at the same time?" Shibasaki smoothly interjects. "And add anyone interested to the group chat. We have a group chat now."

"We do?" Izuku asks, surprised.

"We remembered that we should have made one the exact moment you left, so Asoshina is putting something together right now," the boy explains.

"Ah." Izuku nods. "That's reasonable."

"Great!" Kusunoki grabs them by the arms, and starts dragging them.

"I don't think that's needed—"

"Shush," she says. They shush and follow.

"Here comes Kusunoki!" someone hollers, and the two connected tables of the Support Course turn their heads to see them being dragged. Ah. Embarrassing.

"Kusunoki, what did I say about kidnapping people," another, this time emotionless, voice calls out.

"I'm not kidnapping them, I swear! They're here to talk to us about why the classes are made shorter!" Kusunoki defends herself profusely, finally letting go of their arms. "Right guys?"

"Ye-Yeah! My name is Midoriya Izuku and this is Shibasaki Hiroyoshi, we want to fist-fight Nedzu—! I— I mean— Why do I even open my mouth—?" he whispers to himself at the end, and watches the entire table start laughing. Welp, there it goes, his only chance completely destroyed.

"Okay, "Fist-Fight Nedzu"-san, how do you plan to do it?" Oh? Maybe he still has a chance!

"How about we first tell you about the benefits of fist-fighting Nedzu, and then we talk about the hows and whys?" Shibasaki smoothly interjects.

"There are more benefits than seeing the rat on the floor?" someone asks, and Izuku begs Kami that the principal isn't listening in somehow.

"First, it's gonna be a verbal beat-up, second, yes there are benefits, like extra points to your final exams…"

Izuku finishes speaking, and he feels someone staring at him. He turns his head slightly to see none other than Hatsume Mei looking at him intensively.

"Uh, is there a problem?" he asks her, and she blinks, her gaze losing some of its intensiveness.

There's a beat of silence. "Do I know you?" she asks eventually.

Uh… "Yeah? We were on the same team during the Sports Festival, remember?"

The girl gasps, her eyes are filled with stars. "TEN MILLION!" she yells. "Ohoho! Of course! Well, I'm on board, anything that will allow me to show off my babies!" Ah. There it goes.

He hopefully looks around the tables and sees other Support Course folks nodding their heads. "I suppose it's going to be fun," says one guy with glistening skin. "Oh, you have to give me the list of what we can and cannot use, they're gonna swim in acid!" says a girl with three fingers on her hand. Other voices of support rise through the gathered people and Izuku feels a smile pulling on his face.

"We'll pass the information to other Support Course classes," the emotionless girl from earlier speaks. "...and get the name tags for ourselves. This will make communication easier."

"Great!" Shibasaki clasps his hands together. "Then let's add you to the group chat and we can go to the General Education with this!"

Izuku feels accomplished. Way more than fifteen people comes to sign up for the group chat. He feels like he'll be able to actually accomplish something. Now he just needs to get the support from General Education.

Somehow, he feels that's gonna be harder to do than say.

But oh well, he'll get to it when he gets to it. …which is in a minute. Mmmmmmmmm…