Shouta hates meetings. They're useless and he usually hears the same thing over and over every year.
Annoyingly and illogically, what he hates more is when he hears something different during them.
To be fair, usually it's something ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous and nonsensical, just like the thing the principal Nedzu just stated.
"Let's mix it up a bit this year."
Let's mix it up a bit. Yeah, sure. That never ended up going terrible.
Let's mix what up, you might ask? The exam. The end of term exam for Heroics students, but, really, not only Heroics students. Because apparently that is gonna be a year-wide optional exam. Great.
The details are grating on his mind vaguely. It sounds stupid. Shouta, however, is not dumb enough to point it out to his boss. Probably. Yet. Instead of entertaining the idea of standing up to his boss, he starts plotting a speech that he'll no doubt have to give to the class to explain all… this.
Kami, this day couldn't have gotten worse.
"…and I think the villain leader should be Midoriya Izuku." Nedzu says casually. Ah. Shouta was wrong. It could get worse. Shit.
Shouta slithers into the classroom as per usual, silently enough that only three students manage to spot him before he loses patience.
"Not good, your spatial awareness needs improvement," he grumbles, taking out a stack of documents and slamming it on the lectern in front of him. The class immediately quietens and focuses their attention solely on him. Good. "As you know, your practical exam is approaching steadily…" The entire class watches him with bated breaths, or, more accurately, it's as if the whole room was holding its breath. "I am going to now tell you what it's going to look like. I am not going to repeat myself. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sensei!" the entire class replies.
"Good. Iida, Yaoyorozu, pass these document packets to everyone, while I explain." The class representatives dutifully come up to him and take the documents from the lectern. "This year, the principal decided that the best way to test your abilities is gonna be a Heroes versus Villains exercise. All of you will play Heroes, except one of you will play the Villain and recruit from the rest of the student body." At that there are gasps. Clearly they didn't expect it. Aizawa doesn't fault them, he didn't expect it either.
"You mean that we're gonna fight those extras?" Bakugou asks, instantly angry, bristling at the implications. "What kind of exam is that!? They're gonna lose immediately!"
"Don't be so full of yourselves," Shouta shuts him down with a stare. "The students from different classes are some of the finest bright minds in the country. UA isn't just a Hero School after all. We pride ourselves on delivering the best education, to the best of children. Besides, don't you remember how severely one of your classmates was defeated by a Support Course student?" Iida, although his name hasn't been called, stutters and freezes, but with one well placed glare he's back to moving and giving everyone their packets.
"I wouldn't be defeated by her," Bakugou grumbles.
"Maybe, or maybe you would." Shouta doesn't even want to deal with him right now. "The packets in front of you have all the information you need, including who's the Hero leader and who's the Villain leader. You're not required to keep this information a secret, but you're also not encouraged to just say it out loud, although the roles are going to be revealed on the day of the exam anyway so really do whatever." He sighs in annoyance, seeing the conflicted faces of his students. "What now. What's wrong?"
"Isn't it a little… harsh, to place one of us as a villain of the exercise?" Uraraka asks, voice wavering. "I mean, so much pressure and— And they'll be excluded!"
"If you already plan on excluding whoever's the villain of the exercise, that's on you and no one else," Shouta intones monotonically. "Also, harsh? Any harsher than the first heroics exercise you've ever been put in?" That shuts her down. "Thought so. The rest of the homeroom will be spent on reading the packets. I'm going to nap. Wake me up at the end of the period." Or don't, he thinks to himself. With that he zips himself into the sleeping bag and gets on the floor.
Ah sweet naps, he's gonna miss them so much during the exam…
Izuku is shaking in his seat, practically vibrating in place. It is just his luck. He is the Villain Team leader. Oh sweet Kami.
He flips through the pages quickly trying to find any hint on this whole thing being a prank, but to no avail. He is the Villain Team leader.
After the first wave of panic subdues, Izuku slowly breaths in and focuses on the sentences in front of him, actually reading what is on the documents. The list of requirements is… something. Stealing, destroying "public property", wounding a member of the Hero Team, kidnapping a member of the Hero Team, causing a member of the Hero Team to have a panic attack, removing a limb from a member of the Hero Team… it goes on in a similar vein.
Izuku briefly wonders if he could maybe talk the principal out of it, before he absentmindedly turns the page and finds the maps of the fake city they are going to do the exam in. The Hero Team base is clearly marked on it, and a brief unsuspicious glance around the room reveals that no one else seems to have a map in their packet. Which means it was an advantageous information. He narrows his eyes. Does the other team's leader have some information or resources he doesn't have?
He flips to the next page. There are roosters of all the other classes: surname, name and quirk, sadly without a description, just a name. But… that's something. He can ask about their quirks when he meets them face to face. For now he needs a plan of recruitment, something that will make them want to do this.
He turns a page. Ah. There it is. On the page there's a chart of additional points depending on how well they do on the exam, different for each course, as they all do different end exams. And there's a clause. If they win and it's proven that they helped significantly towards the win condition, they'll get half the points in all their exams — enough to pass.
That would make it easy to recruit anyone that's struggling with their studies… still, it leaves a bad aftertaste in his mouth, like bile.
He flips a page. There's… It's called 'Regulations', but it's more of a list of things they're not allowed to do. …so he guesses 'Regulations' work. The first item on the list is murder… and that should tip Izuku off as to what the list contains. He reads it carefully, his face showing outright disgust at what is written there. Poisoning the water supply, using high explosives near living people, torturing the prisoners, using live ammunition… The list is detailed in what they can't do, but it goes overboard with things that Izuku would never even think of doing. And then, then it goes into things they can do.
Because apparently lower grade explosives are fair game, even near people. Great.
He slouches in his seat as he reads. Tanks, rubber and paintball ammunition, smoke bombs with irritating gases… He feels ill. It's like the principal wants them to seriously harm the others!
He flips a page. The paper is… filled with nonsense. Random kanji and numbers litter the page, and he nearly skips it… before a stray thought arrives. What if it's in code? What if it's a cipher or a puzzle? He tries to read backwards to no avail, in cross lines, also without a result, but then he looks at the edges of the document… and there! There's a sentence!
'You may recruit three people total from the second and third years as long as they agree.'
This is… starting to look interesting. Because if he could recruit people from the hero course… yeah, this would be perfect.
He turns the page. There are permission slips for various things, all printed and ready to be filled out. Allowing people from the outside to come on campus, allowing him to skip a class and many, many other things. It's the thickest part of the packet.
He skims through them but finds nothing else.
Okay. Okay.
He closes his eyes and inhales. What does he do now?
He exhales.
He has to pass. He has to keep his spot in the Hero Course. He has to make All Might proud. But he won't make him proud by needlessly hurting his classmates, his friends. So he'll have to think outside the box and prove himself. He might even need to talk to the principal. Yes. But before that he needs to recruit people. He's gonna have to talk to them, convince them to join him. He needs as many as possible. He needs to form an active duty squad that will actively fight and a support squad that will make support equipment. Yeah. Okay. He can… He can do it. He must.
Before he knows it the bell rings, signalling the end of the homeroom and the start of Hero Ethics class, so he closes the packet and hides it in his backpack.
Iida goes to wake up Aizawa-sensei and Izuku notices everyone else is hiding their packets too. Life resumes.
Izuku can barely focus on the lesson, plans running through his head at mach speed and half-formed speeches gathering at the tip of his tongue. He will have to choose his words carefully. If Aizawa-sensei notices him being absentminded he doesn't say anything, just sends him one single, strangely gentle look, that he half-thinks he imagined.
The other lessons go on in a similar vein, the teachers not picking up on him despite his general lack of focus. They know, he realises with a jolt.
So, he uses this period of peace to draft up some ideas. If he wants the best results… he'll have to ask the Business Course. He'll have to convince them first.
But how to do it? This is gonna be hard.
Turns out, it's not gonna be hard at all.
"Wait, you mean that we get to plan Hero Course's demise and get extra credit on all our exams?" asks a guy who introduced himself as Shibasaki Hiroyoshi. "Where's the catch?"
Izuku wonders for a second. Where is the catch?
"I'll be honest, I don't know what the principal wants from us." He takes a breath to continue speaking but the boy cuts him off.
"Unclear goal, that's not good." Shibasaki makes a condescending face.
"Oh, the goals are clear, I just don't agree with them to the point where I think the principal is trying to get us to oppose them."
"Like what?"
Izuku takes out the packet, gives Shibasaki the page with goals, and then he waits. He can see the moment the boy starts reading because he pales, and then he pales some more, and then his eyes go wide and he brings the paper closer to his face to re-read a segment he thought he imagined.
The page is returned to Izuku with Shibasaki's unsteady, shaking hands.
"I… see…" the boy gulps. "I'll uh… I'll tell others about the additional exam points. But…" He shakes his head. "How about we talk about it tomorrow during lunch?"
"That works." Izuku nods. "It will give me more time to figure out stuff."
"Good luck with that…" Shibasaki is still a little pale as he waves him goodbye.
Well, that was productive. Now he just needs to figure out how to get the attention of other classes, how to bargain with the principal, how to make sure his class doesn't hate him at the end of this exam, and how to prove himself to All Might.
Easy.
Yeah no.