Chapter 13: How Do We Get There?

"Wait, none of them were expelled?!" Monoma gaped.

Mr Vlad crossed his bandaged arms and nodded gruffly. He clearly disapproved as much as they did.

"Sir! They attacked us, they –"

"Actually, they insist that you attacked first, and that they only acted in self-defence."

"Well, that's a lie!"

"I'm not sure, Monoma…" Kendo interrupted. "Did Midoriya say that? I think he's telling the truth – he seems to be a very honest person…"

Monoma laughed, "An honest person? He twists the truth!"

Honenuki cleared his throat, "Yeah speaking of which –"

"Why are you defending him, Kendo?!" Tsuburaba butted in. "OUR PHONES!"

"Oh, would you shut up about your phone already?!" Kamakiri yelled.

Monoma'd had just about enough! "You keep moaning about your phones, 18 BROKE MY NOSE!" He pointed at the bandaged bridge of his nose, which Recovery Girl had fixed in an instant. "And then took my Quirk for good measure!"

"18 will be punished for this," Mr Vlad insisted, which Monoma was glad to hear.

"What about the rest of them?" asked Sen, who had just snatched his phone off Tsuburaba again.

A hint of frustration crossed their teacher's face, "18 has two weeks' detention, but the rest will be facing no punishment."

"WHAT?!" half the class yelled.

Monoma only stared, mouth hanging agape, "Sir, you can't be serious!"

"It's not my decision to make," he huffed. "Mr Aizawa has complete control over how he handles his class. He has spoken with Principal Nezu and no changes have been made."

"But Sir! What about 18?! He's their leader; he needs to be expelled!"

"My thoughts were the same," Mr Vlad nodded. "But again, my input is limited. All I know is security will be altered, the way this class A is handled will be changed, and 18 has been appointed class president, with 4 as his vice."

There was a moment of silence.

"Well… I suppose it does make sense," Shoda interjected. "But that sounds more like a prize than a punishment."

Mr Vlad nodded again, "Moreover, I've been told that I need to consider punishing you as well."

"Sir, no offence, but we didn't do anything wrong!" Setsuna insisted.

"I agree, which is why I will not be handing out detentions. Well done, Kodai, for calling me. I'm aware that Kendo tried to do so earlier, but you should have done it before you left the dorms. Also, according to class A's reports, you were overly aggressive. Again, I'm not punishing you for this – these aren't my words."

Mr Vlad suddenly sported a slight grin, and Monoma knew he was about to reveal a good twist on all this.

"Besides, if you're frustrated about the way that this is being handled, bear in mind that for at least the next few days, 18 will be having detention in your dorm."

Class A was locked up in Heights Alliance for the entirety of the following day. The doors were locked, and windows and balconies were, well, denied. Uraraka had tried the roof at one point, but Cementoss has moved concrete over the exit. They were well and truly trapped, and it was suffocating.

They were given new tracker anklets and a harsher, stricter curfew. But one thing they didn't do, was confiscate their brick phones. It was the only thing they got away with. However, it didn't exactly help them now.

Bored out of their minds, Midoriya's classmates were at each other's throats again by lunch time. The only moment of slight interest beforehand, was Recovery Girl's visit in the morning.

She bashed Midoriya around the head (again) for letting the wound in his shoulder get aggravated (again) but made no attempt to blame him for Monoma's broken nose.

He actually broke his nose?!

When that little fact was revealed, he received a little round of applause from his classmates.

That moment of happiness was cut short, however, when Recovery Girl noted the slim gash on his face that Monoma's shadow mishap had caused. Midoriya had pulled the oversized plaster that Yaoyorozu gave him off long ago, since it seemed to have healed up. But Recovery Girl informed him that he'd likely have a mark there for the rest of his life. Midoriya didn't care – he had plenty of scars, what was one more?

When she finally left, Recovery Girl took with her Midoriya's and Iida's blazers to have the president and vice president bands applied. Midoriya tried to resist, but there was no saying no to Recovery Girl.

Mr Aizawa reappeared that evening, in time to stop Kacchan from setting fire to Kaminari's head, chucking the newly painted blazers at Midoriya and Iida in the process.

Midoriya glanced at the gold bands, now lying just above the iconic red of class A. "Sir, please, I don't want to be class president."

"You can't back out," Mr Aizawa said simply, already walking away. "I told you this about a week in. Come with me, 18, I'm escorting you to class B's dorm."

"A-Already?"

"Yes, already. Put your blazer on and come with me. 4, message me if anything else goes wrong."

"Yes, Sir," Iida nodded.

With a deep sigh, Midoriya gingerly pulled his blazer on, carefully around his left shoulder, and scurried over to Mr Aizawa's side to put on his shoes.

He stood on the steps outside whilst Mr Aizawa locked the doors behind them. The evening breeze ruffled his green-tinged hair. The distant sounds of the city filled his ears, mingling with the chatter of birdsong before the night grew too dark for them.

"Come on," his teacher instructed, walking by and not waiting for him.

Midoriya bowed his head and dragged his feet on the way to the hero course's dorm building. It was right next door – not far at all, but he understood why Mr Aizawa still felt the need to escort him there.

Midoriya stepped inside a building almost identical to his own, only… mirrored.

"Class B, I'm sure you all know 18," Mr Aizawa announced.

Midoriya just harshly kicked off his shoes and stomped to his side.

"I'll be back in an hour," Mr Aizawa replied, and just left him there.

"An hour?" Midoriya tried to protest, but he was already gone.

He turned back to class B, all sitting around their common room area and staring back at him. Midoriya crossed his arms and gave them the darkest look he could muster.

"U-Um, Midoriya, right?" Kendo asked just to make sure. Midoriya saw how her eyes flickered to the gold on his blazer, exactly the same as her own, only she didn't have a huge number across her back and crimson red bands making her stand out as a threat.

Midoriya didn't move a muscle, continuing to glare at her.

"Yeah, just didn't think you'd like the name 18 – um… the kitchen's this way," she said nervously, pointing in the direction opposite to what it would have been back in class A's dorm.

Midoriya didn't even thank her, which was unlike him, and simply marched into the kitchen area and out of sight. He saw the neat stacks of dirty plates and dishes and sighed deeply. He took off his blazer and tossed it on the counter, before turning on the taps and very slowly getting to work. There was no point in doing this quickly, or else he'd find himself sitting in the kitchen awkwardly until the hour was up.

He had to do this for two weeks?! And it was meant to be three!

When Midoriya was about halfway through, he heard footsteps. He didn't turn his head but saw in the corner of his eye a new stack of plates being added to the unwashed section.

Midoriya couldn't tell if class B was just messy or if they were doing this on purpose.

He did a double take when the hero student who had intruded, sidestepped, picked up an unused cloth and started drying washed plates and putting them away.

Midoriya finally looked up and saw Honenuki there.

"You're not supposed to be helping," he grumbled, aggressively scraping at the grime on a tray that they must have cooked chicken or something in.

Honenuki simply shrugged, "You could use it though. You guys don't often come into detention by yourselves, there's usually two of you, weirdly enough."

"That's because trouble is never the fault of one person in my class," Midoriya sighed deeply. "And… thanks."

Honenuki simply nodded, taking the tray off Midoriya to dry away the suds.

After a minute or so of silence between them, Midoriya spoke up again. "Um… Honenuki?"

"Hm?"

"Um… Monoma keeps… referring to my Quirk. So, um…"

He mimicked Midoriya's sigh, "Yeah, I know. I have… tried to get the point across, but… they haven't exactly been listening to me."

Midoriya nodded slowly, "Oh… I see."

"I won't be trying again, though," he informed him. "It's their own fault. I'll keep your little secret – it's the least I can do."

"The… least?"

"Well, you did save my life."

Midoriya almost laughed, "When?"

"Back at the USJ?" Honenuki frowned, "It was your plan that got us off the boat, and you led the villains away from us after we got to land."

"Well, none of those plans really worked that well in the end."

"You got us most of the way. I think we would have been in a lot of trouble if we didn't have you."

It was clear that the honourable hero student wouldn't be deterred, so Midoriya gave up, and simply nodded. "Well… um, thank you."

"And you. You're a nice person, Midoriya – don't let Monoma convince you otherwise."

For some reason, Midoriya had expected him to say something against his classmates. But no, he targeted the heroes instead. A soft smile crept across Midoriya's face. He didn't feel so alone around class B anymore.

"I did break his nose," Midoriya added after a moment.

Honenuki sniggered quietly, "I know I shouldn't be laughing because that probably really hurt, but that was a mean right hook."

"Thanks."

"No, seriously, I wouldn't have managed it."

"I still can't believe I did that."

"It was impressive. And I didn't know you knew how to use a sword."

"Err, I don't."

"What?! No way."

Their conversing may have drastically slowed the washing up task, but this was the opposite of a problem. Midoriya may have actually found a friend in class B, which felt like an oxymoron at first.

They finished about forty minutes in, a good twenty minutes longer than Midoriya had even hoped, and they continued to talk even after. But that couldn't last forever, especially since they'd given up on hushing their voices. This caught the attention of the rest of class B.

"What are you doing, Honenuki?" asked a spiky-haired boy sporting a blue and white headband. He peered around the corner of the kitchen with a confused look on his face.

"Um, talking with Midoriya?"

"Yeah but… that's not… He's –"

"If he wants to talk, why doesn't he come out here!" called out an irritatingly familiar voice. "He must have finished washing up by now. Or is he that terrible at such a simple task?"

The hero student with the headband gestured Honenuki to follow him out of the kitchen.

He sighed, "Come on, Midoriya. It might be a good idea to talk to them."

Midoriya thought that was terribly optimistic and would really rather not sit there and take class B's insults for the next… however long he had left.

Actually, he looked up at the clock to see that he didn't have long at all. Mr Aizawa would appear to rescue him any minute now.

Bearing this in mind, Midoriya nodded and let the two of them lead him out of the kitchen. He now found himself standing before the common room again. Glancing at Honenuki as he followed his other friend to a spare sofa, Midoriya leant back against the closest wall and crossed his arms, waiting for someone else to make the first move.

This resulted in nothing but awkward silence, in which Monoma glared at Midoriya with a mocking smile upon his face.

Midoriya blinked back at him, "How's your nose?"

The smile faded immediately. "How's the shoulder?"

"Um, I seem to remember that having nothing to do with you – you just decided to make it worse. And yes, it does still hurt. It should have healed ages ago, but people just keep targeting it," Midoriya snapped.

Monoma hesitated, "…people?"

Ah, maybe he shouldn't have said that…

"Oh!" Monoma laughed, "What have we here? Is class A not as buddy-buddy as we all thought?"

"That's none of your business."

"Last time I checked, no one in class A has been sent here for detention after beating someone up! So, you didn't tell anyone, huh?"

"Monoma, come on," Honenuki interrupted. "Is this really necessary?"

Technically, Kacchan had been sent to detention for beating Midoriya up – on the first day of term. He supposed the real reason was never told to class B. Besides, it was clear that this incident occurred after the USJ.

"I'm just trying to make sure that justice was served!" Monoma replied innocently. "The only reason that I can think of for not informing his teachers, was if whoever else that was involved didn't leave without… perhaps a threat? And we all know 18 likes to do that."

Midoriya rolled his eyes, he knew something like this would happen. He never should have come out of the kitchens.

"Speaking of which, was taking my Quirk after breaking my nose really necessary?"

If Midoriya rolled his eyes any harder, he was quite sure they'd be stuck at the back of his head. "You got it back."

"Yes, five minutes later. Do you copy my Quirk's time limit just to get on my nerves?"

This guy couldn't be any more oblivious.

Midoriya was so tempted to just tell him the truth, but he was interested to see how long this would last.

"Possibly," was his reply.

Monoma ground his teeth for a moment. In the meantime, Midoriya glanced around at the faces of class B. None of them interjected into their conversation. Why? Maybe they were a little frightened of Midoriya – maybe they were trying not to make themselves out as a target – maybe they were just letting Monoma continue to dig his own grave whilst he searched for buried treasure.

"No matter," Monoma eventually sighed, finally turning away from Midoriya, as if he were of no importance anymore, "your plan failed. In two weeks' time, the Sports Festival will be here – and if you've ever seen it before, you'd know that class 1-A's representative is made out as, well… the leader of the villains, which is entirely the truth! I hope you're ready for how the world will see you. I bet your family will be so proud."

Honenuki wasn't the only one who pulled a bit of a face at that statement.

Midoriya had a very small family. He'd never met his grandparents – his father was essentially out of the picture, and he wasn't aware of any sort of extended family in his vicinity. That just left Midoriya and his mum. It was extremely tricky for a single mother with a Quirkless kid who did not seem to be inclined to help whatsoever.

Midoriya hadn't seen her since the start of UA, nor heard a word. She would be able to watch the Sports Festival on TV, but they wouldn't be meeting in person again until a few days afterwards.

He'd been trying not to think about it… but oh, his mother would never have expected her son to reappear as the class president. Midoriya would finally be outed as Quirkless to the rest of class B, if he lasted that long, and it would end up being a complete mockery of him and his feeble skills. Midoriya was not cut out for the athletic pursuits of the Sports Festival. The world would watch on and laugh at class A being defeated by class B, who had reigned victorious since, well, probably the creation of the event. They didn't stand a chance.

But whilst some members of class B was scolding Monoma for his harsh words, and nervously glancing in Midoriya's direction, his mind was hard at work – thinking.

Because well… it hadn't gone so well for class B when they were pitted against each other in their failed escape plan. The first event of the Sports Festival was designed to cut the numbers down. After all, it wasn't just class A and B who were involved, but C, D and E as well – who were even worse off in terms of skill than the villains. The second event usually took out most of class A and a few of class B. Finally, the tournament round pitted all the remaining students against each other in spectacular, one-on-one battles. And although this all sounded like trouble in Midoriya's case, well… if he could organise his class well enough in the first two events, he could easily ensure that the strongest members reached the finals… How many… one, two, three, four – eight? Eight matches at the beginning and that makes sixteen total finalists… And there were nineteen in Midoriya's class. Oh, my God, they could completely take over the final. Well, theoretically… they might not get all the spots, but if they, for the first time in history, could have the villains as the victors…

…the world would have to listen.

Sure, they can boo and hiss all they like. But they've never seen class 1-A work together before – with a leader who's completely Quirkless. Wow just imagine if Midoriya got anywhere near the finals! Imagine if Midoriya could best… e-even one of the hero course students!

"Hey, are you even listening?!" Monoma called out, making Midoriya blink.

"No –"

In this moment, he heard the door to the dorm open.

"Ok, 18 – time's up," Mr Aizawa droned.

"Yeah…" Midoriya replied, almost in a daze as he yanked his shoes on and ran out of the door.

He noted how Mr Aizawa frowned at him and lagged behind, maybe glancing at class B to ask what the hell was going on.

By the time Mr Aizawa reached the door to Height's Alliance, Midoriya had been pacing back and forth on the doorstep, muttering to himself, for at least two minutes.

Mr Aizawa gave him a weird look as he unlocked the door and let him inside, passing his almost-forgotten blazer to him in the process. The hero asked no questions and only shook his head as he locked the door again.

"Hey, Midoriya," Tsu croaked as he came into view. They'd been playing cards in his absence. "How was class B, ribbit?"

"I have an idea," Midoriya breathed, ignoring her question completely.

At the word idea, everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to him, seemingly already completely on board.

"…What kind of idea?" Shoto asked hesitantly.

Midoriya laughed, "A slightly crazy one."

"All your ideas are crazy, Midoriya," Tsu pointed out blankly.

"Yes, but this is a different kind of crazy," he insisted with a wide smile.

Uraraka giggled, "Are you going to tell us or not?!"

With one final glance at the expressions on the faces of his classmates, Midoriya unveiled the next step in their plan to escape class 1-A.

"We're going to win the Sports Festival!"

Remember back before the USJ, when Midoriya finally realised why he had been put in class 1-A? He found himself with… a new confidence. A new drive. Ammunition to load and fire at the heroes, but he was completely clueless as to where he'd shoot it.

Rather ironic, considering he was later shot.

Well, with a giddy excitement for something he'd been dreading, Midoriya was walking with that confidence again – head held high, smile wide. It was this, matched with the red and gold bands on his blazer, that made people part for him in the corridors when he happily marched towards detention a few days later, which, for once, would not be with class B. But he wouldn't have cared either way.

There was power in his powerlessness – and it was the power to change the world.

His classmates were doubtful. Even more so than they had been with the escape plan, which was rather backwards, come to think of it. It had been easier to convince them to be vigilantes, than heroes.

Midoriya knew where to fire his gun and it was not going to be an easy feat. But he just couldn't see his life going any other way. He had never been able to. Midoriya wanted to be a hero, and for the first time, he actually had a way to get there. He just… needed everyone else to feel this confidence too.

And then came this specific hour of detention.

"Everyone meet class 1-A's representative," called out Mr Power Loader, the teacher for the support course. The first years froze and stared at him, shrinking away from his sly smile and toxic green gaze. "He has detention with us and will help test out any prototypes you have."

No response.

Power Loader sighed, "Anyone?"

There was a clatter and a bang from the back of the room, and a girl on roller skates came skidding into view, "Oh, me, me, me!" she cried as she failed to stop and crashed into a table. She was completely unphased and raised her hand in the air, reaching as high as she could, "Pick me!"

Her teacher seemed unsure and this gave Midoriya some wonderful reassurance. "Just… don't –"

"We won't!" she exclaimed, rolling to Midoriya's side and grabbing his hand, "Come on! You've gotta meet my lab partner! We've got loads of stuff to try out and my Quirk can only help with so much!"

She wasn't going anywhere because Midoriya was standing still and she was running on the spot, on wheels.

"Err… ok?" Midoriya frowned and slowly started to walk forwards, letting her lead him through the vast lab. He couldn't help but gaze around at the wonderful inventions and works in progress that lay on tables, as nervous students prodded and pocked at them, shuffling their chairs away from Midoriya and his kidnapper as they passed.

"MEI!" the roller skate girl cried. "We have a class A detention-ee!"

Another girl pushed a pair of goggles out of her face, leaving behind ringed, black marks around her eyes. It looked like she'd faced an explosion head on. Pushing pink dreadlocks out of the way, this Mei positively beamed at Midoriya.

"Hello, test subject!" she exclaimed with equal enthusiasm to her lab partner. "Tell me, on a scale of one to ten, how fireproof are you?!"

Midoriya blinked at her, "…One."

And that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Midoriya would have stayed with the support course students for longer if he were allowed.

For the first half hour, after they'd had their fun making rocket-powered-roller-skates (which were Midoriya's idea), and still ignoring the sideways glances from the more sane members of class 1-D, Midoriya found himself in the middle of some kind of interrogation.

"Ok, test subject!" the girl with the pink dreadlocks exclaimed. "We've got a lot of work to do and very little time to do it! So, we need you to help us test our amazing creations!"

"As long as I can help make some stuff too," Midoriya grinned, gazing at the wonderful place he'd stumbled upon.

The blonde girl gasped loudly. Midoriya looked to her, expecting her to say something. Instead, she help up a hand to pause the conversation, slurping something that looked like milk from a bright red cup, loudly, with a straw. When she'd finished and cleared her throat, she continued as though nothing had happened, "You gonna transfer to the support class after class A?!"

"Um…" Midoriya replied unsurely, "I-I don't really know? It's not like I'm on the route to graduating any time soon…"

"Well, if you do, you won't repeat this year, will you?!"

"I really haven't thought that far!"

She put her cup down and rested her hands on his shoulders, "Well, you can't!"

He blinked at her, "Um, why not?"

"Because you're our new lab partner!"

"I am?"

"Yes!"

The other girl – Mei – was a little busier with her inventions. "Test subject!" she boomed, "Smoke bombs!"

A small, grey orb was immediately thrown at his face. Midoriya panicked and juggled with it for a few moments before finally managing to catch it.

"How hard is it to activate?!" Mei asked him, not even looking over her shoulder.

"Err…."

"Meanwhile! Let's keep looking at the hover boots!"

And so the two of them skidded to the other side of their workbench on wheelie chairs and Midoriya was left to test the durability of a smoke bomb.

He glanced down at it for a moment, and then just dropped it on the floor. It bounced and rolled pitifully to his feet. Picking it up again, he glanced around and noticed a worn and torn target, hanging up on the wall. Picturing Kacchan's face, he lobbed the smoke bomb as hard as he could.

It missed the target, ricocheted off the wall, and with a crash and a clutter, landed amongst the girls' work bench.

It did not explode.

– Until Mei pocked it with a screwdriver.

Coughing and spluttering, Midoriya apologised the best he could and wandered over to them, waiting for the smoke, which seemed more like fine, grey powder, to disperse.

"Hey, is this stuff ok to inhale?" he wheezed.

"We'll find out later!" Mei beamed – which was a little worrying.

"Y-You should make the casing a little easier to shatter. It's too… rubbery," Midoriya acknowledged, spying the plastic casing on the floor. "Also maybe something… biodegradable? Or err, photodegradable? Put them all in a black case when out of use so they don't accidentally go off…"

"Ooh – he knows stuff," the blonde girl murmured.

"Hm, well maybe we'll ditch the smoke bombs!" Nearly everything that came out of Mei's mouth seemed to end with an exclamation point. "Not enough time! Not enough hands – ooh, maybe we should make more hands!"

"Um, hello?" Midoriya waved at them.

They turned and stared at him for a moment.

"Aren't I more hands?" he pointed out.

"GOOD POINT!" Mei yelled. She'd give Present Mic a run for his money and she didn't even seem to have a voice Quirk.

"But won't the smoke block up the cameras?" said the blonde one.

Right, names were needed.

Midoriya tried to interject, "Um, what are your –"

"True! But they still may come in useful!"

"But what if we can't show off our brilliant gadgets! Your babies!"

This was going nowhere.

"Ah! I can't choose between them!"

"What about the hover boots?"

"OK, YOU CONVINCED ME – LET'S WORK ON THE HOVER BOOTS!"

Midoriya just blinked at this interaction, sat down, and just watched them work. He shook his hair a few times in a feeble attempt to brush away the smoke bomb remnants – an effort in vein. He was painstakingly aware that this was what Shoto felt like whilst he and Yaoyorozu tinkered with the brick phones.

"Look, we can't have a wire to the activation button!" Mei groaned. "Or between each boot or the jetpack! I require wire-less! Less wires!"

"Ok!" the other clapped enthusiastically. She continued grinning stupidly whilst staring at the wires weaving a cobweb between their inventions. "How do we do that?!"

Midoriya cleared his throat, "It shouldn't be that hard."

The girls seemed to remember he existed, and both whirled around to stare at him and wait for an explanation.

"U-Um… You want all the mechanisms to work in sync, right? But you might also want to be able to adjust the thrust on either boot to change direction… You could almost connect it to a game controller – a simple one. You'd just need a few lines of code and –"

"Wanna try?!" not-Mei yelled right in his face, leaning forwards so she was a millimetre from his nose.

"W-Well, I, err," Midoriya stammered, "I'm not one hundred percent sure on it… I know this is p-pretty simple but it's j-just not something I've attempted before, and I don't want to get it wrong…"

"I can figure it out!" Mei concluded. "We haven't learnt much coding yet but give me half an hour and I'll know more than we need to anyway!"

The other girl glanced smugly at Midoriya, "Yeah… but this'll save time – Wanna look it up?" and she dangled her phone in the small space between them, letting it swing back and forth like a pendulum.

Midoriya wasn't allowed on the internet. He hadn't even come this close to a device which could reach such a thing – if stealing Mineta's didn't count.

And that toothy grin of hers suggested that she knew this little detail too.

Activating a finger-print password, she dropped her phone into his hands.

"Toga."

The girl flinched dramatically, yelped, and fell off her chair.

After clocking what had just happened, she jumped back to her feet, brushing grey-black dust from her knees and exclaiming, "Mr Aizawa! What are you doing here…?"

"Midoriya, you know you're not allowed to use that," his exhausted looking teacher reminded him.

Midoriya grinned sheepishly and slid the phone onto the workbench beside him.

"And Toga, you know class A isn't allowed internet access," Mr Aizawa sighed.

"He was just looking something up for us…"

"W-Wait," Midoriya frowned, "how do you –"

Toga rolled her eyes, "Oh, I was in class 1-A last year."

He stared, "You were?!"

"I was Mr Aizawa's favourite student!"

Mr Aizawa did not seem to agree.

"Toga was the last to graduate from her class," he droned. "It took her a month longer than everyone else."

"Tricky Quirk!" she added, now skipping across the lab towards a mini fridge hidden away in the corner.

"And you… transferred to the support course? Wait – but this is a first-year class!" Midoriya was so confused.

"Yeah," she scoffed, refilling that cup from earlier with, err, coconut milk? "I retook a year – like you're not gonna do!"

Midoriya slowly turned back to Mr Aizawa, wondering if he was having any flashbacks to a month alone trying to teach Toga. Midoriya had now spent an hour with her and could see how –

"Wait, it's already been an hour?" Midoriya realised.

Toga kicked the fridge shut with her foot. "We still need our test subject," she said in an alarmingly menacing tone.

"He'll be back tomorrow," Mr Aizawa promised, and Midoriya now knew it was indeed possible to look forwards to detention.

"We are wasting time!" Mei interrupted with a yell. "We have two weeks until the Sports Festival, Himiko! TWO WEEKS!"

Mr Aizawa was trying to get him to leave, but Midoriya was a little more interested in, "The Sports Festival?"

"To show off our babies!"

Midoriya had so many questions.

"If you're not on the hero course, you can bring as many support items as you want into the festival!" Toga explained, taking breaks every couple of words to slurp loudly on her drink. "It's to even the playing field!"

Five minutes later, Midoriya slammed the door open to class A's dorm, let Mr Aizawa lock it behind him, and stomped into the common room.

They stared at him.

"Um… you ok, man?" Kirishima asked nervously.

"You look like you were set on fire," added Tsu.

"I was," Midoriya replied blatantly. "Oh, and I have another idea."

Jiro rolled her eyes, "Here we go."

"Is it better than winning the Sports Festival?" Sero scoffed.

"Yes and no," Midoriya grinned, pulling the plug out for the TV and ignoring the cries of misery from his classmates. "Because we're still going to win the Sports Festival."

"We can't!" Mina yelled, distraught about her game (they'd only just been given their console back).

"You said it yourself! The whole world will be rooting against us!" Kaminari recalled, also more upset about their video game than the matter at hand.

Midoriya tossed the wire to the TV onto the floor. "Screw the world!" he cried with such confidence that he even he surprised himself.

They all stared at him.

"Who are you and what have you done with our class president?" said Hagakure in full sincerity.

"I mean, it's super cool that you're so excited and all…" Uraraka murmured, cupping her hands around a warm cup of tea, raising her pinkie fingers either side so she didn't make it float, "but um… why would we want to win the Sports Festival?"

"Because Monoma would be really annoyed about it?" Jiro sniggered, now lying upside down on the sofa.

"Because class A has never won the first year Sports Festival!" Midoriya explained, waving his hands about animatedly. "And if we work together as a team to wipe out class B, they can't ignore us anymore!"

Mina raised her hand, "Um, isn't that a bad thing?"

"J-Just hear me out! You remember what Mr Aizawa said after the escape plan failed – he said we could be heroes – all of us! Winning the Sports Festival is the first step! Don't you want that?!"

Midoriya didn't know what he expected. But… maybe a little more enthusiasm would have been a good start.

"O-Ok, I get it…" he sighed, dropping his hands to his sides. "Being a hero to us is… well, it's probably not the kind of thing most of us expected out of life. But I-I thought we were all in on the vigilante idea! Heroes are the same just… legal."

"I'm afraid you're contradicting yourself," Yaoyorozu acknowledged, sitting down beside Jiro.

"I-I know. But I've been thinking –"

A few people scoffed at that.

"–and just… imagine if sometime in the distant future, we were all heroes. And… what if we just continued to do what we would have done anyway, had we gotten out of UA successfully? Who could stop us?! And if they took our licences away, then we'd just be vigilantes! It would all go in a full circle!"

That seemed to perk up some more interest.

"Besides, we'd have so much more training – we'd be so much better! How could anyone stop us?! Class B couldn't! And we could use the Sports Festival to prove this! We can say to the world that – um – well, we're going to be heroes, and if you don't let us be, then we'll do it illegally, and there's nothing you can do about it! We could change the way the world looks at heroics; we could really help people like us! W-We could even end up abolishing the class A system, once and for all! We could force the world to re-think, make them treat us like real human beings and make something better!"

"…I suppose it can't hurt to try, ribbit," Tsu realised.

"Exactly!" Midoriya beamed. "Either we face the Sports Festival head on, or we just drag our feet through it like everyone has before us. I-I don't know about you, but I think I know which I'd rather do."

"A-And if we fail?" Uraraka questioned. "Wouldn't we just be… j-just a big joke?"

"No," Midoriya insisted with sheer cold determination. "And we won't fail – because we have the advantage!"

"Oh, yeah?" said Sero, leaning back against the side of the sofa, his game controller still hanging from his fingertips, "and what's that?"

Midoriya grinned – a grin worthy of both Toga and Mei combined – a grin which made all the others smile too, already knowing that the hero course didn't stand a chance.

"We can use support items," said Midoriya. "But the hero course can't.

"And lucky for us – I have an ex-class-A friend in the support course who might just be willing to help us out…