A/N: All right, let's get down to it- who will Kurai be paired with and just how will their battle against their new peers go?

Phase 1: Chapter 4

Principles

All Might began the class by explaining that they would be conducting mock indoor battles in a total of ten teams over the course of five rounds. One pair of students would play the role of the heroes in the battle, while the other would pretend to be villains guarding a bomb hidden somewhere in one of the many buildings surrounding them.

The heroes would have no idea which floor the bomb would be on, while the villains would be shown directly to the faux device, in addition to having five minutes to prepare for the arrival of their classmates.

At this, Mina frowned and said, "That's not fair! The heroes are at a total disadvantage!"

"Mmm!" All Might grinned. "That may be true, but think about it- heroes usually are put in tough spots like this, considering all the dastardly things villains will do to gain an advantage! Taking hostages, setting up explosive devices like this one, or even threatening the population of the city with bioweapons! Yet in spite of these risks, as heroes, you must find ways to overcome such odds!"

"No pressure, huh?" Kurai muttered to Iida, who remained quiet.

"Now then!" All Might boomed as he opened up a notebook- which looked hilariously small in his massive hands- and began to read off a list of the students that would be paired together.

Midoriya and Uraraka were set to be a team, which Kurai found himself glad about. It would be good for the boy to be paired with someone he was comfortable with.

Unfortunately for Iida, he was paired with Bakugo. Turning to his friend with a grimace, Kurai said, "Uh…? Try not to get caught in the crossfire?"

"I'll do that," the armored boy muttered, clearly a little nervous about having to work with such a volatile partner.

Mina was paired with the navel-laser boy, something Kurai was also relieved about for reasons he didn't completely understand. She's just a little too familiar for how little we know one another, he reasoned. He had seen her be incredibly energetic and friendly with other people, but it was still off-putting to him, being the mild introvert that he was.

However, his relief was short-lived as he found himself paired with the very attractive, barely clothed Yaoyorozu. He reddened instantly when Iida nudged him in the ribs and whispered, "Make sure to remember that you're going into a fight, not on a date."

"I can still use your engine parts for my bike," he muttered back in a strained voice.

The first battle was between Iida's team and Midoriya's, with Kurai's best friend playing the role of villain. All Might led the rest of the students down to a bunker where they could watch the matches in safety. However, he did alert them to the fact that this was so they could take note of their classmates' strategies and mistakes, not for entertainment.

The battle took up most of the fifteen minutes, and although there was no audio coming through, it became more apparent than ever that Bakugo held some kind of grudge against Midoriya. He went after the green-haired boy with reckless abandon, ignoring his teammate's urging that they work together to protect the fake bomb. He pushed the limits to how violent they were allowed to be, and at one point, All Might had to threaten him with failing the match if he continued to be so destructive.

Iida performed as best he could, defending the weapon down to the last seconds with skill and tenacity that Kurai was sure Tensei would have been proud of. The bespectacled teenager even managed to get himself to play the role of a maddened villain pretty well- though Kurai found himself laughing at Iida's monologues a few times.

Uraraka managed to secure the bomb at the last second, making a few surprising uses out of her zero gravity quirk that Iida was not fully prepared for. This meant that the hero team won, but it did come at a price.

For his part, Midoriya fought bravely, and with a surprising amount of skill without using his quirk until the very end of the match. Unfortunately, since Bakugo wasn't giving him enough time to concentrate properly, he was forced to use his quirk's maximum power, which not only shattered most of the building itself in an attempt to distract both Bakugo and Iida, but also his entire arm. That wasn't even accounting for all the burns that Bakugo's explosions inflicted on him while he held him off. The poor boy wound up passed out and on a stretcher headed immediately for the nurse's office- he didn't even get to hear All Might's declaration that his team had claimed victory.

After the freckled boy had been taken away to safety, the big man took the three remaining students back to the bunker to review their work. To the collective surprise of most of the class, All Might declared Iida as the most valued participant.

"But sir, shouldn't it be one of the winners?" Asui asked.

"A valid question!" All Might nodded. "Why didn't I pick Midoriya or Uraraka? Who has a guess?!"

"Sir!" Yaoyorozu said, her hand shooting up instantly. "I can tell you why. Of all the people in the exercise, Iida was the only one to truly embrace his role." When the others mostly stared at her blankly, she put her hand down and said, "I'll explain: while Midoriya and Uraraka did win, they only did so because this was a training simulation. His final attack was too reckless given the hypothetical circumstances, and Uraraka's technique was much too imprecise to use around a live bomb. They took advantage of the fact that it was a fake to win the match.

"As for Bakugo, he was clearly blinded by a personal grudge against Midoriya, which clouded his judgement. His attacks were also reckless, even for a villain planning to bomb a city block, not to mention he had absolutely no thoughts about working with Iida. If anyone should have chased after the heroes, it should have been the more mobile of the two." Here, Kurai glanced at the blond boy, fully expecting him to fly into another blind rage. However, he remained where he was, a look of shellshock plastered to his face.

Yaoyorozu continued on to say, "Iida was the only one who thought the situation through. He removed any advantage that Uraraka might have had against him to the best of his ability, even going so far as to predict- quite correctly- that she would be the one to come and attempt to neutralize the weapon. He acted the part rather well, too."

Kurai found himself suddenly appreciating the fact that he was paired up with this girl in particular. She got in on recommendation, if I remember correctly, he thought. Guess now I can understand why.

All Might apparently was having similar thoughts, because he said, "Well… You missed a couple of things. Young Iida could have been a little more relaxed in his approach, but… Otherwise, you nailed it!" Then he let out a little laugh that seemed somewhat at odds with his booming voice and huge physique.

The next match was over almost frighteningly fast. Todoroki- the boy with red and white hair- and Shoji- the young man with six arms- were set to take the bomb from Hagakure and Ojiro. The invisible girl began the match by discarding what little clothing she did have in an attempt to sneak up on the hero team, but she didn't even make down the first flight of stairs.

Todoroki told his teammate to go outside before he proceeded to freeze the entire building solid. Since both of the 'villains' were barefoot, they found themselves stuck to the ground where the ice had bound them. The icy hero-in-training was able to just walk past both of his opponents without so much as a single blow being traded, and secured the bomb in less than three minutes.

Not only that, as soon as his team had been declared the winners, he emitted a blast of heat that dispelled all of the ice that he had created. All Might praised his skill, highlighting the fact that he had managed to effectively disable both his opponents and the bomb without giving them any warning, while also managing to keep his teammate safe.

Kurai and Yaoyorozu were set up as the villains in the fourth match. The hero team consisted of Kaminari and Jiro. Once the two of them were inside the building, and out of earshot from their soon-to-be-opponents, Kurai turned to his teammate and said, "Okay, mind if we talk quirks while we're setting up?"

"That sounds excellent," Yaoyorozu replied with a nod. "Allow me to go first?" When Kurai nodded back, she said, "My quirk, Creation, allows me to make any non-living thing that I want. However, I have to understand the molecular structure of what it is that I want to make, or else I can't produce the item. I also have to essentially secrete the items out of my bare skin, which why I designed my costume the way I did."

Kurai blinked, impressed. "That's amazing," he told her. Also explains why the 'perfect student' would dress like that… "No wonder you got into U.A."

"It's not all it's cracked up to be," she said with a small laugh. "The molecules to construct these things have to come from somewhere, right? The other limit to my quirk is based on how much food I have in me- that's where the reconstructed atoms come from."

"Ah, gotcha," Kurai nodded. "So it's not like you can pop out another fake bomb so we can dupe them, huh?" They had reached the first flight of stairs, and began to climb them, heading for the fifth floor.

"I could, but it would take a while, and more food than I currently have in me," she replied. "That was a good idea, though."

"What about technology stuff?" Kurai inquired, an idea beginning to form.

"What kind?" his partner asked. "I can make lots of things, some of them technological."

"How about radios like the one All Might gave us?" he asked as he tapped the little earpiece currently residing in his right ear.

"I could, yes, but what would be the point?" she asked him with a small frown as they reached the second floor.

"That depends on my next question," Kurai smirked. "Can you make something to jam the frequencies of our classmates' radios so that they can't talk to each other if they got separated?"

"I could fashion an E.M.P. emitter, but that would knock out our equipment too," the girl frowned. However, in less than a second, her face lit up as she added, "But if I were to make us a new pair of radios after I set off the E.M.P…"

"Our opponents are in the dark, while we can still coordinate," Kurai grinned broadly. "Not to mention that if this was a real bomb, you could just pop out another trigger after we fried the first one, right? Do we have a plan?"

"We do," she nodded. "But while I'm doing that, what will you be doing?"

"I'm gonna try to keep them away from you while you guard the bomb, if that's okay," he answered. "Like you pointed out with Iida's match, the more mobile of them should have gone after the heroes. No offense, but I think my quirk is more suited for going on the offensive than yours."

"You can create energy blasts, right?" his partner asked.

"I can also use that energy to reinforce my body to make me faster and stronger," Kurai nodded. "However, the part of my brain that triggers my quirk affects my frontal cortex. If I overuse it, I become incredibly aggressive and difficult to reason with. And if I keep using it beyond that point, I can experience a seizure, like you saw yesterday, or… even an aneurism."

"Oh dear," Yaoyorozu gasped, her eyes wide. "Will you be all right to take part in a battle, then?"

"Yeah," he nodded confidently as they passed third floor. "See my armor?" he touched his chest piece with his right bracer, producing a small clank. "My brother- whose quirk basically makes him a genius- helped me design it. Not only does it help guard some of my vital spots and lend my punches some extra weight, each piece applies pressure to nerve points that help keep me calm, even when using my quirk. Downside might be that I can't let off as much power in one go, but if that means no passing out from blood in my brain, I'm more than happy to make that trade."

"That is quite the relief," she agreed. "Very well, I'll let you take them on as soon as I've disabled their communications. I'll also work on reinforcing the door with some metal bars so they'll have a harder time getting in- just in case one manages to sneak by you."

"Good idea," he acknowledged as they reach floor four. "You know what kind of quirks our opponents will be using?"

"Jiro has very sensitive hearing, so she'll probably be able to locate us quickly enough," Yaoyorozu said after a moment of thought. "She's also mentioned that she can use her ear jacks to produce very loud sounds on contact, though I'm not entirely sure how she does it. And I believe Kaminari has some kind of electrical quirk."

"Thought so," Kurai nodded. "…Matter of fact, I think I saw him recharging his phone with his bare hands when we were at karaoke."

"Then he must have a fairly decent level of control over his power, if he can charge a device that requires very little electricity without causing it to explode in his hands," Yaoyorozu noted.

"Could be, I'll watch my step around him," Kurai promised, just as they stepped onto the fifth and final floor in the mock office complex. "Now, where is that bomb at?"

They spent the next few minutes setting up for their classmates to come in and try to wrest the weapon away from them. The first item Kurai's teammate produced was the E.M.P. device that he had requested, warning him that she couldn't make the new earpieces until the device was set off, otherwise they risked destroying the new coms in the same blast. With that in mind, she began to produce steel beams that she could use to reinforce the door as soon as Kurai had the new earpiece in hand and left their position.

"I must admit, this plan of yours is a little more advanced than I would expect from an average junior high graduate," Yaoyorozu commented at one point.

Kurai laughed at that, then when she looked at him with puzzlement, he explained, "We're in U.A. High. No one in this class can be called average."

"You know what I meant," she replied with a roll of her eyes. "I was admitted on recommendation, and I didn't come up with a plan anywhere near this clever. My first instinct was to fight a completely defensive battle, and yet you have devised a plan that allows us to strike at the enemy team before they even set foot in the building."

"Yeah, well…" Kurai shrugged. "I'm a little more strategically aware of how fights between villains and heroes usually go, I guess."

"Are you related to a pro hero, then?" Yaoyorozu inquired.

Kurai was about to answer, but just then, All Might's voice came in on their headpieces, saying, "Let the match begin! Good luck, heroes! Er… Also, villains! Show us what you're made of!"

"Game on," Kurai smirked as he held up the E.M.P. "Ready?"

"Yes," his teammate nodded sharply, all business now.

With that, they removed their earpieces and set them a few feet away from themselves. As soon as they had, Kurai the little red button on the weapon, and immediately felt a short tingle as it activated. Less than a second after that, the lights in the building all went off at the same time that the com devices gave out little spats of electricity, frying them.

"Good thing we weren't wearing those," Kurai muttered as Yaoyorozu immediately fashioned him a new one. As he put the little communicator in his ear, she surprised him by handing him what looked like a grenade. "Uh…"

"It's a flash-bang, don't worry," she chuckled. "I'm not as crazy as Bakugo."

"Good to know," he grinned back, reassured. Stepping out of the room, he said, "All right, be seeing you."

The earpiece bleeped as he turned the corner, allowing him to hear his partner say, "Good luck, Hikari."

The hero team was not hard to find for Kurai. Not because he was particularly skilled at detecting enemy forces, but rather because Kaminari and Jiro were arguing a little too loudly.

"I'm just saying, maybe we should head back out and see if All Might calls off the match!" Kaminari was protesting. "We can't really do this with malfunctioning gear!"

"We'll be fine," Jiro insisted. "Real heroes can do the job with or without their equipment. If we wanna be pros we need to work around problems like this."

"I tried to give 'em a jump, but your amplifiers still might be shot!" Kaminari groaned. "Without that, we-"

"Shh!" Jiro suddenly demanded, causing Kurai to freeze in place just around the corner of the hall that the two other students were in.

To his credit, Kaminari did as she requested, speaking softly so that Kurai could barely make out, "What's wrong?"

"There's someone on this floor, close by," Jiro asserted. "I think it's probably-"

"Surprise!" Kurai shouted as he pulled the pin on his grenade and flung it around the corner.

"What the-?!"

Fzzt! Jiro's exclamation of surprise was cut short as Kaminari caught the grenade and fried it before it could go off with a single burst of electricity.

"…Huh," Kurai muttered, more than a little surprised. "That was… not supposed to happen."

"A grenade, dude?!" the blond kid demanded. "Really?! I know you're the villain, but that's taking it too far!"

"It's a flash-bang, genius," Jiro told him as one of her auxiliary jacks plugged itself into the corresponding boot. "Also, get him!"

"Oh, right!" Kaminari exclaimed as he tossed the now-useless grenade behind him and launched himself at Kurai, who had settled into a fighting stance.

Electricity crackled along his arm as he aimed to punch Kurai in the face, who decided he would prefer to avoid that. So he ducked the punch and retaliated with one of his own, a straight shot to the stomach that was enhanced by his quirk, so that it sent his classmate flying into the wall hard enough to take him down for at least a few moments.

Before he could turn to deal with Jiro, however, he was blasted back by an explosive wave of sound that was akin to something like a beating drum. The source was the girl's boots, and apparently her auxiliary jack had something to do with it. His hearing was damaged in his right ear, but the left, the one with the earpiece in it, seemed mostly unhurt.

He was able to tell this because at that time, Yaoyorozu's voice came out of it, saying, "Kurai, are you alright?! I heard a commotion."

"I'm all right," he grunted as he forced himself to his feet. "Kaminari neutralized the grenade, and Jiro had some tech in her boots that lets her create sonic pulses of some kind."

"Do you need backup?"

"No!" he replied as he dodged around the corner before another blast of sound could hurt him. "If I get captured, we still need you to safeguard the bomb! Just… I dunno, make yourself some earplugs and set up a lightning rod in case these two get past me."

"All right," she acknowledged somewhat begrudgingly. "But you better not lose to them."

"Heh," the boy smirked as Jiro came after him, planting her left leg in front of her body as she readied another sound burst. "I won't let you down, partner." Miming a jab, he sent a small burst of energy at Jiro's leg, blasting the tech in the boot to smithereens and causing her to retreat hastily as she emitted a squawk of alarm.

"Now what?" he taunted her, attempting to make himself sound as villainous as possible. "I've taken out your best weapon, and I've got plenty more where that came from. Try to hit me with that sonic pulse again from your other leg, and you'll be picking bits of shrapnel out of these walls for a week."

As Jiro fixed him with an icy glare, Kaminari came racing around the corner, shouting, "Okay, where's-?! Oh, he's there." Glancing down at Jiro's destroyed boot, he paled slightly and added, "So, your laser thingies… Do they, uh…?"

"I'm not shooting lethal blasts, if that's your concern," Kurai sneered. "You heroes will live just long enough to feel the heat of my device burning through the flesh of everyone you failed to protect before you go to meet them in the next life!" He even managed to add in an evil chuckle, though he felt absolutely ridiculous doing so.

"Kaminari, you go find the bomb," Jiro ordered. "I'll-"

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Kurai interrupted. "Turn your back, and I'll put you down faster than a rabid dog."

"Try doing it when I've blown out your eardrums and blasted you out that window down the hall," the girl countered. "You can't fight me and chase him down."

"Oh, I can't?" Kurai grinned as he cracked his neck. "Trust me- this is gonna be fun."

Kaminari glanced between his partner and their opponent for a second before he said, "He's really good at this whole 'fake villain' thing…"

"What's your point?" Jiro snapped.

"I believe him when he says that he can take us both on alone," the electric quirk-user admitted. "Also, I don't want him to hit me again."

"Ugh, grow up!" Jiro snarled. "Why don't you just hit him with a lightning bolt?"

"I already told you!" he shot back. "I can cover my body with electricity, but if I try to shoot it out, it'll just go everywhere! You'd be zapped, too!"

"I'll be fine, just take him-!"

Wham! Kurai shot forward so fast that he was just a blur, his fist catching Jiro completely off-guard as it struck her in the chin, sending her back-pedaling, off-balance. Before Kaminari could even conjure up so much as a spark, Kurai had blasted him with an energy bolt that smacked him up to the ceiling, then on his way down, met his chest with a roundhouse kick that reintroduced him to the wall, before he finally fell to the ground, unconscious.

"Kaminari is down," he informed Yaoyorozu. "Jiro isn't far behind."

"Excellent," the girl replied. "How are you holding up?"

"Still having trouble hearing out of my other ear, but I'll manage," he grinned. "See you in a few minutes."

"You gotta be kidding me…" Jiro grunted as she stood up shakily, wiping blood off her chin as Kurai returned his attention to her. "How can he be that useless?"

"A word of advice, hero," Kurai said he held out his right hand, palm open to face her. "Instead of just telling your teammate your demands, and then expecting that to be the reality, try actually treating them like a partner. Maybe next time you won't lose this badly." An explosive bolt hit his classmate and put her lights out right before she could hit him with a sound blast.

Kurai wound up tossing Jiro on top of Kaminari before sitting on the two of them to keep them in place, since he couldn't risk asking Yaoyorozu coming down and leaving the weapon unattended. He knew that he actually could in this situation, but if it were an actual bomb, he knew that no competent villain would ever leave their weapon unattended, risking that another hero might come to prevent their actions. Whatever the case was, he waited for the teacher to arrive while he sat on top of the sleeping classmates after confirming to his partner that he had defeated both of the other students.

All Might appeared a few minutes after that, a serious look on his face, which wasn't exactly what Kurai had expected. As his teacher approached, he said, "So… did our team win?"

"You did, but there was unintended consequence to your plan," All Might sighed. "That electromagnetic burst not only disabled my way of communicating with you and your classmates, it also scrambled the surveillance equipment I was supposed to be using to monitor you! I was only able to catch the last few seconds of the fight after having to reboot the entire system!"

Kurai paled rapidly, sweat lining his brow. "I am so sorry, All Might," he said with a swift bow. "The plan was mine- I didn't think about how it could-"

"No, it's all right," the giant man sighed. "How could you have predicted such a consequence? That fault falls on me, as your teacher, for not warning you not to damage the surveillance cameras… Though, in my defense, I don't think this has ever been a problem before. The cameras were made to be durable enough to withstand blasts like Bakugo's, and even electric powers like young Kaminari! I give you full marks for ingenuity, if nothing else!"

Hearing that made Kurai feel a little better. Raising his gaze to look his teacher in the eye, he said, "I still apologize for the inconvenience, sir. I'll accept any punishment that you see fit."

"HAhahaha!" All Might chortled. "Come on, now! I'm not Aizawa- you did good, kid! I just wanted you to be aware of your actions for future exercises like this one!" Giving the kid a pat on the back that nearly put him through the walls, the pro hero retrieved Kaminari and Jiro before declaring, "Now let's go get Miss Yaoyorozu and review your work!"

"But… the footage didn't get recorded," Kurai pointed out. "How are we gonna do that?"

"Er…"

After making sure that the two unconscious students were on their way to the nurse's office, All Might took Kurai and Yaoyorozu down to the bunker, where the two of them gave him a play-by-play on what he hadn't been able to see himself. Kurai was docked a few points for allowing Jiro to catch him by surprise instead of immediately pursuing an attack while the two of them were distracted by the flash-bang, even though it had failed. Despite this, and the fact that Yaoyorozu performed her role perfectly, Kurai was named the MVP by All Might due to his tactics and combat skills.

While the next round of students were setting up for their own encounter, Yaoyorozu came up to her partner and said, "You didn't tell me."

"Tell you what?" Kurai asked her, genuinely confused.

"You evaded telling me how it is you know how to plan for a battle like that; looking at the big picture instead of just focusing on the person in front of you," she insisted. "How do you know all that?"

"Midoriya has that kind of stuff figured out, too," Kurai tried, but the girl was already shaking her head in the negative.

"Whether or not he can do the same thing as you doesn't answer my question about how you yourself know such matters," she insisted. "You're powerful enough, smart enough, and have the training to get in on a recommendation, but you didn't. Why is that?"

Kurai noticed a couple of the other students looking at them with curiosity, so he motioned with his head for the girl to follow him to the back corner of the room. Once they had a little more distance between them and the others, he muttered, "You don't take 'no' for an answer, do you?"

"You haven't actually told me that you don't want to discuss this," Yaoyorozu replied. "If that's the case, then simply say so."

"No, you were my partner for today, you deserve to know a little bit about me," he conceded with a small sigh. "You're right, I could have gotten in on a recommendation."

"But…?"

"But I chose not to," he admitted.

"You-?" she gaped. "Why wouldn't you-?"

"I wanted to earn my place here, not just have it handed to me on a silver platter," Kurai interrupted her. "It wouldn't feel right to me."

"They have entrance exams for the students that get-"

"I know that, but it's just a formality," Kurai shrugged. "No one that's gone through those tests haven't passed them in the history of the school. It's basically just a way for them to assess our potential, like Mister Aizawa did on our first day of class. That's not the way I wanted to get in."

"Be that as it may, you still haven't told me how you have the skills you do," she insisted with a frown. "Also, who would have been able to put you up for recommendation, but not done it because you asked them to?"

"My old man," Kurai shrugged. "He's not a pro hero, but he's definitely a very distinguished member of the city's community."

"Why is that?"

"Because he's the city's Police Commissioner."

Deku: Oh... That explains a few things.

Kurai: What's that supposed to mean?

Mataras: Well, I'm sure that a few of our readers have been trying to figure out why you seem so cynical and calculating about everything.

Kurai: You're making me sound like a sociopath!

Mataras: I said 'cynical' not 'cold'.

Kurai: Oh yay, big difference!

Deku: Still, it makes sense why you'd want to be a hero, given who your dad is, right?

Kurai: That's part of it, but there's more to the story... Which I am apparently not allowed to talk about right now.

Deku: What?!

Mataras: Gotta keep it interesting somehow, don't I? This chapter didn't deviate much from the original show, but that'll come soon enough.

Kurai: You clearly love your slow burns.

Mataras: It's how I roll.

Deku: Next time- Who Will Lead Us?

Next time on Your Hero Academia...

"Are you kidding me with this?" Kurai groaned. "Second day in a row!"

"Well, I suppose we should have expected something like this to happen," Iida said with a shrug. "All Might becoming a teacher was bound to make the headlines eventually."

Their commentary was the result of a mob consisting entirely of reporters and camera crews gathered in front of the school gates. Mere days after All Might had been announced as the newest U.A. faculty member, the media was vying for an interview with the man on campus. Their presence not only disrupted the normal morning routine for the students, it also grated on Kurai's nerves on a personal level.

"I know, I just hate dealing with the press," the boy grumbled in response to his comrade's remark. "They're always blaming my dad whenever some villain escapes the police, plus a bunch of other crap I don't care for."

"I understand you frustration, but remember, if they stop us, we should be courteous to them," Iida said firmly. "They do have freedom of the press."

"Doesn't mean I have to like it," he argued as they approached the school gate.

As soon as they started making their way through the crowd, a female reporter came up to them and thrust a mic in their faces, asking, "You two! You're some of All Might's students, aren't you?"

"What's it to you?" Kurai asked irritably. He hated being the subject of attention for strangers, and he didn't feel like entertaining the press after all the trouble they had caused his family over the years.

"It's a scoop," the reporter replied. "So are you in his class, or aren't you?"