A/N:I was intending to be done with the 'Hikigaya from another perspective' vignettes after Izuku, but enough readers asked for something from Bakugo's perspective that I decided to oblige. I hope you enjoy!

Day after day, school was the same old boring shit. Well, there was a slight difference. The other day, Hikigaya took advantage of all the extras coming to gawk at us to light a fire under everybody's asses. Personally, I didn't see the point. If you were already at U.A., and you hadn't lit a fire under your own ass by now, why the hell should I or anybody else even bother with you? But ever since he did, the pointless jabber was at a minimum, a few people in class were starting to look like they might actually be fun to beat, and even Deku had quit with the sad sack routine and was starting to approximate an actual human being.

Though the next time Deku tried to play like he beat me by working only half as hard as me, he'd be swallowing teeth.

So maybe there had been a point to firing everybody up after all. Honestly, I should have thought of it myself. What was the point to being number one of a pack of losers? I managed that all the way through middle school, and look what that got me? A place somewhere in the top five of my class once I got to UA. Not even third place, but firmly out in consolation prize territory.

Fuck. That.

If nagging at a bunch of losers was the only way to make sure I had enough pressure to hit the top, then I'd light an explosion under their ass if that's what it took. Not that I really needed to; Hikigaya had that shit well in hand.

"All right class," Caterpillar-sensei said to start off homeroom, "I know you're all busy preparing for the Sports Festival, so today's homeroom is a free period. Catch up on your classwork, take a nap, I don't care."

"Actually, sensei," Hikigaya said, throwing a look back at Ponytail, "if you don't have plans for us, there's something I'd like to give the class."

"Do whatever you want," Caterpillar said.

Hikigaya opened his book bag to reveal a sizeable ream of paper, which he carried up to the front of the classroom. Splitting it into four piles, he handed one pile each to Ringlets, Flyboy, Six Arms, and Clear Girl, who all started passing them back. After Clear Girl grabbed her copy and handed it back to me, I looked down to see a stack of about five or six pages stapled together, the first of which had five pictures printed on the right side and then writing next to them on the left. "As your class representatives, Yaoyorozu and I thought we should do something to support Class 1-A for the Sports Festival," Hikigaya said, a shit-eating grin on his face, "so we put together a list of faces and quirks for everybody in 1-B, and a few of the Gen Ed students who might be an actual threat."

Case in fucking point.

There was a stunned silence, broken only by Deku muttering from his seat behind me. "Even when Hikigaya-san smiles, that really isn't any better, is it?"

Then of course, all of the morons in class started shouting all at once. "What the heck?" "Isn't this unfair?" "How did you even get all these pictures?" "Do we really need these?"

Idiots. If you have an unfair advantage on your side, of course you fucking use it. That's what separates winners from losers. I was already reading the first page. Headband guy, welds shit together, basically not a threat. Glue head guy, spits glue, as long as he doesn't get the drop on me, who cares. Weird comic head guy, talky quirk like Loudmouth, annoying. Skull face, turns stuff to quicksand, watch my feet around him and it should be fine. Flying chick… dammit, I already call someone Airhead. Let's see… 'Quirk: Power Triangle. Can fly, use super strength, and be super durable, but only one at a time at full power.' So, opposite of Flyboy, hit her when she's moving, not when she's standing still… Birdbrain, maybe? Nah, there's one of those too. Tweety Bird? Eh, good enough.

"Hold on, hold on, one question at a time," Hikigaya said, calming the losers down to a dull roar.

"Denki, you first."

"How did you even get all this, Hikigaya?" Dunce Face asked, looking at the report with shock. "Where did all these pictures come from?" Obviously, he got them by getting off his ass and working for them, moron. You should consider it sometime.

"Ah, that was my contribution," Ponytail offered. "Hikigaya-san asked me to use my Creation quirk to make a few discreet cameras."

"Spy cameras?" Ringlets said with shock, looking back at Ponytail. "I mean, that's a little extreme, isn't it? Yeah, the Sports Festival is important, but… this kind of feels a little unfair." Who cares? Though, I do kinda wonder why they didn't just take that shit with their phones. Maybe to avoid tipping Class B off? Or, knowing Hikigaya, he got Ponytail involved so the extras would have a harder time bucking his authority.

Hikigaya's smirk dropped, and he stared at Ringlets with his usual challenging glare. "Do you remember that huge crowd of people we had at our door the other day, Miura? They came to see us because we were Class A, because we actually fought the villains. Everybody is looking at us like we're the ones to beat, so that they can use us as stepping stones for their own careers. As far as I'm concerned, the odds are already unfair against us. This is just my way of evening the odds." Damn right. Anybody who tries to use me as a stepping stone is going to find a landmine that blows their nuts off.

There was a brief pause, in which I moved on to the second page of the report. Boring guy with a drill quirk? Explode. Redhead with big hands? Explode. Shy girl that shrinks and grows stuff? Explode it. Mushroom girl? Explode her too, and try not to breathe. All-black guy? Explode any black stuff and he's toast. Nothing too challenging there. Meanwhile, Glasses raised his hand, waiting to be called on. When Hikigaya nodded in his direction, he said "Yes! I have a question! Doing research on your opponents for a sporting competition is good practice, but, if you have capabilities that your opponents don't, isn't it unsportsmanlike to use them?" Dammit, why the hell did I even bother listening to that question? That's it, I was going back to tuning Glasses out when he talked.

Hikigaya coughed. "If it makes it feel fairer, Miura, Iida, Class B has a power copier too, so there's nothing stopping them from doing the same thing Yaoyorozu and I did." He paused, and added "page four, Todoroki," probably because half-and-half was making some kind of stupid face or something. "In fact, they may even have some advantages on us, and may have done a bit of intelligence gathering already. On page three are two girls with quirks that are great for spying, and at least one of them was hanging around the other day."

I looked. Yeah, Wavy Hair and Frizzy Hair could probably both be pretty sneaky, going by the descriptions. One splits apart, the other turns to mist but can turn pieces back solid if she wants; I guess either one could just float an eye or an ear over to see what we were doing if they wanted. Oh, Frizzy Hair actually had a name. Orimoto, huh? Sort of like a Kurogiri that can throw a punch, and Hikigaya knows for a fact she's strong? Heh. Now I'm getting excited! On the same page, Dog Boy, Fat Kid, and Green Hair all looked explodable in comparison, but I made a note of them anyway just in case.

Clear Girl raised a sleeve. "My quirk's good for spying too! I could theoretically be anywhere, mwa ha ha." She did her best to put on a spooky voice, and from the position of her arms she was probably making some sort of hand gesture to go with it, but… eh. "Don't leave me out of fun stuff like this next time, alright, prez?" After she said that, Six Arms and Long Ears both chimed in saying something similar. I wasn't really listening though, I was looking at page four. Looked like Punchable Face was the power copier Hikigaya was talking about. Gaijin, Big Eyes, Grey Hair, and Metal Face all looked relatively tame in comparison, though Metal Face at least looked like he could take a few hits.

"Ah? Ah. Sure." Hikigaya stammered in response to Clear Girl and the rest. "A-anyway, if you all look at page five, I added on the two purple haired guys from the other day. They're kind of the reason I started doing this in the first place; the tall one has a mind control quirk, and the short one has a sticky hair quirk. Either one could be dangerous if they caught a person in our class by surprise, especially if they targeted one of us who's super friendly, or who likes talking trash. Personally, I'd rather not see anybody in Class A fall behind because someone got lucky with a quirk like that." He said that last bit with a significant look in my direction, and I flipped to the last page to see what he was talking about. Ah, crap, that guy really could've screwed me over for the whole Sports Festival if he wanted to, couldn't he? Shit. I was torn between being irritated at being helped, and laughing to myself as I saw the other three places on the page, which were all filled up by the extras from the Tennis Club. 'Being trained by Hero Service Groups 4 and 5, more dangerous than you'd expect?' Heh, he got that right.

I lifted up my head from the paper. "Hey, Hikigaya. I got a question."

"What is it, Bakugo?" He said.

"Not like I don't appreciate the heads-up, but ain't it good for you if some Gen-Ed nobody takes me out before I go up against you? Why are you giving this to all of us in the first place? You really that confident of winning?" I glared at him. If he was looking down on me, I'd kill him!

Hikigaya smirked. "As I'm sure you recall, we were just attacked by Villains," he said in a tone of voice that seemed to harbor ominous intentions, "and because we fought them off, the media is interested in us. Now, if some people in the class do really well and the others do poorly, the media might think, oh the ones who did really well must have carried the day for everybody else." Like you did, I thought to myself grudgingly. "But if we all do well? If, say, all sixteen places in the last round are coming from Class A?" Hikigaya continued, his gaze getting sharper, "that tells the Villains that messing with UA students only makes us stronger. It gives us all a reputation as Class A students, giving all of us better chances at getting internships. And for those of us aiming at the top, coming out of the Sports Festival with a reputation like 'the Ace of the Strongest Class in UA History' doesn't seem like it'd be any worse than 'The winner of the first year Sports Festival.'"

There was a thoughtful silence as the idea sunk in. Ace of the Strongest Class in UA History, huh? I kind of liked the sound of that. After a moment, Frog Girl added her two yen to the conversation. "Wouldn't that be good for Aizawa-sensei too, kero? First saving All Might, then being the teacher of the Strongest Class?"

Caterpillar lifted his chin from his chest. He seemed a little bit amused. "I'm an Underground Hero, Asui. I don't really care about my media rep. But, whatever you kids want to do is fine by me." Tche, so 'Underground' that there were like half a dozen news articles on you this morning alone? Good luck with the whole anonymity thing, Caterpillar.

"It's a good plan," I said reluctantly. "It pisses me off, but it's a good plan." Dammit, why didn't I think of that shit first? Flipping off the villains, and making sure all the extras in the class stayed good enough to be decent competition? The tournament was gonna be full of extras anyway, so might as well let them be the extras from Class A…

"But, what about Class B?" Airhead asked, looking back and forth between the papers in her hand and Hikigaya. "I mean, like Bakugo said, it's a pretty smart plan, Hikki, but isn't it a little hard on them? I feel like they deserve to be noticed too..." What, because they made it into UA? This is the world of Pro-Heroes, Airhead. You keep what you kill.

Hikigaya just shrugged. "I'm not president of Class B," he said nonchalantly. "I assume that whoever is will be working on their own strategies to make their class succeed, but if not, well, maybe watching their class get creamed will teach them to work harder next year. And realistically, we probably won't be able to shut Class B out of the running completely anyways." Right. If I had been in Class B, I probably would have been able to slaughter my way through whatever Hikigaya had planned, so we can't assume that nobody from there will be able to do the same.

"Hikigaya." Half-and-half called out. "Like Bakugo said, it's a good plan, but I don't intend to settle for anything less than first place. If your plan gets in the way of that, I'll abandon it." Tche. I didn't know why, but agreeing with that guy pissed me off.

"I wasn't intending to ask you to," Hikigaya said. "From some research I did, it looks like the Sports Festival usually has three stages. The first stage is usually something that a lot of people can compete in at once, like a race, or time trials, and typically weeds out everybody from the non-hero courses who can't hack it. Second stage is usually a team competition, to show off everyone's skills at cooperation. That almost always ends up picking a Top Sixteen. And then the third stage is almost always tournament-style. I made up a list of previous competitions and stuff too, actually, should I type that up and bring it in tomorrow so everybody can get on the same page, or-"

"Moron," I cut him off. "Get that shit from somebody who already has it." I turned around and gave Deku a meaningful stare.

He blinked at me like a deer in the headlights a couple times before his idiot brain finally caught the hint. "Ah! Uh, uh, right! I-I-I have a few pages on that actually already written up, you can like photocopy it maybe or something Hikigaya-san, no problem!" Dammit, what's with the goofy smile? Are you really that excited that I didn't forget you were a nerd?

Hikigaya coughed. "Anyways… so, there's nothing stopping anybody from going all out for first place in the first stage or the third stage, since those are individual competitions. All I'm asking is that we expand the definition of 'teamwork' a little bit for the second stage, try to make teams with other people from 1-A, and try to focus our efforts at taking out people from 1-B instead of our classmates. Or if there's no other way but to take each other out, then to at least wait until we've taken down 1-B first. That way all of the strongest people in our class will have their chance to show off in the finals."

Half-and-half grunted, which wasn't a yes but wasn't a no either, and after that people just kind of generally fell in line. Dammit, every time Hikigaya pulled this kind of shit it pissed me off. Starting off by saying, 'I could just dominate you all if we don't do it this way,' so that everybody knows he ain't doing it for his own benefit, coming up with a sop to the extras so that there's peer pressure on the serious contenders, then when someone says 'what if I say no,' responding with 'do you want to risk me taking you out before the finals?' And he does it all so sneaky, half the class probably doesn't even realize it happened that way!

I'd be even more pissed off if I didn't know why he was doing it. Everybody else in the class was thinking about how to look good and get famous, but Hikigaya? He wasn't even thinking about the Sports Festival, he was just using it as a weapon. He was turning us into an army, to go up against an army of villains. And honestly, I was more than okay with that. So when all the extras started up with plans on how they could team up to take down Class B, I joined in the discussion. If we were gonna be doing this team shit, I guess it was probably about time to figure out what the hell everybody else's quirks could do.

108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108

At first I thought training some random extra to try and do well in the Sports Festival, especially a loser who didn't even want to go pro, was a total waste of time. Actually, that was still pretty true. But Hikigaya, that twisty fucker, had apparently figured out early that if we conned our extra into asking for training, then we could help him train and get our reps in while everybody else was doing shit like playing gophers for the extras in the Support Course or posing as art models for the extras in Business. The only other group that had the same advantage was Flyboy's group, and in their case it was because their extras had asked for it. Also, as soon as Hikigaya found out their group was doing the same thing as us, he somehow planned it out so their extras now reported to our extra, which was the funniest shit about this whole Hero Assistance Request I could think of.

No, wait, second funniest. The funniest shit was Saika kicking Dunce Face's ass at the training exercises. "You know, it's pretty fucking pathetic that a Gen Ed student is doing this shit faster than a hero," I said, staring at the pathetic blonde aggressively. The Quirk Gym was booked solid leading up to the Sports Festival, so we were just out on the track running wind sprints, but it was still good training - for those of us that weren't slacking, anyways.

Dunce Face looked up at me, breathing a little heavy from exertion. But only a little; instead of being exhausted, he was just a little tired. "I don't exactly have a physical quirk, dude," he said. "There's not a lot I can do with electricity that helps me run any faster." As we spoke, the six other heroes and the three extras on the tracks finished up what they were doing. Since I was leading the workout, rather than keeping on going they all just stopped and waited for me to call the next exercise. Which meant that I had an audience. And since the extras were playing the part of civilians, that meant that instead of just yelling at Dunce Face until he was more scared of me than he was of running, I had to do this shit the 'polite' and 'boring' way.

"Neither does Saika," I said, crossing my arms. "I mean, it's your time to waste, so if you don't want to take this shit seriously that's fine, but if that's the case then just say so instead of giving bullshit excuses."

"Dude, I'm totally taking this seriously!" Dunce Face protested, "we just have Quirk Training after this, so I'm, you know, pacing myself."

I sneered. You stupid fuck. "You don't exactly have a physical quirk, dude," I mocked him. "There's a not you can do with running faster that's going to get in the way of using electricity."

"Dude, I can barely control my quirk right now, and that's when I'm in good condition! If I want to learn how to get my quirk under control so I don't zap my own brain, I can't be too tired to train." It was a reasonable sounding explanation. It made sense.

Too bad for him, I didn't give a shit. "Boy, it sure is a good thing there's no chance you'll be tired when you have to use your quirk during the Sports Festival," I said scathingly. That was the good thing about this Hero Assistance bullshit; just because a hero had to be polite didn't mean that you couldn't call other people morons. You just had to do it like Ice Queen and Hikigaya did (at each other, constantly, and they should really just get over it and bone already), with sarcasm instead of volume. "And I'm sure that if you mess up using your quirk, all the Pro Heroes watching will totally understand if it was because you were tired. And isn't it a good thing that all the Villains out there are nice enough to wait for you to catch your breath before you fight them with your quirk?"

"Alright, alright, already." Dunce face said, raising his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "I get it, you're right, I'll start taking this seriously."

"Good." I said, and I jerked my chin at the track. "Then you can start by redoing that set of suicides, Dunce Face. Properly, this time."

"I -" I glowered as he started saying something. Apparently, two of his brain cells had finally rubbed together, because instead of continuing he stopped, took a deep breath, and jogged back to the track.

I smirked as he left. "Right, well, once Dunce Face is done with those we can move on to pushups," I said, turning to everyone else. "Stretch out now so your legs don't seize up."

"Ne, Bakugo, I'm curious," Flyboy said while he stretched out his calves, "why is it that you have nicknames for everybody except Hikigaya-san and Totsuka-san?"

I looked at Hikigaya, who was absolutely listening in. "Dunno," I said awkwardly, "I never really came up with a good one for Hikigaya." Not once he got rid of 'last place', anyway. "Saika, though, he earned it."

"Earned it?" Extra #1, the shorty, asked. "Ne, Captain, how'd you manage that?"

Saika laughed and put a hand behind his head in embarrassment, smiling proudly. "Well, I was getting really sick of Bakugo calling me Ladyboy, so I made a bet with him that he would promise to use my name if I could keep up with one of his workouts. I threw up twice, but I did it!"

Extras #1 and #2 both winced at that. I waited for a second to see if either one of them would ask for the same bet, but neither one did, which is why they were extras.

"Eh? That works?" Airhead said. "Ne, Bakugo -"

"Get over a ninety on a math test, and we'll talk," I said, smirking at her.

Airhead pouted. "That's mean, Bakubaku!"

"Oi -"

"Spend a whole day being nice to people and without swearing, and we'll talk." She retorted, sticking out her tongue at me.

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, fuck off. I'm perfectly capable of speaking politely when I want to."

"Bakugo." Ice Queen said, smiling obnoxiously. "It's okay if you have to puke. Just keep persevering through it, I believe in you!"

I proceeded to demonstrate my maturity and restraint by silently giving her the middle finger, to a generalized round of laughter. Tch, that was the one problem with going to a school that wasn't completely full of extras, the girls here were way too fucking mouthy. It was like going to a crowded tourist spot - sure, the view might be nice, but you have to put up with 'yap, yap, yap' in your ears all the time.

"Actually, since we're talking about nicknames, now I'm kind of curious," Long Ears asked, "what's the deal with you and Midoriya?" My hands reflexively tightened into fists. "I don't think I've ever heard you talk to him in a conversation under eighty decibels. You guys are childhood friends, right?"

"Fuck Deku," I shouted, causing her and a few other people to take a step back. "Deku's a fucking asshole."

Flyboy just looked at me for a second before raising an eyebrow. "It sounds like you obviously have some reason to be angry at Midoriya," he said slowly, "But unless you explain it..."

"Ugh," I groaned. How the fuck do I even explain Deku? "Alright. So, a year ago, Deku was fucking quirkless. Or whatever. All Might let me listen to the recordings of the discussions after our match, so you could say it like his pot hadn't boiled yet or his reactor hadn't hit critical mass yet but still, whatever, he was fucking quirkless." All around me, people nodded that they understood, so I kept going. "That fucker applied to UA, quirkless. And not just quirkless; scrawny, out of shape, back of the class in gym, completely and totally fucking useless in every way. He was -" I stopped for a second, trying to figure out how to say it, "he was like those fuckers the other day, the extras with the purple hair. I was training every day, studying every day, actually working. And Deku, was just… I dunno what's worse, either he just spent all his time daydreaming and hoping that would make him a hero, and his quirk finally kicked in just in time to save him from his own stupidity, or he knew it was gonna come in someday and spent the whole time waiting for it to show up so it could do all the work for him. On the one hand, he's the luckiest moron in goddamn history, on the other hand he's a lazy slacker who spent like eight years lying to my face. And he's too chickenshit for that, so it's almost certainly the first one."

"Hey!" Ringlets said, "I agree with you, Midoriya's not a liar, but he's not a coward either! He took down a lot of Villains without even hesitating. I was there!"

"The only reason fucking Deku isn't a coward is because he has the self-preservation instincts of a lemming," I fired back. "Fucker would jump off a bridge to try and save Flyboy here from falling. Or try and fight a villain without even fucking having a quirk. Hell, you've seen him try to break his arm so he could throw a baseball. That's not bravery, that's being a suicidal idiot."

"Oh, I get it!" Airhead said, "Midoriya was the type to make, uh, his parents worry about him, right?"

She was looking at me weirdly sympathetically as she said it, and it was kind of an out of nowhere question, but not like she was wrong. "Yeah? His mom's friends with my old hag, I've heard her worrying over her 'little Izu-kun' a whole bunch of times."

"What about his father?" Hikigaya asked, and I just shrugged.

"Dunno. Never met him. He works abroad or some shit." I paused. "Who fucking cares, anyways? The point is, Deku's an asshole. He's gotten a little better since middle school, thank fucking god, but even if he's relatively more tolerable now I still owe him some pain and suffering for all the bullshit he used to pull." I looked around at the group, decided I was bored of talking about Deku, and smirked. "That fucker better hope he loses to you," I said looking at Hikigaya, "or to half-and-half in the Sports Festival tournament before he has to go up against me in the finals, because if he makes it to me, I will not be gentle."

Like I fucking expected, Ice Queen took the bait. "Oh? That's how you think the Sports Festival will go, is it?"

I made a show of thinking about it for a second. "Ah! You're right, my bad. I could wind up beating Midoriya's ass in the preliminaries, but it's way less likely that we'll get assigned to the same block." I gave Ice Queen my best shit-eating grin.

A cool breeze blew toward me from her direction, and I let fireworks crackle in the palm of my hand for a second. Looking around, she wasn't the only person who was interested in challenging my assertion either, which was fine. That was just my speed. And then Dunce Face came jogging up, sweating hard and breathing heavy after finishing his set. "Okay, I'm done. What're we doing next?"

"Pushups," I barked. "Slowest to finish fifty runs a penalty lap." I crouched down, put my hands on the ground, and kicked my legs out backwards to get into position. "Starting in five," everybody started scrambling at once, "four, three," I ignored Dunce Face's whines about 'at least giving him a second', "two," I looked up from staring at the ground to meet Hikigaya's eyes and give him a savage grin, "one, GO!"

So what if maybe my arms would be sore as shit for Quirk Practice later. It just that meant controlling all those explosions would be a better workout. And if I was going to keep up with that cheating fucker Hikigaya and all of his bullshit exercise quirks, I needed all the workout enhancers I could get.