Izuku could feel Katsuki's eyes boring holes into the back of his head, but he resolutely ignored his former friend in favor of studying the presence lurking underneath the desk. He had noticed the yellow lump on the floor walking in, but after finding no answers about it, shelved that discovery in favor of processing the fact he would spend yet another year in class with Katsuki.

Izuku shrugged and thought to himself that he could always walk out of this school too. He heard good things about Shiketsu.

The presence in the sleeping bag decided to make itself known by silently standing and chastising the chattering class with a judgemental look. Izuku had his notebook out and pen at the ready, but his classmates took significantly longer to notice that their teacher had arrived.

"That was some pathetic situational awareness," Aizawa told them. "Not only did most of you fail to notice me as you walked in, it took you all half a minute to notice me once class started." Aizawa set a large sack of gym clothes on his desk. "Pick something out that's your size, get dressed, and meet me outside."

"But sir," Iida said, hand raised, "Aren't we supposed to-"

"This school has three years to mold you into professional heroes. I'm not wasting a second of it."

With that said, Aizawa vaulted out a window. While a few classmates watched him run off, Izuku snatched a shirt and shorts from the sack and ran for the locker room. Sensing his urgency, the rest of the class scrambled after him.

Izuku already had his shirt peeled off when Bakugo came to a screeching halt at the door. "Deku, what the fuck is that?"

Izuku ignored him and started putting on his shirt. Bakugo grabbed the fabric, and Izuku grabbed his wrist hard enough to make Bakugo hiss through his teeth.

"I told you we were done."

Breathing shallowly, Bakugo said, "Your shoulder. That scar."

Izuku eased his grip. He twisted around until he saw what Bakugo meant. "Oh, that? Got that from Whitebeard."

"Who's Whitebeard?"

Izuku blinked and looked past Bakugo. His scar had drawn a sizable audience from the guys streaming into the men's locker room. Plenty gawked at the long white streak running from shoulder to shoulder, and a few even looked sick.

"One of the four Emperors of the sea. Few pirates can compare to him."

"Wait, pirates? Are you saying you met pirates?" Kirishima asked.

"Yeah, went sailing with some for a few years." Izuku snapped the shirt out of Bakugo's grasp and shoved it on. "Come on, teacher's waiting."

Using Soru, Izuku made it well before anyone else. Aizawa checked his watch and said, "Six minutes. I expected better."

"Sorry sir. They got curious about the scar."

Before Aizawa could ask what that meant, Bakugo sprinted up, huffing and glaring daggers at Izuku. The rest of the guys jogged together a minute later, followed by a walking cluster of girls.

"That was twelve minutes," Aizawa said dryly. "More than enough time for a villain to rob a store, kill a few people, and disappear, but at least you'll be right on time to explain yourselves to the media. Do better next time."

While most of the class grumbled sourly over the teacher's words, Iida asked, "Why did you have all of us come out here?

"Physical assessment." Aizawa tossed a baseball to Bakugo. "Up to this point, schools prohibited you from using your Quirk on the physicals. It's illogical and hampers your growth, and that ends today."

Bakugo grinned feral, stepped into the ring, and rocketed the baseball with a loud explosion. Seven hundred meters later, Aizawa showed the results.

"This is your starting point. All your growth here at U.A. will be measured against your performance today." Izuku felt the excitement of the students around him, and he couldn't help but feel an electric thrill run through him as well. A spark danced across his skin as he savored the prospect of seeing how much he had grown.

"Ooh, this sounds so much fun!" Mina said.

Aizawa gave them all a chilling look, silently judging them all for how eager they appeared. "Fun? Do you really want to treat this like a game?"

Mina's smile vanished. "Well, no, I-"

"Games have to have stakes, don't they? Well guess what? Whoever has the lowest score across all seven exams is expelled."

That sucked the rest of the cheer from his classmates, but Izuku's smile stayed on his face. If anything, he felt more determined. A part of him felt guilty that someone would go home today, but he had a promise to keep, and nothing would stop him from giving it anything less than his best. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bakugo had a grin mirroring his own.

For the first test, Izuku crouched next to Iida at the starting line. The moment Aizawa snapped his fingers, Izuku took off with Soru. The clock at the far end flashed under a second for his score.

Tsuyu leapt across the pit of sand in a single bound. Izuku jumped back and forth, never touching the ground, until Aizawa gave him an infinite score. Shoji made the grip test groan as the metal bent slightly under his tentacled grip. Izuku shattered it with a single flex of his hand.

After the side-hop test, Mineta dizzily raised two purple orbs high over his head and shouted, "Yes! Bow before me, puny mortals, for I have beaten Izuku Midoriya!"

"By two hops," Jirou said sourly.

"Still won!"

"You've been dead last in every other category."

"But I still won! Woohoo!"

For the baseball toss, Ochako tapped her ball and chucked it into outer space. Once the infinite sign flashed up, she pumped her fist and said to Izuku, "Think you can beat that?"

Izuku was contemplating just throwing it, but her challenge made him rethink the exercise. He could try hitting it with lighting, but that would probably destroy the baseball. If it was metal, he could do a railgun, but it wasn't, and he didn't have a way to cover it in metal.

Or did he?

"Momo, right?" Izuku asked. "Mind making an iron shell for this baseball?"

Most of the class silently pleaded that she would refuse. She gave Aizawa a questioning look, but the teacher didn't say a word.

"I suppose the rules said nothing about getting outside help."

Mineta, Kaminari, Mina, and Sero all groaned. Ignoring them, Momo made two interlocking halves of metal that Izuku twisted over his ball.

"Alright. You might want to stand back, and cover your ears."

Izuku tested the heft by letting the ball levitate between his palms. Momo, realizing exactly what Izuku was about to do, hurriedly pumped out enough ear protection for the rest of the class. Jirou lunged for hers like a lifeline, while Bakugo scoffed and crossed his arms.

Izuku's first impulse was to aim at a forty-five degree angle, but instinct made him raise his arms nearly vertical. They outstretched and flattened, forming the twin rails of his impromptu railgun. Izuku kicked up the baseball with his foot, flooded his arms with electricity, and fired.

The recoil slammed Izuku into the ground. The deafening roar of a powerful shockwave rang out across the school, ruffling clothing and rattling the windows. Overhead, a cloud blew apart into a cumulus ring, and wisps of vapor marked the baseball's trail into outer space.

Izuku dug himself out from the crater he had made hitting the ground and dusted himself off. "So, how did I do?"

Aizawa held up a board announcing a big fat zero. "You failed to stay within the circle," he said.

Izuku looked down. A massive rut gouged out most of the circle, but enough remained to show that Izuku had slid far outside of it. Izuku sheepishly scratched his hair and said, "Whoops. Any chance I get a do-over?"

"You have no need of one, and what you would have scored will be your benchmark.

Even with a zero in the ball toss, Izuku had topped the class. Relieved sighs and shouts of joy echoed among the class as Aizawa worked his way down to the bottom. Once he got to last place, Mineta shouted, "That can't be right! I beat Izuku on the side-hop!"

"And yet," Aizawa said, "Your performance was abysmal enough to drag you to the bottom. Even Hagakure and Koda, whose Quirks offered no assistance at all on these challenges fared better than you. If you wish to remain in the Hero Course, you have a lot of catching up to do.

Mineta froze mid-sniffle. "You mean… I'm not expelled?"

"It was a logical ruse to encourage you all to work harder. I won't expel students for starting behind the rest." He leveled a glare at Mineta and the others near the bottom and said, "That said, I will expel students who fail to improve themselves." His gaze swept towards the top-ranking students and added, "That includes those of you who started out stronger. Don't slack off."

At lunch, Izuku brought a Mineta-sized pile of fried pork and rice over to an empty table. As he ate, he swiped food off a nearby plate.

"Dude! You have a plate stacked that high and you're still going after my food?"

The outraged shout made Izuku look up. He glanced over Izuku's pile and saw Kirishima smirking, pointing at the half a fish still left on his plate. Izuku glanced at the pilfered food halfway into his mouth.

"Oops. You can have some of mine if you want."

As Kirishima helped himself to some pork, he asked, "That whole pirate thing. That was a joke, right?"

"A joke? What do you mean?"

"Well, pirates! Those aren't even around anymore, dude."

Izuku cursed at himself. Bakugo's shock at seeing his scar caught him so off guard he had revealed more than he should have. Yet, as he saw Kirishima's incredulous expression, he realized that no one would ever believe the truth.

"Not in this dimension they're not. Went to another universe, sailed with the most feared pirate in their world for a year, learned mystical martial arts techniques from his first mate, ate a fruit that gave me superpowers, and came back home in time for dinner."

As his story went on, he drew more of an audience from the surrounding tables. Kaminari, Sero, and Mina all snickered with each new ludicrous detail, while Todoroki and Tokoyami both nodded impassively. Izuku privately worried that they might actually believe him.

"So, you're a wanted criminal in another world?" Mineta asked. "How can you be a hero then?"

"Their police shoot unarmed civilians and burn whole islands to the ground. The real heroes of that world fly jolly rogers."

Izuku's lunch devolved into a Q&A session as his classmates nitpicked his story. Izuku sweated as he dodged details about time travel and avoided explaining how he got back home. As lunch drew to an end, Izuku's rumbling stomach reminded him he had barely eaten, and with a mental sigh, he shoveled as much food down the hatch as he could.

He lagged a bit behind as everyone returned to class. Momo waited up for him with an extra protein bar in hand.

"Does your Quirk consume a lot of food too?" she asked.

Izuku shrugged. "No idea. It's that, or the crazy amount of exercise I do." He munched on the bar and noticed it felt greasier than usual. "Does yours require a high amount of fat?"

Momo blinked. "How could you tell?"

Izuku waved the bar. "High fat content. I was wondering about the matter source earlier. Makes sense, since fat has a higher calorie content per gram.

By the end of the day, Izuku walked home with a spring in his step. One day in, and he had learned so much, made loads of new friends, came in first place for the assessment, and got elected as class president. Not even the bitter reminder that he had Bakugo for a classmate could bring his mood down.

The next day made him even more excited. Combat training. After months of idling around and cramming years of forgotten school subjects into his brain, his fingers itched to punch out some teeth. He eagerly awaited the fights as he and everyone else drew straws. He found his partner, Ochako, and grinned when he got Katsuki as an opponent. How perfect, Izuku thought, that he could properly show his former friend how far he had come.

All Might cleared his throat. "Now that we have that settled, why don't we start with-"

The intercom crackled to life. "Pardon me, All Might," Nezu said. "I typically don't interfere in how teachers run their classes, and I would ordinarily have no objections to how you've randomly assigned partners. However, one student requires extra consideration."

All Might blushed a bit. "It'll be good for the students to experience-"

"Which is why we'll be changing the lineup a bit. Todoroki can work by himself, and put Shoji with Ochako. Midoriya will be facing a team I've made for him."

The class muttered excitedly about the arrangements, and a few glared daggers at Izuku. Izuku himself had mixed feelings. On one hand, he wanted to see what his classmates could do. On the other, he liked the sound of an extra challenge.

Halfway through the first fight, Izuku realized why Nezu had broken him off. His fellow students fought clumsily, throwing their Quirks around with reckless abandon, blocking each others' attacks, or lagging behind as their stamina wore out. A few classmates stood out ahead of the rest - Ojiro with good fighting form, Todoroki and the sheer power that froze an entire building, and Bakugo's explosive performance and sharp instincts. None of them could hold a candle to Zoro or Sanji. Heck, most of them couldn't even beat Usopp.

When Izuku's turn came up, he tucked the offered earpiece into his ear and sauntered over to the building. As he approached the doors, Nezu's voice crackled in his ear. "Your objective is slightly different. Unlike the others, simply touching the device won't be enough to win. One of your opponents has a detonation remote on their person, which they will set off if you approach the bomb or take down one of their teammates. Your mission is to subdue every villain and prevent them from detonating the bomb."

"How many villains are in there?"

"Unknown. You'll be walking into this one blind. Good luck, Midoriya, and try not to kill them."

Izuku took a deep breath and forced the lightning buzzing in his chest to calm a bit. Reasonably sure he wouldn't commit any manslaughter today, Izuku pressed both hands on the doors and shoved them open.

He came face to face with a writhing wall of octopus tentacles. One snagged around his ankle. He tried to slip away, but the tentacle's grip tightened. Izuku felt plastic wrap clinging to his skin.

"He's pinned!" his opponent called out.

Izuku felt a twinge of danger. He bent sideways, folding himself in half as a twisted beam of light passed by his torso. Izuku flinched, and his heart hammered in his chest, but he quickly realized the light was the wrong color and Kizaru had no way of getting to his world.

Izuku readied a thunderbolt, but his Observation Haki went off again. The lightning in his hand fizzled out, and instead, Izuku whirled around and kicked the air behind him. His foot passed through the grinning face that popped out of the ground.

"Good instincts!" Mirio said. He ducked through the ground and popped up by his teammates. "But you're going to have to do better than that."

"Mirio!" Nejire crossed her arms and scowled at him. "We're supposed to be villains! Get into character!"

"Whoops, my bad! Puny hero, prepare to face the wrath of the greatest villains U.A. has ever created. You will never defeat us and disarm the bomb before time runs out!"

As Mirio and Nejire both let out cartoonishly evil laughs, Tamaki sighed and hid his face in his tentacle arm. "Can I please go back to bed now? There's too many people watching us."

"Aww, Tamaki, but our cute little kouhai is counting on us to show him a proper U.A. welcome!"

"Fine." He handed Mirio a set of rubber knuckledusters that he slipped on. Hero, get ready to lose, or something."

Izuku cast his senses around, but he could only sense the three in front of him. A tank, with rubbery tentacles and chitinous armor protecting him, a ranged fighter with light beams, and a rogue with a permeation Quirk. Logically, the ranged fighter would have the detonator, but they could just as easily have given it to Tamaki knowing he'd think that. He could rule out Mirio. If his Quirk allowed him to take objects with him, Tamaki wouldn't have needed to give him a weapon.

On paper, this was a bad match-up for him. An enclosed space, surrounded by insulative material, with opponents properly armed and well-coordinated. He also couldn't take them out individually since the moment one went down, the others would trigger the bomb.

Izuku gave his best All Might-laugh and said, "It's unfortunate for you that I showed up today. Looks like your explosive entry into villainy is a dud!"

Mirio cackled. "That was an awesome cheesy one-liner! But let's see if you can back it up!"

Mirio's legs sank into the ground, then he sprang forward. Izuku dodged the rubber knuckles and kicked through his arm.

Taking advantage of his distraction, Nejire fired another curling beam. Izuku braced himself and took the hit head-on. Once he blinked the stars out of his eyes, Izuku saw Tamaki's tentacles reaching for him. Izuku darted through the slim gaps between them and popped up over Tamaki's shoulder. He drove an axe-kick straight into Tamaki's shoulder, cracking the crustacean shell that covered it.

Tamaki's leg snapped up. The boot fell apart, revealing eagle's talons underneath. The scaly foot, bound with rubber wrappings, clamped around Izuku's arm and squeezed painfully hard. Izuku gritted his teeth and used Tekkai to weather the attack.

Realizing that Izuku wasn't giving in, Tamaki lashed out with his tentacles. "Guys, I can't hold him for long."

"You got it!" Mirio slid through the floor, with head and arms above ground, and popped out in a mighty uppercut. Izuku let the hit fall, bent his neck back, and snapped up a foot laced with Haki. Mirio let the kick land, only to get driven into the ceiling with the gut-shot.

Izuku hefted his arm up. Tamaki squawked and grabbed for the wall, but Izuku slammed his arm into the ground over, and over, and over. Tamaki bit into a cord around his neck, and a clam shell sprouted around his body. Izuku kept pounding, shattering the floor around him, while he kept a wary eye on Nejire. One arm prepared another light beam, while her other hand was stuck inside a pocket.

Izuku aborted his take-down of Tamaki and blitzed towards Nejire. A light beam knocked him off course, but he leapt off the wall and sprang back towards her. Mirio popped to her defense, throwing a right hook with rubber knuckles, but Izuku let himself part around the blow.

"Hey!" Mirio shouted, still wheezing and cradling his ribs. "You stole my trick!"

Nejire yelped as Izuku barreled towards her and threw both her hands out. Izuku dodged the beams, but the thrust those beams made propelled Nejire out of his reach. Grinning like a madman, Izuku leapt after her, readying lightning spears in each hand while dodging the looping beams and Mirio's surprise attacks.

His first spear missed when Nejire threw herself aside, but his follow-up caught her square in the chest. She cried out and fell, with smoke drifting from her chest. Izuku ran over to confirm the takedown. A glimmer of light from her hands was the only warning he got before he got two facefuls of energy beams.

"Ha!" Nejire peeled off her costume, revealing a rubber tracksuit underneath. "Gotcha!"

"You sure did!"

Nejire managed to say "oh s-" before Izuku's foot slammed into her stomach. She flew down a hallway, bouncing off the walls like a soccer ball, and she caught herself with two beams just before she flew out a window. Izuku stalked towards her. She fired both beams down the hallway, but Izuku hardened his arms and used them as a shield. Light fizzled on his Haki-hardened skin as Izuku made one ponderous step after another.

"Guys?" Nejire shouted. "A little help here!"

That made Izuku pause. He could vaguely sense Mirio still, a ways below him, but Tamaki had vanished. Izuku ran through the possibilities as he pushed forward. Had Tamaki withdrawn, or was this a part of the scenario? Did Nejire know he was nearby, or was she trying to make Izuku hesitate?

His answer came when he felt the bare whisper of a warning. Trusting his instincts, Izuku leapt up and through the ceiling. Behind where he had stood, the twin beams slammed into an invisible wall.

Tamaki grimaced as the scales across his body changed color. "He heard me coming," he bemoaned. "I knew I should have stayed home today."

"No, it's totally my fault!" Nejire said. "I reminded him that you were still around. If I hadn't, you would have totally gotten him just now!"

"But would I really have? We ambushed him earlier and that didn't work either."

As the two hero students got closer together, Izuku felt his heart racing. Mirio was still out of the picture, giving him the perfect opportunity to take them both out in one move. From the floor above them, Izuku raised both hands in the air and brought them down in a massive shockwave that would've made Whitebeard proud.

The ceiling shattered. Tiles and concrete rained down on Tamaki and Nejire. Tamaki raised a clam shell over his head, but that blinded him to Izuku's charge. Through the collapsing ceiling, Izuku bounced from piece to falling piece, darting towards Tamaki's backside.

Nejire shouted a code word. Porcupine quills sprouted from Tamaki's back, but Izuku let the quills pass harmlessly through him, grabbed Tamaki's neck, and delivered enough of a zap to knock him out.

Before Nejire could act, Izuku turned Tamaki around and used him as a spiky battering ram. Needles pinned Nejire's right arm to the wall. She fired at him with her left, but Izuku ducked under it and zapped her too.

Izuku winced when he saw the needles stuck through Nejire's arm. "Better leave that there. Now, let's see if I can find that detonator."

"Wow, that was impressive!"

Izuku turned and threw a lightning bolt at Mirio's feet. Mirio yelped and leapt over the attack.

"It's just you and me, now," Izuku said.

"Yep! And in all honesty, I have no idea how I would beat you." He held up a fist and said, "You're faster and stronger than me, and you can even hit me when I'm intangible. Luckily for me, I've got this."

"Rubber knuckles? Cute, but it'll take more than that to-"

Mirio pressed into the side of the knuckles. Far above them, a muffled explosion went off. Flashes of light came through the window as fireworks went off over the building.

Izuku slapped his face. "That ambush at the beginning, without the knuckles, that was to make me think you didn't have it, wasn't it?"

Mirio shrugged. "Blame Nezu. I'm nowhere near smart enough to think of something like that. But still, that was an incredible fight! I don't even think most pros could keep up with you."

Mirio looked at his pinned teammates and asked, "So, uh, mind helping me with those two?"

Back in the observation room, Izuku returned to a round of applause and cheers from most of the class. Kirishima wrapped an arm around his shoulder and said, "Dude, that was awesome! The way you used that one guy as a battering ram, manly as hell."

"Eh, I wasn't that great. I still lost."

"That might be true, young Midoriya," All Might said, "But you were given a far greater challenge. You performed excellently, and I hope the rest of you were paying attention.".

As Izuku luxuriated in the praise and admiration of his classmates and returned Bakugo's apoplectic glare with an easy smile, Izuku finally felt like he belonged in his own world.

A/N: If I had to say what my favorite holiday was, it would be Thanksgiving. Tons of tasty food (some of which I made myself) and none of the stress of Christmas shopping. Presents are kind of overrated when there's not much that you want anyways.

Changelog 12/24/23 - added a tiny blurb about Izuku being class president because it actually comes up later