"Today, we will be doing combat training."

All Might's announcement sent an electric thrill down Izuku's spine. His pupils dilated to tiny pinpricks, darting around the room and cataloging every twitch of the people around him. Most seemed disappointing, unpolished and feeble to Izuku's eye, which was trained to analyze professional heroes, but a few promised better fights. Ojiro unconsciously settled on the balls of his feet, ready to spring forward at any moment, while the barest hint of frost coated Todoroki's right side.

Bakugo met his eyes and scowled. Sweat dripped from his fingers, its sugary scent hinting at its explosive nature. Inside, Izuku felt nauseous and wanted nothing more than to look away, but it failed to overpower the excitement and adrenaline setting his skin aflame. Izuku grinned, a toothy, feral smile that promised violence and blood. Bakugo shivered, but he refused to look away.

Izuku drew a straw. Ochako greeted him warmly with a matching straw. While she went on about how her Quirk worked - as if he hadn't already picked apart every detail from yesterday's tests and saving her during the entrance exam - and how she hoped they could work together, Izuku only had eyes for All Might and the list of unannounced matchups. He went through one at a time, pairing teams against each other. Izuku felt his pulse race as the number of groups dwindled. Eventually, only two remained, and his blood sang with giddy excitement.

"We will begin with Group A, as heroes, against Group D, the villains!"

Bakugo fumed against the label of 'villain'. It seemed fitting, after he had played the villain in so many of Bakugo's games, that now their roles were reversed.

As the clock ticked, Ochako asked, "Should we float up through a window? I think I could get you up there."

"I'm heavier than I look," Izuku said. "And you should save your stamina for later. If you tag Iida, he'll be out of the fight."

"Oh, because his Quirk works on his legs, right? He can't run if he can't keep his feet on the ground."

Izuku could think of a number of ways Iida could work around that, but he held his tongue. It's unlikely he had a chance or reason to practice zero gravity maneuvers before now. "Exactly. I'll keep Bakugo busy, while you head up."

"How are we going to get them to split up?"

"No need. He'll come to us."

Bakugo proved him right a minute later. Izuku told her to run for the stairs and waited for Bakugo to make his move.

"You cheated, somehow," Bakugo sneered. "Or you've been lying and pretending to be Quirkless to make me drop my guard. Either way, you don't belong here, and I'm going to prove it to everyone."

"Bring it, Bakugo."

A vein throbbed in Bakugo's head. Twin blasts rocketed him forward, and his right hand snapped in a blindingly fast hook. Izuku ducked. As the fist sailed over his head, Izuku rammed his own fist in a vicious uppercut, hitting him hard enough to send him tumbling through the air.

Even as he gasped for air, Bakugo rose to his feet and raised his fists. Izuku cracked his knuckles. "Come on, Bakugo. Do you really think that'll work on me? I've been analyzing heroes my whole childhood, and you're the one I know best. You always lead with a right hook."

Bakugo gathered sweat in his left hand. His right hand flashed out, only to stop short as Bakugo flung a blast at Izuku's chest. Izuku leapt into the air, his head brushing against the ceiling, and kicked him in the nose.

"You pool sweat in the hand you're planning to strike with. Depending on how much you gather, I can tell if you're going for a concussive blast…"

Bakugo whipped his right hand in front of Izuku's face. The resulting blast let out a powerful flash of light and filled his face with a cloud of smoke. Izuku, with his eyes closed, charged forward, fouling Bakugo's follow-up by taking the next punch too early.

"Or a flashbang," Izuku finished. He snapped his eyes open, blinked out the bit of stars dancing in his eyes, and lashed out with his nails. Bakugo hissed when he left a trail of bleeding cuts along his chest, but he caught Izuku in the shoulder with an explosion.

"So what if you have me all figured out." Bakugo threw explosion after explosion, working himself into a lather to coax more sweat out of his palms. "I'm still stronger than you! And you will always be a pathetic little Deku."

Izuku caught his next hand with his own. The sweat still went off, scorching his hand, but Izuku held on tight. Bakugo grunted in pain as Izuku squeezed, but though he struggled, he couldn't break free of Izuku's relentless grip.

"You? Stronger than me?" Izuku cackled. Bakugo ground his teeth and redoubled his efforts to break free, but Izuku held his grip, like a fly trap closing around its meal. "You used to be. But I worked for ten long years to change that. You couldn't imagine what I went through. The pain. The agony. I had genuinely wanted to kill myself. But now?"

Izuku raised his arms. Bakugo bucked like a feral donkey, but his feet slowly left the ground. He struggled blindly, wrenching his arms and kicking at Izuku's knees, but the breath on his throat made Bakugo look into his face.

"Now," Izuku said, "I'm stronger than you!"

Izuku threw him, but the awkward position meant Bakugo only stumbled back a few feet. Scrambling back, Bakugo aimed the storage canister around his wrist and said, "Like hell you are! You're nothing to me, nothing!"

All Might's panicked voice came over the intercom. "Bakugo, don't use that! You'll level the whole building!"

Izuku spread his arms and grinned. "Then prove it."

Indecision flickered across Bakugo's face. He glanced between the intercom casting All Might's voice and Izuku. Deciding to skip the scales, Izuku said, "Scared, Kacchan? I thought you weren't afraid of anything."

White-hot anger flashed across Bakugo's eyes, and he pulled the pin.

A deafening blast blew out every window on the floor. The multi-story building quivered, from its foundation to its roof. Cracks ran along the sides, and the section of wall Bakugo had aimed at buckled in, making the whole building hunch over.

When the smoke cleared, it revealed a scorched v-shaped patch on the ground. Plaster and concrete flakes drifted from the ceiling as the building sagged under its own weight. Embedded in the far wall, in a crater of concrete, sat a charred, smoking lump of meat. Blood dribbled from burnt caricatures of a nose and mouth, and a gaping hole revealed charred bone underneath. The eyelids had burnt away, and green eyes stared dully forward, grotesquely exposed like a medical diagram.

Bakugo went sickly pale. His hands trembled, and he shook them as though it would fling the canisters off his wrists and the blood off his hands. When the smell, burnt sugar mingled with overcooked pork, like bad barbecue, hit his nose, he doubled over and vomited.

All Might leapt through the window, arms braced for glass that wasn't there. The moment he saw Izuku's body, he leapt to the boy's side and tenderly put a finger against his neck.

Izuku's eyes moved. All Might yelped and leapt back.

"What?" Izuku asked, voice raspy. "You think a little burn's enough to put me down? I've had plenty of those"

A crumbling sound came from the wall. Izuku's right arm twitched, fingers bending stiffly like spider legs. He clenched a fist and yanked it free from the crater of drywall. The left arm followed, and both hands pushed the rest of his body free. With each step Izuku took, skin grew over burnt flesh, muscles squished together like clay, and dried blood flaked away. By the time he made it to Bakugo, Izuku resembled something human once more.

Bakugo backed away, feet scrabbling through his own vomit, until his back hit a wall. Izuku loomed overhead, smiling without a hint of warmth, hands curled in the same pose Bakugo used when he gathered sweat to strike him.

"Aren't you going to get up, Kacchan?" Izuku asked. "I didn't hear no bell."

Bakugo tried to push himself onto his feet, but his trembling arms gave out from under him. Izuku sighed dramatically and reached down, hoisted Bakugo up by his shirt, and grimaced at the vomit smeared on his fingers.

"My turn."

Izuku's first punch bent Bakugo's nose painfully. The second broke it. The third never came. All Might held Izuku's wrist until he let Bakugo drop.

"The villain team is disqualified," All Might said. "Midoriya, Bakugo, both of you will head straight to Recovery Girl's office.

Izuku looked himself over. "Is that really necessary? My Quirk fully healed me."

"Quirks aren't everything. We need to make sure there aren't any complications."

Izuku muttered under his breath, "That's rich coming from you." Before All Might could ask about that, Izuku asked, "Could it at least wait until after class? I don't want to miss anything so soon into the year."

All Might relented, and Izuku went to join his classmates in the viewing booth. He entered to a hushed silence and awkward stares.

"Dude," Kaminari said, "Did that, like, hurt?"

Sero swatted him. Kaminari scowled at him, and Sero rolled his eyes.

"Quite a lot," Izuku said casually, "But I've had worse."

No one had the courage to ask what could possibly be worse than having half of your skin scorched off.

Ochako got the position of MVP for her fast thinking saving Iida when the building shook. Izuku didn't care. He had fought Bakugo one on one. He took everything Bakugo could throw at him, and he still won. And with how strong Bakugo was, if he could beat Bakugo, eventually, he could beat anyone.

As he watched the replay of him smashing in Bakugo's nose, even as the guilt came back to the forefront, another part lurking in the back of his mind grinned.

Momo handed Izuku a wig. "Your hair is a bit uneven," she said.

Izuku rubbed his scalp. He had a few tufts of hair at the back, where the skin hadn't been charred or scraped off his skull. "Thanks. The texture is perfect, but the color's off. Do you have to know the compounds you're working with?"

"Yes, actually. I used copper oxides since I'm not very familiar with dyes."

"How fine a control do you have? If you made layers of a specific thickness, you could have light refract the exact color you're looking for."

"That would take precision within nanometers, consistent across the entire surface. Not to mention I don't usually need specific colors for the things I make."

"Fair point. There's so many other options for your Quirk that it's not worth investing the time in such low-hanging fruit. Have you explored pharmacology at all? Being able to synthesize specific compounds, such as antivenoms, antihistamines, and paralytics would have applications in field medicine and villain apprehension alike."

All Might awkwardly cleared his throat. Izuku blinked out of his Quirk-theory fugue and found the whole class staring at him. He felt a blush heat up his face as he nervously scratched at his new wig.

"That's some impressive analysis, young Midoriya, but it might be best to save it for some other time."

"Er, sorry. I'll be quiet."

Once class let out, All Might kept him behind while the others filed out of the room. All Might cleared his throat, biting back a few flecks of blood, and said, "I think we need to talk about what happened today."

"I'm really sorry about interrupting class," Izuku said. "I'll keep better control over it in the future."

"What? Oh, no, not that. No, I mean, your combat exercise. I will be having words with young Bakugo as well. Setting that off indoors against someone else is not acceptable, and he should not have ignored my orders. There will be consequences for that."

All Might gave a slight shudder. Izuku idly wondered if he was having trouble holding his Quirk. In reality, All Might was chasing away the sight of his student charred and pancaked against a wall.

"At the same time, it didn't escape my notice that you did nothing to de-escalate the situation. It almost looked like you were even goading him into it. As a hero, it's important to keep in mind how our words and actions impact other people. It is our job to de-escalate dangerous situations and inspire other people. Do you understand?"

"I do."

That All Might had inspired him to attempt suicide by full-body mutation and was now inspiring him to clock the number one hero across the face went unsaid.

A/N: if you're wondering why the entrance exam or the apprehension test got glossed over, it's because I felt there was very little I could add to those parts of canon to make them interesting reads, and spending too much time there would bog down the pacing of the story. See you all in a month where I'm sure you can guess the next development.