Predictably, Katsuki won his match. Izuku had no worries about that. He'd organised his team and led them bravely, and even managed to get over his pride and let himself be helped by his teammates, as well as forgoing an attack to save his allies. Izuku was proud of Katsuki for getting to a point where that was even possible, and made a note to never say that to him. Izuku knew Katsuki better than anybody at UA, and knew that if that was pointed out to him, he'd probably explode. He wasn't likely to hurt anyone out of anger anymore, since he'd stopped doing that a long time ago, but he was still the hotheaded kid Izuku had known all his life, and he was still … in a word, turbulent. He knew Katsuki was still figuring it out, and Izuku wasn't going to rock the boat either way.

Izuku couldn't sit around thinking about that all day, though. He stood with his team at their starting point next to their prison, doing a last minute check on all his gear to make sure it was all in working order. He was excited to see how the braces in his arms and legs held up to seventeen percent of One For All, and how he could utilise the Air Force move All Might had shown him. He'd been thinking of it a lot, but hadn't truly put it into practice in training yet. Once he was satisfied with his equipment, he turned to his teammates. Ochako and Ashido were talking amongst themselves, and Togeike was standing off to the side, looking at the prison sceptically. It had a little depiction of Principal Nezu welcoming them to the training match on it, which was more than a little silly, but Izuku wasn't nearly as surprised by the principal's eccentricities as he once had been. He put on a smile and walked back over to his teammates, wanting to share his battle strategy with them before the match started properly.

"So I was thinking that I'd scout ahead while the three of you stay back, and if I can manage to pinpoint the other team's positions, then we can regroup and plan around that. I don't know their Quirks as well as I do ours, but I've got a general sense of how to counter a few of them. We'll need to improvise with people like Kodai, since I have no idea what kind of limitation she has with her Size power, and Monoma is going to be trouble no matter what he gets up to. I don't know if he can mimic my Quirk, but if he can, I want everyone to stay away from him," Izuku rambled.

"Got it," Ochako said.

"Yikes, yeah," Ashido said, cringing.

"Hold on, the pipsqueak is our team leader?" Togeike asked, pointing at him with an unimpressed look on her face as she looked at the other two girls.

"Why does everyone focus on my height?" Izuku asked, more to himself than anyone else, but was talked over.

"Yep," Ashido said with a flat tone to her voice.

"Of course!" Ochako said, the ever-present pinkness on her cheeks darkening.

"But …" Togeike looked to be at a loss for words, but quickly recovered. She smirked and laughed. "What's all that stuff about the only guy on our team going ahead while the girls all stay out of trouble? Sexist, much?"

"What?" Izuku squeaked. "I didn't mean anything like that! I'm the fastest and I can locate people with my Quirk, so I thought I would be the best scout. I'm sorry if I sounded like—"

"You didn't, don't worry about it," Ochako said.

"Yeah, you're good," Ashido said.

"Oh, good," Izuku sighed, feeling his shoulders sag. He turned to Togeike and smiled nervously. "Um, I'm sorry for kind of slipping into that without an explanation. I've studied heroes for a long time, and I'm sort of a chronic overthinker, so a lot of my classmates tend to defer to me for strategy and things related to that. I didn't mean to order you around, it's just my instinct to help everyone find a position where they can excel."

"Right," Togeike said, running her eyes over him with doubt clear in her harsh gaze. "What's my position, then, mighty captain?"

"Um, I think you'd shine as a sniper. I know that Yanagi, the girl whose costume is a kimono, has a telekinetic Quirk, so if she throws projectiles around, you could shoot them out of the air with your ice spears and provide cover fire to keep the other team on their toes. Does that sound okay?" Izuku said, glancing away from Togeike at Ochako and Ashido for a moment, who gave him thumbs up and smiles in support.

Togeike huffed out a breath, and said, "Yeah, sure."

"Great! Um, Ashido, I think you're also going to be key in disrupting both Kodai and Yanagi's Quirks, since you can melt the objects their Quirks work with. I think the priority at the start of a confrontation with them has to be making sure they don't have enough ammunition to overwhelm us immediately," Izuku said, turning to his pink friend.

"Right! I'll be an impenetrable wall of acid!" Ashido said, shifting from foot to foot as she hyped herself up for the coming battle.

"Ochako, I think you could be something of a hard counter to Shoda's Twin Impact. You can do what he can and more, so if you keep close to Ashido, then the two of you should be able to completely neutralise two out of four Quirks on their team. You've both got this," Izuku said, giving them a grin as he turned to look out at the mess of piping that made up the industrial landscape before them. "That just leaves Kodai's size as kind of a wild card. And Monoma, but if I know him even a little bit, his pride won't allow him to sit back and not take charge. He'll be leading their team, and he'll probably be coming after me, since in his eyes I'm the strongest one on our team."

"Because you are," Ashido said matter-of-factly.

"I'm strong when I have a solid foundation to work off, which I have in you three. With all of you handling Shoda and Yanagi and Kodai, I can be free to go after Monoma. He's obsessed with trying to one up our class, and he's never been quiet about how much he hates me for how powerful my Quirk is. I think I could make an opening out of his pride and ego, challenge him to a fight to see if his Quirk can really do it all like he thinks it can. Then if he manages to copy One—" Izuku snapped his mouth shut with a click of teeth. He'd been about to say the true name of his Quirk. "—or more of my powers, then I can isolate him so he doesn't hurt or kill anyone. This is all after I relay his teammates' locations, of course."

"You think pretty highly of that Quirk of yours. Can it really do all the stuff you said before?" Togeike said, looking down at him with a guarded look on her face and a glimmer of interest in her eyes. Izuku guessed that she was genuinely curious, but wanted to keep up the cold exterior she was maintaining for some reason.

"Yeah. I'm very lucky, but Monoma thinks thatIthink I'm better than him for being born with that potential. He doesn't let me explain anything either, because in his mind, I'd lie if it gave me an edge against him. He's …" Izuku struggled to find a polite word to describe Monoma's mindset.

"Wacko," Ashido said.

"Insecure," Ochako sighed.

"He gets it twisted in his head and doesn't listen to anything he thinks is an excuse for a perceived slight against him and his class. I think it comes from a good place, he's protecting his friends after all, but he takes it too far and he's been doing it for a while," Izuku said with a grimace. He turned back to Togeike. "If he manages to talk to you, he'll target any weakness he thinks he sees. Don't listen to any of his jabs, and definitely don't take them to heart. He can get mean."

"Don't tell me what to think," Togeike said, but she wouldn't take her eyes off him.

Something about the way she looked at him scratched at Izuku's mind, like a bear being poked with a stick. She still looked down on him with amusement, and it was annoying. He ignored the feelings of agitation and inadequacy that were stirred up by her gaze and forced himself to look up at Togeike and make eye contact. He wasn't going to make a big deal out of this, but he also wasn't going to stand there and take the blatant disrespect that he was getting from her. He straightened his posture and took a deep breath in.

"I'm trying my best to be civil and polite with you, but it's clear that you're not making that same effort. I won't hold that against you, you're nervous and worried about the match. We all are, but—" Izuku said, but was cut off when Togeike put her face close to his and spoke with a tense, hoarse voice that made him flinch away.

"Don't pretend that you're just like me. If you lose this, you get a bad grade and encouragement to try harder. I already failed an entrance exam for heroics once. IfIlose this, I'm done. It's not the same. We're not the same," Togeike said, her expression twisting into anger from her impassive stare, but it was quickly replaced by a mask of apathy. She turned away from Izuku and took a few steps, ending that conversation.

Izuku sighed, knowing he'd messed it up. He looked over at Ochako and Ashido and saw that they were watching, Ashido with a hint of amusement in her eyes and Ochako with balled up fists as she became red in the face. He walked over to them and put his hands up to stop them from saying what he knew they were going to say — both of those reactions were something he didn't want to hear at that moment. He was about to speak when the starting horn sounded, startling everyone. Izuku sighed, and huddled close to the two girls in front of him.

"Please be diplomatic while I'm gone. I'm going to scout," he said, giving Ochako more than Ashido a pleading look.

"Got it," Ashido said for Ochako, who was still glaring at Togeike. She grabbed Ochako by the shoulder and began dragging her toward their unfamiliar teammate. "Come on, girl, let's start getting ready to fight."

Izuku walked a few metres away from the others before willing One For All to spread through every single part of his body, Full Cowling style, sending flares of emerald energy arcing around him, vibrant and exciting as they supercharged every sensation he experienced. His skin became more sensitive to the wind, the sky above was a brighter blue and the piping ahead was a deeper grey, the clanking of his steel boots and the creaking of his padded joints rang in his ears as if they'd been broadcast for all the world to hear. Izuku immediately felt his body respond to the power, an urge to move filling him. He brought One For All up to his safe limit, seventeen percent, and surged forward, leaping up and letting his Quirk carry him into the air as he soared into no man's land ahead. He didn't use Float just yet, as he was navigating through a complex landscape filled with pipes and panels and structures that he could run into if he let himself coast on his momentum too long. Izuku was aware of every little shift in his body's trajectory and positioning as he put his parkour training to use in this industrial setting, speeding through the scenery and clearing twenty metre gaps instantly with single bounds.

Letting his body move on autopilot, Izuku retreated to his mind. He called another of his Quirks, Danger Sense, to the surface for active use. Hikage Shinomori's power was passive for the most part, warning him of physical threats before they could harm him. However, training with Danger Sense had shown Izuku that it could be expanded to be more or less like a radar, at the cost of his physical senses. If he closed off his other senses, let his body move on its own through the practised motions of movement using One For All, then he could extend the range of Danger Sense from just his own body to encompass the area around him as well, where he could ping the locations of individuals, even if it still didn't work on people that didn't mean to harm him, a limitation that Izuku felt safe ignoring at that particular moment. It was also at the cost of the aspect of Danger Sense that actually sensed danger, since the precognition of the Quirk was too diluted looking for locations that it couldn't predict harm as well. It also needed all of his focus, which meant that Izuku did have to stop and crouch down to hide himself among the piping and panelling, though he kept Full Cowling up as he did.

Izuku felt a buzz in the air around the skin his costume left exposed on his lower face, and the wind pushing around the tufts of his cowl that resembled the ears of a rabbit, and the way the pouch on his belt swayed in the breeze. Extrasensory information poured into Izuku's mind, and he stood. With his eyes closed, he turned in a circle, letting Danger Sense guide his small steps so that he didn't fall over himself. He felt a dull throb at the base of his skull at one point, and stopped turning. When the faded sensation continued, Izuku opened his eyes to see the same thing he'd seen in that direction, to the left of where he'd come from, which was nothing. Just the same old piping. Izuku focused on that sensation, taking a few steps toward the direction he sensed it coming from, trying to learn how far away the source was. He had to make a few larger leaps across gaps in the series of platforms he'd landed on, but he was getting closer. At least one member of their opposition was to his team's left. That was good to know.

"Midoriya," a small voice echoed from behind Izuku, almost drowned out by Danger Sense's buzzing.

Spinning, Izuku laid eyes on Nirengeki Shoda, whose hero costume looked like padded body armour with some kind of heads-up-display built into the blue eyeglass he wore only on his right eye. He couldn't read the heads-up-display from his side, so Izuku put his hands up, the green arcs of crackling energy around him flaring as he came back to his senses to see that to Shoda's right was Reiko Yanagi, half-crouched behind a pipe about ten metres away, only her head visible over the cover she'd taken. Izuku tensed, wondering how they'd taken him by surprise and how many others could be there if they used the same method. He turned in a tight circle and scanned the area around himself, reeling Danger Sense in so it covered just himself. Izuku couldn't see anyone else, so turned to the two foes he could see, and put on a smile.

"Hello, Midoriya. Glad to see our information was correct," Shoda said.

"What information would that be?" Izuku asked.

"That it's possible to evade that power of yours that warns you of danger. Monoma has you all figured out," Shoda said with a small, satisfied smile. Izuku fought the urge to frown at the usually meek boy's change of demeanour.

"What else did he tell you?" Izuku asked again. He felt his chest tighten at the realisation that he had no clue how they dodged Danger Sense.

"A lot of things. He studies you, y'know. How your Quirk works, what actually gives you all the powers you have. He thinks you have multiple Quirks like that big bad guy from Kamino, but I think he's just jealous. His intelisgood, though. Shall we test another theory?" Shoda said, glancing to his right at Yanagi, who nodded.

Yanagi stood to her full height, of equal stature to Izuku, and threw her hands out. Izuku braced himself, knowing that her Quirk gave Yanagi the power to move things with her mind at range, as long as they were equal in weight or less than a person. The first time he'd heard that from Kendo, he'd been confused on just how much weight her Quirk considered 'a person' to be, and Izuku had come to the conclusion that her Quirk likely imposed a limit on itself taking Yanagi's own weight to be its maximum output. That meant that all the pipes and structural pieces and panels were off the table for her to throw at him, and he didn't see anything smaller, so Izuku figured it was just an empty threat.

"Fire!" Shoda shouted.

!

Izuku tensed as he felt Danger Sense warn him, one ping from each of the students in front of him. The flash of warning told him that they wished to harm him, but he couldn't see an attack coming. His legs wished to jump, and he did, but still they didn't attack. Suddenly, a sweeping force hit him from behind, and Izuku spun through the air as he activated Float to break his fall, riding his momentum until he hit another platform, rolling to a standing position with his fists up. He ended up to the left of his two enemies, who both readjusted their positioning to face him. Izuku looked over and saw that it was a thinner pipe that had hit him in the back, a ghostly purple glow fading around it. A line across his back stung and throbbed, and knew it was where the pipe had hit him. It would probably bruise. Izuku looked at the pipe, then back to his two opponents, taking in their surprised, satisfied looks. He felt his brain working overtime to figure out how he'd been warned by Danger Sense about an attack, done what it had told him to do, but still gotten hit anyway.

Sucking in a harsh gasp as he discovered a flaw in Shinomori's power, Izuku crouched down. Danger Sense read the intent of the attacker. The Quirk only worked on the people that wanted to harm him, and Monoma must have known that. If someone were to set up an attack from behind Izuku and trigger it, Danger Sense would warn him of the intent of the attacker, not the location of the weapon, and even if it could tell himhowto dodge, Izuku couldn't evade what he couldn't see. That way, physical traps could still catch him by surprise, so that was something to watch out for. If that was the case, though, what about natural disasters? Would Danger Sense keep him alive if an earthquake were to bring down a building he was standing in? The ground was inanimate, it had no intent. It didn'twantto kill him, but it would. That was a scary thought. Izuku looked back at Shoda and Yanagi and kept the grin plastered on his face. He couldn't let them know they'd frightened him.

"Kind of a dirty trick, don't you think?" Izuku asked with a laugh that made his voice break.

"A trick is only dirty if it's unwarranted. That's what Monoma said, anyway. When you're facing someone who's so far ahead of you, cheating is basically levelling the playing field," Yanagi chimed in. It was the first time Izuku could remember her directly addressing him, and it was in the same emotionless, droning voice she always used despite her words.

"And you're really okay with cheating?" Izuku asked, shifting his eyes between Yanagi and Shoda.

"No, but I don't think we have much choice against you," Shoda said, sighing.

Izuku pushed out a breath and considered his options. He could try his best to quickly take them out, but he'd have to pick someone to go after first, and who knew how many hidden projectiles they had hidden to throw at him, which Yanagi could feel secure in hurling at him now that she knew he couldn't dodge them better than anyone else? If he went after Yanagi first to prevent that from happening, then Shoda could run up to him and hit him while he was dealing with her, and he didn't know exactly how strong his Twin Impact could be when he was going all out against a person, even someone with enhanced durability. There were risks to ignoring either of them. Izuku could leave, too, distract them and go back to his team to plan around the weakness in Danger Sense these two had revealed. That actually sounded like a very good plan to Izuku, so he made up his mind in the split second before Shoda opened his mouth to utter another activation of his Quirk.

Thrusting his palms toward the metallic platform he was standing on, Izuku watched as a rush of light purple smoke swirled out from his hands and blinded him. The cool, crawling sensation of Smokescreen washed over him, and Izuku heard Yanagi and Shoda yell out in surprise as he assumed the Quirk overcame their own sight as well. He let Smokescreen out at Full Blast, an ultimate move he'd developed in spite of En's complaints that his Quirk simply wasn't good enough to be used in that manner. Full Blast created a cloud roughly the size of a city block, which meant his teammates would surely see it from where they were a few hundred metres away, and Shoda and Yanagi would be too busy trying to clear the smoke that they'd miss him retreating completely. Izuku grinned to himself, a real smile this time, and stood.

Retracing his steps in his mind, he pinpointed the direction he'd come from with the help of Danger Sense, which began pinging Shoda and Yanagi as they fumbled about in the smoke. They'd been behind him when they revealed themselves, and he was adjacent to them now, so he could speed past them and they'd be unable to follow him until the cloud cleared, which would be a while. Izuku raised his right hand, bracing his arm with his left, and pushed his middle finger against his thumb, flicking his finger so hard that a a blast of force rushed forward, the backblast being caught by the new cuffs on his gloves and sending an aftershock after the initial wave of wind. Izuku's application of Air Force cleared a tunnel, almost, through his Smokescreen, one that kicked the rest of the mist around but didn't clear it completely, and let him see where he was going while Shoda and Yanagi were still more or less blinded. Izuku rushed forward while he could still get away unseen, and chuckled under his breath as he heard Shoda trip over a pipe and fall on his face.

Once Izuku was out of the Smokescreen and well on his way to where he'd left his teammates, Izuku heard a voice through the crackling of the communicator in his ear.

"Midoriya! Monoma and Kodai are on us! Hope you've dealt with the other two, 'cause we could really use some help over here!" Ashido's voice sounded shaky, and Izuku knew that's how a person sounded when they tried to talk while exerting themself. His teammates really were in trouble.

Izuku picked up the pace, abandoning restraint and using Float to ignore gravity and become a blur of crackling emerald power streaking through the maze of pipes and panels. Whenever he moved like that, it took all his focus not to crash and break a leg or arm, but at that moment Izuku's mind was honed in on the goal of saving his friends from the havoc that Monoma and Kodai could wreak together, and his body responded to that goal with an equal determination, completely in sync with that desire. He perfectly manoeuvred around stray pipes and poorly-placed platforms that were positioned as if they were designed to impede a speed-type from moving around quickly, but he dodged and ducked and leapt over every single obstacle with the agility he'd honed over the last two terms at UA, even at the dizzying speeds he was travelling at. It felt as though he'd blinked and arrived at the small space he'd left his team to hold down, where a screw the size of a car had crashed down to the ground, ripping a crater in the ground and burrowing a tunnel of destruction down from a starting point high up in the platforms above ground level.

Looking around, he couldn't see anyone, but Izuku could hear fighting. He followed the sound of combat, as well as the trail of destruction left in its wake, and stumbled upon quite the scene. Togeike had somehow gotten up onto the platforms of piping with Kodai, and they were duking it out at range. Every time Kodai pulled a nut, bolt, screw, pebble, or other small object out of the pouch on her belt, she threw it and enlarged it at the second of release, sending the gigantic version tumbling through the layers of cover and destroying everything in their path to get to Kodai's foe. Togeike, on the other hand, often hit the projectiles out of her hand before Kodai could throw them, using small streams of water turned to ice to snipe the ammunition out of her enemy's grasp. The two of them battled like that above the ground, the debris and leftover projectiles clattering to the bottom level below, where the other three combatants were fighting. Ochako and Ashido were teaming up against Monoma, who was flying around using a ripped up piece of metal as a kind of hoverboard, which was shimmering with the telltale glow of Yanagi's Quirk. He was currently playing a game of tag with Ochako, who'd made herself weightless and was using every trick she could pull with her own Zero Gravity to fly after him and try to use her Quirk on him however she could. This was while Ashido was on the ground, trying her best to hit his board with a spray of acid so that he'd fall and give Ochako the opening she needed.

It was overwhelming for a moment, but Izuku quickly collected himself and considered who was more dangerous, trying to decide who needed his help more, and who would want it. Ochako and Ashido would likely get Monoma eventually, but Togeike was going one on one with Kodai and didn't look to be gaining any ground against the other girl. She was holding her own, sure — Togeike was doing very well, actually — but neither of them looked like they were running out of ammunition or fighting spirit any time soon. Izuku knew Togeike probably wouldn't accept his help, though, just because she was being stubborn. He wondered for a split second if he should leave her to fight her own battle, if it would make Togeike hate him more if he came in and tried to outdo her, from her perspective. That thought only lasted a split second before he leapt up into the air and landed on the opposite side of Kodai from Togeike, and called out to her.

"Are you good up here?" he yelled over the distance to Togeike, watching as Kodai startled at his appearance and started fishing in her pouch for something else to use.

"Just peachy! What took you so long?" Togeike said as she shot another unused projectile out of Kodai's hands. She wore the first real grin Izuku had seen from her as she duelled Kodai atop the battlefield.

"I was ambushed! Do you need some help with Kodai?" Izuku asked, cocking a fist back and letting Blackwhip begin to ooze out from his gauntlet.

"I could use some time to reload, yeah!" Togeike said with a laugh. Izuku smiled back and nodded.

!

The platform under Izuku's feet collapsed, ripped apart by a screw suddenly expanding to the size of a vehicle in a fraction of a second. Izuku barely dodged the pointy end, using Float to land safely a few metres away, and looked back up to see Monoma rising through the gap the screw had made on his hoverboard and flying straight for him. Izuku leapt forward and pulled his fist back for a punch, but Monoma kicked his board forward and it suddenly enlarged to the size of a wall, blocking the hit but becoming irreparably dented in the process, and falling below where Ochako barely got Ashido out of the way as it crashed to the ground. Monoma landed on his feet and immediately ran at Izuku at full speed, not even waiting to catch his breath.

"Hello, Midoriya! Glad to see you've decided to join us! Welcome to the start of the new order!" Monona yelled with a face-splitting smile as he ran at Izuku.

!

Danger Sense rang in his head, and Izuku put his hands up to block whatever Monoma was going to do to him. The blond boy reached him and threw a punch that Izuku stopped with his forearms, though a feather-light touch to the cheek caught him without a whisper from Danger Sense. Izuku found himself giving in to the rising fire in his chest as he realised that Monoma had used the loophole again. He growled, a sound from deep in his throat, and threw Monoma away, not even bothering to capture him with Blackwhip or hit him properly. Izuku really needed to figure out how to close that opening in his fighting style. Monoma stumbled and giggled like a little schoolgirl, even tripping and tumbling but seeming not to care. Kodai looked over and her eyes widened, shock stopping her from resuming her attack on Togeike while Izuku was distracted. He wondered what she was thinking, but realised with a sinking feeling in his stomach.

Monoma stood, a deep belly laugh making Izuku flinch. A memory forced its way into his mind, of what All Might had said the day he'd started training to receive One For All in the first place nearly two years unprepared body can't fully inherit my power. Your arms and legs would shoot off if you could see the image of Monoma bursting like a balloon filled with red paint in his mind. One For All's power within Izuku was extinguished from the shock of Monoma managing to touch him, the one requirement to copy a power for the boy.

"Wait, hold on!" Izuku said, holding a hand out to get Monoma to listen.

"Now you're giving orders? How surprising from the golden boy of the golden class! Not!" Monoma said with a screeching laugh.

Suddenly, Ochako appeared from below, Ashido in tow. Izuku gestured for them to back off, knowing that things could be bad in a few moments. The girls touched down on the platforms and looked at him strangely, but Ochako seemed to recognise what was happening by the look on his face.

"He didn't!" she gasped.

"I did! Watch out, Class-A, because you're done for now that I have the power of a protagonist just like you!" Monoma cried as green electrical discharges flared up around his body. Izuku's heart beat so hard that he thought his ribs would crack.

Monoma had copied One For All.