Chapter Text
14:37 p.m., 10 days before the exam: U.A. High School
“So, I was thinking,” Izuku explained as he walked through the halls, “Hatume Mei would be an ideal resource. I mean, she’s got tons of ideas and she completes a final product, or several, by the end of the day. And we’ve got a lot to do.”
Nedzu hummed on the other end of the earpiece, pages from what must have been one of their planning journals flipping in the background. The whole situation was sort of mind-boggling to him: leading the villain team, whose only other member was the second most intelligent creature on the planet with an IQ of 286 (the first place going to Ollie–a great horned owl in Canada with an IQ of 293).
“That’s true.” He received a clap of paws from the mammal. “I’ll supply the necessary materials to Majima. Be sure not to let that binder out of your sight, Izuku!” There was a moment of static before the line went silent. Right, the binder. It felt heavy in his hands and he couldn’t stop peeking around every corner before he continued around them.
The black, inconspicuous binder was filled to the brim with data on not only his classmates but also on Kamino Ward, the villain objectives, each piece of equipment they required, and when and where certain events needed to take place. Basically, the greenet thought, it was one big folder full of every detail the heroes needed to take them out in a heartbeat. And if he knew Bakugou, the other teen would be rearing to steal it from his clutches.
So, needless to say, Izuku was anxious.
A blast sounded from down the hall and, although the teen was sure he knew what or who caused it, he started to sprint down the corridor. Not entirely to his surprise did he find the doors of the support lab blown from their hinges with one Hatsume Mei standing in the center of it all.
“Well, there goes baby seventy-five. I wonder if I could increase the flame retardancy for more practical use, but that wouldn’t be as much fun. I’m right, aren’t I Majima-sensei?” Hatsume swung a lanyard around in a wide arc as she spoke, a hand raising to lift her goggles to rest on her forehead. Power Loader, the teacher in question, only sighed.
“That’s the eighth explosion today, Mei. Can’t you just stick to one or three like the other students?”
“Nope!”
Izuku assumed from the loud thunk coming from inside the lab that Majima’s head made acquaintances with his desk (and probably not for the first or last time). The teen carefully stepped around charred equipment, approaching the inventor covered in soot and ash.
“Hey, Hatsume, do you remember me from–?” He began, but choked on his words as the pink-haired student ran towards him, grabbed him by the hand, and yanked him into the classroom.
“Ten million, of course, of course! Our babies worked great together during the sports fest’, and so many companies were interested in my work! I hope you know that if you need any equipment, I would absolutely LOVE to make more babies for you!” Izuku winced at her wording, but at her oblivious grin, he felt himself relax.
“Actually, I was hoping you’d say that. Think you could look through the designs in this binder and put them together?” Hatsume snatched the black folder from his hands, flipping it open and gliding through the blueprints like she was reading her favorite magazine. Her eyes zoomed across the pages, smile growing, before looking back up at him.
“And you made these designs? Are there more? When do you need them? Will you make more babies with me?!” She pushed forward into his personal bubble–which he wanted to keep personal, thank you very much–and he backed into the desk behind him, the wood pressing into his back uncomfortably.
“H-hold on, uh, in order: yes, maybe, in eight days, and yes, as long as you don’t blow me up with them.” Hatsume squealed at his answers, bouncing on the balls of her feet. She tilted her goggles down to cover her eyes and grabbed a blowtorch simultaneously, turning it on and looking more like a serial killer than a teenage inventor.
“Let’s get cracking, then!
Power Loader smacked his head against his desk again.
10:23 a.m., 8 days before the exam: U.A. Gym #7
“Keep moving, extras! Your next break is never! ” Katsuki shouted, crackling and sizzling sounding from his palms. The other eighteen students of the hero class groaned and, with a few glances at each other, harmoniously sat down on the cold concrete. Mina–Racoon Eyes, the teen usually remarked–threw her arms up with a whine.
“Bakugou, we’ve been training non-stop for the past two hours! Midoriya’s good, but this is just exhausting us.” The pink-haired girl looked to her friends who all nodded along with her. “I think we can all agree that we need a break. We can come back to this tomorrow, can’t we?”
He huffed and there was only the sound of rustling paper before the plain folder was thrown at the group without warning.
“Listen up, and I’ll only say this once: even with just himself on the team, Deku’s not the crybaby he seems like. Everybody knows that, especially us. I’m not going to sit around while he tries his goddamned hardest.” Katsuki paused for a moment. “And I’m trying to fit all of the required training hours into the first few days to make room for planning, so don’t complain.” At that, there was an “aw” that echoed from the back of the class.
“Aw, Kacchan, you think that much of Midoriya? And you’ve been trying to give us more break-time? That’s so sweet!” Kaminari snickered, ignoring how Sero jabbed his quirked elbow into his side. The electric teen barely dodged Katsuki’s incoming explosion, but the cocky ash-blond couldn’t hold back a (frankly intimidating) grin.
“Shut up and get back to work, losers!” The class laughed, besides the solitary few who stuck to the quiet and those with much less attachment to the hero’s Patriarch. Regardless, they chanted in unison.
“Sir, yes, sir!”
While the rest of the class resumed their training with newfound vigor, one student approached Katsuki instead. They held a thick, charcoal-hued binder– Midoriya’s assignment, he realized–and nodded their head toward the gym’s exit. With a grin, the blond followed them out in understanding, nobody noticing as they slipped out of sight to peer at the pages in the folder.
13:19 p.m., 8 days before the exam: Kamino Ward
The King may move one square in any direction…
“So, Izuku,” Nedzu began as the teen crinkled his blazer nervously in the limo. He’d never been in such an expensive vehicle before and he was worried that any little movement would ruin the rich, leather seats. “Since Hastume-san has finished preparing our base operation equipment, we’ll be setting up today. I assume you have the address we’ll be claiming?” The greenet nodded once, slipping his phone from his pocket and pushing it towards the principal across the vehicle once he had the location pulled up on his GPS. The stoat–Izuku had guessed earlier that week, awarded with applause from Nedzu and a toffee from one of the principal’s inner desk drawers–plucked it from his hands and laughed before bringing a paw to cover his delight. The mammal pressed a button on a side console, static crackling to life before he rattled off the address for their driver.
The limousine came to a halt after a bit of driving and Izuku rushed to exit the too-fancy car, slinging his dirtied yellow backpack over his shoulder. The building in front of them looked like nothing special. In fact, the way the old, rusty gas station stood would be worrying to any health inspector, but to the two acting villains, the location was perfect. Why, one might ask? The teen joked to himself, kicking a pebble.
Izuku grinned as he approached the maintenance shaft entrance off the side of the station, smaller footsteps shuffling behind him at Nedzu’s trailing. The door, while it should’ve been locked, was left ajar due to old age. The greenet pushed it open with the tip of his red sneaker, and even though the staircase was dark, the student and mentor continued down them until the motion-activated lights whirred to life.
“Kamino’s underground power transmission lines,” the principal laughed, “well done, Izuku!” The boy blushed, shaking his head slightly and pulling a folded square of paper from his pocket. Once he had finished struggling with the creases and folds, the paper revealed a large, printed map full of the twists and turns of the distribution tunnels. The stoat motioned for him to lower the paper to his view, and he hummed as he peered at the inked page. “I’m assuming we’re heading for the distribution substation, yes?” At Izuku’s nod, Nedzu trailed a finger down a path beginning from their position. “This is the quickest route.”
The two walked in general silence through the tunnels, passing by other maps hung on the walls and ripping them down without a real trace of disturbance. Sure, the dust would be stirred up, but there was nothing they could do about that. Izuku shrugged noncommittally at the thought.
It wasn’t long, maybe ten minutes, before they reached their destination. The tunnel widened into a large room, wires and circuitry trailing along the walls. The substation was underground, unlike most distribution locations, with the space above ground used for expansion and the construction of large-as-life buildings. Spikes of metal protruded from the ground, wires connecting them each to large transformers, and the greenet scanned the room for a control panel. He didn’t spot one from their spot by the entrance, but they would find it eventually.
They only had to search for a few minutes, circling the room and twisting between transformers, before the principal found the power control panel in the empty center of it all. It sat innocently on a circular, cement-formed desk. Little switches labeled with different sectors of Kamino Ward were scattered across the large panel, and Izuku smiled. The electrical output and distribution of the entire city, the control of Kamino’s power usage, in the palms of their hands. Boundless electricity to siphon into their machines.
…so long as no piece is blocking his path.
Nedzu clapped his paws together, rubbing them eagerly. “Let’s get to work, shall we?”
17:05 p.m., 11 days before the exam: U.A. Gym #12
Shouta whipped his scarf at his mentee, the purple-haired teen dodging his attacks and practicing defensive maneuvers with his own capture weapon. His student, while still learning, was admittedly talented with his use of the metal-alloy fabric. They’d only begun their training twenty minutes prior, but at the other’s heavy breathing he relented his attacks.
“Shinsou, take a breather. Get some water.” The boy nodded, stepping over to his bag by the benches of the gym. The erasure hero crouched to the ground, pulling a jelly pouch–from a brand he had to scour the internet for, due to how ill the packets could make the consumer if they weren’t produced correctly–from the folds of his capture weapon. He’d barely had time to open it before the door of the gymnasium slid open to the ceiling, like the door of a garage. He glanced to the entrance, finding a small-statured student that he’d always sigh at the sight of. He didn’t hate them, no, but he hated the trouble that always followed.
“Problem Child,” he began, resting a hand on his scarf. “Do you need something?” Midoriya stepped into the gym with a small smile, the same old yellow backpack thrown over his shoulder. He held a black binder in his other hand, packed with sheets of paper and other small folders. Shouta glared at it with a hatred that only came from too much paperwork.
“Ah, Aizawa-sensei, I was actually wondering…” He paused with a grunt as he let his backpack drop to the ground, startling the pro-hero as there was the clang of weights hitting the floor when the bag flopped on the cement. Was the kid’s bag full of training weights? Had it always been like that? “Would you let me train along with you and Shinsou-kun?” Red splattered his face as if embarrassed for even suggesting it.
Shouta put a hand to his chin, considering it for a moment. Not only did his insomniac of a student require a training partner more on his level, but the kid would need help mastering that Blackwhip move of his. No one better than him, he mused with a tired sigh.
“Shinsou.” He called out, the teen looking up as he wiped the sweat from his brow. “Midoriya will be training with us now. Is that acceptable?” The purple-haired boy paused, eyes gliding over to the other student.
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s fine.” Shinsou’s lips quirked into a smirk, walking forward to stand next to his teacher. “Don’t you go thinking this makes us all buddy-buddy.”
Midoriya smiled somewhat awkwardly. “Of course not.” The boy leaned over, grabbing his backpack by the, barely hanging on, loop. “Do you think I could join in now? If that’s not too much trouble, I mean.”
The teen with gravity-defying hair shoved his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants. He looked like he wanted to say no, wanted to tell the other student to leave and come back another day. But, mere moments later, something sparked in his mauve eyes as they roved over the greenet. Shouta quirked an eyebrow but didn’t comment. He didn’t want to know what the hellspawn had thought of.
“Sure. You better stretch first–I’m not going to wait on your princess muscles to get over a cramp during a spar.” Shinsou paused, then gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. “You can put your stuff over there on the benches.”
“Oh, alright! Thanks, Shinsou-kun.” Midoriya beamed, and both Shinsou and Shouta had to squint to see.
Too bright.
06:42 a.m., 7 days before the exam: U.A. Class 1-A Dormitory
Hanta sunk into the couch of the central living space, a bowl of cereal balanced precariously in one hand. Yawning, his eyes settled on the clock above the television. He normally woke up later, closer to the start of class so that he could get in the maximum amount of sleep, but since the exam preparations began, he had been waking up much earlier. He had to keep up with their fearless leader, after all.
Bakugou had woken him up when the blond himself had–five in the morning. Early to sleep, early to rise he supposed. The hothead wanted to get in as much planning as possible, saying that he couldn’t waste a second while they were up against Midoriya. He wished the guy would take a break.
Don’t get him wrong, Hanta respected both of them, but he just couldn’t see how Bakugou could be so shaken up going against the greenet. He’d known the other hero student since childhood, sure, but wouldn’t that add to the predictability? To the somewhat easy win, a whole class against one?
“It goes both ways,” their Patriarch had told him when he’d first asked. “Deku’s a smart bastard. Don’t underestimate him.”
He sighed and scooped somewhat soggy cereal onto his spoon. He would never say it to his friend’s face, but the other teen was a little stuck in his head. Midoriya, no matter how smart, and admittedly amazing, he was, had a very small chance to win. They all knew it, and that fact alone made Hanta feel bad for the hero fanboy. He would put up quite the fight, though.
There was a shuffling of cushions as someone sat down on the couch beside him. “Good morning, Sero-kun.”
He startled, milk almost sploshing over the side of his bowl. Midoriya smiled at him, although he eyed him a little at his reaction. “O-Oh, hey, Midoriya!” Hanta grinned nervously. It was awkward to talk to someone who you were pitted against, even if you had been friendly before.
“Are you feeling okay?” The boy tilted his head, green doe eyes scanning him in concern. “You seem a little stiff.”
He slumped slightly, gathering up the last of his cereal in one scoop. “Yeah, I’m good. No worries, man!” Oh, no, he thought with an internal grimace, he’s too nice for his own good. It would hurt his heart to have to fight against his entire class, but he was still so kind.
Midoriya eased. “That’s good. I was worried Kacchan had been training you too hard.”
What?
“What?” Hanta blanked. The other teen’s lips tightened into a thin line.
“Well,” Midoriya began, “I noticed that you guys have been training from the afternoons and late into the night, sometimes past normal curfew, and it got me a little concerned that you’d been working too hard, especially since it won't be that hard of a fight. A lot of the class seems super sore and tired.” The greenet paused, then rubbed the back of his neck. “But I’m sure you guys have been taking breaks, taking days off to rest. I probably don’t have reason to worry. Right?”
The raven-haired student shook his head, a worried sweat dripping down his temple. His classmate visibly sagged in relief.
“That’s good.” The teen smiled. “Well,” Midoriya said patting his knees, “I’d better get going. See you in class!” And with that, and a little wave, the boy was off.
But the class hasn’t taken breaks, Hanta thought. We barely sleep before we get up the next morning. Bakugou is drilling us day in and day out, even though it's just like Midoriya said: it won't be that hard of a fight.
He grimaced.
Was Bakugou really the best choice of a Patriarch?
04:00 a.m., 2 hours before the exam: Kamino Ward
Izuku fiddled with the cuff of his sleeves, pulling them over the edge of his gloves. He swung his feet on the edge of the skyscraper’s roof with a grin. “This should be fun, huh?”
Nedzu nodded with the same smirk. “I always did love a good game of chess.”
“I’ve never played,” the teen said, tilting his head. The sun began to rise over the horizon.
The stoat rested his hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“You’re about to.”