Chapter Text
After lunch came the heroics classes that were led primarily by All Might. During that specific Monday, class 1-A would be accompanied by their sister class, 1-B.
Environmental Combat was the type of lesson better learned when you didn't already knew your opponent's weaknesses, which is why Vlad King and Aizawa decided it would be better to have their students go up against each other. Of course, there were already some hidden rules about the groups that would face each other. For instance, neither class would be meeting up until the exercise actually started.
Ectoplasm, the main teacher of Hand to Hand Combat, had already drilled in each class' head where it was okay to hit an opponent, where it absolutely wasn't, how to take a hit, how to fall, etc. Sure, most students already had at least the bare minimum of knowledge on hand to hand combat, but when they had a teacher that could literally pay attention to each student at the same time, things went way faster. That is why when All Might was finally given the okay by Nedzu to do situational battle once more –this time with both homeroom teachers present and Recovery Girl on site–, the students weren't as apprehensive as they would've been before, when the Shigaraki-Bakugou mess was still fresh in everyone's minds.
Izuku was relaxed enough to hang back with Inasa, Shinso, Shōto and Tokoyami while Toshinori and Aizawa explained the exercise.
It was a ridicule capture the flag game, apparently. Two teams of four would enter a random location on one of the mock cities, each player having a flag attached to their costumes in a visible and easy to grab area. Each flag would be worth a different amount of points per second while captured. One of those flags, however, was not supposed to be taken because it would grant negative points to the opposing team. But the enemy team would only know which flag after grabbing it, so there was also the uncertainty of when to engage in battle and when to simply dodge. Depending on which ground the teams were taken to, it was better to avoid direct confrontation and spy on the enemy before making a move.
The entirety of 1-A knew the best players for this specific game would be Shinso, followed by Shigaraki and Inasa, whom could effortlessly grab the flags without being even seen. So of course the first two suddenly became professionals at the art of poker face, while Inasa simply looked at anywhere but the eyes that were fixed on him.
Aizawa was the one to destroy everyone's hopes and dreams, much like he did every single day. “The teams were already picked by me, stop harassing Yoarashi.”
Murmurs erupted from the students, some snarky remarks about how much of a sadist Aizawa was, but the majority understood where their teacher was coming from. No one in the staff knew their weaknesses as much as Eraserhead -which is why they immediately knew it would be extremely hard to win at that exercise.
“First team is Yaoyorozu, Ashido, Sato and Aoyama,” Aizawa called out when All Might stepped out to explain the exercise to their sister-class. Aizawa fished the four red flags, each with velcro straps and containing different numbers.
Shigaraki got a bit closer to take a look at the flags' numbers and hummed to himself. That earned a few curious glances from his classmates.
There was a beat of silence before Dark Shadow popped from under Tokoyami's cloak and proceeded to wrap a shadowy arm around Izuku's shoulders. "Yo, don't leave all of us hanging, what's wrong?"
A chuckle left the white haired man's lips, but before any kind of answer could be given, Aizawa interrupted. "No help will be given from outside of your designated group. Therefore, Shigaraki won't be assisting anyone but his teammates. The first team can follow Electoplasm to the mock city."
Momo looked rather uncomfortable as she followed the loudmouth and immediately self-proclaimed team leader, Ashido Mina, towards the door where one of Ectoplasm's clones was waiting.
“Second team,” Aizawa called his students' attention back to him before they could eavesdrop on the first team's conversation. “Iida, Kaminari, Shinso and Kamakiri.”
The four called up took the flags and went to a corner of the room. Kamakiri seemed hyped up and was trying to guess the type of opponents they would get to face, while Iida was moving his arms up and down, claiming the point of the exercise was not exclusively raw strength.
Izuku was not impressed at all by the teams formed so far. Not because he was reading Aizawa's thoughts, but because he could see exactly why the teams were formed as they were.
“Uraraka, Asui, Inasa and Todoroki, you're the third team,” Shigaraki almost snorted. Although Todoroki started to hang out more with their little dysfunctional group, there was a bit of resentment left in Inasa about the ice and fire user. Apparently it was obvious enough that Aizawa decided to put it to test.
They were quick to pick up their flags and go to another corner. Izuku watched from the corner of his eye as Todoroki simply picked up the higher number flag and wrapped it around his right upper arm, ignoring the way Inasa was trying to form a plan according to their strengths and weaknesses.
“Kirishima, Koda, Shoji and Tokoyami, you're the fourth team,” Izuku wanted to roll his eyes. Of course he would be left in the last team with the least number of people. As far as he knew, Vlad King had not expelled anyone, which meant they were going against a full team with four people. “As for Shigaraki, Jirou and Tsuburaba, you can use your time to think about who will join you in this exercise. However, only a participant of a team that lost can be added to yours.”
Tsuburaba grabbed all of their four flags and immediately gave them to Izuku. “I trust you to have already formed a plan, or at least get to one faster than us,” Kosei said with a slightly blush.
Shigaraki understood that it was hard to admit something like that, specially since everyone knew how proud Kosei was. But Izuku also knew that winning, for him, was more important than his pride. And that was the trait that mattered the most at the end of the day, so Shigaraki respected that.
“Yeah, greenie, lead us to victory with your brain,” Kyoka joined in, crossing her arms as she leaned against the wall.
Izuku took the flags and used Telekinesis to float them in order of the bigger number down to the negative one. “Although it is a 'capture the flag' game, we don't actually need to capture anything,” he said with a tiny gremlin grin, using his quirk to spin the negative number flag. The bold black "–20" gaining the attention of his teammates. “The objective is having a bigger score at the end, so all we need to do is give away this flag to our opponents. Of course, it's not easy considering we have to think about who are they going to try and steal the flag from, but considering that everyone thinks the strongest should have the bigger numbered flag, then that's the person everyone will be aiming for.”
Kosei nodded slowly, as if trying to understand the message. “But if our classes haven't met and we don't know their quirks, how will they know who's the strongest among us?”
Shigaraki pointed at him with a bigger smile, almost expecting that reaction. “The scoreboard of the physical entrance exams were made public for everyone to know. Take the top three away, they're not getting targeted at all in this game. Who do you think they're coming for in our group?”
Up and down went all the groups.
Izuku watched all the battles with crossed arms and a stern face that was pretty much a carbon copy of Aizawa's. All Might was nowhere to be seen for the first half of the fights, but when he did finally came back, he addressed the white haired boy.
“Shigaraki, my boy, could you come here a second?” And motioned for the door, obviously trying his best to be inconspicuous.
He failed as the entire class watched their class representative walk through the door with the Symbol of Peace. The older man seemed to blush at the rest of the class while the white-haired young man simply did not look back, knowing the concerned and curious glanced he would be getting from his classmates.
“That was- uhm, quite,” Toshinori looked for the right word for a couple of seconds, but ended up just shaking his head. “Anyway, what I called you here to say is that Aizawa and Kan matched you with a boy that has a very peculiar quirk.”
Izuku nodded, already knowing where this was going. “The blond one with the copy quirk, right?” Toshinori nodded right away, worry etched into his face. “Don't worry, using his quirk on me is the same as not using it at all. He won't feel the difference between my quirk and his, he'll think it didn't work. And that's just if he manages to touch me at all.”
“I see,” Toshinori nodded, a hint of a proud smile on his lips.
“How's getting used to this form once again?” Izuku took the privacy they had at that moment to ask. Since moving into the Heights Alliance a couple of weeks before, he had not much spare time to check in the new Symbol of Peace. “Is Recovery Girl going easy on you?”
With a wince and the lifting of his leg in memory of a cane being brought down on his calves, Toshinori shook his head. “She's the same as she used to be years ago. Ruthless. But it's paying off.”
Shigaraki nodded, a sly smirk across his features. “Good, because soon enough we might cross my sperm donor.”