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(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Izuku didn't stop running when he reached the finish line. His lungs were burning, but he could hear the sound of incoming explosions behind him and knew better to assume that they were all from the remnants of the mindfield. His mind switched rapidly between berating himself for being an idiot and accidently winning the first round and trying to come up with any semblance of a plan that could keep him alive until the next round. He scanned the field, mentally screaming in relief when he realized that there was a news camera on the field.

He made a beeline toward it and hoped that his plan would actually work. Bullying a quirkless kid in the relative privacy of a prejudiced middle school was one thing, but beating up a kid between rounds live on national television? Even if Katsuki didn't get kicked out of the hero course, there would be consequences for something like that, so all Izuku had to do was make sure that Katsuki remembered he was being recorded.

Izuku put the biggest smile he could manage and ran straight up to the camera, waving as hard as he could, "Hi Mom!"

He was a bit out of breath and knew that Shinso would probably never let him live that down, but the look of frustration on Katsuki's face as he realized there was nothing he could do made it worth it. The other competitors were starting to trickle in now and Izuku should probably go find Mei and Shinso in the chaos and make sure they made it through, but instead, he had another terrible idea that almost put his impulsive victory to shame. 

He noticed Kirishima going up to congratulate Katsuki, which gave him the courage to actually go through with it. Well, that and he'd already gotten himself on Katsuki's kill list, so he had nothing left to lose, right?

"Oh, and hi Auntie!" Izuku beamed into the camera again. "Can you believe I beat Kacchan?!"

Yep, he was gonna die. 

If Katsuki's quirk affected his eyes instead of his hands, Izuku would have already been dead by the time he hurried over to Mei, who was making a few adjustments on her equipment. Thankfully, though, Izuku had been right in predicting that Kirishima would be able to hold Katsuki back for now. He'd almost definitely be gunning for him next round, but he'd also be gunning for the win, which Izuku could use to his advantage. 

Mei glanced up at him as he approached and immediately started cackling, "Izuk-kun! Why didn't you tell me you were planning on adopting Nedzu's babies?!"

Izuku grinned, pushing the whole Katsuki issue onto the back burner for the moment, "I wasn't planning on it, but I couldn't just leave you and Shinso alone in the next round, could I?"

"Extra-Credit-Kun!" Mei yelled. "Where is he? I need to check that his baby is still in optimal condition."

"It's still working fine, Mei." 

Both Izuku and Mei jumped a foot in the air as a tired voice suddenly spoke up behind them and Shinso smirked at them momentarily until he was hit full force with one of Mei's capture nets. His eyes widened as he was wrapped up and he tried too late to dodge and ended up falling to the floor instead, "Ow…"

"Oh, Extra-Credit-Kun! I'm so sorry!" Mei fiddled with some of the controls and the net released, falling into a tangled mess of string and magnets on the ground. "We didn't even see you!"

Shinso grimaced as he sat up and rubbed at his wrists where the net had wrapped around him, "That was kinda the point, Mei. Eraserhead may have mentioned that stealth was a big part of being an underground hero, so I've been practicing." He glared at them. "I think I need to practice dodging too though if you two are gonna keep trying to attack me."

"That's such an awesome idea, Shinso!" Izuku gushed. "The stealth, not the dodging, well, the dodging too, but um…"

Izuku's rambling was cut off both by Shinso and Mei's amused looks and by Midnight, who snapped her whip and called their attention back to the stage, "Hello Children! Congratulations to the 42 of you who were strong and fast enough to move onto the next round!"

Izuku shuffled awkwardly. Yeah, he won but he wasn't really strong or fast. Mostly he'd just relied on the technology that was already there, but...his hacking counted as a strength, right? Maybe he could just pretend that's what Midnight meant and ignore the fact that she was probably talking about strong muscles and quirks and people like Katsuki and Todoroki.

"Everyone gird your loins and prepare for your next test!" Midnight snapped her whip as the slot machine-like graphic on the screen behind her finally slowed to a stop. "A cavalry battle! Those of you at the top will suffer the most, but then you'll find that's the norm here at UA."

Izuku breathed a small sigh of relief. He had never been at the top of anything in his life! He was just a support student, or like Mic said, an underdog, here, so obviously a quirkless kid like him wasn't a frontrunner. The top hero students like Katsuki and Todoroki would probably have a pretty hard time in the next round, though.

"Izuku Midoriya won the qualifier!" Midnight snapped her whip at him and Izuku froze. "So he'll be worth 10 million points in the upcoming round!"

Izuku only paid half attention as Midnight explained the rest of the point values. He was at the top?! He supposed it made sense, what with him winning the obstacle course and everything, but...but he was just a quirkless support student? How…?! He was going to die, wasn't he? And it wasn't even going to be all Katsuki's fault!

He could feel the bloodlust radiating off the other competitors and it felt like he was on the floor in middle school again, curled up on a ball to protect his stomach and other organs from the beatings. He didn't even see UA students in front of him, just his old classmates jeering about the quirkless deku, the absolute loser, he'll never be a hero…

Someone grabbing his hand steaded him and Izuku looked over to see Mei giving him a confident smile as she squeezed his hand reassuringly. He forced himself to take a shaky deep breath and smile back. He could do this. He wasn't alone anymore. He had Mei. He had Shinso. He had his analysis. He could show them all that he wasn't just going to sit down and take it anymore!

Shinso started sidling away from them, making Mei drop Izuku's hand and grab onto his arm, "Just where do you think you're going?"

"Um…" Shinso looked between them. "I was going to find a team?"

"It's ok." Izuku interrupted, "I have a huge target on my back from the 10 million points, so I totally understand if you don't want to work with us, but if you want to work together I think I can make it work…"

"It's not that." Shinso said bitterly. "I'm sure you already have a million ideas, it's just...I wasn't sure if you actually wanted to work with me, what with the sports festival being so public. With my quirk being what it is, going off alone is just a habit at this point. Nobody's ever wanted to be openly associated with the villain kid, you know?"

"Shinso." Izuku looked at him seriously. "You're an idiot."

"Gee, thanks." Shinso deadpanned. 

Mei moved to hang off Shinso's arm so he couldn't run away, "We're not going to abandon you!" She said dramatically. "You're our baby!"

"Hatsume!" Izuku yelled. "Phrasing!"

Shinso wasn't phased, instead he just glared at her suspiciously, "I legitimately don't know if you mean that like I'm your child, the child that you kidnapped, by the way, or if you're referring to me as one of your inventions and I'm honestly not sure which is worse."

"We didn't kidnap you!" Izuku said indignantly.

The corner of Shinso's mouth quirked up, "You kinda did, actually."

"Doesn't matter!" Mei declared confidently. "It's the second one either way! We made you!"

Shinso raised an eyebrow skeptically and Izuku found himself bursting into laughter.

"She's right, isn't she?" Izuku gasped. "We did make you into who you are now by preparing you for today!"

"I hate both of you." Shinso said, unimpressed.

"Um…" A small voice spoke up and the three of them all turned to see Uraraka standing awkwardly behind them. "Am I interrupting something?"

"Oh, Uraraka!" Izuku grinned. "Shinso, Mei-chan, this is Uraraka! She has a really cool anti-gravity quirk that we used to float the robot I hacked and she's in 1A and…"

Izuku slammed his mouth closed as he realized that Uraraka was starting to blush and he needed to shut up before he revealed exactly how much he knew about her and her classmates. He didn't want to creep out his...potential friend? Maybe? But...

"Um," Izuku shrugged awkwardly, "shouldn't you be looking for a team right about now?"

"Actually, I was wondering if it'd be alright if I teamed up with you?" Uraraka awkwardly picked at the pads on her fingertips. "I mean, I'm friends with Iida, but he said he didn't want to work with friends this round because he wanted to prove himself, which I totally get, but then I thought back to the obstacle course and you're really smart, so…"

Izuku cut her off, "You do know I have 10 million points, right? Everyone will be trying to take me down."

Uraraka nodded as determination filled her eyes, "What better way to prove myself, right? Being a female hero, I'm already trying to beat impossible odds!"

"You're not the only one." Shinso drawled. "That's us, the team of underdogs and targets."

"Speaking of," Izuku turned to Mei, "are you sure you don't want to be on another team, Mei-chan? Ten million is a lot of points."

"Which just means all eyes will be on you!" Mei grinned. "So come on, 10 Million! What's the plan?"

Izuku looked at their team and analyzed the other teams forming around them, "Shinso will be the rider."

Shinso's eyebrows shot up, "You're joking, right? I'm the biggest one here."

"Which won't be a problem once we take Uraraka's antigravity into account." Izuku pointed out. "And the rest of us are all around the same height, so if we hold you, it'll be easy to come up with a balanced formation, but if you're on the bottom, whoever is the rider will be on two different levels. Plus, it just makes more sense from a publicity standpoint."

Uraraka frowned at that, "What does publicity have to do with anything?"

"Everything!" Mei piped up. "If Extra-Credit-Kun is the rider, his name will be the one on the screen and it'll be that much harder to deny that he deserves a place in the hero course when he wins! It'll also highlight my babies' ability to support a hero!"

"You're already in the hero course, Uraraka." Izuku explained. "So you don't need to be noticed by the teachers as much as Shinso does, and because we're support, that's where we'll be able to showcase our skills the most."

Uraraka nodded slowly, "Ok, that makes sense, but what are we going to do about your ten million points?"

Izuku grinned mischievously, "We're going to get rid of them."

Notes:

Do you guys like petty Izuku?