After the match was over, they had all gone back to the monitor room, where the class and All Might had been watching the match play out.
Other than Iida, who Uraraka had subdued without hurting him, all three had one specific injury. Uraraka might have a concussion and definitely had a massive black eye, Katsuki was still in pain from Izuku's blow, and Izuku still cradled his ribs, where(As Venom had informed him) he had 3 fractured bones.
"Well then, Ochako, Katsuki and Midoriya, once we have gone over the exercise, I want you three to head over to the Nurse's office."
"It's fine." Venom interjected. "We possess regenerative powers. We'll have the ribs healed up on our own in 3 hours."
All Might stared at the dark blue creature, then seemingly took it in stride.
"Very well!!! I shall trust your experience on the matter on the matter!"
"As for the match itself, the hero team won the battle thanks to Izuku, but the V. I. P of this battle was Tenya-Kun!!! Can anyone tell me why?"
The entire class stared dumbfounded at Iida, who was as surprised as everyone else.
So was Izuku for that matter. Had he really been that great after they separated?
It was Momo, the raven-haired girl, who answered. She had an outfit so revealing that Venom had questioned if she was an exhibitionist.
"It isn't so much that Iida did amazingly well, as much as the fact that he was the only one who didn't commit any major mistakes that could easily have been avoided."
"The worst of the lot was Bakugou, who abandoned any semblance of strategy from the start, choosing instead to run off and try and act out a grudge against Midoriya. This led him to charge into an obvious trap and to engage Midoriya in close quarters combat, a truly imbecilic idea, that was instantly punished as Midoriya crushed him with no problems whatsoever."
Izuku had expected Katsuki to rage against any criticism, but instead, the blonde boy was unusually quiet. Other than the tears in the corners of his eyes, he had an expression that could best be described as dead inside.
"Second to worst was Uraraka, who performed admirably initially, capturing Tenya after a relatively short chase. However, after that, rather than going back to guard the bomb, the item which her entire mission revolved around, she instead ran off to try and help her comrade. Though her battle with Izuku showed that she was capable in combat, in the end, her mission objective was preventing Midoriya and Tenya from reaching the bomb, not to beat Midoriya in battle. Thus, the moment Midoriya realized this, he quickly changed strategy and won."
Uraraka winced at the words but didn't say anything in response.
"Then there is Midoriya, who undoubtedly proved himself the best combatant of the 4, yet also made 2 massive blunders. The first one at the start, when he and Tenya made their plan for the mission. While their plan wasn't a bad one, the fact is that Midoriya could easily have just climbed up from the start and probably caught Uraraka enough by surprise to secure the device from the start.
I assume that the reason he did not was due to a fear of being caught by Bakugou while climbing, but as we saw with how Bakugou acted through the battle, that was a rather minimal risk. In other words, he severely overcomplicated this mission far more than he needed to."
Izuku felt like a complete moron. Saying it out loud like that brought the reality of it all home. Iida had just trusted him, accepted that Izuku knew best, and had made a plan based on that. Momo was wrong regarding who had made the plan, but she was right in saying he had overcomplicated things.
"His second massive blunder was when he was attacked by Uraraka. While the way he ended it was sensible and won his team the match, the fact is that he should have done that from the very moment he realized Uraraka wasn't guarding the device. Instead, he gambled his victory on a battle he did not need to actually fight. Had he been less capable in combat, it is entirely plausible that Uraraka would have defeated him, and he would have lost in a battle he did not need to fight."
-Everyones a critic.-
"Finally we have Tenya, who, while he proved incapable of avoiding Uraraka, at the very least stuck to the actual plan, and at one point he could easily have ambushed Bakugou, but instead, he wisely trusted his partner to handle it. As I said, he was the only one who didn't make obvious mistakes."
The room was silent before All Might gave a thumbs up.
"Yes, that is pretty much it!"
...
As the next couple of Heroes and Villains, teams went to get set up, and Uraraka and Katsuki both went to the Recovery Lady, Izuku got something he wasn't used to.
Praise.
"That was amazing!" The girl named Mina exclaimed, with a grin.
Like Uraraka, the pink girl was dressed in a full tight black suit, with white fur trimmings along the opening in the neck, on her feet she wore white boots with fur trimmings at the top, and on her face, she wore a stylized black domino mask.
The outfit also had an open neckline, giving a rather generous view of her cleavage, though frankly, compared to Momo's outfit it came off as flat out restrained.
Izuku recognized it as pretty much being an exact copy of an older costume used by the top Hero Black Cat, only minus any gloves.
Izuku, still not used to any contact between himself and the opposite sex, instantly became flustered, as Mina continued.
"The way you dodged Uraraka's attacks, the immediately counterattacked was awesome!"
"Yeah! Just seeing you two cut loose was awesome! It really got us Pumped , you know!?" Another student jumped in, a guy in a yellow full-body costume whose most notable feature was a rather large and full set of lips. Izuku vaguely recalled his name being Sato.
The next student who entered the conversation was a guy who had spiky red-hair, who Izuku did not recall the name of.
"The way you beat Bakugou wasn't MA ly at all, but man, that bout with Uraraka was kickass! Hard to believe it only lasted 2 minutes."
-Didn't this guy have black hair?-
Izuku had no idea what Venom was referring to, and instead just focused on the boy as he introduced himself. "I'm Ejirou Kirishima by the way!"
"I-I'm Izuku Midoriya.."
"Mina Hardy-Ashido!" The pink girl introduced herself, as she grabbed Izuku's hand and enthusiastically shook it up and down.
"And yes, before you ask, I'm related to Black Cat. She's my mom."
After that, there were several other students who introduced themselves, Sato, Tsuyu; the girl with the long tongue,
Toru; the Invisible girl, and Kaminari; The guy with yellow hair with a black bolt going through it.
Izuku stammered his way through the conversation(Very grateful the mask covered his face completely), where he got a lot of questions, like; How did he know Bakugou? Was he related to the old Hero Takuya Yamashiro? Doesn't this cape look real dapper on me?
Some he avoided or just gave noncommittal answers to, like saying he and Katsuki had once been childhood friends and left it at that.
Others he had been honest about and said he hadn't even heard of Takuya Yamashiro, a long dead hero from the very start of the Hero age, who had gone by the name of Spider-man, The emissary from Hell.
The early age heroes had really not cared much how their names and nicknames sounded. According to his Kirishima, the abilities of this Spider-man had resembled Izuku quite a lot.
What the entire question section(Up until All Might returned and put an end to further discussion so they could focus on the next round) ended with, was a relatively friendly introduction to the rest of the class.
It felt surreal to Izuku. Like, the other shoe was about to drop at any second.
Making a few friends was one thing, but this…?
It was as if the class actually Liked him! It was a feeling Izuku hadn't felt in… Actually, he had never felt like this before. No school class Izuku had ever been in had just flat out liked him.
In his previous schools, there had been students who didn't pick in him, but never anyone who actually liked him. No friends, no one who had actually just been glad to see him on principle.
Dear God it was a wonderful feeling.
...
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