Like Friends Do

Chapter 11

"We will draw captains' names out of a hat," Aizawa announced, holding the same hat that he'd put the class's names into for their last team training activity. The class stood at the Battleground portion of the training camp in a line. Mirio and All Might stood to the side of Aizawa, each holding a bag of colored practice jerseys – Mirio's red, All Might's blue. "The first name drawn will also choose their team color."

Aizawa reached his hand into the hat and drew Kaminari's name. "Kaminari, what co—"

"Red!" Kaminari bounced on his toes. He seemed quite excited, considering he'd been chosen at random. Mirio handed him the cloth bag of practice jerseys while Aizawa pulled the name of the other captain.

"Iida," he announced, holding up the name for everyone to see.

Iida took the bag of blue jerseys as Kaminari deliberated over who to choose first. After Kaminari finally settled on choosing Bakugou, the team-picking went rather smoothly; to Midoriya's surprise, he wasn't last to be picked. In fact, it was quite the opposite – Kaminari and Iida argued the second Iida chose him for their team. In retaliation, Kaminari chose Todoroki, which is how they ended up how they were now, with Todoroki ordered to mark Midoriya during their game of soccer.

The Battlegrounds were already arranged to house several sports stadium-like setups. There were four stadiums in total, at least that the class had walked by to get here. It seemed that each of them had been set up for some sport or another; one had goal posts and end zones, another had a baseball diamond arranged, and another had basketball hoops. They stood at the line in the center of the soccer field; Iida had arranged for Midoriya to be on offense, and just past Bakugou was Todoroki, ready for him on defense.

Aizawa blew a whistle and in an instant Iida whirred up his calf engines, punting the ball nearly entirely across the field in one shot. Kirishima, the opposing team's goalie, stepped out of the box and planned to kick it back – but Iida's engines propelled him forward, and he passed the ball over to Midoriya.

Midoriya had an open shot up until the second Todoroki encased his foot in ice. He activated his Quirk and freed himself quickly, but it was too late – Todoroki sent the ball sailing up to Bakugou, who propelled himself forward quickly using his explosions. Midoriya backpedaled a bit, getting into range for his team to pass to him. Todoroki wore a victorious smirk. "That won't work twice," Midoriya said.

"What?" Todoroki asked innocently. "I didn't say anything."

Even being on opposing sides, Midoriya found it hard to view Todoroki as anything other than a partner in crime (and a little something else, but luckily Midoriya's mind ran on a single track and that track at the moment was the soccer game). Right now, though, he had a sudden drive to show Todoroki – and the rest of the class, for that matter – that he didn't fall too far behind, that he still had trained practically non-stop for this for over a year.

"Mineta!" Iida shouted from somewhere across the field, and the boy in question threw down sticky traps. Despite Bakugou's ability to maneuver quickly, he lost some of his accuracy while simultaneously trying to dribble the ball down the field. Kaminari yelled to him multiple times to pass, but the stubborn blond continued until he stepped directly into Mineta's trap. Aoyama took the opportunity to punt the ball up to Sato on Iida's right with a jubilant noise.

Midoriya had to admit, Iida made the most of his team. Even some of the students who didn't score as high in practical exams (such as Mineta) were able to play and be helpful. He especially thought placing Shouji in the goalie position was a good strategy.

Sato, who had emptied a pixie stick into his mouth shortly before the game began, artfully dodged around both Tsuyu's tongue and Jirou's earphone jacks searching to tangle his legs. He moved with precision up until the point he reached Koda playing center defense; the latter had a nearby mole run by and trip him up from underground. Ashido, playing center midfield, passed the ball up to Kaminari.