Fanfic / Hero Class Civil Warfare

Hero Class Civil Warfare is a fanfic of My Hero Academia written by RogueDruid (Icarius51). In it, the first-year students of U.A are participating in a class activity. There are two teams. One who will be playing the role of heroes, led by "Paragon" and the other playing the role of villains, led by "Kingpin."

Katsuki Bakugou is acting as Paragon, while Kingpin is the role of Izuku Midoriya.

Has a sequel titled Hero Class Danger Days, which is about the immediate aftermath and lessons learned of the exercise, and is currently incomplete. Another sequel, Intersection, is a (non-canon to the fic) crossover between this story and the canon universe, in which the Civil War exercise was removed from the curriculum of UA decades previously. It is complete as of May 2020.

For more fics by the same author, see Horizon: Star Driven and Locked In Digital.

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Tropes that feature are:

Hero Class Civil Warfare

• Adaptational Dumbass: Unlike her canon counterpart who is revealed in the manga to be a recommendation student and a skilled strategist, Setsuna Tokage is careless enough to try switching sides without consulting the rules to see if she can pull it off. And afterward, she's under a hypnotic suggestion to keep her from thinking of doing so.
• Adaptational Wimp: Manga Fukidashi's Quirk is practically identical to how it has been revealed in the manga after the fic's completion. But, he's much weaker here, even if he puts some valiant resistance before being "killed." If the strength of his onomatopeias was like in canon, he might have given the villains a harder time.
• All According to Plan: Midoriya has written out a playbook which he gave to Aizawa, which shows how he expects things to go. Except for when Todoroki took command, Izuku has predicted everything the Heroes have done, causing Bakugou to begin doubting himself.
• Autobots, Rock Out!:
  • When Izuku heads to battle to cover the other Villains' escape on the second day, he asks Mei for some boss fight music, as he feels it's about to be very appropriate. As he descends on the heroes, the city's PA system begins the opening riff of Welcome to the Jungle.
  • After the test, the Villains celebrate with "fireworks": blowing up the tower that was their main headquarters and all of their back up hideouts and locations around the fake city. It's noted that they set the explosions to music, though it's not mentioned what kind.
• Awesomeness by Analysis:
  • Midoriya uses his skill in analyzing Quirks to use his team's abilities to their advantage. Like introducing Momo to Mei Hatsume.
  • Todoroki identifies a common trend in the 'crimes' the villain team has committed, when he notices that Bakugou has lost the patch that was on his uniform and considered why Midoriya would take it.
• Ax-Crazy: Sen is giving this impression during the fight at the tower.
• Badass Boast: Mezou Shouji’s response to being asked if he needs backup against Ochako, Kirishima, and Tetsutetsu is “No. There’s only three of them. Might be a nice warm-up.”
• Badass in a Nice Suit: The Villain Team dresses to kill throughout the exercise. It helps them to feel more connected to their teammates and helps support their specific Quirks.
• Bad Boss: Bakugou's belligerent attitude translates to acting like a Drill Sergeant Nasty to all of the Heroes he's supposed to be leading and a serious lack of management skills otherwise. He was so bad as a boss that one of the Heroes tried to change sides and the remainder were extremely demoralized long before the exam started where pretty much nothing went right for them.
• Batman Gambit:
  • Momo and Jirou specifically state they're joining the Hero Team so that Mineta will join that team when, in reality, they'll be going to the opposing team. This ruse weakens the Heroes' side and prevents Mineta from being able to grope them.
  • A major part of Izuku's success stems from the fact that Bakugou is in command of the other team, and he knows how Kacchan thinks very, very well. This information allows him to work out a strategy based on his predictions of how Bakugou will think, which works perfectly up until Shoto seizes control of the Hero Team.
• Becoming the Mask: Intentionally averted by Izuku, invoked by Nedzu's Secret Test of Character, and downplayed in the Villain team post-game.
  • Izuku asked Shinsou to join his team specifically because Shinsou hated being thought of as a villain, and so Izuku felt he could trust Shinsou to snap him out of it if he went too far as Kingpin.
  • The fifteenth objective—for the villains to "kill" their own Kingpin—deliberately challenges the players on this. As it's the very last objective only discovered if the villain team is really successful at their villainy, it acts as a check on the villain team's mental state. If anyone too influencial on the team got too into their role, took the betrayals too seriously and the situation too personally, and forgot this was just a war game whose team objectives they should want to complete for the sake of the exercise, the Skewed Priorities that came from Becoming the Mask would collapse the team into in-fighting and/or prevent them from successfully completing the game.
  • Izuku's team exhibits a downplayed version of this; they're initially infuriated by the fifteenth objective out of loyalty to him and a sense that this is extremely unfair after all their successful efforts to keep everyone on the team "alive," but Izuku keeps them grounded and they go through with "assassinating" him anyways. Afterwards, they're initially bitter and the entire team visits Izuku in the hospital while distinctly upset, but they cheer up after self-questioning why they're "acting like somebody died" when their team claimed a perfect victory and nothing bad actually happened.
• Beneath the Mask: It takes a lot of character-acting with a tiny sprinkle of willing Mind Control for the Villain Team to stay within character for the civil war.
• Benevolent Boss: Ironic, given his alignment in the game, but Izuku proves to be great at team management, not only with boosting his team's skills but also morale. Izuku spends the first night in the game cooking a meal for them, giving them time to relax, copious resources, and positive reinforcement alongside constructive criticism. He also had the team spend the week before the game getting used to each other on an interpersonal level and doing group activities together. He further entrusts and shares responsibilities and roles among the team, encouraging their individual strengths and contributions in a show of faith for their skills, all of which encourages them to reciprocate. Izuku's leadership and team building strategies work so well that the group as a whole returns the favor by planning a group spa trip the day before the game, and all stay close friends after their victory.
• The Bet: The teachers apparently routinely bet on the outcome of the game each year, though Aizawa joining in is noted to be very unusual. This year, Aizawa bet "one month of detention watching and homework covering, and 20,000 Yen, on the villains breaking Endeavor’s record win."
• Beware the Nice Ones: The premise is Midoriya using his analytical skills as a villain. The blurb sums it up best; Three days for Izuku Midoriya to show why they should be glad he's not a villain.
• Big Bad: Deku as Kingpin.
• Bragging Rights Reward: While most of the villain objectives are direct analogs to various crimes like theft, kidnapping, or even murder; one objective is simply the #1 patch on the uniform of the hero team’s leader. The only practical purpose this serves is showing that the villains could get close enough to take it, much like counting coup.
• Brand X: Invoked by the villains. "Hatsume Industries" has shown up a few times.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Shinsou does this a few times to Heroes using his Quirk. Katsuki winds up jumping out a window, although his Quirk allows him to blast his way back in.
• Butt-Monkey: Mineta is in his most despicable pervert mode, to the point Momo and Kyoka rather go to the Villains to not have him in the same team. Mineta is also the first to be "killed" in the exercise, to the cheering of all the girls on the Villain side. Later, when Kaminari "dies" as well and reaches a resting area, he finds Mineta glued to the wall after getting into some argument with Bondo.
• Captured on Purpose: The "Larceny gambit."
• Caught Monologuing: The Villain Team inverts this. Rather than the Villains getting distracted by their own monologue and the Heroes taking advantage, the Villains monologue, the Heroes listen, and the Villains take advantage of the Heroes' distraction. Aizawa bemoans the fact that the Heroes fall for this, especially since getting caught up in Shinsou's monologue lands three Heroes in Destination Defenestration. To be fair, the last one involves a Twin Switch, so Bakugou just thinks Izuku is the one monologuing. He still let him monologue, though.
• Cerebus Syndrome: The villains blowing up the bank in chapter 5 is the point where everyone realizes the Villain Team is taking this game much more seriously than the Hero Team—and most of the UA faculty—were prepared for.
• Chekhov's Gun: The hat that Kingpin wore in the first chapter comes in handy during his fight against Paragon in Chapter 12.
• Code Name: The Villain Team go by the following names:
  • Kingpin (Midoriya)
  • Con Man (Shinsou)
  • Hacker (Hatsume)
  • Assault (Mezou)
  • Blackout (Kuroiro)
  • Nightmare (Tokoyami)
  • Pirate Radio (Jirou)
  • Forgery (Yaoyorozu)
  • Larceny (Monoma)
  • Hold Up (Kaibara)
  • Graffiti (Awase)
  • Smuggler (Honenuki)
  • Sleight (Itsuka)
  • Animal (Kouda)
  • Drug-Runner (Ashido)
  • Sparkle (Aoyama)
  • Lift (Yanagi)
  • Extortion (Tokage)
• Competence Porn: Izuku's planning and management skills are put front and centre here, showing how a team filled with a disparate set of powers can be effective, as opposed to a poorly-led team that banks on winning fights with raw brute force.
• Crazy-Prepared: Izuku as Kingpin puts the "organized" in "organized crime." He even creates a book-length document called the "stage directions" comprised of detailed analyses, battle matchups, advice for when each member of his team should fight or run, lists of resources and strategies, and every step of his overall battle plans with alternate subplans for diverging outcomes every step of the way. In one of the Observation Interludes following the staff's reactions, the narrator describes Izuku's planning room at the Villain Base as a "sprawling madman-style expansion and scrawl of ideas" possessing "some form of ‘Prophet of the Damned’ mad aesthetic."
• Curb-Stomp Battle: This exercise is usually one for the Heroes, as the Villain team is typically outnumbered and out-resourced. But between Izuku's superior planning skills and Bakugou's terrible leadership skills, this game effectively becomes a three-day curbstomp for the Villains instead. By the end, the Hero Team is not only one of the few Hero Teams to have lost the exercise in UA's entire history, but of those, they are the Hero Team to have lost the hardest. With few "surviving" members, no successful Villain captures, and against the first Villain Team to complete all fifteen game objectives, no other Hero Team in the history of the exercise was as thoroughly defeated as them.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: The assault on the Villain Base by the Hero Team is a bold, unexpected offensive move resulting from a sudden change in leadership, in a game where the Hero Team has otherwise been entirely predictable and forced consistently into the reactionary and defensive role—and losing badly while at it. Unfortunately for the Hero Team, while they do briefly have the upper hand, the Villain Team is adaptable and prepared enough to swap through back-up plan after back-up plan on the fly and turn the tables back, even obtaining the 14th objective right underneath the Heroes' noses while getting clean away. As this effectively puts the Villain Team in endgame, the Heroes never get a chance at the upper hand again.
• Deadpan Snarker: Izuku develops into this when creating his villain role. One particular example is just after the Hero Team arrives after Izuku has promptly kicked their leader's ass:
  Izuku: Well. Six on one. Seven, if Bakugou still counts, but considering how soaked he is, gonna say not.
  Bakugou: F-FUCK OFF DEKU (falls into a coughing fit, holding his bruised throat)
  Izuku: And the bruised throat, can’t forget that.
• Destination Defenestration: Shinsou uses his Quirk to get Kirishima, Tetsu, and Bakugou to throw themselves out the window.
• Determinator: Todoroki chases a villain group for three blocks until he gets blinded by a flashbang and loses them.
• Double Agent: "Extortion" is the Code Name assigned to the classmate playing this role.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Bakugou's command style, which the teachers note is useful for training but not in the field.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: Zigzagged. The Villain Team's main base is apparently the tallest building in the city and fully plays into the trope of the corporate supervillain roosting at the top of a skyscraper, but evidently the Tower looks relatively normal on the outside, as Todoroki still only figures out it's the Villain Team's base with detective work, despite it presumably being the easiest building to spot from any location.
• Fatal Flaw: For both teams, it's Skewed Priorities and taking things for granted.
  • Bakugou, leading the Hero Team, focuses too much on the goal of physically beating Izuku's team to be able to build any kind of positive relationship with his own team, and takes for granted the numerous advantages his side has been blessed with simply for being on the Hero Team, assuming his side will win as long as they can hold up in combat. The rest of the Hero Team in general also takes for granted that they'll win simply because the Villain Team has such a bad track record, and so few on their side really take the preparations seriously. They're thus seriously underprepared when Izuku's team shows up Crazy-Prepared in order to work around their disadvantages, and Bakugou's inability to adapt once it's clear the advantages he's taken for granted aren't adequate eventually gets him usurped by Todoroki.
  • Izuku's side has similar flaws but manages to correct for them before they do too much damage. Izuku takes for granted how Bakugou's poor leadership will affect his team, leaving the Villains scrambling when Todoroki takes control of the Hero Agency and launches a surprise assault on the Villains' tower. However, Izuku has ensured his team is adaptable and self-sufficient enough that everyone is able to follow through as the plans rapidly change. The Fifteenth Objective almost causes the team to break with their own goals due to Skewed Priorities over inter-game loyalties, but Izuku manages to re-center them around the objective.
• Fauxshadowing: One of the objectives is "Kill the Snitch." At first, this may seem related to Extortion, but the snitch in question is a civil bot that looks like Eraserhead. Of course, that doesn't stop Midoriya from eliminating Extortion either.
• Female Gaze: Hatsume can't help but notice Midoriya's muscles while he's sleeping. She even decides to take a few pictures.
• Fixing the Game: The random selection for team leaders wasn't random. Aizawa admits it when Midoriya asks. Aizawa privately reveals that the rigging was to try and lessen Bakugou's and Midoriya's bad habits during group dynamics. Midoriya managed to improve and thrive, while Bakugou was such a bad leader that Todoroki mutinied and seized control of the Heroes' operation.
• Foreshadowing:
  • There's a bit of it in regards to Extortion being unable to switch sides.
    • Momo and Jirou's Batman Gambit to put Mineta on the Hero Team would've utterly failed if he was able to switch sides.
    • In Chapter 8, when one of the other teachers asks Nedzu if a double agent is allowed, he only says that "the rules didn't say no." However, he then says that the rules may need refining after this year. This is an early hint that while a double agent is allowed, it doesn't mean they can actually switch sides.
    • While under the influence in Chapter 13, Monoma says, "the plan for Extortion is really, really, really funny."
  • In chapter 24, it's offhandedly mentioned that Nedzu is displaying a screen showing the locations of the 10 remaining unclaimed objectives. It is almost immediately mentioned that the Villain Team has four objectives already, in the context of them only needing one more to win. This is an early clue that the fifteenth objective isn't like the rest, as it's not included on the map.
• Flashback B-Plot: The story is split between the "Present" (The Civil War) and the "Past" (the 7 days leading up to the simulation through mostly the villain team's perspective) with the "Present" further having a subplot of its own (the UA staff's perspective of the War). The former two are split between most chapters, while the latter receives three full chapters to itself.
• Glad He's On Our Side: The idea of the story is showing how Izuku would be terrifying as a villain. And that everyone should be very glad that someone with his analytical skills never went down that path.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Neito sacrifices himself to buy time for Midoriya to escape. Turns out, it was all a part of Izuku's plan to infiltrate the heroes' base.
• His Own Worst Enemy: Aizawa all but directly says that overcoming this was the reason Bakugou and Izuku were chosen as Paragon and Kingpin; Bakugou was too self-obsessed and Izuku too self-sabotaging and avoidant, and Aizawa wanted to force them to face down the flaws that were holding them back. Izuku thrived; Bakugou failed.
• Kill It with Fire: Ibara uses a nearby park to enhance her abilities… until the place is firebombed and burnt.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Vlad King holds this opinion regarding Sen and Awase.
• Invincible Villain: Midoriya is pretty much this. He easily predicts every move the heroes make; when things go wrong, he either adapts to the situation or else it was All According to Plan. As of chapter 23, Bakugou has lost a fair number of his team, had one of his members turn traitor, and lost the objectives he was guarding. Midoriya has acquired all but two of his objectives, regained the Villian team's captured member, and effectively gotten away with waltzing through the heroes' base.
• It's Personal: Downplayed, but Nedzu believes the reason Aizawa has been so lenient and helpful towards the villains, is that Aizawa is still resentful for losing as the Villain leader in his second year.
• It's Quiet… Too Quiet: Bakugou is aware that there is something off after the museum heist but can't put his finger on what.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Downplayed, but one of Izuku’s earliest team exercises involves a realistic self-assessment over which members of the hero team each ‘villain’ could defeat in a one-on-one fight. Izuku impresses on his team that it’s far better to retreat or call for backup than waste time, effort, and resources on a fight they can’t win.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Implied Trope. It's never directly stated, but Todoroki's reason for not joining Izuku's team when Izuku needs the support is almost certainly because supporting Izuku would also mean doing what Endeavor wants (winning on the Villain Team like Endeavor did). For prioritizing spiting his father over helping his friend and ignoring the aesop of the Sports Festival by letting his father's desires control his life, Todoroki's rewarded with being on not only one of the rare Hero Teams that lose, but the one that will go down in the history of the exercise for losing spectacularly. Of course, given his desire not to be like Endeavor, he might actually like this.
• Last Lousy Point: Played with. The final objective, which is completely unnecessary to win, isn't physically more difficult to complete than the others, but it is psychologically and emotionally more difficult. It's only accessible if the Villain Team has completed the other 14 objectives, and is intended to stress test the team's mental state by instructing them to backstab their leader for 100% Completion, after 14 objectives that only served to reinforce their unity as a team.
• The Leader: Izuku and Bakugou are chosen as the leaders for the Villain and Hero teams respectively. Izuku is a combo type Mastermind and Charismatic; he's a brilliant tactician who maintains group cohesion via his excellent team building skills and supportive nature. Bakugou is type Headstrong; he's exceptionally driven and loud, sticks mostly to direct methods of combatting his opponents, and leads his team by sheer force of will.
• Logical Weakness: As his explosions are fueled by the nitroglycerin that he sweats from his palms. Bakugou is weakened by rain (or rather, the sprinkler system), which not only cools him off but also dilutes his existing sweat.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • Midoriya regarding the rules for the exercise. For example, the students can't get help from the teachers or staff. However, it doesn't say anything about getting help from students in other departments, like Hatsume Mei from the support department or Shinsou Hitoshi from general education, nor does it prevent them from getting help from teachers for matters completely unrelated to the Civil War.
  • While teams can't officially take in defectors from the other side as teammates, that doesn't disallow them from exploiting the ignorance of would-be defectors who haven't read the rules and think they can.
  • The interludes justify them getting away with this by making clear that the exercise was, in part, supposed to encourage adaptation, creative thinking, and innovative tactical solutions within the worded parameters of the rules, so the teachers are actually pleased (if slightly disturbed) by the Villains' prepared work-arounds. The only loophole the faculty consider a problem that needs to be closed in future games is the plot around Extortion; the rest of the loophole abuse is practically encouraged.
• Manipulative Bastard: Midoriya manipulates both friend and foe alike during the game, but special mention goes to his handling of Extortion.
• Meaningful Name: Everyone on the Villain Team has a Code Name that is some sort of crime, criminal, or otherwise "evil"-sounding word related to their powers/skills. Such as Extortion, who's a Double Agent, or Hacker (Mei), who's their tech specialist.
• Method Acting: In-Universe the bread and butter of the Villain Team. Izuku even studied several famous fictional supervillains to understand what made them so compelling. Izuku even has the Villain team spend time together before the exercise so they would get used to seeing themselves as a team. He even has Momo and Mei make all of the Villian Team specialized suits and dresses so that they could better commit to their roles.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Setsuna Tokage decided to switch sides from the Hero Team to the Villain Team before the game even began because of Katsuki's demoralizing Drill Sergeant Nasty and Bad Boss behavior, taking on a secret Villain identity, Extortion.
• Morality Chain: Shinsou's actual role within the villain team is to act as a leash to Izuku and the rest of the Villain Team to prevent from getting Lost in Character. Ironically, the inverse ends up occurring when Shinsou is told about the fifteenth objective.
• More Dakka: One of Mei's babies is a four-barreled paintball Gatling Gun, with 7500 rounds of ammo for each muzzle. Mineta gets hosed down with it.
  Mei: You have about five minutes of "fuck that one thing in particular." Make them count.
• More than Mind Control: While Setsuna didn't know that she was a Manchurian Agent, it helped that she had already hated Bakugou and joined the Villain Team as a double agent at her own volition.
• Munchkin: Midoriya, big time. His bending the rules to recruit Mei - and using Momo to speed up the manufacture of subcomponents (and Neito to copy her power to speed up the process further) - causes his team to have a big secret edge. And that's only the start of his Loophole Abuse. Justified in that it's not entirely that Izuku's taking winning the game too seriously, because it's a graded exercise in which his team is severely disadvantaged, but also that his opponents didn't take it seriously enough.
• Mundane Utility: Shinsou uses his quirk to help his fellow Villain teammates stay in-character or to make the overworked Izuku take naps.
• My Greatest Second Chance: The motivation behind some members joining the villains' side instead of the heroes' is because they didn't do well during either the Sports Festival or their internships.
• My Master, Right or Wrong: A classic case of how this can backfire. Aizawa notes that one of the flaws of the hero team was that they spent too long just mindlessly obeying Bakugo's leadership as the 'Paragon.' If they had shown greater initiative and spoken up against his decisions, things might not have gone as badly for them. Uraraka notes that instead all Izuku had to do was come up with plans solely to stymie someone he had known for years and years. Things only improve for them after Shouto pulls a mutiny, and by then they have suffered serious losses.
• Myopic Architecture: Mei refers to it as the Invincible Door Fallacy: Shouji gets around a heavily reinforced door by breaking through the wall next to it.
• Offscreen Villain Dark Matter: Inverted. The readers are treated to a pretty detailed, if disjointed, description of how Izuku is able to pull off leading the most well run, well prepared, and well equipped villain team this exercise may have ever had.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Played for Laughs when Iida has this reaction upon finding out that Mei Hatsume is on the villains' side.
  • Most of the UA staff have this reaction to Midoriya blowing up the bank.
  • Todoroki has this reaction when he remembers Tokoyami's Quirk is stronger, the darker his surroundings, and Todoroki is facing him just after midnight.
  • Extortion has this after they are revealed to Katsuki or rather, they have this reaction when Katsuki informs them that switching sides is against the rules.
  • Kingpin has this reaction in chapter 26 when he realizes that every single hero is right outside the villain base.
• Only the Knowledgable May Pass: Downplayed. While not strictly required, success for the Villain Team in the Hero Course Civil War exercise almost necessitates knowledge of hacking, since they do not have access to the city's cameras, communication networks, or security systems and would not otherwise have adequate methods to monitor their own teammates or their enemies. However, hacking is not a skill taught to Hero course students. Izuku gets around this disadvantage by convincing Mei Hatsume of the support course to join.
• Out-of-Character Moment: Monoma previously didn't like anyone in 1-A, so it was a surprise to his homeroom teacher Vlad King that Monoma sacrificed himself for Izuku of 1-A during the Museum Heist.
• Plot Parallel: Bakugou, as the Hero Team leader, is assumed the future victor of the exercise and given copious advantages in it through no choice or virtue of his own, simply because he happened to have been assigned Hero Team leader. He squanders these advantages through his obsession with physically beating Izuku, and his insistence on his own superiority means he doesn't have any awareness that his team is going into the game under-prepared. Izuku, by contrast, is systemically disadvantaged by the structure of the exercise through no fault or choice of his own and few if any believe he can actually succeed, solely because he's been assigned the Villain Team leader. However, he overcomes this through sheer hard work, having labored intensely on all aspects of his team's potential problems and exploited every conceivable chance, advantage, and loophole he could in order to pull through. This parallels how Bakugou was privileged for having been born with a powerful Quirk while Izuku wasn't due to being born Quirkless, and the effect this has had on both of them as people.
• Pride:
  • This is the partial reason why Todoroki failed to capture a villain group (the other being Strong, but Unskilled below). Aware of the threat Izuku was as the Kingpin, he immediately decides not to underestimate him, telling Iida and Uraraka to do the same. Unfortunately, this causes him to dismiss the members of the villain team, underestimating them and resulting in him being humiliated. He swears not to do this again.
  • This is also Bakugou's flaw, allowing his ego and dismissal of Izuku to blind him from realizing that he was being manipulated by Izuku and lowering the morale of the hero team to the point that one hero member became a Double Agent.
• Punny Name: A lot of the Villain Team's aliases pun on their talents or Quirks. For example, Itsuka's Code Name during the exercise is Sleight, as in sleight of hand. Likewise, Mina (whose power is Hollywood Acid) has the Code Name of "Drug Runner," and Yaoyorozu, she of the Creation Quirk, is Forgery^*(referencing both the crime of counterfeiting and the process of creating tools).
• Refuge in Audacity: The location of the villain base is so outrageous that the trope was name-dropped. Not only is it right underneath the fourteenth objective, it's less than two blocks away from the hero base, and even has a direct line of sight with their entrance. This comes to bite them in the ass when the heroes realize what they're doing.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Extortion finds out too late that switching sides is against the rules. She gets shot for her troubles.
• Rule of Symbolism: In following with the Plot Parallel between Bakugou and Izuku, the Hero Team entirely uses their Quirks and usual Quirk-centric support gear to battle. The Villain Team uses their Quirks when advantageous, but primarily uses guns.
• The Scapegoat: Post-Civil War, the other members of the Hero team blame Bakugou for the Heroes' defeat. While Uraraka had a point that most of Izuku's plan centered on predicting Bakugou's actions, the narrative also points out that the Heroes didn't put in nearly as much effort as the Villains did, and didn't take the exercise seriously until it was too late.
• Secret Test of Character: The 15th objective: 'Kill the Kingpin', delivered via phone call on the third day (presumably only if the other 14 objectives are acquired). Because it is possible for students on the villain team to get too far in-character, this final objective is included to test their morality, determination, loyalty, and trust. Including Izuku's team, only four villain teams have ever reached this test. The other three all failed in the aftermath.
  • The first such group flew into a rage when the objective was revealed and became so loud that the hero team found and apprehended them all.
  • The second team's Kingpin took the call alone and misinterpreted it as meaning he had to surrender to the hero team, causing his team to lose. His team was so angry at him afterward that he eventually dropped out of UA.
  • The third team to reach the final objective 31 years ago fractured, with half trying to defend the Kingpin and the other half trying to eliminate him. This fight lasted until one support member set off a (fake) bomb and 'killed' the whole team.
  • Izuku's team were angry about the objective, but in the end, not only calmed down, but Izuku declared that they'd go through with it. While most of the Villain team left with the other Objectives, Izuku staged a very public 'assassination' of himself while meeting with the six remaining heroes. Thus he fulfilled his personal 'bet' against Endeavour (holder of the previous record, but who never got to the final objective) to finish with a perfect Villain score.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Unsurprisingly, Mineta is "killed off", shortly after Cerebus Syndrome kicks in.
• Spanner in the Works: After winning objective after objective due to getting Bakugou and the Hero Team to unknowingly follow their plans, Todoroki nearly derails the Villain Team when he takes charge due to Bakugou's incompetence as a leader.
• Strong, but Unskilled: Todoroki's partial reasoning as to why he failed to capture a villain group. While both aspects of his Quirk allow him to utilize powerful Elemental Powers, he does not have enough experience with switching between them, and the villains know this, preventing him from using his more powerful attacks and forcing him onto the defensive until he eventually loses them.
• Storming the Castle: The last moment the Heroes pose a credible threat to the villains' plans is when they, towards the end of the game, locate and launch an all-out assault on the villains' headquarters—the tallest building in the city. They end up provoking a boss battle and losing, due to the villains' sheer efficiency and teamwork even in a crisis.
• Surprise Bomb: While there had been some warnings that this year's Villain team was not like the previous—what with their intense preparations and preplanning—this realization doesn't truly hit the faculty or Hero team until it announces itself with a bomb call, leaving the city's bank a pile of rubble.
• Take a Third Option: Todoroki has trapped one of the villain groups with a glacier and has sent the rest of his group down the road so the villains can either allow Todoroki to arrest them or turn the other way and get caught by his group. The villains instead decide to drive through the glacier thanks to Tokoyami's Dark Shadow.
• Talking with Signs: The second observers' chapter shows that the villains have done this with the teachers a few times. Although it is limited to informing them that action is starting again or that they're taking time off to rest.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Half Played for Laughs, half played seriously when Shoto learns that Midoriya is going to be The Kingpin. He's the only one among the hero team who seemingly remembers that Izuku is the epitome of Beware the Nice Ones and a Determinator to boot and so he's the only one who refuses to underestimate Midoriya or give him an inch, knowing that doing so will mean they will lose the game. His wariness actually pays off quite well, as the villains are never as close to loosing as when Shoto has the opportunity to take charge, but Midoriya was able to adapt to that as well.
• Tomato in the Mirror: Kingpin himself is the fifteenth objective in the game. In order to complete it, his own team must "kill" him. This revelation has destroyed every Villain Team prior that had reached this objective, one way or another, but Izuku keeps his team together and plots out the objective's completion just like he has every other.
• Twin Switch: Invoked. Izuku's and Shinsou's villain suits are designed to be identical sans hats and face-concealing, voice-altering masks. This enables them to pull their Twin Switch in the elevator, so none of the Heroes realize the danger in replying to "Izuku's" monologue. And since it's the Kingpin's and Conman's first in-person appearance before them and the Heroes who saw them before and after the switch are different, none of them have time to realize the discrepancy between floors before it sends Bakugou out a window.
• Unwinnable by Design: Downplayed. While the game can be won by the Villain Team—and there are even multiple ways for this to occur—it's literally impossible for all of the Villain Team to survive the game with all objectives completed, since Kingpin has to be betrayed and eliminated by his own side for 100% Completion. Prior to Izuku's team, no Villain Team in the history of the exercise had ever successfully completed the last objective.
• Villainous Underdog: The villains are expected to lose by the staff for various reasons. It becomes clear that the game is inherently harder for the Villain Team than the Hero Team, and Izuku has to resort to massive Loophole Abuse and come Crazy-Prepared in order to give his team a fighting chance.
  • Aizawa notes that the last time a Kingpin won was when he was in his first year (by someone with a Fire Quirk who now works for Endeavour) and that no one wants to be on the villain team, implying that Heroes usually win because they have more people and thus more options.
  • Along with greater manpower, the heroes also have their base (a Hero Agency) and the associated agency resources provided for them, including camera systems that enable them to have eyes all over the game. Meanwhile, the Villain Team has to scout and create their own base(s), acquire their own resources, and hack into any technological systems they want to use (a skill the Hero students are not taught). It is also left entirely to the students to push for proper prep time to set up their base(s). As a result, the Villain team role is structurally much less forgiving of underpreparedness, and it takes a lot of effort and planning just to match what the Hero Team are automatically provided.
  • Because the Villain Team is Playing Against Type, unlike the Hero Team, who are getting to roleplay their ideal careers, the last objective (killing the Kingpin) exists to fail Villain Teams if anyone on them became too good at being a Villain, or simply didn't want to betray their own team leader—essentially punishing the Villain Team students for the relationships the game encouraged them to form, a psychological pressure and reality check the likes of which the Hero Team is never put under.
• What the Hell, Hero?: While Bakugo's poor and frankly toxic leadership definitely undermined the hero team, the teachers take note of the failure of the individual members to try and correct the situation even in the field only makes it worse. By continuing to follow Bakugo's lead and not take their own initiative, or think things through themselves, it kept costing them victories. The exception is Shouto, who after making his own mistakes, puts together various clues as to what the villains' plans are, and stages a mutiny.
• Who's Laughing Now?: Izuku's larger motivation in his role as the Kingpin of the Civil War exercise is to prepare his classmates for the horrors of real-life villains in a safe environment, and to beat Endeavour's score. Although a small part of him is happy to get the chance for some revenge on Bakugou after a decade of bullying by using all the knowledge Izuku has gathered on him over the years.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: The Villain Team in general, thanks to Izuku in particular. He made sure all of them knew what was expected of them for the exercise, up to and including exactly which members of the hero team they could or couldn't beat in a straight fight. These preparations included stacking the deck in their favor with partners and gear, pre-planning escape routes, putting a lot of booby traps in their hideouts, and having fallback spots already set up in advance. Thus, even when the Villain team is caught dead to rights by Shoto's siege of their base in chapter 26, they are able to quickly put together a plan of action to not only get out of there with all members and acquired objectives in their possession, but also get the next-to-last objective on their way out.

Danger Days

• Becoming the Mask:
  • Downplayed. The Civil War exercise allowed the members of the Villain team to show strengths they hadn't expressed previously, and they do develop quite a lot of loyalty to each other that remains even after the game ends, but their villainous roles and motivations remained an assignment. Proving this was, after all, the purpose of Objective Fifteen. While no one continues to behave villainously in the aftermath, the villain team still call themselves and each other by their codenames in person and in the group chat.
  • Inverted with the Heroes. They already self-identified as heroes, so there was no challenge to how they saw themselves (except perhaps to their own perceived competence), however, because of how well the Villain team did with method acting, the Hero team shows some difficulty with reconciling and differenciating the villainous roles in the game and the real people who played them.
• Blessed with Suck: Bakugou has to put neutralizer on his clothes and sheets when he sweats on them, as it turns the clothes into an explosive.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Seemingly invoked. Izuku tells his classmates that Shinsou brainwashed him to stay in character as a villain in fear of his classmates, judging him for how he scared them as the Kingpin. However, immediately afterward, it's revealed that Shinsou didn't brainwash them, and Izuku merely implied it out of panic.
• Breaking the Fellowship: A side effect of Crossing the Burnt Bridge, most of Izuku's pre-War relationships show some strain due to his actions as the Kingpin. As such, he less often hangs out with Uraraka, Iida, and Todoroki, and more often hangs out with Momo, Mei, and Shinsou.
• Crossing the Burnt Bridge: Downplayed. Part of the aftermath of the inter-class civil war is the now-changed class dynamics and friendships after the Villain Team had thoroughly curb-stomped the Hero Team. In particular, Izuku's actions seriously challenged his reputation as the class sweetheart and paragon, since he was terrifyingly good at playing Kingpin. However, his old friendships are noted to eventually recover from the shock after a couple weeks, albeit with new appreciations of each other.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Fighting through the enormous disadvantages of fighting on the villain team, training together, and fighting alongside each other in the civil war exercise, made the Villain Team become friends despite their previous hatred or indifference towards each other.
• Gone Horribly Right: Downplayed. Izuku and the villain team took the task exceptionally seriously in order to showcase their skills and overtake the privileged Hero Team. Though it doesn't completely ruin anyone's friendships, the excellent job they did as villains genuinely scared their classmates, and it takes a couple weeks for everyone to come to terms.
• He Cleans Up Nicely: Monoma and Aoyama enact this on Izuku in the form of a flash makeover as payback for putting Monoma through "Plan Tear-Away 3". The result (which takes them only 20 seconds) turns Ochako beet-red and earns Izuku wolf-whistles from the whole villain team, as well as eighteen girls and four guys from the other classes.
• Metaphorically True: Izuku tells his classmates that Shinsou helped him stay in character as a villain through Mind Control. Izuku leaves out that he asked Shinsou to do so and had acted as a villain of his own free will.
• Mundane Utility: Monoma uses his copy of Shinsou's Mind Control quirk to make Mei clean-up after herself and take a nap after an all-nighter.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: During finals, Setsuna is forced to do an extra two essays on rules and regulations due to her failed attempt at a Face–Heel Turn during the Civil War exercise.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Izuku and Bakugou pass the final exam against All Might. But the victory is hollow for Bakugou, who put his pride and spite over the self-discipline, proper judgement, and teamwork for which the exam was actually testing, ultimately performing so poorly that Izuku had to trick him into cooperating so as not to fail. Izuku and Bakugou both technically passed, but only Izuku succeeded on his own merits, while Bakugou's "pass" just put a spotlight on his failures.
• Ring of Power: Monoma had a ring made for him with copies of his teammates' DNA so he could train and use their quirks as long they are within a certain distance.

Intersection

• Adaptational Badass: Civil War Izuku shows off the ability to consciously use Blackwhip, along with being more skilled at using One For All, letting him do more damage with less power by focusing it.
• All for Nothing: Because the host timeline will "reset" after the foreign timeline departs and none of the "canon" characters will remember any of this, everything the "foreign" timeline tried to impart on the "canon" timeline was for naught.
• An Aesop:
  • Kingpin delivers one towards the end: "The worst villains are the ones who believe themselves to be the heroes of the story, because often they have a point.”
  • The flaw of hierarchy is that when the top collapses, everything can destabilize. Proper teamwork and mutual recognition enables everyone to depend on each other and have no single point of failure. Something of an interesting contrast with the original HCCW, as Kingpin's leadership strategy in the original actively minimized this flaw by investing agency in the others.
• Batman Gambit: Before the story, the Forgery and Pirate Radio got Mineta expelled this way. They engineered situations where he could either act as his usual and get caught, or be better.
• Becoming the Mask: In the end, Kingpin admits that the villains forgot they were simply performing an exercise.
• Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Downplayed. In this version of the HCCW timeline, All For One was so impressed by Kingpin's first War Game victory that he had him kidnapped alongside Bakugou and tortured for days. This and what happened to All Might is the reason behind his Jade-Colored Glasses. Kingpin's villainous behavior is an attempt to break his alternate self's naivete in the hopes this will prevent what happened to his own timeline.
• Break Them by Talking: Kingpin seriously unsettles Izuku with a lecture about the foolishness of trying to become a "Symbol of Peace" and mimicking All-Might despite how unsuited they are to his fighting style. Crosses over into Dare to Be Badass when he counters Izuku's claims that the hero system even needs a Symbol of Peace, by telling him to change the system if it's so broken.
  • It's not limited to the villains either. Shinsou tries to crack Kingpin and seriously unsettles the already emotionally fragile, sleep-deprived and overworked 'villain'.
• Butt-Monkey: Mineta gets it even worse in Intersection: it is revealed that Mineta was expelled at some point before the story, and Shinsou has taken his place in the class. This fact upsets the original Mineta, who resolves to be better and not end up like his counterpart.
• Canon Discontinuity: The author notes in the tags that this story is "not actually canon in the HCCW universe;" i.e, the events of the above stories, meaning that the future portrayed here for HCCW isn't the "canon" future of the characters from the above fics.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Even more evident in Intersection as soon as the game begins. A large chunk of the heroes is wiped out over the first 24 hours.
• Contrasting Sequel Protagonist: Kingpin to himself. In the original Hero Class Civil Warfare, Izuku as Kingpin was very aware of the slippery slope that method acting could cause and put in failsafes to ensure that his team mostly got out of the exercise without Becoming the Mask. Because of this, even when the actual plans involve very dark subjects, the context (and the Villain Team's attitude) remains mostly lighthearted if mildly disturbing, and while proud of the talents and achievements his team displayed, he doesn't take the stakes or conflict personally. Here Kingpin stirs plenty of baggage and personal issues into the game and so he and his team do indeed have problems with priorities and the slippery slope.
• Covert Pervert: Implied when Forgery mentions that her Quirk Counselor insisted she uses the fat in her breasts to fuel her Quirk only as a last resort.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Civil War timeline students are all referred to by their villain codenames. Likewise, to keep things from getting confusing (both in-universe and out), all the Civil War timeline teachers are called by their hero names while the ones from canon use their given names.
• Evil Me Scares Me: More than any of the other canon students, Izuku is disturbed by his Civil War self.
• Honor Before Reason: Nedzu suggests Izuku isn't using his intellect to figure out Kingpin's plans because he doesn't want to be anything like his other self.
• Karma Houdini: Despite finding out that Powerhouse suicide baited Kingpin before they entered UA, the faculty can't actually punish him for it as he wasn't a student yet. While they might have rejected him had they known, the most they can do now is make him attend therapy.
• Kill and Replace: One of the heroes is taken out and replaced by his villain opposite three minutes into the exercise.
• Meaningful Name: All the students from the Civil War timeline are referred to by their villain Code Name. It is worth noting that the members of the 'Cleanser' branch, at least the ones that didn't already have codenames, tend to have codenames that are not particularly 'villainous'-sounding. For example, CW! Todoroki goes by 'Singularity' and CW! Tenya goes by 'Crusade'.
• Method Acting: In-universe example. Every member of the villain team was made to come up with not only a villainous persona, but a backstory of what would make them become villains then pretend like those events already happened.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Aizawa has a moment when he realizes he accidentally further damaged Izuku's poor self-esteem by repeatedly telling him not to be a burden on others.
• Obvious Rule Patch: When the Civil War exercise is done between Kingpin's and Deku's classes, Kingpin learns that the teachers have gone over all the loopholes he abused the first time and plugged many of them.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Both Power Loaders have this reaction at realizing they now have to deal with two Mei Hatsumes.
  • Kingpin has this reaction when he realizes Powerhouse is using his explosions inside a room filled with crates containing vials of his own explosive sweat.
  • Kingpin has another when he's reminded that the teachers are watching and listening to everything during the exercise, meaning they heard how Bakugou had suicide-baited him.
• Polyamory: Civil War timeline's Izuku is in a relationship with Momo, Mei, and Shinsou.
• Poor Communication Kills: Aizawa is furious to learn he'd been accidentally sabotaging Izuku's development because he hadn't been informed Izuku had only a few months' experiences with his Quirk, rather than a decade like his classmates.
• Quit Your Whining: Shinsou eventually calls out Deku for overthinking Kingpin's "villainous" actions and taking them to mean that he's actually turning into a Villain, reminding him that both sides are essentially participating in a War Game scenario, with Kingpin himself having said that his monologues and attacks are supposed to teach his opponents something.
• Skewed Priorities: Kingpin admits part of why he didn't kill himself as Powerhouse suggested was because if Powerhouse's connection to his suicide got out, it would have ruined his hero career. Powerhouse himself lampshades how fucked up that reasoning is.
• Status Quo Is God: At the end of Intersection, it is revealed that once the effect of the quirk that transported the alternate UA students and faculty to the canon world ceases and they return to their world, they'll be the only ones to remember the whole experience, while the "host" universe will reset like nothing happened. Among the losses of that, the relationship Izuku and Ochako had just started.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Kingpin winds up giving one about himself when confronting Bakugo, admitting that he was so obsessed with Quirks and his own lack of one growing up that he never even considered trying to find alternate methods of becoming a Hero without one, despite knowing that several Pro-Heroes often relied on equipment, martial-arts, and tactics to do their jobs.
• Unstoppable Rage: In the middle of airing their grievances with each other, Powerhouse flips out when he thinks Kingpin planned their conversation to get him expelled and nearly kills them both by using his explosion Quirk when surrounded by crates filled with vials of his sweat.
• Villain Has a Point: While only a villain for the exercise, Aizawa really hopes that Izuku takes Kingpin's words to heart, if only because Kingpin actually has a sense of self-preservation.
• Villain Takes an Interest: During the confrontation with Deku, Kingpin mentions that in his world, Bakugou wasn't the only student to be taken to Kamino Ward... All for One wanted Kingpin as well.