[Image: "Enchantress (Ivy Silva)" by Raaor (I don't know why it looks fuzzy)]

Katsumi and Oribunoki began climbing quickly up the stairs as Katsumi gave her partner the rundown on how to be a villain. It was a speech Katsumi was more than familiar with, though she'd never been the one giving it before.

"The way it was taught to me was with the four 'M's," Katsumi started. "The first one is 'manipulation.' Step one of every successful operation is to make everything and everyone work to your advantage, your surroundings, your allies, and even your enemies if you can. That's why we're moving the 'bomb' away from where the other team expects it to be, and putting it somewhere unexpected."

"I kind of understand, but why a second floor storage room?" Oribunoki asked. 

"Because the 'hero' team would ask the same question," Katsumi explained patiently. "There's no reason to put it there except for the fact that there's literally no reason to put it there."

"Okaaay?" Oribunoki didn't really get it, but she kind of got that that was supposed to be the point. "Okay! What are the other three 'M's?"

"The second one is 'misdirection,' and it basically means bluff at every opportunity, or lie a lot," They reached the room with the fake bomb and Oribunoki went to pick it up. "The goal here is to make your opponents think one thing, when the truth is something else, or to make them question themselves, even when they're correct. This step in our plan will require some acting on your part."

"Acting? I mean, I'm down to try whatever if you think it'll work, but I don't know if I'm any good at acting. What are you planning on making me do?" The 'bomb' was several times Oribunoki's size, but she carried it like it was no heavier than an empty cardboard box.

"You're going to meet the 'hero' team at the entrance, and make it seem like you're trying to stop them from getting to the fifth floor. We want them to think the 'bomb' is still up there and you're trying to stop them from reaching it, when in reality you're tricking them into passing up the 'bomb' completely."

"And what are you gonna be doing while I'm doing all the heavy lifting? Which is fine by the way! I love heavy lifting!" she amended quickly, not wanting to imply that she was ungrateful for the plan Katsumi had come up with. 

"I'll be on the fourth and fifth floors setting snares and traps with the capture tape," Katsumi answered. "When I'm done with that I'll come back down here and follow behind our opponents in the form of a large rat, or a constrictor snake or something similar to cause a little chaos, which brings me to the third 'M': 'mayhem.'"

"How does mayhem benefit us?" Coming from anyone else that might've been cynical,  but Oribunoki sounded genuine enough. 

"We'll know what's going on because we're causing it, they won't. It'll confuse them, and they won't have enough time to think and consider that maybe our plans aren't as straightforward as they think."

"I see! I guess that makes sense," Oribunoki said as they stopped in front of a door on the second floor and Katsumi opened it for her to bring in the bomb. "So what's the forth 'M'?"

"Oh . . ." Katsumi trailed off for a moment, and her partner put down the 'bomb', rearranging crates around it so it would be a little less noticeable. Katsumi sighed and untied the gray cloth from around her waist to throw it over the 'bomb', just in case. "The fourth 'M' is 'murder,' but we can probably disregard that one, given that this is just an exercise for school."

"Um, yeah! I would say so!" Oribunoki stared. "I'm sorry, I try never to judge, but what the fuck?"

"Out in the real world it's dangerous to hesitate," Katsumi shrugged and led the way out of the storage room. "When someone is coming at you with killing intent, you have to meet them with the same. Anyway, my great aunt always said there's only one 'M' that matters and it's 'meticulous planning'. As long as we carry out this plan to the best of our abilities, we'll be ten steps ahead in a two step race. We can win."

"Where did you learn this stuff again?" Oribunoki asked incredulously, but Katsumi ignored her question.

"Lock all the doors on the second floor before you go to the first floor," she directed. "Lock all the doors on the first floor too if you have time, I'll take care of the third, fourth, and fifth floors. I'll need you to buy me enough time to set up the traps. Does this plan work for you?"

"Buy time by fighting them and then slowly corral them into the traps on the top two floors? Yeah! I can totally do that!" Oribunoki rolled her shoulders and shook out her joints, loosening up for the coming battle. "I'm gonna have a couple questions for you when we're not on the clock though, for sure."

"Understandable," Katsumi said. "I'll come up with some excuses by then. It should be fine. Let's do this." 

"Let's do this!" Oribunoki locked the storage room door behind them and moved on to the next door and Katsumi split off from her and went upstairs.

A little over a minute later, the 'hero' team rushed in through the front door, and Oribunoki met them at full force. It was three against one, but she stood her ground and managed to hold her own pretty well for a while, until Keien managed to slip past her while she was preoccupied with Yukimura, who was a much better fighter than expected. Turned out the Martial arts outfit wasn't just for show.

Oribunoki managed to land a strong, if glancing, hit to Yukimura's stomach, pushing her back several steps with the wind knocked out of her and sprinted up the stairs after Keien, stopping him in his tracks for a moment.

"I'm not letting you get to the fifth floor," Oribunoki said for good measure. Katsumi had told her to make them think that's where the 'bomb' was, but maybe that was a little too obvious.

"But can you stop me?" Keien asked, and placed his metal gauntlets to the floor, which opened up underneath her. It looked like the very molecules themselves shifted away from her to let her fall. She managed the latch on to the side of the opening and pull herself up before he moved past her to the third floor.

It wasn't like Oribunoki had any idea how long it took to rig up traps, but she was pretty sure she hadn't bought enough time yet. She couldn't let the 'hero team reach the fourth floor until she saw Katsumi in the form of a rat or snake or something.

Keien tried to open up the floor under her again, but his quirk didn't work very fast, and since she was expecting it, she got out of the way easily. Jumping to one side then the other, she got an idea. Manipulation, right? She tried to get Keien to open up a wide enough part of the floor that he and his team couldn't get to the stairs.

"I know what you're doing!" Keien called to her as Yukimura and Silva appeared from the stairway behind him. "Even if I moved the entire floor out of the way, I could make a bridge across just as easily." And he did. Oribunoki stood on the first stair, ready to stop them, until she met Silva's eyes, and totally forgot what she was trying to do.

Were her eyes always such a pretty pale purple? Oribunoki thought as she stepped aside so they could get past her. That was the polite thing to do. She smiled blankly. Pretty pale purple, pretty pale purple, pretty— Silva looked away to run up after her teammates and Oribunoki snapped out of it. "She has that kind of quirk?" she snarled, annoyed and ran up after the three of them. It had only been four minutes.

Oribunoki held them off as best she could, but between Yukimura's mixed martial arts, Keien's moving the floor out from under her, and having to avoid Silva's hypnotic gaze, she was quickly starting to become overwhelmed.  

"AH! A RAT!" Yukimura screeched, and jumped back.

Oribunoki jumped too, more in response to Yukimura's sudden scream than to the animal itself, but Keien seemed to interpret it as another case of girl being afraid of a rat. To be fair, if she hadn't been expecting it since she was pretty sure the rat was Katsumi, she probably would have punted it through a wall in an instant. It sure was a freaky-looking thing; it looked deranged.

"She's distracted!" he yelled. "We can get up to the fourth floor now! Rush her!"

Silva and Yukimura swallowed back their discomfort and screamed in determination, running full tilt past Oribunoki, jumping over the rat and sprinting up the stairs to the fourth floor.

After taking a moment to get her bearings, Oribunoki hurried after them, Katsumi in rat form, scurrying at her heels. They were about halfway up the staircase when they heard All Might's voice broadcasting to them.

"Team 'C' has been captured. Team 'H' are the winners!" their teacher declared.

"Where in the hell did all this capture tape come from?" Keien demanded, peeling white tape off of his red, medieval-style robes.

"Forreal," Silva groaned, trying to get it out of her hair without ripping it out of her head. "Lowkey highkey frustrated we couldn't even make it the the top floor without this crap comin' at us, yikes."

"I have to admit, I'm a little embarrassed," Yukimura said, her own perfect hair miraculously tape-free, though the same couldn't be said of her costume. "I didn't even think about the possibility of setting traps with capture tape. Eeek!" she squeaked as the rat ran past her ankles. The 'hero' team continued griping  while Oribunoki helped them peel off the tape they couldn't reach until Katsumi returned in human form.

"I guess you were up guarding the 'bomb' the whole time?" Keien glared at her. "Kinda unfair that you made your partner do all the work."

"Katsumi came up with the plan, and set the traps!" Oribunoki defended. "Plus she was the rat, so I don't think she made me do all the work."

"Yeah. Besides the 'bomb' isn't even on the fifth floor," Katsumi said.

"But . . . then why'd Zei say she wouldn't let us get to the fifth floor?" Keien asked.

"She was trying to trick you into walking into all the traps I set up here," Katsumi said with a shrug. "That was a bit heavy-handed though, Oribunoki."

"It worked, didn't it?"

"So then, like, where's the 'bomb' at, sis?" Silva asked.

"Second floor storage room," Oribunoki answered, a little smugly. Even though she hadn't been the one to come up with the plan, she was still pretty proud of it.

"Speaking of, I gotta get my wrap," Katsumi said, weaving past them. "I'll catch up with you guys." The rest of them headed back to where the rest of the class was gathered in the observation room.

"Alright, well done everyone," All Might said as they returned. "The next group has already started getting ready. It's team 'A', Ayashimu and Sukippu, as the 'heroes' and team 'D', Nioubo and Heihomame, as the villains."

Katsumi sincerely hoped the rest of the class hadn't been listening in on her and Oribunoki's planning stage from this room. She had noticed the cameras, but it wasn't like she could have broken them. Doing so would only attract more negative attention, and likely get her in trouble. With any luck, they had been watching the hero team, and her little secret could be safe for another day.

[How to write fanfiction:

Step 1. Plan scenes from the tenth chapter meticulously in your head before you've even started writing chapter one.

Step b: Set a biweekly update schedule, even though you know people would like you better if you posted every week instead of every other week.

Step 3) Procrastinate for three weeks! Maybe play Pokémon again, or make ten bottles of perfume, or watch That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime.

Step four: Slam out an entire chapter in an hour without stopping.

Step last but definitely not least! Always edit before posting.

You are now on your way to becoming a successful fanfic author! What do you mean Friday was three days ago? What are you, a time surgeon? Sounds fake but okay. Love y'all!

<3 Raaor!]