Fanfic / Keep Your Friends Close

The Urban Warfare Unit. A simple exercise, in theory: a group of "villains", aiming to complete objectives, and a group of "heroes", aiming to prevent the villains from completing said objectives. Two weeks to plan, then three days to execute. The exam carries an underlying theme of duality: heroes and villains, strong and weak, volatile and gentle... Bakugo Katsuki and Midoriya Izuku. When all the chips are down, Izuku is determined to succeed. No matter how it might break him.

After all, you know what they say: keep your friends close...

Keep Your Friends Close (As For Your Enemies...) is a My Hero Academia fanfiction by ScoutSquid featuring a twist on the Civil War formula. It was published on October 1st, 2021.

This fanfiction contains examples of:

• Betrayal Fic: Played with. While the "betrayal" only goes as far as an exercise, the effects of said betrayal on Izuku hit him as heavily as a real betrayal. His preexisting trust issues cause him to take his class either siding with Bakugo or acting as double agents much more harshly than someone normally would, initially rationalizing it as them just doing what it took to pass before seeing them as willing to vilify him in the process and take things too far. By the end, he's largely wrote them off as false friends and has decided against trusting anyone ever again. His friends don't realize just how badly he's affected until the post-exercise speech he delivers, where he's suddenly more acerbic and filled with disdain than usual. So while the class didn't see it as a betrayal, to Izuku it was a legitimate one.
• Completed Fic: Was posted in full on October 1st, 2021.
• Double Agent: Everyone is a double agent in the villain team, except for Hatsume, who has no reason to betray Izuku, and Izuku, who can't betray himself.
• Downer Ending: Izuku and Hatsume eliminate all of the Double Agents (every member of the villain team besides themselves) one by one, with Izuku donning makeup and a backup voice changer to look and sound like Shinso, who he eliminates himself with a gun rigged to backfire. Izuku (as Shinso) proceeds to lure the heroes into a trap, picking them off one-by-one to win the exercise. Despite having won (achieving most, if not all, of the ten objectives, plus the formerly-included identity theft objective, and avoiding capture or "death"), Izuku's trust in his classmates is irreparably shaken, as he offers a "The Reason You Suck" Speech before walking off.
  • The alternative ending, "Bad ending", in which Izuku didn't know about the Double Agent situation until it was too late, is similarly a downer. While in the original ending, Izuku's shaken faith in his classmates is at least cushioned by the fact he knew they were Double Agents, here he is abruptly faced with the realization that his friends and classmates were all willing to lie to him for multiple weeks just to win an exam. As if the betrayal realization wasn't pain enough, Izuku has absolutely failed the exam; there's a 25% penalty to your score for being on the losing team, and since Izuku didn't plan around his teammates not completing objectives (since he had no reason to suspect they weren't completing objectives), he definitely didn't do well enough to pass regardless. He delivers a scathing "The Reason You Suck" Speech before wandering off to be alone (although Hatsume does go after him).
• Foreshadowing:
  • The villain team emblem depicts rabbit ears (Izuku) sticking out of a steampunk top hat (Hatsume), surrounded by a lavender cat (Shinso), a red and black snake (Momo), a shadow of a bird (Tokoyami), a violet fox with headphone jacks coming out of its ears (Jiro), a grey and pastel hummingbird (Hagakure), and a rust-colored octopus (Shoji). All of the animals have their eyes closed, representing the fact that all of the villains except Izuku and Hatsume are Double Agents working for the heroes.
  • During the training regimen under Bakugo, Ochako thinks to herself how Izuku is her friend, but she is willing to do whatever it takes to win, the former statement even being crossed out to highlight how "winning" was more important than being his friend at the moment. Izuku himself begins to see everyone in his class as sharing the same mindset, without the details of said mindset only being temporary and that they are still his friends, contributing to his belief that they're only Fair Weather Friends and leading to him swearing off remaining friends with them.
• Multiple Endings: In addition to the ending of the original fic, "Bad ending" is a companion oneshot exploring an ending where Izuku didn't know about his team being made entirely of traitors.
• Obvious Rule Patch: The Urban Warfare Unit is only won by the villains if they complete 5 of 10 objectives. The villain team is composed almost entirely of Double Agents, and the true villains are outnumbered six to two, meaning the double agents could easily just eliminate the actual villains immediately and trivialize the rest of the exam. Solution? Both team leaders cannot be killed before 6:00 PM on the last day.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Izuku delivers a scathing one to his classmates following the exam.
  Izuku: I hope you enjoyed making me into a villain. To be honest, I don't think you were very bad at it – but I don't really think that that was your intention. And, if I'm being really, truly honest – I think we all lost. So congratulations, heroes. I certainly didn't win, so I guess you must have. Plus Ultra.
  • The alternate ending, "Bad ending" features a similar speech.
    Izuku: ...What am I supposed to say? I lost. I know why I lost. I trusted you, and I've learned my lesson. I won't do it again. What else is there? [...] Yeah, you won. Good for you. But did you ever think beyond that? If this is how quickly you betray your values, how quickly you betray people, what kind of heroes will you be?
• Title Drop: Chapter 5 features an exact title drop:
  Shinso: Why did you ask me to be on your team? Why did you come to me, if you knew I was only going to betray you?
  Izuku: [with a bitter smile] You know the saying. Keep your friends close. [barely a murmur] As for your enemies...
• Tomato Surprise: This fic hits the reader with two; first, the entire villain team save for Izuku (the leader) and Hatsume (the only member of the team without a reason to not be on Izuku's side) is filled with Double Agents working for the heroes, and second, Izuku knew the first twist, and has been planning the downfall of the moles from before he even recruited them.