"And now, we've reached the halfway point of the game!"

Kirishima does his best to restore Bakugo to some degree of level-headedness, but I don't really help with that.

"The guy's an egocentric jerk. I'm with Bakugo here, put him back in his place."

"You need to calm down or we won't get our points back!"

Bakugo is just shouting, punching his hand into his fist in a small explosion. "SHUT UP! I've never been calmer, can't you tell?!" An evil grin spreads across his face. "Now get after them, Kirishima!"

"Argh, don't make us regret this."

We start speeding after then, with Bakugo yelling obscenities in his rage. He reaches forward to grab a headband, but the blond jerk easily dodges him, then puts a hand to Bakugo's face and detonates his own explosion.

"Ah! Wow! I see why you like this Quirk."

"Weird!" Kirishima exclaims. "That guy has your Quirk!"

That can't be. There's no way the odds have worked that two arrogant bastards have the same Quirk and have met in a situation like this.

Bakugo swings his arm round for another attack, still shouting, and lets off another explosion that leaves a noticeable force. Once the smoke clears, it reveals Blondie blocking Bakugo's arm, his skin hardened and sharpened like stone. Kirishima?

"You both have impressive Quirks, but I think you'll agree, mine's better."

Bakugo's rage seems to subside (for the moment). "Bastard. His Quirk, he can copy other powers."

At first, I think that's a really strong Quirk, but the more I think about it, most people can train and perfect their Quirks over years of experience. He can never have that. Jack of All Trades, Master of None.

"Apologies, I haven't even introduced myself. Neito Monoma, it's not exactly a pleasure to meet you."

Yep, I fully support Bakugo in delivering the death-sentence.

Monoma, then continues to provoke compressed-anger-boy and any reasonable side of Bakugo is now lost. He goes for another attack, but it's blocked by another team from 1-B. Whatever Quirk they have sticks Kirishima's foot to the ground.

"Don't worry." I wrap shadows round his leg. "I'll get you outta this." I focus shadows around his foot, under the substance, and solidify them to break whatever is holding Kirishima in place. Monoma is already trotting away with his team, feeding Bakugo's rage.

"Only one minute left! Todoroki has cornered the ten million point team and is poised to seize the ultimate prize - at least, that's what I would've predicted five minutes ago!"

"...What are you on about? No, you wouldn't."

"Unbelievably, Team Midoriya has managed to keep away from the ice master for the last half of the game!"

As we run after Team Monoma, I listen to the commentary to see what's going on at Todoroki's end of the field.

"Wo-ho-ho! What just happened?! That was one big blur! Holy smokes, folks, why didn't he show off that speed in the preliminaries?! INSANITY! This entire has just turned completely on it's head! Todoroki's Team has got the ten million points, and Midoriya's Team is left with nothing at all!"

I'm not sure what happened, or how I feel about this. Midoriya, Uraraka, Tokoyami, they're my friends and I want them to do well, but so is everyone in Team Todoroki. I know this is a competition and some has to lose, but I'm not the one fighting them currently. And Todoroki, he needs to prove so much!

"With time almost up, Team Todoroki is in top place with four headbands! Despite their best efforts, Team Midoriya has fallen to the bottom! Will these be the top four teams that move on to the next round?!"

"LOSERS! GET BACK HERE!"

No they won't, Yamada, because these bastards are going down hard.

Bakugo catapults himself off again, as Kirishima starts shouting at him in annoyance. The front horse of the other team seems to solidify air and blocks Bakugo. He punches into it, but to no effect.

"Ha, you look pretty stupid fighting with air," the kid laughs as the team turn to leave.

But in the third punch, Bakugo breaks through and reaches out, grabbing a handful of headbands from Monoma. He drops one, and falls back before Sero catches him again.

"Team Bakugo nabs two headbands and jumps to third place!"

"I told you to warn us before you jumped!" Sero scolds.

"Whatever, we're advancing."

"WE'RE NOT DONE!"

"They've still got our original headband!" I call out.

"WE'RE GONNA BE IN THE INDISPUTABLE CHAMPIONS OF THE GAME!" He hits Kirishima on the head as we speed after Monoma.

"Now look at this," Aizawa's voice echoes through the arena. "Class 1-B's strategy was a reasonable one, but there's one thing they forget to consider."

"WE'LL GET OUR POINTS BACK FROM THIS IDIOT, THEN GO FOR THE BIG ONE!"

We all smile confidently. I don't care about the ten million - well I do, getting it would be amazing - but Monoma has pissed me off, I want him to know his loss.

"ELBOW-GUY, TAPE 'EM!"

"My name is Sero!" He shoots a line of tape in front of us, that hits the far off wall of the arena. Monoma kindly points out the miss.

"Shadow girl, make us a platform!"

"It's Kurono!" I make a dark, circular platform under us and raise it above the ground slightly. Sero reels in his tape, which in turn drags us at speed towards Team Monoma. I help and move the shadow underneath us. Having gaining a reasonable amount of speed, Bakugo tops it off with a detonation behind us that sends us rocketing towards the group.

"Class 1-B didn't take into account Bakugo's overwhelming tenacity."

The air-dude attempts to solidify the air in front of us, but it's not enough. Bakugo breaks through it in an explosion and rips off the final headband.

"TEAM BAKUGO IS A MERCILESS FORCE!"

YES! Have it you insolent swine! Revel in your humiliation!

"Now, we're going after Deku!"

"With just eleven seconds left, Team Midoriya's back in the game!" There's a pause. "Oh no! Looks like Team Midoriya didn't get the ten million points after all! THE GAME IS ALMOST OVER! Time for a count down!"

There's a bleep as each second ticks down, the timer shown on all screens. We see Kaminari expend himself with a final burst of electricity just as Bakugo smashes through the ice, up in the air.

"Who has the points?!" I hear him growl.

"Todoroki!"

Bakugo changes his trajectory. "DAMMIT ICYHOT!"

Yaoyorozu hands Todoroki a pole, which he covers in ice. He looks at the two people reaching out towards him, Midoriya and Bakugo, and maintains his stoic expression.

"TIME'S UP!"

Bakugo falls face-first onto the floor.

"And with that, the second round is officially over!"

Our team breaks formation, breathing heavily. So close! Ah well, at least we came second. We run up to the fallen Bakugo on the floor.

"Hey! You okay, man?" Kirishima asks.

Bakugo shouts and bangs his fists against the floor.

"Now, let's take a look at who our top four teams are! In first place, Team Todoroki!"

Yaoyorozu breathes a sigh of relief while talking to Iida. Kaminari has gone dumbass and Todoroki looks...frustrated?

"In second place, Team Bakugo!"

I frown. "We were so close to first place!"

Sero shrugs. "Eh, sure, but we're moving on, so that's all good."

"I'm not sure our leader would agree…" Kirishima points at Bakugo, who is throwing a tantrum on the floor.

"In third place is Tetsute- wait, what?! It's Team Shinso! When did they come back from the dead?!"

Shinso walks away from his team, and Tetsutetsu, Shiozaki, Honenuki and some other kid are trying to figure out what happened. They never stood a chance…

"And in fourth place, Team Midoriya!"

Midoriya bursts into tears.

"These four valiant teams will advance on to the final round! Now, let's take an hour's lunch break before we start the afternoon's festivities! See ya soon! ...Hey, Eraserhead, let's grab some food."

Aizawa grumbles. "Well, I didn't sleep particularly well last night and had a nasty wake up call, so I'm taking a nap."

We all go over to different people to congratulate them as we leave the arena. I walk over to Midoriya, who has stopped the water works.

"Hey, I didn't see much of you but I wanted to say well done!"

"Huh? Oh, thanks, yeah. It was all a bit too close, it's only thanks to Tokoyami that we succeeded."

Tokoyami appears behind him. "We only succeeded because of the opening you gave me. Kurono, congratulations on both this round and the preliminaries, I had no idea your Quirk was so strong."

Coming from Tokoyami! Woah! "Ah, y'know. Just extensive training. It's only recently I've decided to stop living my life in fear of the League of Villains and accepted who I am. Ever since, I've found using my Quirk to be...easier. A month ago, anything like this would be way out of my capabilities."

Midoriya furrows his brow in thought. "It makes me wonder what the extents of your Quirk are…"

"I think no one here truly knows their full strength," Tokoyami states. "That's why we are here, to learn and become stronger."