"I will now read the results for the Cavalry battle!" Midnight announces, causing for the crowd to roar just as they've done before. The 12 teams whom competed in the Cavalry Battle looked up at the woman presenting while at a lowered position to her. "Now i do believe we had a minor issue with the timer, but, I'm sure a measly few seconds wouldn't have changed anything. Either way, we're having some technicians check the clocks and make sure they're all fine. Which works well, we'll behaving halftime right after I'm done reading the results for the Cavalry Battle!"
Midnight clasps her hands together, "now i will announce the placements!" Midnight slowly opened up the envelope she had in her hands and began reading its contents. "In first place with exactly 10,000,000 points.. Team Bakugo!"
Katsuki's team began frantically cheering, all but Katsuki and Krow. Just Eijiro and Hanta, high-fiving one another and shouting in pure joy. Katsuki simply crossed his arms and glances over at Shoto with a smirk. 'Looks like Katsuki was able to get the headband from Shoto in those last few seconds.' Kokei thought, nodding his head in a mild respect for Katsuki.
"In second place with 1,085 points exact.. " Midnight pauses for a moment, "is Team Todoroki!" Denki raises both his arms in victory, meanwhile Tenya, Shoto, and Momo simply stand there. Shoto seemed to be deep in thought, and Tenya was looking down at the ground disappointed. Momo didn't look sad or deep in thought, she just stood there with a smile on her face while the crowd cheered for her team.
"And sitting in third place with 1,005 points.. Team Kyōryokuna!" Midnight exclaims, and Kokei's team stands there humbly. Kokei brings up one hand and turns to the audience, waving with a smile on his face. He had shoes on once again, after the battle ended his shoes were graciously returned to him by Yui. "And finally in fourth place, and the last team to progress onto the final challenge of the Sports Festival, with 870.. Team Midoriya!"
At hearing Midnight's words, Izuku began to tear up. Kokei didn't even need to look to know, he could just hear the sniffling and the laughter of his teammates. Besides, he didn't care at that time. The only thing Kokei cared about, was that he did it. He's guaranteed top 20, he's achieved his goal! Yet.. he didn't have a clue as to how much farther he'd want to go. He didn't know what event was next, and he didn't know if he'd want to do well in it- rather- if he'd do well in it.
"We will now have a short Halftime break, this is the perfect time to go get concessions. Not sponsored," Midnight whispered her last few words. Then, she left from the stage and went to the restricted Staff Room. The audience began to filter out as well, each person going to do something different than the other.
"Great work, team, i hope we all do well in the next event." Ojiro tells the crew, to which they all respond similarly.
"Thanks, we all did really well. We were the A-team!" Kokei jokes, granting a few soft chuckles from his teammate peers.
While the four of them talked, a familiar invisible girl walks up to the group. It was Toru, "great work out there Kokei! I didn't know you were so skilled, to battle all us 4 at once makes you truly special."
Kokei shrugs his shoulders, "I wouldn't consider it all too special. It's not Toshinori level." Kokei's words only made all the people surrounding him question who was this 'Toshinori' character he spoke of. Kokei quickly fixes his mistake, "i mean All Might! Sorry, my bad."
"Oh, i was very confused as to who you were talking about for a moment. Thank you for clearing it up." Mezo responds, to which Kokei gives him a thumbs up.
"Now that i think about it, you've gotten way better, Kokei." Toru begins, "i mean, now you can float or something. I don't think you could've ever done that before, or maybe you were just holding out."
Kokei shakes his head, "nope that's new. I've been practicing it."
"If you can use large gusts of wind as attacks that are initiated with a word, and you can float on nothing, I'd say your quirk is.." Ojiro hums while he thinks, Kokei felt his palms becoming moist. He didn't like the direction this conversation was going, he didn't want to get on the topic of quirks. He felt they'd make him slip up and he'd say something to expose himself. "Probably like, Air control or something. I'm close?"
Kokei sighs a breath of relief, they had no reason to say he had All for One yet he still felt that was what he'd answer with. "Yeah, something like that."
"That's enough about his, ribbit, quirk. He can tell us it when he wants to, ribbit." Tsuyu speaks and the whole group nod their heads in agreement.
The group of 5 talk amongst themselves for a short period, until Kokei realized how raspy his voice was. He attempted to lick his lips to moisturize them but it was like licking sand paper. "I'm gonna go get some water." With those words, Kokei left the crew and exited the arena he stood in.
The stands in the arena were crowded as all living hell, but he heeded Midnight's words about the concessions. There were people, mainly heroes, that flooded the walkways. There were many open areas, not filled in with glass windows, to allow for a breeze to be circuited into the place. Otherwise, it'd be a complete doghouse with even those sitting and watching sweating as much as the competitors. But due to how connected some people were with the competitors, that happened to some already.
As Kokei neared closer to the concessions stand, he remembered the fatal truth: he hadn't had any money on him. Kokei groans loudly, quickly moving past the gang of people passing by to get near the crowds' seating area. He was searching for a particular woman, his mother.
Of course, it was near impossible for Kokei to observe where Sobokuna was resident at. So, he used Infared Ray to see in another vision. Something Kokei recently learned about this quirk, is that he could sense other's emotional states. He learned a week ago when he went into town and used the quirk. And everyone was a different color at their brain level, yellow being happy, blue being sad and so on.
Kokei's goal when using this ability would be to find a red color when they would see him, it indicated love. And whenever Kokei was around Sobokuna, she had the red color. But there was a range as to how far the sight would go, therefore making it much more challenging. Not to mention the array of colors that seemingly blended together to form a different color.
After a few minutes of vain uneventful searching, Kokei accepted the fact that finding his mother amongst the crowd was finding a needle in a haystack. So, he settled with the idea of not getting concessions after all. He supposed that maybe he could find a drinking fountain or something, maybe go to the 1-A waiting room and get the remaining money in his pants' pockets. With this idea in his mind, Kokei retreated back to the waiting rooms.
While Kokei made his way to the waiting rooms, he couldn't help but feel paranoid of someone watching him. Considering the last time he felt this way someone was watching him, it was some serious paranoia as he walked. There was the occasional hero that came up to Kokei, congratulating him on his entertaining and impressive performance. So, Kokei thought that that's who was watching him, just the audience that gauged his skills and wanted to commend him on them.
It didn't take long for Kokei to arrive at his destination, it was nothing compared to the challenged he faced throughout his day. Needless to say when Kokei made it to the door that lead into the waiting room, he had a very calm and gathered demeanor, practically throwing the door open.
With the door open, Kokei immediately noticed the odd thing occurring. Minoru Mineta, he was leaning up close to the unisex bathroom door. He had a very perverted look on his face, but also, somewhat eager. His tongue hung outside of his mouth while he whispered to himself.
The moment Minoru heard a door open, he frantically jumped up and backed into a corner of the room. Minoru gazed upon who it was that caught him, to which he pleaded. "P-please, I wasn't doing anything wrong! I swear to you, i wasn't!"
Kokei sighed and shook his head, he then gazed around the room. There was no one else in the waiting room, before Kokei, it was just Minoru. Kokei slowly walks over to his water bottle, it was exactly where he last left it. Before Kokei could even speak, he took a great drink from his water. "What were you even doing here before i came in?"
Minoru gazes off to the side while he fiddled with his fingers, "nothing! I was doing nothing!"
"Dude, I don't care what it was, I won't judge you. Just tell me." Just as Kokei finished speaking, Denki walked into the room from the same door Kokei entered.
"Hey Minoru, did the girls put on the outfits ye-" Denki stops mid-sentence, due to seeing it wasn't just Minoru in the room. "O-oh, hey Kokei!" Denki presses a hand against the back of his head, "h-how come you're not at lunch?"
"There's a lunch? Huh, knowing that would've saved me a lot of hassle." Kokei admits.
"Well duh, it's still a school day after all." Denki responds, crossing his arms and leaning against the door frame.
Kokei then goes on the offensive. "So, it's looking like you two are in cahoots. What're you guys doing here and does it involve 'the girls'?"
Denki and Minoru freeze up, both staring blankly at Kokei with terror in their eyes. But soon, Kokei learned the truth. Just moments after Kokei's inquisition, the unisex bathroom door opened up. Thus revealing Ochaco.. in just her bra and panties. Her elegant Voluptuous curves being put on display. Everyone, all four of them, stood completely still and didn't utter a single word for a few seconds.. until Ochaco embarrassedly shouts: "perverts!" And runs back into the bathroom, slamming the door behind herself.
Minoru immediately fainted, a solid stream of blood gushing out of his nose, and Denki simply gains very red cheeks and a bloodstream down his nose as well. As for Kokei, he got pinked cheeks and began apologizing profusely. "Sorry Ochaco! We didn't see anything bad!" Kokei lied, he'd seen more than enough to give him lewd dreams for at least a week. Ochaco cracked the door open some so she could hold a conversation with the boys and hear what they had to say.
"W-why'd you come out in just your underwear?" Denki asked, trying to regain his composure after the amazing sight he'd seen.
"I didn't hear any voices! I thought no one was there!" Ochaco admits in a real flustered tone, it sounded really adorable.
"Let's just uh, let's just go." Kokei says, turning toward the front door. "Let's uhm, let's go get lunch."
Denki, between deep shaky breaths, speaks. "Yeah.. let's go. C'mon Minoru." Denki gazed over at Minoru, but he was truly out cold. "Oh, never mind." With Denki's final words, Kokei and him made their way to lunch.
--
"So, how far do you guys think you'll get in the final challenge?" Tenya questions his peers, the cafeteria the group of 1-A boys sat in looked near identical to the fancy lunchroom in U.A., but considering this was also a part of U.A, it made sense why it was so high class.
Ojiro sat next to Tenya at the rounded table, so he answered first. "I'm aiming to just not be last. Though, getting first would be very prosperous."
Eijiro shrugs his shoulders, "depends on what it is the final challenge will be."
"Probably something dumb, like another obstacle course." Denki responds, taking a bite out of the sandwich he ordered.
"I think it'll probably be 1 on 1 battles, they'll be able to test the power and intelligence of all of us." Izuku answers, to which Katsuki quickly responds.
"Shut the hell up, Deku!" Katsuki, sitting across the table next to Eijiro, spoke next. "Doesn't matter what the hell it is we're doing, I'll win no matter what."
"S-sorry Ka-chan!" Izuku apologizes, hiding in his chair.
All of the boys continued their socialization, except for a few select people. Specifically, Shoto, he still seemed deep in thought. This was so obvious, to Kokei at least, that after the boys finished their food and began to leave one-by-one, Kokei spoke to Shoto.
"Hey, Shoto." Kokei spoke, but it still didn't get Shoto to even notice him. Instead, Shoto kept walking with the rest of the rowdy pack. So, Kokei reaches out and grabs onto Shoto's arm, to which Shoto quickly pulls his arm out and away from Kokei's grasp.
"You trying to pick a fight?" Shoto asks, in more of a questioning tone rather than threatening. He seemed genuinely interested if Kokei was attempting to fight him.
"No, i was just wondering something." Kokei now had Shoto's attention, both of them had stopped walking and stood in the middle of the hallway. "What're you thinking so much about?"
Shoto's look of interest dissipates fast once he learns the true motive to Kokei's actions. "Oh, that's unimportant. I'm just wondering about something that is of no relevance to you." Shoto turns away from Kokei and begins to walk away from the boy.
'Is that really the reason? Or can he not tell me?' Kokei wonders, 'maybe it's because of the Hero vs. Villain exercise we did all that time ago. Maybe he still holds a grudge on me for that, no, he doesn't seem the type to stress something like that.' Kokei places a thumb against the underside of his chin, 'i guess it really doesn't matter, then'
--
"Now then, who's ready for the finals?!" Present Mic asks the crowd, and it riles up into a roar of shouts and cheers. He was now up on the platform that Midnight usually was standing on, while the finalists looked up at the pro hero. "But, before the finals, participants have the option to take part in recreational side games! Ya hear?"
The crowd, both being the finalists and the audience, clap for the announcement from Hizashi. During this time, the group of cheerleaders make this their time to make their appearances. The group of attractive women make their way out onto the stage with Hizashi. Odd thing is, many of the cheerleaders were females from class 1-A. Momo, Jiro, Toru, Mina and even Ochaco.
When Kokei noticed that Ochaco was in the group if cheerleaders, it became clear now why she was in her drawls. She was getting changed for her performance, along with all the other girls. It all made sense now, even why the finalist girls didn't eat lunch with the group of boys. They had to get ready, respectable.
While the girls did their cheer and mild performance, Denki was obvious to showing the flirtation these women made him feel. Having a serious bloody stream going down his nose and a gleeful smile on his face. He looked like he cared not for the Sports Festival anymore, who knows how Minoru felt since he's not even in the finals and these women are all he has to fawn over.
Midnight then takes the mic, replacing Hizashi as the speaker. "Before we can progress, if i could have the finalists draw lots from the box being placed below me." As Midnight spoke, one of the staff place a black box at Midnights' feet. "This will be to determine the matchups for the final round: a one on one fighting competition!"
Similarly to every other time Hizashi or Midnight announce something, the crowd bursts into a loud cheer. Then, the students took turns taking a piece of paper from the box and handing said paper to the staff member who placed the box. It didn't take long for all the 16 people to have drawn a number, and so, the numbers were calculated.
Midnight, along with some other staff members, file through the numbers and who drew them while Hizashi entertained the crowd. After around 5 minutes of listening to Hizashi trying to be relatable to a hunk of teens and heroes, the results were in. "Alright, the results are in- yo! And here they are!" Hizashi states, and behind him appears a hologram.
The hologram had brackets and names on it, it looked pretty in depth. But as per usual, everyone just looked for their name then inspected the rest of the board. There were 8 matchups in total, and the board was split in two. 1-4 of the first few matches, then 5-8 of the others. The winner of each bracket would then go against one another as the final battle.
Kokei raced his eyes along the board, he was somewhat worried for who he'd be paired against. But at the same time, he was excited. Once step at a time, first things first, where was his name? 'Not first match.. not 3rd..' Kokei thought, he wasn't on the whole 1st half of the rankings, instead, he found his name on the 2nd side. '6th matchup: Fumikage Tokoyami vs Kokei Kyōryokuna'. There his name was, fighting against the birdlike classmate of his. The guy looked pretty serious and somewhat intimidating, but Kokei inspected the rest of the board first.
The matches went as follows: '1st- Izuku Midoriya vs Mashirao Ojiro, 2nd- Shoto Todoroki vs Hanta Sero, 3rd- Kro vs Denki Kaminari, 4th- Tenya Iida vs Mei Hatsume' then, the second half. '5th- Momo Yaoyorozu vs Asui Tsuyu, 6th- Fumikage Tokoyami vs Kokei Kyōryokuna, 7th- Eijiro Kirishima vs Mezo Shoji, 8th- Katsuki Bakugo vs Ochaco Uraraka'.
"Looks like you'll be my model today, Jet-boy." Mei tells Tenya with a sly smirk.
"Wha- what's that supposed to mean?" Tenya asks, to which he gains no answer.
"Huh.. who even is that?" Katsuki asks as he finally sees who he's going against.
"Wha- we're in the same class, how doesn't he know me!?" Ochaco questions, putting both her pompoms up to cover her mouth in shock.
"Bro.. who's Kro?" Denki questions, looking around himself in a questioning way. Kro simply huffs and stands there, not really showing any emotion.
While Kokei observes his peers' reactions, Fumikage approaches the boy. "Good luck, Kokei."
Kokei blinks a couple times at Fumikage, he didn't expect this type of hospitality from a future opponent. "Yeah, may the best man win." Fumikage nods his head, then, turns away from Kokei and walks away from the boy. All he wanted to do was hope Kokei luck, odd.
"Hey, ribbit, Kokei." A girls' voice calls out to Kokei, and when he turned to the direction of it, it was one of the cheerleaders. One in particular, Tsuyu.
"Oh- hey Tsu." Kokei waves at her with a smile on his face, and Tsuyu smiles back.
"Ribbit, Kokei.." Tsuyu puts one finger on the bottom of her lip as she looks up to the sky instead of at Kokei. "Do you wanna hangout, ribbit, before the matchups? Ribbit."
Kokei subtlety gasps, 'why does.. Tsu wanna hangout with me? Is there something she needs.. or something?' Kokei questions in his mind, but at the same time, he answers. "Sure."
--
Sunlight, their rays of light energy beamed down on the stadium and all around it. Luckily, there was a nice park area which held a large amount of trees to provide cover from the harsh sunlight. There were two people who took full advantage of this cover, Kokei and Tsuyu.
The two walked down the dirt path that seemed made for them, though, Kokei walked awkwardly. He kept glancing over at the frog-girl next to him, then turning away from looking at her to gaze back at the end of the path. But, this deafening silence was becoming unbearable. He felt the need to say something, anything really. "So.. why'd you bring me out here?"
"Oh yeah- i forgot, ribbit." Tsuyu clears her throat, but her voice still sounded raspy. "You don't have to answer this, ribbit, but I'm really curious." Kokei glances over at Tsuyu, she caught his attention. "What is your, ribbit, quirk?"
Kokei sighs and looks down to the ground, 'I can't tell her the truth.. i just can't.' Kokei thought, closing his eyes for a moment before opening them and looking at the rather short girl with a smile. "It's mainly based around Air and air control, but i find out something new about it regularly. Like being able to walk on air, that was pretty surprising."
Tsuyu nods her head, "thank you for, ribbit, sharing that." Tsuyu pauses speaking for a couple seconds, and Kokei takes this time to stop staring at her and look away. Then, she speaks again, "riiibit, y'know, we might fight each other, ribbit."
Kokei tilts his head to the side somewhat, showing visible confusion. "What do you mean?"
Tsuyu glares down at the ground while she speaks, "if i beat momo, ribbit, and you beat Fumikage, ribbit, then we'll battle."
"Huh, you've got a point. Well then," Kokei suddenly stops walking and turns to face Tsuyu. Tsuyu notices this and stops walking as well, turning her body to face Kokei head-on. Now, their height difference was very obvious. "Good luck, Tsu, i hope we both make it to there!"
Tsuyu simply stares at Kokei, her blank stare was somewhat creepy but Kokei stared back. They eyed each other pretty hard, and after a couple seconds of it, it began to feel intimate. But the soft breeze is what finally got Kokei to blink, and that's when Tsuyu spoke. "Ribbit, i won."
Kokei blinks a couple times over, "you won what?"
"The, ribbit, staring contest." Tsuyu states, then Kokei awes and nods his head.
"Oh, I didn't realize that's what we were doing." Kokei rubs the back of his head with his left hand and smiles.
"Awe, c'mon, lemme see some action!" Jenny shouts into Kokei's ears, which causes him to jolt.
'Ouch, i thought i turned off all your comments!' Kokei thought, rubbing both his ears with both his hands.
"Nooope, i just didn't wanna say anything because watching you compete was pretty hot." Jenny licks her lips, causing for Kokei to shiver.
"Are you, ribbit, alright?" Tsuyu asks, her gaze looking up at Kokei was really adorable.
"Uh, yeah, sorry. My ears just started ringing suddenly, my bad." Kokei apologizes, then thinks: 'what the hell do you want!?'
"You're out here.. all alone.. with a girl! Shoot your shot! I won't consider it cheating since I'm dead, you're like a widow! Now go do the do!" Jenny shouts at Kokei in the same way a couch shouts at their team.
Tsuyu closes her eyes and nods her head, "it's alright."
Due to Jenny's words, Kokei now looked down at Tsuyu in a different light. Now, he noticed her curves and innocent stare. 'Goddamn it.' Kokei breathes in and out once heavily, then, he made his move. Kokei brings his right hand down to Tsuyu's left and holds it. He positions their hands in such a way that his fingers intertwined with hers, then he spoke. "I know you'll do really well, Tsu. I believe in you."
Tsuyu moves her head down to look at their held hands, and then, she interlocks her fingers with his as well. "Yeah, ribbit, you will too. You did really good in the, ribbit, Cavalry battle, ribbit."
Kokei shakes his head, "I wasn't all that special. But your tongue really carried us, though."
"You, ribbit, think so?" Tsuyu questions, bringing her right hand up to her bottom lip.
Kokei nods, "yeah, totally!" Kokei then slightly squeezes Tsuyu's hand, her hands were huge! But her hands were really soft and warm, it made up for the intimidating size.
Suddenly, Tsuyu reaches out and latches her other hand around Kokei's left hand and looks up into Kokei's eyes. She looks really serious all of a sudden, it was scary. "I wanna battle you, ribbit, so you should really try to win, ribbit. Fumikage is strong, ribbit, so you'll need to try really hard."
Kokei gazed down at Tsuyu, she was being assertive. Well- enough to feel her assertiveness was there. Her intent was obvious, it was really cute. Kokei smiles and nods, "I definitely will." And in his mind, he accepted the imminent truth. 'Well, Afo, looks like I'm gonna need to get a little higher than 20th place.'
All for One smirks and silently responds, "is that so?"
Authors note: finally, we made it to the 1v1's! I've been looking forward to this part of the story for awhile now, so I'm excited to finally do it! I hope you've enjoyed reading the story so far and liked this little interjection to the Sports Festival. That's all i have to say today, so ill talk to you all later.