The day of, we were all in the locker room dressed in the real drab school gym uniforms.

"Damn," I said, "I really wanted to wear my costume."

"They're not allowed, to even the playing field," said Ojiro, the guy in class with the tail."

There was some chattering among our classmates; over at the boys table, Todoroki walked up to Midoriya and issued a big challenge right to his face, though Eiji tried to intervene. Before we knew it, we were striding out into the Festival Arena, with Present Mic announcing us as class 1-A.

"Let me guess, you all came to see them, right? The fresh-formed miracle stars that shrugged off a mass villain assault with wills of steel! The Hero department freshman class 1-A!"

Everyone in class was gossiping and getting excited as I walked into the ring side by side with Tsu. It was a giant sports area filled with tons and tons of people.

"Now, now, fair play!" announced the referee for our year, our teacher the R-rated hero Midnight, once everyone had gathered. After she'd rung us in, she called "Now, for your player representative: Katsuki Bakugou of Class 1-A!"

Me and Eiji both stared at the explosion guy. Pretty sure he was about to say something incendiary as he walked up to the mic.

"Sensei," he said, "I'm gonna place first."

"Ah, man," said Eiji, groaning. "I knew he was gonna say something like that."

Everyone was booing us, yelling at Bakugou. "You'll all make fantastic stepping stones, I'm sure," replied our resident sentient explosion as he stepped down from the platform.

"Aii right, with that we can move directly onto our first event! Onto the Preliminaries as they're called! Lots of fine folk end up choking on their tears here every year! And this year's first round is…" she pointed to a screen, and the words came up. OBSTACLE RACE "This!"

"It's a race between all 11 classes. The course makes a nearly 4km ring around this stadium! We always sing about our freedom on campus. Well, this is what it's all about! You're free to do anything, so long as you remain within the course! So let's get cracking. On your marks!"

Everyone took their stance, headed for the gate. The buzzer rang. "START!"

Immediately everyone was crushed inside the starting gate. It was way too tight, and before we knew it, it was even worse than tight: it was halfway frozen. Todoroki had pulled out ahead of everyone by freezing the whole place near solid!

Of course, I could melt through it with my ice, but a lot of other people were actually frozen and couldn't move.

"This is dicey!" I called, sliding along the ice and trying not to slip with my acid. And just when it seemed we were out of the gate -

"Targets detected - multiple!"

Standing before us were tons of giant, giant towering robots, the ones from the entrance exam! A robot inferno!

Todoroki in the lead took out the ones facing him in seconds, and they quickly started tipping over. One fell from its unstable position - and landed square on -

"EIJI!" I called out.

Mic's commentary boomed more "THE FIRST ROUND'S OBSTACLE COURSE IS UNDERWAY! AND THE GOAL IS TO RUN ONE LAP AROUND THIS SPECIAL MADE STADIUM'S OUTER RING! THE RULES ARE SIMPLE - AND SAVAGE! ASIDE FROM LEAVING THE COURSE, THIS IS A BONA FIDE RACE WHERE EVERYTHING GOES! THE CAMERA BOTS INSTALLED IN EACH AREA CAN BARELY CONTAIN THEIR EXCITEMENT!"

Everyone was crowding around the robot to see if Eiji was all right.

"Oh my god, someone is under there!"

"Is he dead?! Can people die during the Sports Festival?!"

Banging noises came from underneath and a fully hardened Eiji burst through the metal. "LIKE I'D DIE!" He shouted. "I swear to god, Todoroki, you timed it to topple at just the right moment, too! What if it hadn't been me? Someone could've died!"

I breathed a sigh of relief. Sudden more thunking sounds came from the robot and a boy from Class 1B, with gray skin and hair, came bursting through. "What if it hadn't been me?" he shouted. "Someone could've died!"

Eiji was looking at him nervously, like he was worried their powers were too similar - the other guy could turn hard too, hard like steel. But this wasn't the time to worry about that! I got my head together and started skating along using acid through the robot inferno. It was easy with my athletics moves to dodge and jump through their big wide swings.

On the other side…

"WELL THEN, IF THE FIRST BARRIER WAS A CINCH, WHADDYA THINK OF THE SECOND? YOU FALL AND YOU'RE OUT! IF YOU DON'T LIKE THAT IDEA MAYBE YOU CAN CRAWL! IT'S THE FALLLL!"

We'd skittered to a halt before the giant network of towering rock falls, connected together with wires. Seriously. We'd have to tightrope walk across em! I'd arrived at the same time as Uraraka and Tsu, and it took Tsu seconds to go jumping onto the wire ropes and start crawling across with ease.

"FFUFUFUFU, now's my chance to up my appeal!" came a cackling voice from behind us. We turned to see a girl with long pink dreadlocks, dressed from head to toe in flashy support items including huge goggles. "It's time for my support items to bask in the limelight! Lo and behind, support companies of Japan! The wire and arrow hover soles!"

"The Support Course!" gasped Uraraka.

"Wha?!" I cried. "you can take items into the race?!"

"The Hero Course receive actual fight training, right?" said the pink hair girl, looking over at us. "Just to keep things fair, we're carrying just those items and costumes that we developed ourselves! They've given equipment the OK! Or so they'd likely say. For Support kids like us, this is the chance to show off the engineering we conceived and developed to appeal to the corporations!" With that she shot a grappling hook over the course and moved like a lightning bolt over the fall. "So keep watching, and I hope the company's a big one! This is my super cute BABY!"

"Amazing!" cried Uraraka. "She can't lose!"

"Dammit, stupid equality!" I cried out in frustration, as me and Uraraka headed towards the Fall.

As I pulled my way across the wires, unable to use acid for fear of burning them, Mic's voice boomed out again "NOW OUR PLAYER IN THE LEAD HAS COME TO THE HIDDEN FINAL BARRIER! NONE OTHER THAN THE MINE FIELD! IT'S SET UP SO THAT IF YOU LOOK CAREFULLY, YOU CAN SEE WHERE THE LANDLINES ARE! STRAIN YOUR EYES AND FEET! IN ANY CASE THEY'RE LANDLINES, NOT OVERLY LETHAL BUT THEY BANG BIG AND BRIGHT!"

Todoroki's already there?! Gotta move!

I slid to the finish of the mine field and found myself stepping real carefully, trying not to get blown away. Most of my classmates were already there.

From behind us all came an explosion, the same size and power or more than anything we'd seen from Bakugou. "A GIANT EXPLOSION NEAR HTE ENTRANCE?! WHY WAS THAT BANG SO BIG?! WAS IT HIS PLAN OR SHEER COINCIDENCE? CLASS A'S MIDORIYA MOUNTS HIS CHARGE!?"

Yep - riding on top of the explosion, there went Midoriya flying like a bullet from a gun over all our heads and into the front beating even Bakugou and Todoroki.

"HE OVERTOOK THEM, THE LEAD IS HIS!" Called Mic's voice. I had to hurry - get into first place. I mean, Midoriya had done it without even using his quirk!

"DAMMIT EARSERHEAD, YOUR CLASS IS INSANE?! WHAT'RE YOU TEACHING THEM? WHOEVER COULD'VE PREDICTED THIS OUTCOME WHEN THE TRIAL BEGAN? THE ONE WHO RETURNED TO HTE STADIUM IS NONE OTHER THAN - MIDORWYA IZUKU!"

So Midoriya had won already? Dammit - had to move, had to get out there quick!

In the end, I only made it into 19th place. Freaking 19th. Even that pervy creep Mineta had done better. It was super frustrating.

We'd all gathered up back in the stadium to hear Midnight's explanation.

"The 42 at the top have earned the right to advance. I'm sorry for the kids who failed, bu take heart. The festival's show-stopper is still being prepared. And now fro the post-preliminaries, the final selection! From here on out, even the press corps will teem in a white heat of excitement, so go all out. now then, onto today's heart-pounding second event! I already know what it will be but the suspense is killing me! And what will it be? Behold!" The sign displayed said "Human cavalry Battle"

"You can all form 2-4 person teams freely and form a horse-back configuration! Basically it's the same rules as a normal human cavalry battle: Swipe enemy riders' headbands and guard your own, except for one thing. Everyone will receive points based on their performance in the last trial!"

"Which means the point value of each team will change based on who's in it," I said to Eiji.

"DON'T INTERRUPT!" Yelled Midnight. "But yes, that's right, and the number of points you're worth will be 5 points if you placed 42nd, 10 if you placed 41st, 15th for 40th and so on, with the exception of 1st place, whose head is worth TEN MILLION!"

All at once, we turned to look at Midoriya, who was standing there really sweating. For once, it really didn't pay to be in first.