Chapter Twentyone - The Winner Is…!
The final obstacle between the students and the finish line was a field that was full of buried mines, with very faint signs of where they were. The closer one got to the end, the more there were, leaving those at the front of the pack at quite the disadvantage.
Todoroki had started to make his way through the mines, nervously looking down and making sure he didn't set any off.
Not far behind, Bakugo was fast approaching, and behind him, was Mei and Izuku.
Gotta finish strong! I don't want to make it into the top— I want to win!
Izuku's mind was set after seeing his classmates doing their best to help him out. He wanted to show them that he could do the rest on his own now.
"Not tired yet, Izuku?" Mei looked back as Izuku came to overtake her. The girl was sweating and quite out of breath.
"Not too much, thanks to all the training," Izuku said with a grin to her.
Mei smiled. "Well, then you better go catch up to those two, or else!"
"I'm not sure I want to know what that entails," Izuku responded with a nervous chuckle.
The two came to the minefield. Ahead, Bakugo was flying through the air towards Todoroki angrily.
"Don't think you can pass me up," Bakugo barked angrily at the boy, reaching towards him and exploding his hand.
Todoroki leaned back to dodge the attack, reaching out and freezing Bakugo's shoulder, though the blonde boy exploded the ice away and tried to attack again. The two continued to run forward at a slower pace, distracting each other by exchanging blows as they competed for first.
Those two are so talented… But their personalities are definitely their downfall!
Looking back, Izuku saw that people were starting to catch up to them. He then looked at the minefield before them and gulped before hesitantly starting to make his way through it, careful where he stepped.
Behind him, Mei activated her hover boots and tested a theory— As it turns out, they didn't set off the mines at all, which made her laugh.
"Aha! See you at the finish Izuku!" The girl suddenly flew past him, gliding above the ground safely.
"This is too slow, I need to—" Izuku's out loud thoughts stopped when there was suddenly an explosion where Mei was, sending her flying back to where they started in a flurry of pink smoke. "M-Mei!?"
The girl still had a smile on her face as she flew over him. "I guess I touched the ground accidentally! Hahaha—-" ...And landed on the ground. She weakly got up to her knees and gave him a shaky thumbs up.
"I-I just need a sec…" The girl collapsed, making Izuku gasp. He slid to a halt and was ready to go back to her, when something big suddenly approached beside her. "W-What the—"
It was one of the smaller robots, but on its back was the 1-H students Taka and Risako, her sharp teeth showing brightly as she smirked. The back of the robot's head had bite marks, and the exposed wiring was sparking a bit. Taka's hands were inside of the robot's head, controlling its movements.
"Don't worry Midoriya, backups here," Taka exclaimed, his glasses shining in the sunlight.
"I just kinda bit into this thing, the dork did the rest," Risako admitted.
"W-What are you planning to do?"
Taka chuckled and pushed up on his glasses. "We'll take care of that Bakugo guy, you just gotta deal with that ice guy!"
Before Izuku could question it anymore, Taka and Risako braced themselves. Taka messed with the wiring of the robot, suddenly making it tremble and shake, before it suddenly shot forward at an incredible speed.
Izuku braced himself as the robot went right through the mines, setting off a line of them in its wake, nearly sending Izuku flying.
Up ahead, Todoroki and Bakugo looked back at the explosions and the oncoming threat.
"The hell? Thought those useless scraps were left behind," Bakugo scowled.
As Bakugo prepared to intercept the oncoming robot, he was suddenly tugged to the side by something— Ninsei's arm, unbeknownst to him. He was surprised but reacted quickly before he stepped on a mine, exploding his left hand to go into the air.
"What gives?! What the—" He looked back, seeing a severed arm— Ninsei's arm he had placed when the race had started. "Did I blow someones arm off or somethin?!"
While Bakugo was distracted, the robot was coming fast. Taka laughed with a surprising amount of maniacal pleasure.
"No more being the background characters! Us Support students will take this year by storm—!"
Unfortunately, this thought was short lived. Before they could ram into Bakugo, a wall of ice suddenly shot up in front of them. The robot slammed into it and exploded, sending Taka and Risako flying off of it.
"Gah— I didn't ask for this," Risako yelled as they flew off and landed right onto some mines, getting flung away from the course.
Bakugo landed on the ground, grabbing Ninsei's arm and throwing it on the ground. He angrily stomped on it, causing painful screams from somewhere in the course, before kicking it away. Then, the boy turned to Todoroki and pointed accusingly at him.
"Why the fuck you helping me?! I'm still gonna beat you!"
"If they're working against our class, it only made sense," Todoroki commented as he turned to run again. "I'm still going to wi—"
Swish! Someone suddenly came in between them, stepping on a mine but propelling themselves forward as it exploded.
It was Izuku. He had decided to take a risk, and it had worked out— By using his Flow as soon as he activated one of the mines, he could fly forward and use the force of the explosion to send himself even further, clearing the distance within only a few moments.
Now he has finally cleared the mine field, landing on his feet and stumbling only for a moment as he ran with all he had, his Flow out of charges from the feat.
However, the other two were quick to spring into action, fast approaching him. Izuku didn't have the speed to escape them completely, so he knew had to do something.
"You goddamn piece of—" Bakugo tried to reach out and blow up Izuku's Flow backpack, but Izuku activated his Drift to pivot around the left rod, kicking the boy's hand away swiftly, Bakugo's expression turning to surprise.
Todoroki took that moment to swing his right hand, sending a wave of ice upwards towards Izuku, hitting his left leg and arm and encasing them. He then prepared his right foot, sending ice towards Bakugo who was forced to use an explosion to break it apart.
"Fire left!" At Izuku's command, the Drift shot the rod out into the ground, the force sending Izuku forward. His left arm and leg were still encased in ice, so he swung his leg hard onto the ground, shattering the ice from it.
The two Hero students seemed surprised by the swift and precise movements Izuku was able to pull off. In that split second, he looked at them confidently.
Kacchan… I won't lose anymore!
Now that a few seconds had passed, Izuku fired off the charge his Flow had been able to gather, propelling himself forward a ways before he landed and began to run again, ignoring the cold pain of his frozen left arm.
Behind him, explosions resounded, but he didn't look back. Gotta run… Keep running… Keep looking forwards!
Not far behind, Todoroki had started to form ice beneath himself to move faster across the mines, not caring if he made a path for others at this point. Bakugo began to fly across the ground using his explosions, his anger reaching critical mass after Izuku was able to fight them off and still get ahead.
"The U.A Sports Festival, first stage— Who could have predicted such a shocking turn of events?!"
Back at the minefield, a nice path had been cleared thanks to the antics of the Support class, thus it became an all-out sprint to make it to the end.
Yuki and Shiro were around the middle of the pack. Their Quirks didn't help their mobility, and they could see their openings dwindling.
"We don't know how many will make it through to the next around," Yuki told her as they ran, his physical training making it easy to run for such a long time.
"Then….what… do we do?" Shiro was incredibly out of breath, her robotic legs having broken during the encounter with the robots earlier, forcing her to run, which meant her short legs had to work twice as hard to keep up.
Yuki looked ahead, taking in who was there. It was mostly the Hero class students, many of them whom revealed their quirks at some point. There weren't any mines where everyone was running, but there were on either side of them.
"Follow my exact movements," Yuki told her, running ahead.
"I-I'll try," the girl responded, struggling to try and keep up.
The top three of Izuku, Bakugo, and Todoroki had made it back to the stadium now, entering the tunnel and rushing for the final stretch. Behind them, a torrent of explosions could be heard endlessly.
The mines on either side of the cleared path started to go off, catching anyone near the sides and blowing them away. Anyone not caught in them was slowed down, confused.
Nobody could fathom Yuki's accuracy as he ran, firing the small metal spheres he used with his hand slinger into the mines rapidly and precisely. While everyone was shaken up, he darted right past many of them, and Shiro followed suit, trying her absolute best.
"Gah!" Shiro finally tripped up, gasping and slowly getting up.
Yuki looked back at her, hesitating for a moment, but deciding to continue on, now only behind a few others. Shiro was disappointed, but understood, trying to steady herself as everyone started to pass her up again.
"Hey! Why are you stopping?"
Shiro looked back, seeing Mei coming in on her hover boots. She zoomed past the girl, smirking and looking back.
"I bet Yuki will be real impressed I made it to the next round," Mei shouted back at her.
This set Shiro off, igniting a fire inside of herself. She ignored the pain and ran as hard as she could, passing up as many people as she could, dipping and dodging through them with her short stature.
I'll make all the cute boys notice me!
"The first person back to the stadium— Nobody saw this coming!"
Izuku was starting to feel the exhaustion setting on as he came through the other end of the tunnel, slowing down to a jog before finally coming to a stop, breathing heavily.
"From the Support Course— Izuku Midoriya!"
He looked up, surprised to hear his name. The crowd was roaring with applause and cheers, thousands of eyes upon him.
I… won?
"What a race! The Support course makes a big splash!"
Behind him, Todoroki and Bakugo arrived, and more began to follow shortly after. Izuku was a bit shaken by the entire thing, looking down at his shaky hands.
I can't believe it… I…
"Izuku!" Mei's voice made him turn, seeing her fast approaching as she jumped on him, hugging him. "You totally did it!"
"Ah! I guess I did…" Izuku smiled but felt embarrassed about the display in front of so many people. As Mei let go of him, he saw Yuki approaching.
"You did well," Yuki spoke with a nod.
"I just… got lucky," Izuku said, rubbing the back of his head and looking away solemnly. "I really had no chance if you guys weren't all looking out for me…"
"I… made… it…"
Izuku looked over to where the new raspy voice had come from, gasping as he saw Shiro slowly approaching them, looking so exhausted that she looked like a zombie.
"S-Shiro?! Are you alright?"
The girl weakly smiled and gave them a shaky thumbs up, before falling back to rest.
"I'm impressed," Yuki said with a small, rare smile. "We've all put up a good look for the Support course for sure… Except for your frozen arm."
Izuku gasped, remembering that it was encased in ice. They quickly broke his arm free and he shivered, feeling a painful numbness in it.
"Don't worry Izuku, I got this," Mei said, grabbing his arm and holding it against herself. "Warm huh?"
Izuku's face turned red, but he didn't even know what to say or do, feeling the usual large, soft threats that had always made Mei's lack of boundaries difficult to deal with.
Nearby, Todoroki was looking down at his hand, a bit of frost having collected on his skin from using his Quirk quite a bit. He then looked up into the stands, spotting his father, Endeavor, whose expression was intense and serious, the flames on his body blazing as brightly as ever.
"Hmph…" The boy with dual-colored hair looked away defiantly. "This doesn't mean anything."
Bakugo as well was dealing with his defeat, absolutely seething as he held his throbbing arms, having overused his Quirk a bit.
"Damn it… Not enough…"
He clenched his fists painfully, gritting his teeth before letting out a yell of frustration.
"The first game of the first year stage is finally over— Here's the results!"
Everyone had now gathered again with their classes, having calmed down and rested a bit. Midnight presented the big hologram screen once more on the stage, where everyone's placement in the top was displayed.
Some of the notable ones included:
#1 - Izuku Midoriya
…
#6 - Adatari Yuki
…
#18 - Mei Hatsume
…
#40 - Minami Shiro
"The first 42 to reach the end will be moving on to the next round— But don't worry, we've got plenty of activities to show off your stuff if you didn't make it," Midnight exclaimed to them.
"Just us four huh," Izuku thought aloud.
"It's no surprise, the Hero classes are good," Yuki said with a nod.
Beside them, Ken let out a loud yawn. "Well, I didn't get last, so that's cool."
Nearby, they didn't notice the whimpering figure of the last place student, at least among those who finished: Soga Ninsei, who was holding himself with his bruised arms and crying, feeling like he had failed his legacy(which didn't really exist anyways.) Taka and Risako, whom had been disqualified for being flung out of the course, comforted him, also feeling the pain of failing their mission.
"The real challenge begins now— The press cavalry will be all over it!" Midnight licked her lips, "So do your best!"
With a flick of the whip in her hand, the screen behind her changed to a slot machine wheel yet again, building up the tension for what the next game would be.
"Now then, here is the second game! I already know what it is~ What could it be, what could it beee?"
"It's this!"
Everyone was surprised by what appeared on the screen:
[Cavalry Battle]
"A cavalry battle? How's that going to work," someone questioned nearby.
Izuku thought about it for a moment, remembering doing such battles as a kid, though being Quirkless had often left him at quite the disadvantage.
"Let me explain," Midnight continued to quell any confusion. The screen changed to show diagrams of what she was talking about. "The participants can form teams of 2 to 4 people as they wish. It's basically the same as a normal cavalry battle—"
The woman turned to look at the students, a smirk appearing on her face.
"However, based on the results of the previous game, each participant has been given a certain point value!"
Everyone began to mutter and talk about the point system, explaining it to each other before Midnight got a chance. Angered, she snapped the whip hard to get their attention.
"You guys don't hold back even though I'm talking, huh?!" She sighed and continued, "That's right, the points assigned will go up by 5's starting from the bottom."
Midnight couldn't suppress a grin as she continued with the next part.
"And the point value assigned to first place is…."
"Ten Million!"
All Might had left the first year stage at the conclusion of the first round, and headed for the third year stage.
He wanted to be there for the first year students who were looking up to him and had ignited his heroic spark once more, but he also had another duty to attend to that required him to move between the events.
At the third year stage, the next event was set to go underway— A relay race, where the contestants would race in teams and pass the baton to the next person to continue the next stretch. The twist appeared to be the many obstacles that would appear in their path.
All Might gazed down from the stands, his eyes scanning before he saw who he was looking for.
That boy, Midoriya… He seems like he could make fine candidate, but you…
Down below, a well-built boy with blonde hair and very soft and kind face was stretching in preparation for the race.
Show me that you've got the Heroic spirit to be my successor… Togata Mirio.
To Be Continued
Next Chapter: One in Ten Million