Chapter 26: The Tournament has Begun
And the School Festival was on!
Hundreds of people walked around the food stands and game stands, and many of those were Pro-Heroes looking for their new sidekick.
Matteo's stand already had a mob of people surrounding it. The aroma brought attention to their stand immediately, and the sizzling of meat reached their ears just as quickly. Himiko was in charge of the register, Matteo's duty was making the different types of skewers, and Eri, the most important piece of this pie, held a sign while telling people to come closer to their delicious food. The day just started and they were almost out of everything, if they were fast enough they could go to the stadium and take their reserved spots beside the Midoriya family.
Inko and Hisashi Midoriya couldn't wait for this to start, but for two different reasons. Hisashi was excited to see his son out there and see what he can do, Inko on the other hand, just felt sick, she wanted this to be over as soon as possible, knowing that her son is doing dangerous things is one thing, while seeing him risking his life is another.
"Inko, he's going to be just fine! You know he's strong" He tried to calm down his wife but even he knew that was almost impossible.
"But, what if the doctors aren't good enough?"
"They have the best of the best, we also have Matteo outside"
"What if a villain shows up?"
"There are hundreds of heroes around, and All-Might is here somewhere"
"What if?" That's all Inko could think.
Hisashi wrapped his arm around her and kissed her forehead. "He is going to be just fine"
The students of U.A were hyping themselves up for the first event in the festival. Some were nervous and some were ready to go but everyone wanted the festival to start, thankfully their thoughts were heard and Ida came in and announced that the festival was going to start. As the students started to leave, the son of Endeavor stopped Midoriya in his tracks.
"Oh, hey Todoroki! What can I do for you?" He smiled with his usual optimism.
Todoroki's icy eyes are locked on Midoriya's "Midoriya, I think I'm stronger than you, but everyone thinks you're at the top" Everyone stopped their movements and watched as Todoroki kept going. "I'm going to beat you"
Kaminari, who was beside Midoriya chimed in. "Oh, is this your declaration of war?" Todoroki's gaze was still unmoving.
Midoriya, somewhat confused by the declaration, asked, "Why are you telling me this?"
Todoroki looked down at Midoriya and replied. "To show that I'm the best" He looked at Kaminari for a second before turning his back and walking away.
"*Tch* I guess things are about to get even more interesting, come on let's go Midoriya" Kaminari tapped his shoulder and started walking.
"Yea, I guess so.
Everyone's eyes were on class 1-A including teachers, Heroes, and normal citizens. The students could feel that some more than others.
Everyone went quiet as soon as the sound of a whip was heard. The R-Rated Hero is here. For some reason, the students couldn't feel the gaze of people anymore.
"Shit!, This is exactly what I need to hype me up!" Denki's head started turning red as he 'inspected' Midnight's costume. Jiro elbowed Denki, finally making him look away.
"Quiet everyone! It's time for the player pledge! this year's rep is going to be... Izuku Midoriya from class 1-A!" Everyone turned to Midoriya, Kyoka and Denki started congratulating him. "Obviously it's Izuku he was number one in the entry test!" Izuku walked up the stand with a poker face, he collected his thoughts and after a few seconds of silence he finally smiled and looked up.
Himiko, Matteo, and Eri stopped their clean-up of their food stand for a moment, to look at the small screen that was showing a confident smiling Midoriya.
"I pledge that every single student has worked hard to make it here. That we have trained really hard to show what we are made of! And that everyone here has a chance to win no matter what quirk they have or lack! But I also pledge to Shoto Todoroki that I will win!" The crowd was a mixture of wow's and boo's some of them even stayed quiet. Izuku looked around until he saw Todoroki. Once eye contact was made he gave him a smirk, Todoroki couldn't help it, he was radiating a small amount of heat. Izuku finally made it back to his friends. Kaminari gave a smirk of his own to his friend.
"Fighting fire with a flamethrower? Truly only a genius would have done that"
"Yea and said genius is now being targeted by the second strongest of our class and half of our school." Jiro's thumb pointed behind her, where faces with red eyes were covered by shadows. Jiro started playing with her quirk while asking "Why would you do that?"
"Well, Now the strongest guy is trying to kill me and also half of the school, it should decrease the amount of competition for you guys," Izuku explained while rubbing the back of his head.
"Izuku, we really appreciate that, but we don't want your help today" Izuku's smile fell for a second after he heard those words coming from Kaminari. Denki quickly noticed and he wrapped his arm around his neck.
"Hey, it's not that we don't appreciate what you do... but" Denki looked to Jiro who finished his sentence " We want to show what we can do."
Izuku pondered for a second before smiling once more. He closed his hand and raised his arm, a gesture his friends understood. "Then Let's do our best!" Jiro and Denki raised their fists and bumped them.
"Something must have happened between the two of them. Izuku would never challenge someone without a good reason," Inko said as she took a handful of popcorn and threw them in her mouth. Her good husband took away the bag from her hands.
"I know I wonder what.. also" He rubbed Inko's back softly "He's going to be just fine, don't stress eat ok?" She nodded
"Now watch as Izu wins the race."
There was a single gate and a bunch of students, Izuku was in the outer area and so were his friends but in different spots.
"I guess the challenge is already happening, as soon as we are given the go, that tunnel is going to get too crowded." Izuku nodded to himself. "Todoroki and Bakugo are at the very front, they already knew this was going to happen." He closed his eyes and when he opened them time had frozen. He rapidly moved ahead and made it to an open spot. He waited for the recharge time to pass by before he did again, and again until he was at the very front between Todoroki, and Bakugo. None of the three said anything; they all just looked ahead at their challenge.
"AND HERE WE GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! The race of the year has started! Are you ready, my friendly edgy teacher!" The booming voice of Present Mic came from multiple angles at once.
"You forced me here" The quieter voice came through the speakers
"We both know that's a lie! So tell me, my dear friend! Why are these first few moments so important!"
"Because of this."
Like Midoriya theorized most of the students got stuck however what made it worse was the fact that in just a second the tunnel was frozen. While everyone was either confused or with their feet frozen. Todoroki started sprinting, each time his right foot landed the ground became frozen. He looked behind him expecting to see maybe two or three of his classmates, but what he saw was half of his class on the move.
" I knew that Bakugo and Midoriya were going to pass through that, I was not expecting someone like Minetta to get so close to me" He looked straight again and stopped.
"THE FIRST BIG OBSTACLE OF THIS RACE!"
Multiple Zero-pointers from the entrance exam acted as a barrier to stop the students from continuing on.
"ROBO INFERNO"
"If they went through all this trouble" The right side of his body started getting colder They could've done something better" and with a flick of his arm multiple ice spikes started to appear, one of them stabbed the arm of a zero pointer stopping it from hurting Shoto, the ice kept on climbing the robot until the zero-pointer was completely frozen. While he tried to catch his breath he noticed silhouettes pass above him. The sound of explosions quickly told him who they were. He growled in anger and started to run again.
"Wow, such power! that's incredible," Izuku said loud enough for Bakugo, who was head to head with, to hear which was almost impossible due to both explosions and wind.
Bakugo nodded his head in acknowledgment. "He wasted too much energy and time on stopping them instead of just passing through them"
"What the hell!? Bakugo actually said something without venom spitting from his mouth!? What's happening!?" Izuku was bewildered to hear Bakugo being nice? indifferent? Whatever it is, he prefers this to the typical 'DIE' Bakugo.
"AND JUST LIKE THAT TODOROKI WAS ABLE TO DEFEND AND COUNTER IN A SINGLE MOVE! How elegant! but it seems two of the students took advantage of this and flew right above them! HOW UNFAIR! TODOROKI DID ALL THE WORK!"
"Hmm, it's not unfair, you should take every advantage you're given, all three of them made logical and tactical choices"
"That's what you should expect from the top 3 of class 1-A! Todoroki from recommendations and Midoriya and Bakugo the number 1 and number 2 of the entrance exam respectively!"
"AND THE TOP THREE ARE ALREADY IN THE SECOND OBSTACLE! THE GREAT FALL! IS FLYING CHEATING IN A RACE?"
"Next time we have a race, we should put air obstacles for those who can fly."
Kaminari slid under a 1-pointer while using his quirk to overcharge it he quickly got to his feet and kept going. "Izuku is already at the next obstacle?" Denki jumped on another one pointer and let enough energy out to short-circuit it, he jumped off and kept on going, until he caught Jiro.
"Hey, how is it going?" He smiled at Jiro
"As good as could I be right now" Her voice sounded shaky, tired from running for a long period of time and overusing her quirk.
"Same, well I got good news! we are about to be given a break!" He pointed forward at the next obstacle. "Welp, I guess we'll have to... hang in there? He snapped his fingers and made finger guns at Jiro. She covered her face with the palm of her hand acting as if she hated the joke. However, Denki saw past her actions and noticed that the corner of her mouth pointed upwards.
"I see that smile, man am I glad you have a sense of humor, I was worried for a second"
"Shut up, let's just go"
"Okay! Let's go" He gave a thumbs up
"THE MINEFIELD IS THE LAS OBSTACLE! AND THE TOP 3 ALREADY MADE IT THERE!"
"I think today it's the day I've used the [ZA WARUDO]'s time stop the most." He looked down at the ground as he flew past by it, Shoto had stopped worrying about slowing down the others and kept freezing a path for himself instead of slowly passing through the mines. He looked behind him and saw Bakugo still quietly approaching him. "This is where the flying illusion ends" Midoriya had a plan. He was going to use his ability every time he slowed down, he would land and strike the ground to gain more momentum and once time resumed he would still be ahead and back on the air, but seeing that doing that would activate a landmine he knew the charade was over, the worst part was that "If I want to stay airborne I have to land anyways, and activating a mine is going to be problematic when it hits Todoroki" He slowly exhaled "Time stopping for so long has gotten on me, welp here goes nothing!" Midoriya started slowing down and getting closer to the ground both Bakugo and Todoroki were able to catch up to him and for a second they were all head to head. Midoriya smirked and mouthed an apology. "Sorry but I'm getting tired [ZA WARUDO]" his classmate's eyes opened wide as the realization hit them, Bakugo tried to gain more height and Todoroki tried to create a sphere of ice at the exact time the mine detonated creating a big and colorful explosion.
"FINALLY SOME ACTION FROM THE TOP 3!"
The explosion sent all three to the skies, this definitely had more of a benefit to Bakugo and Midoriya as they kept going forward. Shoto growled in anger as he started to fall, thankfully he was a quick thinker and created ice skies while also making a huge skateboard-like ramp, he slid down with an incredible amount of speed, and the momentum he obtained from the fall paid off when he jumped off, he was able to catch up with the other two competitors. Still angry at what Midoriya did, he created a wall of ice in front of the two with the movement of his arm, Bakugo opted for quickly going over it, using his explosions to destroy it would have slowed down even more. Midoriya, on the other hand, made a front flip on the air so his legs were aiming the ice barrier, he summoned his stand and stopped time, he folded his left leg and used his right leg combined with his stand's own leg to create a human arrow that was able to go through the ice. Once time resumed an Izuku-sized hole appeared on the wall, A huge explosion followed next sending Bakugo flying faster than ever.
"WOOOOOOAAAAAAAHHHHH DID YOU SEE THAT! IT ALL HAPPENED IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE!"
"They all reacted quickly to the situation and adapted accordingly, they all made the right choices to keep their speed and even gain more."
"NO WONDER THESE ARE THE TOP 3 WHAT ARE YOU TEACHING THEM!"
"Nothing that they already learned through personal experience"
Their hearts were racing faster than a rocket flying through space, their ears were ringing, their brains were going insane at what was happening, the crowd cheered on at the spectacle that was unfolding in front of them.
Todoroki froze the rest of the ground to keep the impulse he got as he finally made it back to land. They all entered the tunnel at the same time. They were just a few seconds from reaching the goal. Todoroki couldn't do anything to slow them down without slowing down himself, Bakugo used one last large explosion to get ahead, Midoriya froze time as soon as possible.
(1) He got ahead of Todoroki
(2) He hit the ground in front of him to gain speed.
(3) He got ahead of Bakugo
(4) He crossed the finish line
"Let time resume!"
Todoroki lost his footing and fell to the ground. He started rolling and his body skipped like a rock thrown at a body of water, he was able to recover and run to the end.
Bakugo crossed the finish line he aimed forward with his hands and created multiple mini-explosions to slow down,
"WHO CROSSED FIRST!? CAMERAMAN, I NEED THE FRAME BY FRAME STAT!"
The large screen in the stadium turned black for a second and came back to life the next, the screen showed the finished line and Bakugo almost crossing it first, except that suddenly Midoriya appeared in front of the line and Bakugo.
"CAN YOU BELIEVE IT! THE STUDENT IZUKU MIDORIYA SUDDENLY APPEARED AT THE END! AND WITH SUCH A POSE!" Midoriya had his hands on his waist, his head tilted slightly upwards while smirking at the camera.
Midoriya slowly walked to where Bakugo was, his soul screaming in pain telling him to stop and rest. Bakugo, who was looking at his hand, turned around to look at an used to be an old friend.
"Hey" Midoriya stretched his arm with his hand open "That was a really good race!" The explosion king was dumbfounded, he looked at Midoriya's hand and back at Midoriya, he was confused "Why would he want to talk to me?" but he knew what he had to do, this was the beginning. Bakugo shook Midoriya's hand and gave his usual smirk without the venom it usually gave. "Next time, I'll win" Midoriya gave his own smirk. "It won't be that easy"
"So Hisashi's son won, very nice!" Said the ex-coworker of Hisashi Midoriya "but man I hate this festival so much!" He pulled a cigarette out of his vest pocket, put his index finger at the end of it, and used his quirk to light it up. "Soon however things will change."
"That cheater! It's the same one who killed Nomu! That son of a bitch! I'll kill him I'll kill him!" He grabbed the screen monitor with his bare hands and soon it started to crumble into dust
"Could he be the same person? No, that vigilante had to be older, and there are no scars. but maybe just maybe"...
Midoriya knew he was being watched by millions but he didn't know the type of people who were watching... TO BE CONTINUED
Hello there! Thanks for reading!
I really don't have anything to say so, Hasta Luego
