Chapter 9

The bell rang, and the madness started.

Just liked I 'predicted', everyone gunned for Izuku. My horses understood the significance of why I wanted to avoid Izuku when they saw the mass of bodies ganging up on him.

I grinned as I held my hand out towards Monoma. "You know what to do."

Monoma responded by copying my quirk. Moments later, a huge gust of wind came from the bottom of the stadium and completely ripped apart all the headbands, sending them flying into the air. Everyone gaped in disbelief as the headbands got shuffled in the breeze and went all over the place.

I heard a lot of curses around us as we ran like madmen in the direction Monoma had thrown the headbands in. As we ran, I chuckled lightly. "I'm glad we have this uniform, girls," I said to the two girls carrying me. "This would have been a terrible strategy if skirts were also a part of the girls' uniform."

Considering how hard they were running with me as their rider, the only response I got was an ultra-hard squeeze to my thighs.

Itsuka continued being the amazing lead horse she was by literally slapping away teams with her quirk, and throwing them out of our way. Same with Momo and Monoma, who had copied Momo's quirk already. No one could touch us for the most part. Some quirks were dangerous like Mina's but we chose to avoid them instead of defend against them. That said, if necessary, I had two Momos in my team.

Initially, we had thought it would be easier to collect all the headbands and then focus on running. But now that we were actually trying to execute the idea, I came to the conclusion that it would be more difficult. So, I took a call.

"Alright, guys, change of plans," I muttered as I saw half the bands being snatched again. "We will keep the headbands out of everyone's reach with my quirk. We will strike at the end."

As I said that, I acted, throwing another gust of wind at everyone, this time from the side. While many held on to the newly acquired headbands, many couldn't and once again, a bunch of them were floating free in the wind.

Only for a second.

I followed through with another breeze and literally sent the headbands high up in the air, hundreds of meters above the stadium. Another gust, another hundred meters. Then I paused and glanced around to make a judgement for my next move.

Most disappointingly, almost everyone refocused on the meagre number of bands available near the ground that some teams had held on to. Some like Bakugo were glaring at me as if I had just ruined their favourite food by peeing in it in front of them. Still others were confused about what was happening.

I had no idea why Bakugo decided to glare at me. I mean, yes, this gust was my work, but the first one was Monoma! I was most definitely not the reason for the first gust. Monoma must have copied my quirk somehow!

I chuckled at my thoughts for a moment before addressing my team. "Alright guys, here's the deal. For now, I will be able to keep those bands out of everyone's reach. And since we have no band, no one will come to us. Let's take some time to rest and recuperate while we wait for the time to run out." I paused for a moment. "Bakugo is the only exception," I added rather begrudgingly. "He can blast his way up to those bands, and I'm not sure I will be able to keep the ten million band out of his hands."

As if he had just heard me, Bakugo launched himself in the direction of the floating headbands, intent on getting his hands on a few. I could only groan in annoyance.

"You totally jinxed it," Itsuka said with a suppressed chuckle.

"I only wanted to warn you all!"

"Well then, how are we dealing with Bakugo?"

A beat passed. Then I laughed. "I guess it's time to send him on a wild goose chase?"

And that's exactly what I did. As soon as I thought Bakugo was dangerously close, a gust of wind moved all the bands out of his reach. Said gust was strong enough that the bands had moved out of harm's way in record time, and weak enough that it didn't bring Bakugo along.

That said, I was fairly sure it would take only so long before Bakugo would come up with some way to deal with that stupidity. I wasn't sure how long I was going to hold out against that animalistic strategy side of his brain.

Well, only time would tell.


Time did indeed tell.

When it was close to only one minute remaining, I sent all the bands downwards in a frenzy towards the teams, making sure that caught their attentions. As soon as they did, I continued moving the bands along until the last few seconds when I collected them, and wore them onto my neck just as the buzzer sounded.

"That was too close," I sighed. "I wasn't sure I'd get the timing right."

"That was incredible, Haru!" Itsuka breathed in disbelief as she watched our team's rank shoot up like nobody's business. "I'm really surprised that you did manage to save those bands from burning away at Bakugo's hands."

"Believe me. Even I am surprised," I replied with a chuckle as I jumped down from my horses. "It wasn't easy controlling those bands. I couldn't just shoot them anywhere given how flexible Bakugo is with his quirk."

As I realized later that day, my presence shook up the ranking like anything. We were first, followed by Team Todoroki, Team Bakugo and Team Izuku. That wasn't all that surprising. No, the most surprising part was apart from my team, rest were all just 1-A. I glanced upwards where the teachers sat, wondering if Nezu had a hand here as well.

I decided to ask him later. For the time being, I wanted to know how Izuku felt.

Just as I was about to approach Izuku, Todoroki approached me. I blanked out for a moment, wondering why. Wasn't he supposed to ask if Izuku was All Might's kid or something? A comedic moment waiting to happen? Why was he approaching me then?

"Korai, could you come with me for a moment?"

I barely gave the question a thought and nodded. This development was also curious, after all. I had to wonder what Todoroki wanted with me.

I followed him; he took me to that same spot where he had asked Izuku that question.

We both stood there tensely until Todoroki finally asked the question that I did not expect.

"How do you know?"

I could not, for the life of me, fathom what he meant by that.

"How do I know what?" I asked.

"You told me not to bring daddy issues in. I can only guess that you know what I am."

Ah.

Oh.

I sighed, unable to believe what I had brought on to myself. After a few moments of consideration, I decided to take this bull by its horns. Looking up, I tried to look as nonchalant as possible. "Yeah, quirk marriage, right?"

"So, you do know." The anger in his voice was palpable. "How did you figure it out?"

I shrugged, not intent on answering the question. "I have my sources," I said, hoping he wouldn't ask.

For a moment, he did look like he wanted to fight my statement, and ask, but after a moment, he simply looked away for a moment. "Fine, but if you know, you probably also know that Endeavor created me simply for his greed for power. And that's why I will never use his power."

I gave him a tired look. "And I should care… why?"

"Because I will crush you."

"Don't worry. I will give up if I face you. You will be able to win just fine."

If he seemed even remotely amused by my statement, he didn't show it. He simply left with a nod as if to say that was that. I stared after his retreating figure, thoughts rolling around in my head, wondering if I should really act in his favour at any time or leave it to Izuku. A few moments of hard thinking told me there was no point getting involved in his issues. I was not the main character so I didn't have those MC tendencies to begin with. I did not intend to develop them either.

Leave it to Izuku. That's what I decided.

A lunch break and a Mineta prank later, we stood by Midnight, waiting to draw lots. I would never tell Mineta but this was one prank I appreciated. Momo's momos were awesome, even though I never got a peek really.

Clothed bounciness should also be a trait in real life. It was awesome.

Lots were drawn and matches were decided. I didn't remember the matchups in the original timeline for the most part so I wasn't sure what to make of them. What I did know was that I had been matched up against Shinso. Instead of Midoriya.

Damnit.

I glanced behind me just in time to make eye-contact with Shinso. A nod of acknowledgment was exchanged and that was that. As I turned back, I felt glad to have interfered and not let the League of Villains USJ attack happen. The lack of animosity was beautiful. It made the actual festival sporty and fun rather than mean and irritating like it felt to me in canon. Sure, story-wise, it raised the stakes but damn, actually being in the situation made it way more obvious just how good a choice it was not having the unreasonable animosity.

I happily made my way to the stadium entrance, a skip in my step as I headed off to face my first fight.


"The first match!" Present Mic's voice resounded in the stadium. "On one side, we have Korai Haru, having performed brilliantly so far. And here we have Shinso Hitoshi, who has done nothing to stand out yet so far!"

The crowd cheered despite the stupid info he gave out. 'Really, Mic?' I thought to myself, mildly amused. 'Could you not have found a less embarrassing way to introduce the poor guy?'

Said poor guy looked stoic but I knew he wasn't oblivious, and that he was definitely annoyed at some level at the way he was introduced.

Present Mic swiftly presented the rules over his mic (Heh.) and the match started.

"'I give up', huh?" Shinso started with his usual, offensive words. "Get it, Korai Haru? This match's going to test your strength of will…"

I tuned out his rambling, carelessly looking around and observing the crowd. I just kept him in my peripheral vision, knowing what to expect of his quirk. For the moment, I wanted to see which heroes were currently watching us live in the stadium. I could see some familiar faces such as Ms. Joke, Endeavor, Hawks, and even Best Jeanist. All of them had fairly neutral expressions on their faces, Ms. Joke being the exception but that was to be expected given her name and quirk.

"ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING?!"

I turned towards Shinso, annoyed, and almost reflexively opened my mouth. Luckily, my brain caught up with my actions and stopped me before I could utter even a sound. Instead, my face took on an even more irritated expression as a substitute for the words currently in my mind.

Shinso was starting to look a bit desperate, his stoic façade slowly coming down as he faced a mute opponent in me. Present Mic was trying his very best to keep the hype up despite the ridiculous slow down as I refused to verbally engage with Shinso. I was heavily considering continuing to mess around but decided I had played enough. After all, there were more things to do after this match.

Like having a chat with Endeavor.

I had some plans, is all.

And so, wordlessly, I started walking towards Shinso who was still trying to get me angry by using offensive language, trying to hit at my pride, my ego, or whatever. Unfortunately for him, I was well aware of his quirk and could handle him just fine. Given the fact that he did not look like he worked out and I did work out, it was pretty easy for me to just land a punch on him and force him to take steps back.

This continued for just a while till Shinso decided to run lest he walk out of the circle.

As if I would let him.

I pulled him by his arm and straight up threw him the remaining distance and outside the boundary, easily winning the match.

As Present Mic announced the winner, I noticed Shinso biting his lip, frustration clear on his face. "Damnit!"

For a moment, I wanted to do the same as before and leave Shinso to Izuku, but then decided that Shinso—and in turn, the world—would benefit if he changed his mindset sooner. So, I squatted and held out an arm towards him. "What's got you frustrated?" I asked, letting curiosity slip into my voice.

"It's nothing," Shinso replied, not attempting to even reach out to my arm.

I gave him a flat look. "Yeah, right. And I'm stupid."

"As if someone blessed with a good quirk like you'd understand."

"Did I use my quirk?"

"Huh?"

"Did I use my quirk?" I repeated forcefully, looking him in the eye. "Look me in the eye and declare that I used my quirk to win against you."

There was a tense moment until Shinso looked away. "You didn't," he conceded, "but that doesn't mean anything when you have such a good quir-"

I forced his head my way, making eye-contact with him and cutting his rant off. "Let me let you in on a secret, Shinso," I said, a small grin on my face. "Izuku didn't even get his quirk until a few months ago. Can you imagine the hell his life must have been?"

He didn't answer.

"You had a quirk that you could use to force bullies away from you. But Izuku couldn't do anything. Not even now when he has awoken a quirk. Habits like that are hard to break when they are formed from childhood."

"What's your point?" He spat as venomously as he could—which was nothing. In fact, he seemed to have given up hope to join the hero course.

I simply smiled, letting his face go. "All I'm saying that the way you look at it is all wrong. No one said you had to be hero course. In fact, I'd say your quirk is perfect when it comes to interrogation. You'd be amazing in the police interrogation department. Your quirk is awesome in the sense that you don't need to fight anyone. Villains are pretty loud and verbal to being with, generally speaking, so just one little push of a button from you would mean bang! The villain will follow your every word. Don't you think that's straight up awesome? Even All Might has to fight and shed blood. You'd win battles for the good side without so much as a scratch to either side. That makes your quirk game-changing."

I paused, letting my speech peter out. Shinso looked like he had had an epiphany during my speech. "Anyway," I said, holding out my arm again. "I'm sure you'll find good uses of your quirks. UA will give you immense support once you figure out how to use your quirk effectively. Stating negative things to rile up your opponents is good but it's not effective and it ruins your chances if the opponent chooses to be mute. You need to have backup plans in place for such things. Like they say, a hero is always prepared!"

After helping Shinso up, I left the stadium without looking back. There were some things I needed to do after all.

Time to seek out Endeavor!


I have hit a new record of faves and follows with the last chapter. Thanks a lot everyone for all your support! It's pretty heartening and motivating to get such support and it keeps me writing when I know the work I put in is being appreciated.

As always, reviews and constructive criticisms are welcome!

Signing off!