Goku Black finished up his notes on the students for the obstacle course, which compiled up to a considerable stack of papers on various students and their quirk usage. He then handed the pile to Aizawa.
"Hmm, not bad," Aizawa remarked, noting the level of detail Black put into the notes. "There's still two parts of the Festival left so you'll have to continue this effort."
"Understood," Black said as the cavalry battle started. Although he tried to focus on the ensuing round, he was feeling very concerned for his Time Ring. An audio hallucination like that never happened; he would have to be more careful with this in the future.
The Saiyan looked at the field below, taking his mind off of his reality-tinkering troubles. Although with the pandemonium on the field, it was hardly an improvement. Groups of four on the field were awkwardly mounted with respect to each other, using their quirks to get others' bandanas. Although it was a school match, it seemed like most of the students, especially those of the hero course, treated it like a life or death match.
"Is there really a point to such effort?" Black asked Aizawa. "They're simply school children who are looking to get noticed by pro heroes, no?" He closely observed Midoriya, who was doing a solid job at defending his enormous bounty for the time being. Unlike other students, who were actively using their quirks, Midoriya was the only one avoiding it.
"It's a lot more complicated than that," Aizawa explained. "Remember, UA is the top of the top of hero course programs anywhere in the country and maybe the world. Heroes all across the globe have the shared responsibility to ensure the safety and wellbeing of their communities. In a way, you can think of the Festival as a way for pros to assess how the future of the world will be handled."
"Gee, what a buzzkill," Mic retorted, giving a bit of a strained smile towards his colleague. "Well, Shota means the best but…ehhhhhh…" He laughed while Aizawa gave him a look of annoyance.
After three-quarters of the remaining time had passed, Izuku Midoriya's team still reigned supreme with the 10,000,000 point bandana. His team desperately ran past various interlopers with Endeavor's son being hot on his trail, full of his father's rage. Despite the creative uses of support items, gravity manipulation, and an ethereal creature, his infamous super strength was nowhere to be seen.
"Hmm, I'm analyzing all of their movements," the Saiyan observed. "But Midoriya somehow still hasn't used his quirk at all in this entire competition. That feels strange, doesn't it?"
"Midoriya is a very peculiar case," the Eraser hero began to explain. "Unlike the other students, who are able to use their quirks to great extents already, Midoriya's the only one who is unable to use his powers for a prolonged period of time. Although he is able to land one good hit, that's about all he can do for the time being."
"How strong are those hits?" Black asked.
"Maybe it's a bit of a stretch but honestly? Comparable to All Might." Aizawa replied.
This perked Black's attention, who observed Midoriya more closely than he did before. In the remaining time that was left, he must use his quirk at least once!
Although chaotic, the cavalry event was mostly uneventful for Goku Black. Students left and right were using their quirks to the best of their abilities but none of this interested the Saiyan, who just menially took down notes of actions he saw, none of which interested him at all. His attention remained on two people: the suspiciously similar Symbol of Peace Izuku Midoriya and the paradoxical cold temper of Shoto Todoroki. To him, these two would show the most developments…if they meet that is.
As Black observed and watched, the fated matchup he wanted to watch was nowhere close to starting. Though Katsuki Bakugo's antics with independent flight made for some amusing comedy for the Saiyan.
"That kid is one arrogant piece of shit," Black said, observing Bakugo's every move. Although he was the most aggressive participant, none of the explosion boy's moves really seemed spectacular to Black, who could brush them off with even more ease than before.
"Goku, again, you're on live TV," Aizawa said. "Try not to say something you don't want others to hear."
Black scowled at this, continuing to watch while he grew more and more bored.
After watching for 25 grueling minutes of boredom, things started to pick up down in the stage, perking Black's attention slightly. Even once docile students became more and more panicked as they scoured to look for points across the arena in hopes of advancing to the next round.
Despite this, there were two cavalry groups who seemed to come to a standstill of sorts, almost as if there was nothing happening around them. Still in the lead, the emerald-colored Izuku Midoriya and unnerving Shoto Todoroki were looking at each other eye to eye. Black looked over in their location, grinning: the fated match between rivals was about to begin.
Todoroki's group carefully looked at Midoriya's group, carefully analyzing their next steps. As all hope was lost in Todoroki's eyes, Tenya Iida spoke up.
"Everyone, there's less than a minute left," Tenya Iida would explain to his posse consisting of Yaoyorozu, Todoroki, and Kaminari. "I won't be of much use after this."
The group looked at him confusedly, wondering why he would willingly make himself inutile especially when total victory was right at their fingertips.
"I'm counting on you all," Iida explained as he prepared his turbo-calves. "Make sure you get it, Todoroki."
In that moment, the team knew exactly what the plan was and intuitively held tight onto Iida. Iida's calves rocketed the entire team forward and in less than a blink of an eye, Todoroki found himself with an extra headband, complete with shock. Black observed the teamwork happening, reminiscing about his past.
If only I was able to pull that off with Zamasu, Black thought, feeling especially guilty with his recent Time Ring issues. What the hell went wrong?
As Midoriya and his team scrambled to try to get his headband back, the Saiyan spaced out, remembering the good memories with Zamasu. All the times they drank tea together, murdered the other Kais were no longer memories that can be duplicated.
"Yo! Goku!" Mic called out to him, bringing Black back. "You kinda looked like you zoned out there."
"Ah, sorry, I was lost in thought in the contest," Black lied and gave a nervous chuckle. "There's not much time left of the battle is there now?"
"It's almost done but man the people who are on Todoroki's trail are persistent!"
Black looked down, refocusing on the stadium. To his enjoyment, not only was Midoriya the only one in pursuit but Katsuki Bakugo was as well. One prepared a punch of mythic proportions while the other prepared a nuclear arsenal in the palm of his hands. The Saiyan watched closely, anticipating the conclusion.
"TIME'S UP!" Mic yelled, ending the event. Black looked a bit grumpy at his entertainment being abruptly ended but decided to behave upon seeing Aizawa's glare. He went back to compiling his notes, full of information about most if not all of the students. Had it not been for the years of Kai training, Black was unsure if he would be able to monitor so much activity happening at once. After Mic announced the placements of Todoroki, Bakugo, Shinzo, and Midoriya, the stadium adjourned for an intermission.
"Gee, how do you do all of this?" Mic asked, observing all of Black's notes. "And handwritten in such elegant handwriting!"
"The Hottas told me what while Goku is excellent at literature and writing, he is awful at technology," Aizawa explained. "It was a bit of a gamble to see if Goku's analysis skills could work in a scenario outside of combat but I'd say it worked damn well."
"Oh well," Mic said, lazily sitting back in his chair. "Ooh wait, you know what would be fun? Getting some fried chicken!"
"You can count me out," Aizawa said, getting into a sleeping bag. "I don't feel like eating anything greasy right now."
"Are you kidding, Shota?" Mic yelled, surprised his best friend would keep such a habit at a time like this. "Well, how about you, Goku?"
"Alright, I guess I'm getting a bit hungry," Black responded. His diet was almost strictly a well-balanced diet of rice, meats, and vegetables, which was a serviceable meal to his and the actual Goku's combat needs. Knowing that the God of Destruction Beerus was generous to Earth because of its various delicacies, the Saiyan supposed that an event such as this one would be as good a time as any to try such foods out. "Though I think I wanna explore the school a bit more. I've always wondered what a top hero institution is like."
"Well, suit yourself!" the DJ hero replied. "Just make sure you come back before I gobble up the whole bucket!"
Although he wasn't sure what Mic meant by a 'bucket,' Black chuckled in an attempt to fit into this obvious attempt at a joke. He descended down the announcer box and back into the halls of UA. He could tell UA was really built carefully with each part of it built for a very specific purpose. As he walked out of the building, mesmerized by the sophisticated technology mortalkind managed to come up with, he accidentally bumped into someone in his way.
"Ah, sorry about that," Black said. His face slightly contorted at the sight in front of him.
The man in front of him was no looker; even the slightest gust of wind could be problematic for him. Wearing a suit that was obviously way too large for him, the man sported sloppy, unkempt blonde hair and sunken blue eyes.
"O-oh, no worries," the man said nervously. "I should've been much more careful of where I was going."
Author's Note: WOAH! That took a while! Now I gotta say, the delay was like almost 2 months for a few reasons. First off, admittedly, I had writer's block for the sports festival arc. Although having Black kinda just sit at the top observing the festival narratively makes sense given what's happened, it doesn't really feel interesting. The sports festival is essentially the same as in canon but with Black's thoughts so it was pretty hard trying to get around that. Another thing is that I was quite busy with my job so there was a sudden massive change in schedule. I've adjusted to the schedule a lot better now though so I can probably pull some new chapters out fairly frequently but guess we'll see what happens.
Next chapter will obviously pick up on the interaction at the end plus the end of the sports festival. After this arc, things will be much easier for me to write as I think I can put Black into the other events in MHA a lot better.
Thank you to the handful of people who have read this or are checking this out for the first time! And by 'handful,' honestly, I'm surprised the story seems to have picked up a ton of traction even when I didn't write anything during that time!