Waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Wait. ing.
No one was brave enough to break the silence. It hung over them, a giant, monstrous being that squeezed any sound they could make back down into their throats. Its great, shadowy cloak draped over them, silencing them, hiding them from the rest of the world. They couldn't speak. Choking on their own voices. The only words they could say were inside their heads.
Footsteps. Outside.
They were coming.
Fukusei led the way in. His costume was almost completely dark. Izuku recognized it to be made of the same, durable material that his costume was made of. It seemed that the hero industry had a certain standard for equipment and material used by heroes. Wait. Fukusei's costume seemed to have something else woven into it. Izuku's eyes widened. He recognized the material. Wasn't that Kevlar? It had been dyed to fit in with his costume, but there was nothing to hide its reflective shine. Apparently Class 1-S had more priority when it came to resources.
Fukusei's costume hung loose on his frame. It was almost completely black. Beneath his sleeves was some sort of dark purple, rubbery material that seemed to glow faintly. It had inset patterns of even darker purple lines arranged to create hexagons. At the ends of those inner sleeves, where the insides of his wrists were, there were branching yellow lines that all ended in circles. They were bright and apparently had a small glow.
The rest of his costume was completely black, save for some silver across his shoulders and the lower parts of his legs. It was rather plain, but somehow caught your eye and made you want to stare.
Next, the person behind him, a boy, had a costume of shimmering scarlet and gold. The mask he wore was scarlet and gold too, stylized into flames, reaching across his eyes and all the way back towards his ears. His hair was neat and white, and the rest of his costume was something absolutely stunning. His boots were red and blue, while his arms had strips of cloth hanging from his shoulders. It looked like the shoulder pads that some decorated military officers wore, but in a different colour, of course. They went no further than his elbow. His eyes were grey and bored. He stared blandly at them, unblinking. It was somewhat unnerving.
Fukusei was saying something, but no one was listening. They were too enraptured by the costumes. The girl with the shoulder-length purple-pink hair, for example, had a particularly simplistic but stunning costume. It was black, with one very thick line of pink and two smaller lines running down the chest and splitting around the middle. It cascaded down the sides of her legs and stopped at her shoes. There were lines on her left arm and right arm as well, but they were of different colours. The line on her right arm was blue, while the one on the left was red.
There was another girl in the group. There were others, but this one stood out a bit more, despite the plain colour scheme of her costume. Her costume was light grey, with a dark grey tone at the stomach. Her legs were a different shade of grey. The texture of the costume, as far as they could make out, was somewhat like a swimsuit, with tough, rubbery circles all joined to one another, just like a swimsuit. This girl had long, curling hair that was the same kind of grey as her costume would be if all the greys were mixed together.
Kageyama Ayatsuru was in black too. There were a lot of dark colours here. His costume looked a little bit like Kaminari's, in that it was mostly black, with some bright colours here and there. There was red, blue, yellow, gold, green, and purple here and there swirling around on his costume, like coloured gas being swept away by conflicting winds. His shoes were a simple white, and for some reason, he was looking at Kaminari with a slight look of good-humoured irritation. Midoriya found himself smiling. It seemed as though even the elites were allowed to be petty, because he was pretty sure that Ayatsuru was giving Kaminari a pained stare because they seemed to have the same colour scheme going on. Mainly dark costume, brighter colours here and there, and white shoes. Midoriya could see the similarities.
"If you're all done staring," Fukusei drawled. The sudden interruption caught them off guard and they just looked guiltily at him. "Yeah yeah, never mind what I said a little while ago. Just come on with us."
He walked off, and the rest of Class 1-S followed. Class 1-A got up from wherever they were sitting down and hurriedly followed after them.
Fukusei led them through a maze of white and blue walls, sometimes with white doors and small windows embedded in them. There were white rooms full of strange things and pieces of equipment. Other rooms were painted different colours, and had mysterious materials covering the walls. But standing out from all of the other doors, there was one door made of dark wood.
Finally, they reached their destination. A door that led to somewhere they didn't know. Then Fukusei opened it. And then they knew.
A city of huge skyscrapers and sprawling buildings came into view, a magnificent shimmering landscape of glass and metal, reaching beyond what they could see. Fukusei raised his arms dramatically and turned to them.
"Welcome to Battleground A." The expression on his face was cool, calm, and prepared. He looked like he knew more than anyone about something obscure but important. And that was probably not a good sign for Class 1-A.
"Shall we begin?" he asked.