30.03.2020

Hi guys, it's a mi Mario and I'm back with another chapter of this uninteressting story that some of you seem to enjoy reading ;D

First, the comments:

A huge, just the biggest of all shoutouts to D3lph0xL0v3r: I just randomly check the stats of this fanfic to see if we have any new followers and one time I come to see the review number jump up from 68 to 73, so I go, hmm... bug. Cuz there's no way that that actually happened. So I'm coming back from work and check again, number still 73, so I decided to check the reviews... And there are five new reviews from you. I mean, damn, I'm always happy to see any words of encouragement, so when I saw that you enjoyed this story so much to take the time out of your life to actually comment and express your feelings made me like happy as hell. And I'm starting to rumble... Anyway, thanks for the kind words and I hope that you'll stick around till the very end!

As for the sixth comment that appeared since the last chapter was released - LegendaryMob: I'm sorry for kinda misleading you into thinking that the augments will be of the biological nature. To be honest, I drew an inspiration for this fic from Deus Ex' protagonist, Adam Jensen. Hence the coat in Midoriya's first costume. I just found it amazing to punch through walls, use personal camouflage that renders you invisible, having retractable blades in your forearms! I'm sorry to hear that you are loosing interest in this fic, but that's alright. Everyone is free to make their own choices as to what they want to read and I'm pretty sure that I've seen somewhere a story about Izuku growing a second heart, third lung etc, like Space Marines in the Warhammer 40k universe. Anyways, thanks for leaving a review!

Wow... that's one long section dedicated to answering comments... Thank god, that D3lph0xL0v3r wrote 5 of them, because you would have to sit here and read through my rumbling as I went over each review and reviewer.

So, I took enough of your time as is already. Enjoy the chapter everyone! :D

The Obstacle Race sounded easy enough, but Midoriya had to remind himself two things.

One. Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer.

And two. They were attending UA. It couldn't be just a simple Obstacle Race. The question was, how did they make it Plus Ultra?

Izuku took a looked around. He was surrounded in the sea of participants currently standing near an exit of the stadium that led outside and onto the Obstacle Course.

"Two Hero Courses, three General, three Support and two Business. Roughly two hundred potential participants. Halving everyone except the Hero Courses brings it down to hundred and twenty", he took another look around as his eyes quickly catalogued other students to see if his calculations were accurate. "Eighty nine… Ninety with me. This means that there are fifty students from other Courses"

"Midoriya"

"The Support Course is pretty easy to distinguish from the crowd since only they brought in any kind of equipment. But the General and Business are identical"

"Midoriya"

"Though it's very likely, that most if not all of the Business Course students decided not to participate since they had nothing to get out of this. Supports want to show off, Generals get into the Hero Course and we want good internships"

"Midoriya!", this time the voice that he hadn't heard over his own thoughts was accompanied by a hand landing on his shoulder.

The green haired student jumped slightly at the unexpected contact and immediately turn his body around to look who was speaking to him.

"I didn't think that you would be this nervous about this whole thing", his raven haired classmate said and chuckled.

"Oh, I'm sorry if I didn't hear you earlier", he apologised and then went on to explain. "I'm not nervous. Well, I kinda am, but I was just deep in thought", he ended with a smile on his face.

"What were you thinking about?", she inquired.

"Just analyzing the competition"

"Well, did you analyze me well enough?", Momo said with a small smile on her face, which was the complete opposite of how she felt on the inside. "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god why did I say something so… so… stupid?!", on the inside she wanted to create a shovel and dig a deep enough hole to hide in it.

"Um, I- I think so", he stammered and looked away, a red hue appearing on his freckled cheeks.

Before any of them had a chance to embarrass themselves any further, Midnight's voice silenced the cheering crowd.

"Alright students, I hope you are ready, because the Obstacle Race is about to start!", she announced and Izuku saw other participants tense up.

"Do you think we should cooperate as a class?", Momo asked him hurriedly as a countdown started in the background.

"Do me a favor and look at the front of the crowd", Midoriya ordered with a smirk on his face. The kind of smirk that he wears from time to time when he knows something that other people don't.

So, following her Class Rep's orders, she stood just a bit straighter and saw Todoroki and Bakugo at the front, clearly arguing with each other.

"Now tell me, do you really think that they would like to cooperate with anyone?", the smirk was still present, but now Yaoyorozu knew what caused it to appear in the first place.

"That's why you didn't bother to strategize in the waiting room?", the girl realised as she connected the dots.

"Well, yes, but I also didn't know what the first event will be so there was no way to prepare for this", he answered as the countdown neared its end.

Meanwhile with the teachers in the stands.

"Can someone remind why did we make the countdown this year so long? Anyone?", questioned Nezu as he sat at the very front of the faculty.

"It was Majima's idea", said Snipe.

"Yeah, he said something about 'plot reasons' whatever that was supposed to mean", added Cementoss.

"I see", the rodent simply answered and focused on the students. "Let's see how you handle the hidden obstacle!"

And back with the ground team.

"Three!"

"Good luck then, Midoriya"

"Two!"

"Good luck to you too, Momo"

"One!"

And the whole stadium froze in anticipation. And few moments later literally froze.

Just as Izuku has thought before, the exit was way too narrow for almost hundred participants to enter it nearly simultaneously. But no one wanted to give way, so chaos was sure to start early into the race.

Though the powerhouses of 1-A had it all planned out. Bakugo and Todoroki took different approaches, but both of their ideas led to them starting at the front.

Katsuki propelled himself forwards with his explosions to quickly gain speed and take the lead as early as possible.

Shoto on the other head decided to clear a path for himself and slow down the opposition in one move, so he slammed his foot down and the whole corridor was immediately covered in ice. Students that started close to him had their feet frozen along with the ground, which immobilised them, while the participants in the back had to slowly crawl through the ice, as to not injure themselves.

Of course not all of the participants were taken care of that easily. Yaoyorozu created a pair of skates to traverse the traitorous terrain. Iida used his Quirk to perform a wallrun. Ojiro used his tail to bounce off of the ice, similar to Mineta, who used his Pop-offs (I couldn't find a better way to avoid writing that he used his balls) as jump pads.

Midoriya however took more of a passive approach. He decided to follow who he guessed were the General Course students and slowly crawled across the ice. He has watched nearly every Sports Festival since he turned six and there was not a single year where being the best in the first event didn't have any extra aspect to it in the next one.

And so, his strategy was simple. Get into the top twenty. He knew that he could do better than that, but he didn't want to attract unnecessary at the time attention.

"It seems that our participants have already made their way towards the first obstacle! You know, you hate them, it's the Zero Pointers from the Entrance Exam and the Robo Inferno!", this years commentator, Present Mic, yelled into the microphone in his booth.

"Zero Pointers? As in multiple?!", Midoriya shrieked internally as he recalled his first encounter with the behemoths of steel.

"Wow, would you look at that?! It seems Todoroki is in a rush to the first place, because with an amazing show of strength he takes care of all of the Zero Pointers!", Yamada yelled a few moments later.

"Looks like overkill to me", a second, much more deadpan voice sounded through the speakers.

"How did they manage to get mister Aizawa into this?! Shouldn't he be like napping or something?", the collective Hive Mind that was 1-A thought at the same time.

It took Midoriya a few seconds of running and jumping up to Double Acceleration to get to the obstacle mentioned by the commentators. True to their word, the Zero Pointers were frozen by one giant glacier. Though without Todoroki around the ice has already started to melt.

Right as he reached the obstacle, one of the robots managed to free itself from the glacier, sending massive chunks of ice towards the participants on the ground.

"Ah shit", the green haired student muttered. "Triple Acceleration!", he shouted before grabbing the two unaware participants beside him and making a mad dash forward.

"What the hell man?!", a purple haired student yelled as they stopped almost fifty meters from where they started. Just as he was done shouting, the chunks of ice fell down and a realisation seemed to dawn itself onto the student. "I-I didn't even see that it started moving again…", he admitted and averted his gaze.

"To be honest I expected a reaction like that", Midoriya admitted as his augments shifted back into the comfortable 'second gear' so to speak. "You guys alright?"

"Yeah", groaned the second student as he slowly raised himself off the ground. "Why did I even agree to participate?", he wailed and ran off.

"Thanks to you", the purple haired teen said and introduced himself. "Name's Hitoshi Shinso and you?"

"Izuku Midor-", and his eyes became covered with fog.

Suddenly he was no longer on the Obstacle Course. Instead he found himself in Nana's mental room, on her black couch that he swore he saw somewhere before, but couldn't quite figure out where.

"Um, how did you get here?", she asked from the other side of the couch as she lowered her book.

"I… don't know actually. Can you check what's going on?"

The woman only groaned and set her book down before closing her eyes for a second.

"It seems that there's someone else behind the wheel", she answered as she opened her eyes. "Maybe it's the guy currently on your back? Do you know what his Quirk is?"

"I have no idea. We just met", Midoriya said not at all phased that his body was giving someone a piggyback ride.

"Well, it looks like he has some sort of mind control Quirk. We can still see and hear like usual so it must've just taken control over the body", Nana analyzed as they brainstormed.

"Seems like a valid explanation, but… now that we know what happened, how do we break the spell?", he asked, but didn't get an answer, because Todoroki and Bakugo arrived at the next obstacle.

"If you are afraid of heights, then better don't look down! Welcome to, The Fall!", Present Mic yelled so loud, that Izuku covered his ears on instinct, despite being in the mental room.

"You can always try the door", the black haired woman proposed as she opened her book once again.

"It can't be that easy…", mumbled Midoriya and stepped out through the wooden door into the void plains of his mind. And then he got blinded by a sudden flash of white. Once he opened his eyes he was back on track, with the passenger still on his back. "It was that easy!"

"Looks like we are getting to the second obstacle…", the purple haired teen stated in a hushed voice. "Slow down", he ordered seemingly unaware that he no longer had control over the Hero Course student.

Midoriya smirked and sped up, pushing his Double Acceleration all the way to its limits.

"I said slow down", Shinso's voice was firmer this time, but Izuku noticed a bit of dread in it.

They were getting really close to The Fall as Present Mic labeled it and Midoriya showed no notion of slowing down.

Shinso looked forwards to see what they were running into. Suffice to say that the sight of a seemingly bottomless pit that was traversable via the numerous cables strung between the stone columns wasn't very optimistic to look at in his opinion.

"Oi, wake up!", he shouted and slapped the green haired student on the chest, trying to free him from his Quirk.

"Good to know how to counter his Quirk if he uses it on someone else", Midoriya noted to himself before deciding to mess with the guy a bit. "It's not quite polite to mind control someone without permission", he said with as much smugness in his voice as he could muster.

"I'm sorry, okay?! Can we first make sure that we won't fall to our death?!", the teen yelled into his ear.

"Calm down, none of us is going to die today. At least not now. Quadruple Acceleration!", the green haired student shouted and immediately cursed himself for skipping the last step in his Soft Cap. At least he could safely use the first three 'gears' without risking injuries thanks to his rigorous training before the festival.

Midoriya made sure to plant his feet firmly as he took the last few steps towards the cliff, he even activated his Quirk to make the jump even more eye catching.

"Well, there goes the 'not drawing unnecessary attention' plan", the Hero Course student thought to himself as in flash of yellow lightning he jumped.

"Is it a bird?! Is it a plane?! No, it's Izuku Midoriya from class 1-A jumping the canyon in one go! What are you feeding these kids Eraser?!", Present Mic yelled and Izuk suddenly felt many, many pairs of eyes following his every move as he soared through the air.

"The students are stocking the fridges in their respective dorms by themselves", Aizawa deflected the accusation just in time for his student to land safely on the other side of The Fall.

"You're one crazy motherfucker!", shouted Shinso, whose heart was about to leap out of his chest with year worth of adrenaline circulating within his body.

"Yes, yes I am. Now, are we going to win this or what?", the green haired student turned his head to look the General Course student in the eyes, waiting for his reply.

"Let's go, partner", the purple haired participant ordered with a smirk.

"Bold of you to assume that we are partners", Midoriya shot back before breaking into a sprint.

"As you can see, there is no video footage provided for the last obstacle as to not spoil the surprise!", Midnight's cheerful voice stated as the live feed stopped following the participants and focused on the finish line of the first event.

"Judging by the few explosions that we've just heard, it seems that most of our participants have made their way over to the last obstacle, The Minefield!", commentated excitedly Present Mic.

"It's just a minefield, you don't have to hype it up so much"

"The final obstacle is a perfect place to catch up, since it forces the leaders to slow down and clear a path for the other students by detonating the mines if they are careless!", yelled the Voice Hero, completely ignoring his co-hosts remark.

"I think that our participants are on the final stretch!", shouted Midnight as four silhouettes became visible at the long end of the tunnel that led into the stadium.

"Oi Shinso, you want to get into the Hero Course, right?", Midoriya asked out of the blue as he slowly caught up to Todoroki and Bakugo.

"Yeah, I tried the Entrance Exam, but you can't exactly mind control a robot, you know?", Hitoshi answered with bitterness in his voice.

"Do you think that placing first in the first event will be enough to get you into the Hero Course?", Izuku asked with a smirk.

"I don't think it'll be enough to land me a spot on its own, but it will surely be a big plus, probably"

"I've made my mind then", the green haired student as he grabbed Shinso's arm and flung him forward like a spear. "I'll make you a hero!"

Hitoshi didn't know whether to be thankful for the chance or angry at being thrown like a bag of potatoes, so he simply looked back and smiled. Not smirked or grinned, but genuinely smiled. He didn't do it for so long, that even this simple gesture almost hurt, but he didn't care about that.

"Hitoshi Shinso is the winner of the Obstacle Race!", that statement was what he cared about. Now, he almost felt bad for brainwashing Midoriya like he did.

The General Course student looked back to see several students cross the finish line, before the green, unruly hair of his partner came into view. In the end, Izuku finished in tenth place, but he wouldn't have it any other way, when he saw Shinso's smile.

Have you ever seen Hitoshi win the Obstacle Race?! Huh?! Am I not the greatest?! Well, I'm one hell of a unit, but that's not thep point.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I'll see you all in the next one! ;D