Chapter Twenty-Eight: Class 1-A and the Sports Festival Part 1: Race for the Win! "Gooooood morning, Japan! This is Present Mic, your host with the most, coming at you live from this year's U.A. Sport's Festival First Year Stage! For the twenty-fifth year running, I'm joined by Pro-Hero and Class 1-A Homeroom teacher, Eraserhead! Say hello to the people, Eraser!"
"How do I always get talked into this?"
"Midnight says she had it written into your contract!"
"Hn."
"So anything you can tell us about this year's crop of competitors?"
"The same thing I say every year. Never underestimate anyone."
"Good advice! And here come the first years now…"
Toshi stood with the rest of his class as the opening ceremony began. Sixteen students in each of the three Hero courses, twenty students in each of the three Support, Business and Management, and General Studies courses for a total of two hundred twenty-eight competitors. Only forty-two of which would get past the first round, and then only sixteen of those forty-two would get to the tournament round. It made for incredibly stiff competition. Though typically, the Business and Support students did not try very hard to get into the other rounds, instead using either Halftime Show or the School Festival to show off their respective talents. Though occasionally, one did make it.
It was the General Studies students you really had to watch out for. While many of them were quite happy with where they were and changes to the Entrance Exam meant people with more diverse Quirks had a better shot at getting into the Hero Course… there were still plenty of them who were eager to move up. And Toshi honestly wished them well. He'd heard Uncle Shinso talk about his own transition to the Hero Course often enough over the years. People should be able to follow their dreams. But that didn't mean he wasn't going to try his hardest to win all the same.
This year's first-year Chief Referee was Riza Arakawa, Hawkeye, their English teacher. From what Grandpa Might had said, they'd had a more narrow body of teachers to select from for the job this year, since three of the teachers—Grandpa Might, Figure Sk8 (the Twins and Izumi's aunt), and Hopper (Asuka's uncle)—were all related to students in the first year and they wanted to avoid any possible implication of impropriety.
She stood on the platform in her costume, which resembled a blue-military uniform, albeit one with a fairly tiny miniskirt, pistols hanging from her hips. She was an intense blonde woman with piercing blue-eyes and a Quirk which granted her super-human accuracy with anything shot or thrown. "And now," Hawkeye said, "the student who scored the highest on the Entrance Exam will now give our opening declaration. Will Kana Tetsutetsu please come to the stage?"
A cheer went up among the Hero Course students, none louder than Katsumi, though Toshi could hear plenty of cheers from Mineta and Koda, as well as the Class 1-B students pretty loudly as well. Toshi himself, along with Katsumi, Izumi, the Iida Twins, and Shiro Monoma had all gotten in as Recommendation Students, rendering them ineligible for such an honor. But Tetsutetsu certainly deserved it. She was as strong and fast and skilled as anybody he had known, with the heart of a true hero.
The redhead from Class 1-B took to the stage. "I just want to say," she began, "that I hope everyone brings their A-game to this contest! Show us… show the world… your Manly or Wo-Manly best! Just by being here, at U.A., we have already taken a tremendous first step in proving ourselves. But as the future Heroes of tomorrow, we owe it to ourselves and our competitors to leave nothing on the table! In the spirit of sportsmanship and friendly competition… let's all GO BEYOND!" She brought her right arm up, hand in a fist, as she converted it from flesh to steel. "PLUS ULTRA!"
"PLUS ULTRA!"
Thunderous applause went up from the students and the crowd. Toshi had heard longer speeches and he'd heard shorter ones. But Tetsutetsu's had been straight to the point, encouraging, and reminding them all that this was supposed to be a friendly competition. Exactly the kind of thing it should do. Unifying, rather than divisive.
He looked over at the rest of his class. "Okay," he said. "First event's coming up. Everybody ready? Just like we planned it?"
Katsumi rolled her eyes. "Yes, Toshi. You've only been over it a dozen times already. We know what we've got to do. You and your "buddy system.'"
Izumi touched her arm. "It is a good plan, Katsumi," she said. "It gives our whole class the best chance to advance to the next round."
"Yeah, yeah," Katsumi groused.
Toshi stole a glance at the VIP boxes around the stadium. He knew his parents were up there somewhere, and so were Katsumi's, Izumi's, and a few others. Grandma Inko was up with Grandpa Might in the teacher's box too.
Lots of eyes on all of them. He was really going to have to do his best.
Time to Go Beyond!
Katsumi would never actually tell him, but Toshi's plan for the race segment was actually pretty smart. Over half the class—Toshi himself, the Twins, Sero, the Newb, Tokyami, Shoji, Mineta, and Izzy—all had Quirks or physical attributes that could vastly aid in mobility in some fashion. So Toshi had come up with a plan to pair them up with each other, complimenting Quirks where he could, so that they all had a better chance of making it to the next round. She had, of course, insisted on being paired with Izzy.
Izzy could travel around by means of ice slides, but even with her regulator rig, she'd have to let loose with a lot of fire to manage absorbing that much heat. Katsumi wasn't fireproof by any means, but her Quirk did mean she had a small amount of heat resistance. Besides… it meant she could watch Izzy's back. She could risk a few burns for that.
And… her own Quirk wasn't good for getting around. Dad could propel himself with his explosions, but her Quirk was different. She was in great shape and could parkour with the best of them, but that didn't do a lot of good with people who could fly or gravity jump or anything like that. She hated to admit it, but her Quirk wasn't suited for the race. She'd give it her all in any case, but she knew she'd need help if she was going to make it. If her Quirk had taken after her biological mother's… well, maybe she'd have had a better chance. But she had what she had.
The admission stung her, even unvocalized. She hated admitting weakness of any kind. Papa always said knowing your limits (while still trying to surpass them) was very (Wo)-manly… but, well, sometimes she had too much of Dad in her.
As they gathered near the starting line, she did her best to clear her mind and give Izzy a reassuring look. "We've got this, Izz," she said. "You and me. Same as always."
Izzy smiled at her in return, and she felt her heart flutter for a moment. Maybe Izzy didn't love her the way she loved Izzy. And maybe she still wasn't over her, not by a long shot. But that smile could always make her feel like she could take on the world, if she was doing it for Izzy.
"The same as always," Izzy said.
A hush fell over the crowd and the students, as Hawkeye called for quiet. "The first event is an old but highly regarded traditional one… the Obstacle Course! All you have to do is make it to the end and past the hazards! We know we have a number of flight Quirks this year, so it is requested that you fly no more than nine meters above the track! You may use your Quirks against any hazard you encounter… but not against your fellow competitors! Anyone caught violating this rules will be ejected from the tournament!"
She drew a flare gun from the holster on her left hip. "Runners… on your mark…"
Isamu's heart was pounding in his chest. Dressed in his gym uniform, he'd petitioned and received permission to use the gloves, goggles, and bandanna from his costume, as necessary and protective gear for when using his Quirk. At Toshi's suggestion, he'd been partnered with Mika Mineta for the race. While she had a good hoof-speed of her own, he was a lot faster. And between her horns acting like a battering ram and being able to use him as a gunnery platform for the sticky balls she could fire from them, he had to admit, it actually made a kind of sense.
"I dunno how I feel about riding you in front of all these people, Haimawari. Seems like that kind of thing ought to be more private."
Man, was he grateful his gear hid how red he was getting.
"Get set…" Hawkeye continued, "go!" She fired the flare gun, lighting up the sky.
He dropped instantly to all fours and grunted as Mineta landed on his back. She was heavier than she looked. Her legs (boy, those were muscular) squeezed his sides. "Hiyo, Haimawari!"
"And they're off," the voice of Present Mic says, cutting through the din of everyone. "Class 1-A takes an early lead, looking like they're all in this together, but everyone else is close behind! "And it looks like we have a… winner? Jin Ando of General Studies Class 1-E! How…?!"
Aizawa's voice cut in. "His student file says he's a long range teleporter. That can't possibly be in the spirit of this event."
"I guess we'll just leave that one to the judges! In the meantime, everybody keep it up! Second place is still on the line!"
First place already gone? He rocketed forward, darting around some of the other competitors. Around him, he could see Izumi climbing upwards on an ice-platform, Kirishima-Bakugo's arms wrapped tightly around her midsection. Toshi was bouncing in long gravity jumps, carrying Shinso in his arms. Sero, with Sato clinging to his back, fired a long strand of tape, grabbing onto one of the floating cameras and pulling himself into the air. Tokoyami rose into the air, carried by Frog-Shadow, while Koda rode on the familiar's back. The Twins, with the wing-harnesses from their costumes, rose into the air, each carrying one of their classmates; Aoyama with Tensei and Kaminari with Sora. Shoji moved like some kind of giant spider on his Extendo-Arms, Ojiro carried in his normal ones.
Around them, other students flew or sped or ran, whatever their physicality and Quirks would allow.
Haimawari picked up his speed, yet knowing he needed to pace himself. But speed was important here… he had to be one of the forty-two to make it.
Chihiro was trembling in Iida's arms, her own wrapped around her body. She'd been unprepared for the sudden feeling of acceleration that accompanied being carried by Iida, to say nothing of the fact that she was apparently not that great with heights and learning it at the absolute worst possible moment.
They were hardly the only students in the air, though. There was Sora's brother, carrying Aoyama, and she could spy the comet girl from 1-C who had crashed into their dorm during the first week of school. A bat-like boy from 1-C flapped beside them and a behind them there was a butterfly-winged girl from General Studies fluttered through the air. There was even a boy from 1-B who had inflated himself like a beach ball and was bouncing almost as good as Toshi did with his gravity jobs.
"And now they're coming up on the first obstacle!" came the voice of Present Mic. "Courtesy of Power Loader and the Third Year Support students, get ready for something you've never seen before! You're heard of One-Pointers, Two-Pointers, Three-Pointers, and even Zero-Pointers, now feast your eyes on Minus One-Pointers!"
"Minus One?" Iida asked, bringing them a little closer to the ground. Below, she could see the pack on the ground was being led by Haimawari and a female student from 1-C who instead of feet, had their legs joined in a singular wheel. Izumi and Kirishima-Bakugo, on one of Izumi's ice slides, weren't far behind, with Izumi shooting the occasional blast of flame into the air.
"Beats me," Chihiro said.
She didn't have long to wait. Even though the track remained clear, dozens of panels opened up in the ground and small robots, their main body barely bigger than an American football, with high spinning rotors and small claws, emerged. Moving quickly, they began to swarm the students.
"Keep flying!" she told Iida. "I'll keep the path clear!"
"Roger!"
Chihiro extended both of Cords, sending a charge of electricity through both. Each one struck out and pierced the side of a drone, giving her a little bit of purchase. The electricity disabled them and she tossed each one into another drone, which exploded in showers of sparks. She quickly retracted her Cords, then shot then out again, spark-smashing her way through more.
"Ugh!" Sora cried out in pain as a drone got past Chihiro, ramming into her side. She lost her grip and Chihiro let out a scream as she began to fall. But she shot out her Cords again, wrapping each one around the body of a drone.
"AAAAH!" Chihiro screamed, certain her Cords were going to rip from her head. Each one could lift maybe 10 kilograms on a good day. They definitely weren't supposed to be used to support her full body weight or even half that. She had maybe a few seconds before she had to let go or she was going to black out from the pain.
A body slammed into her and she found herself in Sora's arms again. "I must apologize," she said. "I was caught off-guard! It took me longer than I expected to free myself from the swarm!"
Chihiro retracted her cords, hoping she wouldn't be too sore to keep going. "Just keep flying!"
Fortunately, it looked like many others were having the same trouble. She could even see several students from the non-Hero courses who were signaling that they were giving up and were being pulled out by the medical robots.
She was determined not to be one of those.
With the constant up and down of Takuma's tape-swinging, Kenta was pretty sure he was going to throw up.
"Oh, man, we are gonna die!" Takuma wailed. He was actually doing better than most, since his Quirk was letting him just swing from robot to robot. Kenta's Quirk wasn't much good here, but he was able to take a bite out of a few drones that got too close. Toshi was definitely smart to have gotten them all to team-up. He'd have been happy to help his best friend out anyway… but really, he was the one getting help. His Quirk was one of the most useless here.
Fortunately, being the voice of reason was sometimes just as good as a Quirk. "Dude," he said to Takuma. "Calm down. I've got a plan. See those two robots down there…"
"Yeah?" Takuma asked, letting go of a strand of tape and sending the both of them sailing through the air.
"Snag both of them!" Kenta ordered. "And then reel us in! Land on them!"
"Are you crazy?"
"No! Crazy ideas are your department! I'm the sensible one! Grab something or we're going to crash!"
"Okay, okay! Quit yelling!"
Takuma fired off dual strands of tape, hooking a pair of robots and reeling the two of them in. His feet landed with a heavy thud, but the robots supported their weight. With his tape and strong arm muscles, Takuma was easily able to steer the robots through the swarm.
"WAHOOO!" Takuma let out a cheer. "You're brilliant, bro! Brilliant!"
"Remember that the next time I tell you something is a bad idea!"
"I make no promises!"
"And the first competitors are just now reaching the second stage! Time to find out who's got the goods, who doesn't, and who's a 'pillar' of our school!"
"…You didn't really make that pun, did you?"
"I think you'll find that I did!"
"How long were you planning that?"
"I don't have to answer that!"
Tensei wasn't sure what the second stage was, so he poured on the speed, Aoyama secure in his arms. The glowing blond had been invaluable during the robot-swarm of the first stage, blasting the robots right out of their path and letting him fly through without much difficulty. But now, he couldn't tell what was coming…
SHOOM!
A huge stone pillar shot up out of the ground and Tensei was forced to throw everything he had into flying upwards to avoid it, then rocketed backwards.
SHOOM!
More pillars shot up out of the ground, before falling back into their recessed holes. He quickly estimated their height and found that they were taller than limited flight ceiling the Festival rules allowed him.
SHOOM!
"Can we blast our way through?" Aoyama asked, charging up his light-blasts in his hands.
Tensei swooped in low, heading back to the rapidly appearing and disappearing pillars. "I do not believe so," he said. "Estimating thickness and material hardiness, you would have to expend significant power to blast your way through even one, likely leaving very little to blast through any subsequent ones…"
"You could have just said non, you know," Aoyama replied.
"I believe in providing all the necessary information," Tensei replied.
They were losing ground. He could see some of the other competitors maneuvering through the pillar maze, some of the other flying students going to ground. Others, like Haimawari were actually using the pillars, sliding up one and jumping to slide over the next. And others still were just charging through.
SHOOM!
But now, even though he had fallen behind, he believed he had witnessed enough of the pillars movement to commit their pattern to memory.
"Hang on!" he shouted to Aoyama. "TURBO… BOOST!"
He fired his Jetpack at full speed, shifting up just in time to avoid a pillar. Fire, move, shift, fire more shift… One pillar nearly clipped his wings, but he quickly recovered, firing a harder burst of his Quirk to avoid it.
Just a few more pillars and they'd be out of the maze…
SHOOM!
Shota screamed. Not from fear, he trusted Toshi as his partner in the race to protect him, but to hold up his end of the partnership. It was a fast, high-pitched sound, striking the pillar ahead of them and making it shimmer as this sonic effect accelerated the molecules of the pillar for a moment. Just long enough for Toshi to jump them through it. He definitely couldn't do that trick for very long, but he didn't have to either.
"Good job!" Toshi said. He bounced from pillar to pillar like a ping pong ball, rapidly shifting his gravity. Even carrying Shota, he could keep up a good pace. "Give me the signal when you're ready for the next one!"
SHOOM!
Toshi jumped back, narrowly avoiding a rising pillar. But he stepped too far back and…
SHOOM!
A pillar shot up under Toshi's right foot, launching them both into the air. Shota felt himself slip from Toshi's grasp and this time he screamed for real as he went first up, then back down towards the still hammering pillars. But even as he did, he called on his Quirk, hammering the pillar coming up at him with sonic waves. Like he'd done during the Quirk Apprehension Test, he affected the state of the pillar's matter, turning it into rippling waves. He kept it up as he fell, pushing more power into it, into the air itself. The air rippled before him, but slowed his fall.
SHOOM!
Toshi fell too, but he was more used to falling from great heights than Shota and recovered quickly, altering his gravity first to stop his upward ascent, then slowing his fall until he could do a gravity-assisted jump off another pillar.
"Gotcha!" Toshi said, as his next jump carried him to Shota, catching him in his arms. "You okay?"
"I'm fine!" Shota told him. "That was fun! Keep going!"
"We really gotta discuss your idea on fun, Shota," Toshi said, launching himself into the air again.
SHOOM!
"Wheeee!" Frog-Shadow cried out. "This is fun!"
"Can you just focus on us not getting smashed?!" Asuka demanded of her familiar. So far, Frog-Shadow had mostly been behaving herself, which was good. She knew she had a lot to live up to, after all, her father had placed third during his first Sports Festival. And while neither of her parents would be upset if she did not place, they would if she gave it less than her all. So she wanted to make as good a mark as she could.
Riding on top of Frog-Shadow, Koda tossed a handful of seeds into the pillar hole in front of them. Calling upon her Quirk, the stony-girl made them grow rapidly, filling the hole with choking vines and keeping the pillar from rising. For a moment, at least. She could already hear the sounds of vines snapping and urged Frog-Shadow onward.
"How are your supplies?" she asked Koda. "I don't want you to run out before the second event *chirp*."
"Do not worry," Koda said. "My request for my seed pouches for the Festival was quite generous. I have plenty more to spare and can resupply before the third leg, should providence shine upon me to bring me there."
"Good," Asuka said.
SHOOM!
Something grey flashed by, wrapping around a pillar, and Asuka saw Monoma from Class 1-B swing through, a move she was certain belong to their teacher, using something very much like Aizawa's capture scarf. He gave them a brief salute as he sailed by.
"I wish you all the luck, Akaya… But it is 1-B who shall prove the victors today!"
SHOOM!
Another pillar shot up and for a moment, it looked like Monoma was going to crash into it. But Koda shot out an arm as he sailed by and pulled him back.
"You were saying, Shiro?" she asked.
"Perhaps this event will make victors of us all?"
"…As good as I expect to get. Be safe, friend!" Koda let him drop to the ground, perhaps a little roughly, but no more than he deserved in the moment. They were in competition, after all.
"Onward!" Asuka shouted.
"I know, I know! It's not like I'm gonna go backwards!"
As they finally passed through the last of the pillars, Ojiro asked, "Can't you go any faster, Shoji? We're falling behind!"
Daisuke shook his head. "I'm going as fast as I can," he said. Hand over hand, his Extendo-Arms keeping him up off the ground and moving at a brisk pace. Not as fast as those with speed or flight Quirks, or even Sero's swinging or Midoriya's gravity-jumps, but faster than those who relied on footspeed alone.
Not for the last time, he wondered how he'd managed to get paired up with Ojiro. He strongly suspected that Midoriya had simply run out of classmates by the time he'd gotten to them. That was all right, he supposed. He ought to have been annoyed by it, but he was used to fading into the background.
And, of course, he had to admit, Ojiro had come in very handy during the swarm of minus one-pointers. She'd simply turned the both of them invisible and they'd slipped through without issue. Other than the couple of students who had nearly run them over or run into them, but well, it got them through.
"Remember, we don't have to come in first… just in the first forty-two," he said. "Just get to the next round."
She smacked him upside the head with an invisible hand. "That's loser talk!"
"I can leave you behind, you know."
She jerked in his arms. "No! We have to work together! Midoriya said! I can't win this on my own! I get winded easy!"
Daisuke just rolled his eyes. Such a drama queen. Why was he cursed to be the sensible one? "Don't worry," he said. "We're a team. And that means nobody gets left behind."
And now the final stage lay just ahead…
"And the first students are starting to make it to the third stage! In the lead are Haimawari, Mineta, Todoroki, and Kirishima-Bakugo from Class 1-A, and Aoki from Class 1-C! But they've got plenty of competition coming in from behind! Tetsutetsu from Class 1-B, Tanaka from Class 1-C, and…"
So they were close to the lead, with Isamu and Mineta ahead of them and the wheeled girl from 1-C close behind. A slim margin, but one she could hopefully maintain.
Izumi was beginning to tire. Even releasing steady streams of fire, her regulator bands were blinking bright orange, verging on red. But the finish line was so close.
Katsumi had done an amazing job of protecting her, breaking off shards of their ice slide and turning them into deadly explosive projectiles. She'd been able to assist in their defense as well, with her flame blasts. It felt… good. She was actually accomplishing something, going farther than she had ever gone before. She didn't dare imagine she'd win, but for a moment, she believed she might place.
"You okay, Iz?" Katsumi asked. She herself sounded fairly winded, but her determination came through clearly.
"Managing," she admitted.
Her ice slide ate up the distance quickly though and soon the third stage was upon them.
She hadn't been expecting that. Not in a million years.
"Oh…!"