Their Hero Academia – Chapter 30: The Sports Festival Part 3: Koharu Kocho – The Mothgirl Prophecies
Down at the White Team's end of the field, Koharu Kocho was trying her best not to have a panic attack. She'd made it to the second round of the Sports Festival! Her dream of being a Hero was actually one step closer, assuming she didn't mess it up somehow now. She just needed to get to the third stage and show everyone what she could do.
She didn't dare dream of placing, beyond making it to the Tournament Round. Not against full-fledged Hero Course students, not in one-on-one fights like that. She'd done plenty of training on her own since before the first day of school and even practiced fighting against some of her friends, practiced until she felt like her wings were ready to fall off. She'd even managed to completely deplete her "scales" once and it had taken several days for them to fully regenerate. But they had much more intensive training than anything she could come up with. It would probably be like a civilian trying to take on a Pro.
No! She couldn't think like that. She had to have more confidence than that! She wanted a spot in the Hero Course so bad. Her Moth Quirk was more than good enough. It had nearly gotten her into the Hero Course to begin with…
There were lots of students in the General Education Courses who didn't like the Hero Course students. There were even some who hated them, especially this year, where so many of the Hero Course students were the children of Pro Heroes. So many of the General Education classes felt the Hero Course students were spoiled and entitled. Koharu wasn't one of those. If things had gone a little differently, she'd have been one of them.
She'd taken the Entrance Exam. Her Quirk had many more applications than it looked at first glance—most people incorrectly assumed all she could do was fly—and had even managed to score around twenty points. But that's where it had all gone wrong. She'd been doing well, taking out one and two-pointers with her String Shot and Wing-Scales when she'd heard an ominous clang behind her.
She'd turned just in time to see a gigantic three-pointer being knocked over a girl with metal arms, who she now recognized as the high-score winner of the Entrance Exam, Kana Tetsutetsu. Momentarily paralyzed with fear, she'd barely been able to keep it from crushing her as it came crashing down. Even then, she'd gotten smacked by it and had been sent crashing into a wall. She'd cracked her head and blacked out.
She'd come to in the Infirmary, after the Exam was over. She was proud of what she'd scored, but it was well below the threshold of what she'd needed to be admitted to the Hero Course. But she'd pushed on, applied to the General Education course, and been accepted to that. It was well known that if you did well enough in the Sports Festival, you might have a chance at getting in to the Hero Course. So that was what she'd planned to do.
And now, she was one step-closer. Sure, she'd come in thirty-sixth, but that still beat out forty-third. The Tetsutetsu girl had made it too, of course, scoring much higher than she had. But Koharu didn't hold her any ill will. The Entrance Exam hadn't really been her fault. Even still, some part of her wondered if she could manage to take Tetsutetsu out during this round.
Figure Sk8, the science teacher for the Hero and Support courses (the General Education courses had Pro-Heroes for teachers as well, but theirs tended to be older and semi or fully retired), was handing out strange metal disks. She stopped in front of Koharu and handed one to her. "Just place it somewhere on your torso," she said, flipping a strand of white hair out of her eyes. "It'll stick on its own, just press the two buttons. Just be sure it's somewhere comfortable. It won't come off without a special signal. Got it?"
Koharu nodded, setting her feathery antenna to bobbing. She took the disk and placed it on her shoulder, pressing the two buttons. The device gave a small hum and adhered there easily. She wondered what it was for. Probably something to do with whatever Quirkball was.
Speaking of which, it looked like they were going to explain it. The crowd was going quiet as Hawkeye called for silence. Her image was projected on one of the big screens, while another showed points matching up their names and positions in the race. Her large eyes traced their way to her own name. Thirty-Five points. Two hundred ten points for the first place finisher, someone from one of the Hero Courses. And only five points for the last place finisher, another Hero Course kid.
Was it bad that she took some small measure of satisfaction in beating out at least a few Hero Course kids? Maybe. But she should be able to take pride in her accomplishments. And this certainly was one.
Hawkeye began speaking. "The rules for Quirkball are simple. The area has been split into two halves, the blue half and the white half. You are can travel anywhere in, under, or above your half, but you are not to cross the center line. The height limit from the Obstacle Course event for fliers remains in effect. When the event starts, we'll be releasing a number of balls into the arena. You'll use these, in conjunction with your Quirks and skills, to take out the other competitors. Each of you has been assigned a number of "life points", based upon your place in the first event. If you are hit with a ball, the sensors we have attached to you will record it and deduct five of those life points. If all your life points have been deducted, then you are eliminated. The event will continue until only sixteen competitors remain."
The teacher and Pro-Hero continued, "No deliberate headshots. If you're able to catch the ball, then it doesn't deduct from your score. Boundary lines have been marked on the outside edges of your half; if you cross these deliberately or accidentally, then you'll be eliminated. If you're knocked out of bounds, then you'll have five seconds to return to bounds or be eliminated. To insure you keep moving, balls with detonate if held longer than thirty seconds and reduce your points. Any questions?"
Sheesh, they weren't fooling around with this, were they? So… thirty-five points. Which meant she could only get hit six times and stay in the game. That wasn't a great margin for error there. Especially since her wings made her a big target. Unlike someone with, say, feathery wings, hers didn't really fold up much. She'd just have to do the best she could.
Hawkeye finished up. "We'll give you ten minutes to strategize with your team captains, then the event will begin."
"Omigosh! Your wings are so cute!" Koharu turned to the source of the girlish, giggly voice, finding an empty, animated gym uniform standing next to a pink-skinned boy. Both were from the Hero course, though, Koharu realized that she'd actually placed higher than the invisible girl. The invisible girl was bouncing excitedly, while the pink-skinned boy looked rather embarrassed by her.
"Sorry about her," the boy said, rolling his dark eyes. "But Kimiko said she just had to come see you."
The invisible gym uniform gave the boy a smack on the arm. He winced and rubbed the spot. "Stop it, Takuma! You make me sound like some creepy stalker!"
"You were talking about how you wanted a t-shirt with the same pattern!"
Okay, this was getting a little awkward. "Uh… thanks?" Koharu tried. "I'm Koharu Kocho."
"Takuma Sero," the pink boy said.
"Kimiko Ojiro," the invisible girl added. "Maybe you've heard of us? Seen our webshows?"
Not just Hero students then. Second-generation Hero students. She recognized both of those names. She hadn't heard of the two of the two of them, but the names of their parents were certainly recognizable. Koharu shook her head. "Sorry," she said. "I don't really watch many webshows."
Both visibly deflated. "Well," Sero said, "maybe check it out sometimes? Kimiko's got a gossip show, my buddy Kenta eats stuff, and I do this thing where I jump off of really tall stuff and save myself with my tape. Getting lots of views."
Koharu shrugged, a gesture made more exaggerated by her wings. "I'll give it a look," she said. It was the polite thing to do, anyway. Worst thing that could happen was she'd end the video a little ways in.
"Hey!" an angry voice shouted. "All of you shut up!" The source of that voice was a short, muscular blonde with spikey hair. "Sound off, all of you! Quirks! I need to know what we're working with!"
"You know what our Quirks are!" Sero shouted back.
The blonde—Kirishima-Bakugo, she realized—shot back with an angry glare. "Of course I do!" she growled, but pointed at the others gathered around. "But I don't know theirs! And they don't know yours either!"
Quickly, the White Team rattled off their Quirks, sometimes giving a little more explanation. There were actually a bunch of really useful ones, her own included! Between her, Mineta and Koda from Class 1-A, along with Dashi from Class 1-B (who could speed up, slow down, or stop objects and people), they had a pretty good chance of restraining people from the other team long enough for them to be eliminated.
Finally, a tone sounded, indicating that they had a minute until the event began.
"All right," Kirishima-Bakugo growled. "You all know what to do! Do not blow this or I'll kick your asses! And if I see any of you going after Izumi Todoroki…"
"Izumi wouldn't want any special treatment," the blonde with the weird cords hanging from her ears said.
"Just do it!"
The need to get away from the explosive girl gave them all speed as they got into position. And then the balls dropped.
"Haaack!" Koharu spat a blob of sticky silk from her mouth, down towards one of the Blue Team competitors on the other side of the field, an imposingly massive boy with four extra arms coming out of his back. It impacted against him with a wet-sounding splat, pinning those arms to his side. With as much force as she could muster, she threw a ball at him, allowing herself a small smile of satisfaction as it impacted against him. He wasn't out of the game, but at least she'd scored a hit!
Across both sides of the arena, all manner of Quirks were being put into action. She saw a blond boy on the Blue team throw a ball just like a professional baseball player. It sailed across to the other side, smacking into the glowing boy on her team. She didn't hear what the thrower said, but the gesture he made looked awfully rude.
The Blue Team's captain was just as fast as he'd been on during the race. With one hand on the ground and the other holding a ball, he'd race to the center line and let the ball go, putting all his speed behind it, before zipping back to the far corner. It flew fast and took the boy from the Hero Course with the spring-legs out of the match. First full elimination to the other side then.
There were plenty of other people in the air, not just her. On her side, there was Tanaka, a girl who flew by engulfing herself in flames like a comet. On the other, there were two kids, a boy and a girl, flying through some kinds of engines coming out of their backs, a massive humanoid bat, and a green-haired boy who was floating. The later, she was pretty sure was Deku's kid. Not too many other people he could be, with that hair and the gravity thing.
Below, one of the other Blue Team members stretched his body like a sling, then fired off a ball into the air. Koharu let out a shriek as it nearly hit her, barely dropping from the air in time. Unfortunately, this put her right in the crosshairs for another one, a frail looking girl with white and red hair, who propelled the ball along with a blast of flame. It smacked into her shoulder, knocking her back. Looking down, she could see that the counter now displayed on the disk had changed to a thirty.
She could only take five more hits and stay in the game now. She had to be better than this.
Koharu flapped her wings, releasing some of the "scales" there, a cloud of blue-ish purle powder. She could release a lot of different powders with different effects and here she chose a paralytic. On a turbulent battlefield like this, all her powders carried some risk. She was immune to them, but others weren't. If the wind should change, she might well take out her teammates instead. At least for the moment, though, she was able to paralyze a couple of the Blue Team closest to the dividing line, a burly centaur and a girl with large antlers. She quickly grabbed a loose ball throwing it at the girl first. It bounced off hard, striking the centaur too.
"Hii-yaaa!" A ball came sailing at her at high speed, propelled by the Tetsutetsu girl, her metal arm giving him incredible throwing power. It struck Koharu dead center, knocking her back, and sending her skidding across the ground.
"Her?" she said. "Again?" First the Entrance Exam and now here? It was getting a lot harder not to have hard feelings about the whole thing…
"Hey!" She looked up to see a purple-haired boy offering her a hand up. "You okay?"
She accepted his help, getting to her feet. "Getting there," she said.
"Good!" the boy said. "You're doing great! We'll get you in the Hero Course, I just know it!"
What. How could he possibly…? But there was no time for questions as he deflected a barrage of balls with some kind of wall of solids-sound generated by his screaming. Time to get her head back in the game.
"This is it, folks! Seventeen competitors left in the game! One more person gets eliminated, and then we're on the Tournament Round! Who's it gonna be? What do you think, Eraser?"
"I keep telling you, Mic, it's anyone's game. You and I know better than anyone that anything can happen. Speculating like that is just an illogical waste of breath."
"Are you saying one of your kids is gonna break all their bones again?"
"They'd better not."
Seventeen left: nine on the Blue Team and eight on the White. On Koharu's side were herself, Kirishima-Bakugo (who'd been screaming and yelling and setting off explosions of often she was surprised she wasn't deaf or hoarse), the girl with the hooves and horns, the pale girl with the fangs, the girl with the traffic light, the cartoon girl, Ojiro, and Sero. On the other side, there was the zippy Team Captain, the white and red-haired girl, the girl with the wheel, Tetsutetsu, the flying blue-black haired girl, the green-haired floaty kid, the girl with the bird head who'd called up some green glowing creature, a guy with force fields, and the sneering blond boy.
At least she was still in the game. She only had five life points left. A slim, desperate margin. She had to make sure she wasn't hit, wasn't taken out of the game. She had to make it.
"Haaack!" she spat out another sticky blob of silk, hitting the wheeled girl from the Hero Course and knocking her to the ground, her wheel spinning uselessly. Koharu groped for a ball…
But in the end, it didn't matter. Kirishima-Bakugo let out another feral roar, using an explosion to propel a ball at rapid speed towards the sneering blond. The blond executed a kick flip that reminded Koharu of something she'd once seen Tailman do in an old video. The ball went sailing back over the dividing line and smacked hard into Sero, knocking him down to the ground. He took what looked like a pretty nasty bump to the head too.
"Takuma!" Ojiro cried out, rushing to his side. "Talk to me! Are you okay? Speak to me! How many fingers am I holding up?!"
Sero just started laughing at the question. "You ever listen to yourself, Kimiko? How'm I supposed to answer that? I'm fine. I'm just out of points."
She gave him a smack upside the head before getting to her feet. "Fine! See if I care about you again!"
And with that, a tone sounded.
"And that's game!" came the voice of Present Mic. "Forty-Two entered, sixteen left! Let's take a look at the scoreboard and see who's left! We've ranked our competitors by number of life points left!"
Koharu was tired. It had been maybe fifteen minutes, maybe a little more, but with the obstacle course having been just before that, it had taken a lot out of her. She'd thought she was in pretty good shape… but maybe she wasn't.
Then again, it looked like the white and red-haired girl who'd been doing all the fire and ice was leaning pretty heavily on the Blue Team's captain. So she wasn't the only one a little worn out. She watched for a moment as Kirishima-Bakugo bolted across the field to their side, offering some additional support and shooting the wiry captain a dirty look. She didn't have a clue what was going on there.
She turned to look at the big board, pulling some of her blue-purple hair back and out of her eyes.
Kana Tetsutetsu - Points: 110
Asuka Tokoyami - Points: 100
Toshinori Midoriya - Points: 95
Sora Iida - Points: 90
Katsumi Kirishima-Bakugo Points: 85
Izumi Todoroki - Points: 85
Isamu Haimawari - Points: 80
Sasuke Kido - Points: 70
Yui Aoki - Points: 65
Kimiko Dashi - Points: 50
Mika Mineta - Points: 45
Yoru Kan - Points: 30
Anime Fukidashi - Points: 15
Kimiko Ojiro - Points: 10
Koharu Kocho - Points: 5
Shiro Monoma - Points: 5
Tied for last with the sneering blond. Well, it was better than getting knocked out of the running entirely. Mogura, from her class, and the others from the other General Education classes had all been eliminated. They'd all had such hopes about making a splash at the Sports Festival. And she was the only one left. Did that make her their last, best hope? Or was she thinking too big, putting too much on herself? Maybe she needed to just focus on getting herself through.
Koharu stared at the scoreboard for a moment, putting names to faces. Monoma had pulled off a number of fancy moves during Quirkball. Moves that looked suspiciously like moves she'd seen Pro-Heroes and athletes use. Did he have some kind of copying Quirk? He had that Capture Cloth thing… but if she could stay out of his reach, she was certain she could beat him. Between her String Shot and her "Scales", plus simply being able to fly…
Koharu nodded to herself. She could pull this off. She could. Back home, she was sure her parents were watching. She hoped she could make them proud. They'd been nothing but supportive when she'd talked about going to U.A., even when she'd settled on her current path instead of just going to a different Hero School following the Entrance Exam. And her grandfather had been even more supportive, saying that he saw big things ahead for her.
Hawkeye walked out onto the field, facing the students. "We'll take a one hour break for lunch and then begin the Tournament Round. If you're not back in time, we'll move on without you. So if you don't want to lose your spot, I suggest you get back early."
"And that's break time, folks!" Present Mic's voice sounded out. "Get yourself some snacks and come back ready for full on Tournament Mayhem! Who's going to come out on top in this student battle royale? It's still anyone's game! I'm gonna go get a hot dog and then be back, ready to rummmmmmmmmmbbbbllllllllllllleeeeeeee! You want anything, Eraser?"
"Is peace and quiet too much to ask for?"
"I think you know the answer to that!"
As Koharu turned to go inside, someone stopped her.
"Hey." She turned and saw Monoma. "I know we're going to be fighting, but I just wanted to say good luck. Always good to see someone from Gen Ed take a shot at making it."
She tilted her head slightly. "You're messing with me, aren't you?"
He shook his head and raised a hand. "On my honor, I am not. A very good family friend once managed to do the same thing you're trying to do. And, well, you've seen my Quirk. I'm not so sure I'd have been able to pass the normal Entrance Exam."
So, he was Recommendation Student? That made the whole thing even stranger. She wasn't one of those Gen Eds who thought the Hero Students were looking down on them, but she hadn't expected that much actual sympathy either.
"Ah, thanks," she said.
"Besides," Monoma added. "As long as someone unseats some of those Class 1-A kids, I'll be happy. Even if it isn't me."
And that was even more strange. "I'll keep that in mind," she said, looking for an exit from this conversation.
"Good!" he said, clapping his hands together. "I've got a good feeling about you, Kocho. A good feeling indeed."