Chapter 16: What Is In Our Way?
"A cavalry battle, ok…" Midoriya muttered to himself, brain whirring as he tried to get his head around their next event.
The UA Sports Festival was always a hive of activity. With three years of classes to get through, the event was spread over three days. Since the first-years duked it out on day one, all the hype had been leading up to this, and the school did their best to spread the event out.
Round one was over, and Midoriya was relieved to see that it was indeed forty-two competitors that made it through to the second event. That meant they had all of class A, all of class B, Mei and Toga from class D, and Shinso from class C. Everyone else was out of the competition, which they probably didn't care much about.
The exhausted students were then given a break whilst the organisers set up for event two, and meanwhile leaked as much money from the audience as humanly possible, through stands, snacks, souvenirs and various other goods.
Midoriya could barely focus on the food during their lunch break. Whilst Uraraka spoke animatedly with Toga and Mei, Shoto sat beside Midoriya in supportive silence.
Now, they were back in the thick of it, given five minutes to separate into teams of between two and five, which would assemble to support one member, their team leader, on the top, with everyone else holding them up from underneath. They would wear headbands with various points on them, the higher up the ranks they got in the obstacle race, the more points the individual would be worth, and therefore the more valuable the headband. All they had to do was steal headbands from other teams, and the ones with the most points at the end would advance to the finals, simple enough. Only…
"And the points for first place…" Midnight grinned, "is ten million!"
Everyone fell silent.
– and Midoriya burst into laughter.
He – he was going to be worth ten million points! If the universe didn't hate him enough already!
Midnight clearly didn't expect this to be their reaction since all of class A was now laughing with Midoriya about his misfortune.
Clearing her throat, she announced that they now had some time to choose their teams and plan a strategy. She wished them luck in a way that seemed as though she was only addressing the hero course, and a large timer was displayed on the screens around the arena.
Midoriya wiped a tear from the corner of his eye, "Ok, ok – we've got to come up with a plan here."
Toga and Mei wandered over, waving at Uraraka excitably, who they seemed to get on with really well. Shinso wasn't far behind them.
He tapped Midoriya on the shoulder, "I'm either going to brainwash people to be on my team or somehow convince them with people skills that I don't have," he admitted. "And from the reaction you just had to the ten million thing, I can't help but think that you have a plan."
Midoriya faltered, "We'll see about that – ok, so, here's what's going to happen." He turned around and addressed the entire group, painfully aware that, not far away, class B was also gathering. "Class B is going to distribute their power across groups and one of those groups is going to be very heavy in terms of defence. An attack group will strike first to take the ten-million-point headband from me and give it to that defence group. The rest of the class B teams will then focus on removing all our headbands whilst we're focusing on the large points and put us out of commission by err… gluing us to the ground or surrounding us with quicksand – stopping us from moving. Only once we're unable to attack, will they turn the tables in the last few minutes and jostle between them all for the sixteen available spots in the final, so four of them will miss out."
They all stared at him.
He grinned and clapped his hands together, "And we are going to do almost exactly the same thing."
Mina raised her hand, "Err, what do you mean by almost?"
"We need to prioritise certain teams so that they definitely get through to the final," Midoriya sighed. "Sorry, but because of the deal with Nezu, I have to progress through. That's why Shinso's going to be on my team."
He blinked at him, "I am?"
"Yes – and the second team that definitely has to progress is Mei's and Toga's, since that was part of our deal with them."
They grinned and high-fived.
"Look, can I give you all my idea and then you can tell me if I should change it?" Midoriya asked nervously.
"I thought that was what we always did?" Iida frowned at him.
Midoriya ran a hand through his hair, "Oh, ok – um, so, I think Uraraka should join Toga and Mei and they should be a team of three."
"YES!" Uraraka cried, punching the sky – probably because that meant she definitely progressed to the finals, or maybe because she'd found a couple of new best friends. "I-I mean… yay?"
"And we need engine boy!" yelled Mei, pointing at Iida dramatically.
"…May I ask why?" Iida frowned.
"Ok, fine," Midoriya nodded, completely ignoring Iida. "Then we need to spread our power levels out efficiently amongst all the different groups. So… if you guys could just get into groups of two to four or five and we'll go from there."
There was immediately bubbles of excitable chatter as friends separated into groups and pushed each other around to different teams. Iida was immediately attacked by the three girls who'd essentially kidnapped him.
"Um… who's with us then?" Shinso asked.
Midoriya's expression did not change as he said, "I did not think of that."
Yaoyorozu spontaneously appeared at his side like some kind of fairy godmother, which Midoriya could totally see her being. "If I join the two of you to reach the finals," she said, "We may find ourselves in a fencing match in front of all these people."
Midoriya stared at her, "Yes."
So, now there were three people on his team.
Soon enough, when Midoriya looked up and saw Shoto standing amongst class A and just looking lost, Midoriya smiled, rolled his eyes and waved him over.
That made four.
Midoriya didn't need to do much to the teams that were made up afterwards. He did think that Kacchan's team, including him, Kirishima, Mina and Sero, was a little strong, but Kacchan was so fired up with the idea of defeating Jiro's team, who had this idea where she and light-weighted Tokoyami would sit on top of Shoji, as some kind of impenetrable fortress. Midoriya didn't have the heart to split them up, nor did he have a better idea.
Hagakure was also frighteningly excited for the event, and had picked the two, strong looking boys, Koda and Sato, to lift her up, and Aoyama to stand at the front to shoot people with lasers, which, to be honest, wasn't a bad idea either. The last team included Kaminari, who'd very dramatically been left out of Kacchan's team, and was singing songs about his loneliness as a joke, until he realised that Tsu and Ojiro had already decided that they were teaming with him.
"What happens if the top few teams don't make up the numbers right?" Tsu asked Midoriya. "If there are too few or too many?"
As a joke, which she seemed to take seriously, he replied, "The last team plays rock paper scissors."
He turned to the others, now assembled in their teams. "Ok, so, make sure your team leaders, the ones who are sitting on top, are standing nearer the front so I know what's going on here… ok. Right, so team Uraraka – your job is to distract the other teams the best you can. You're able to move fast, so keep the other teams off us and take the higher value headbands from them nearer the beginning."
"You got it!" Toga exclaimed, shoving what looked like a jet pack onto Uraraka's back.
"Team Hagakure, you have our best defence, so you need to need to be focusing on stopping class B from taking the headbands, rather than just distracting them.
"Then team Jiro – since your earphone jacks and Dark Shadow can easily steal headbands, you need to run around behind the other teams to take as many as possible without them noticing."
"Looks like we're going to get more points than you, Bakugo," she grinned.
"Ha, yeah right!" he retorted.
"And err, well, Kacchan – could your team just… look, it might be difficult for you – but act as aggressive as possible."
A few people stifled their laughter.
"HEY!" he yelled, "What's that supposed to mean, huh?!"
Midoriya moved on, "Finally, team Kaminari – try and take out as many teams as possible. It's against the rules to knock them over on purpose. So, err… bear that in mind.
"Meanwhile, my team will be doing our best to protect the ten million points. Shoto will be freezing some of class B's teams in place if we get the chance, so listen with your earpieces in case I need to warn you of anything! If we ever lose the headband, just –"
"TIME'S UP!" Present Mic yelled, "Assemble into your teams, let's get this party STARTED!"
"– just try and get it back to us the best you can!" Midoriya shouted as they started to part ways, "Don't fight each other until my signal near the end!"
"We're going to die immediately," Shinso hissed through gritted teeth.
"Oh, don't be so pessimistic," Yaoyorozu smiled as they all helped Midoriya clamber on top. Shoto was at the front, with Shinso to Midoriya's left, and Yaoyorozu to his right. "Here, this could help!"
"…Did you just hand me a knife?"
"Yes!"
"…What is wrong with you lot?"
Midoriya was handed his headband by Miss Midnight, who scowled at the weaponry that Yaoyorozu had made. Midoriya just tied his headband on and drew his sword.
"Look, I don't want this," Shinso laughed nervously.
"Pass it back to me then and I might find use for it later," Yaoyorozu offered.
"How diligent of you…"
"Are you all ready for the battle to begin?!" Present Mic howled across the stadium.
The audience whooped and clapped, clearly ready to see the hero course take down the villains.
Midoriya grinned and readied himself – this was going to be fun.
"THREE – TWO – ONE – LET'S GO, GO, GO!"
Within barely two seconds, he felt the need to retract that statement.
Class B wasn't going to waste a moment – and from their randomly allocated starting positions around the arena, immediately began by charging at Midoriya's team.
"Honenuki, now!" Monoma called out, leading to his teammate slamming his foot on the ground and sending a ripple across the floor to trap them.
Midoriya's team didn't need instruction to dodge, but moments later, Shiozaki, also on Monoma's team, struck, sending her vine hair towards them to engulf Midoriya once again and take the points.
"I get what the knife was for now!" Shinso exclaimed when Midoriya slashed at the vines with his sword.
"Would you like it back?" Yaoyorozu asked.
"No, I'm good!"
Midoriya would have struggled a lot more, had the rest of class A not been there to cause class B some issues. They had clearly planned to rush them, but class A swooped in at the last moment to prevent a majority of the teams from getting any closer. Even better, Midoriya had more people on his side, and some of class B's groups were smaller, two in fact, only had two people each, with Rin, firing his scale Quirk from the back of beast Shishida, and Kamakiri wielding his blades from on top of undeniably strong Pony.
"Midoriya!" Shoto called out.
Not expecting it at all, Midoriya yelled out in surprise when a detached hand swooped in out of nowhere and stole the headband. He lashed out with the sword, but it was too late – Setsuna's hand had already returned to her body and Kendo had secured the ten-million-point headband.
"Yeah! Good job!" exclaimed Tetsutetsu, fronting Monoma's team.
"Bondo, now!" called out Monoma.
Another team appeared behind Midoriya, and right at the front was giant Bondo, the one with the glue Quirk.
"Shoto!" Midoriya shouted, "Get ready to –"
"RACOON EYES, NOW!"
And Kacchan's team skidded in front of their opponent. With a nervous cry from Mina, she waved a bare, pink arm to send a veil of acid between them and Bondo. A pop and sizzle – and the acid melted the glue into nothing.
"YEAH!" she yelled triumphantly.
"Tape Arms!"
Sero, without complaints over the nickname, gritted his teeth and trapped the team in a net of sticky tape, tying them together.
"Shoto – now!" Midoriya finally had the chance to say.
On top of the tape, Bondo and his team had now been frozen in place. There was no way they'd be going anywhere, anytime soon.
Ignoring Present Mic's very biased commentary over this situation, Midoriya growled at Kacchan as he took the frozen team's headband for himself, rather than giving it to currently pointless Midoriya.
What had happened to Monoma, meanwhile? Well, Toga had.
Mei wore one hover boot and Toga had the other. Uraraka bore a jet pack, and when she floated their entire team, they could literally fly. Iida had whizzed onto the scene – Toga snatching Monoma's headband to pass it to Uraraka, and they took off with a bout of laughter.
This left Midoriya the chance to chase after Kendo's team.
"Don't let him get too close!" their class president instructed. "We can't have him stealing any of our Quirks!"
"Stealing Quirks?" Shinso pulled a face of utter confusion.
"Did 18 keep that little detail from you?" grinned Setsuna. "You're on the wrong side, man!"
"But he doesn't – you're… OH MY GOD!"
"I think he gets it," Shoto deadpanned, about to –
"Don't let him freeze us!" yelled Kendo.
The girl with the silver hair thrust a hand forwards and Midoriya felt his entire team be pushed backwards by an invisible force – ah, Yanagi had telekinesis.
"This team is too strong for this game," Midoriya murmured to his teammates, "We need to take them out, and quickly!"
Still facing Kendo, Midoriya raised his hand to his earpiece, "Tsu – I need your team over here!"
Kendo narrowed her eyes at him, trying to figure out what he was up to. She enlarged both her hands, ready to fight whatever was coming next, which was her biggest mistake.
Onto the back of one of those hands, Tsu's long tongue stuck a small, white disk.
Kendo had only clocked its existence – only just seen that Tsu's team included Kaminari, before the latter gave her finger guns and a wink, sending a narrowed stream of electricity right at that disk, and electrocuting the entire team.
Tsu and the others had already backed off by the time that Shoto was close enough to freeze them again.
Midoriya ripped the ten-million-point headband, and Kendo's original one, away from the ice, leaving them behind to wallow in defeat.
"Put the headbands on so that the numbers face backwards," Yaoyorozu suggested.
Midoriya did just that.
For the next few minutes, Midoriya and his team focused on the two smaller class B teams. They were a big problem because of how fast they could move. By the time that they too, were netted by Yaoyorozu and frozen by Shoto, Monoma had finally realised that only his and one other class B team remained.
But that didn't mean class A was definitely in the clear. Judging from Hagakure's disappointed cries, Awase, from the other class B team, had managed to weld the group to the ground and take the headbands they'd collected. The team had then moved onto Jiro's group, and Kuroiro had leapt back into Dark Shadow, so Tokoyami's own Quirk was now fighting against them. Kaminari, by this point, had all but shorted himself out, and Uraraka's team had just landed, having been out of fuel, and one hover boot had been damaged by Rin with his scales before Midoriya had been able to stop them.
"Kacchan – I need you to take Sen's group out of action! They're the only ones left other than Monoma and they're causing too much of a problem!" Midoriya spoke into his earpiece.
"Take them out yourself!" he snarled back.
"Well you're picking up stray headbands and we're a little preoccupied!" Midoriya snapped, deciding to ignore any angry retorts to better focus on the matter at hand.
Monoma's team had come to face them again.
"I don't know how you managed to convince all the other courses to play along," Monoma hissed. "I can't say I'm glad to see class A's back up to twenty members.
"Shinso's aiming to transfer to the hero course," Midoriya replied coldly. "Don't be so quick to judge."
He turned to Shinso, "Then why are you siding with the villains?"
Shinso just snarled back, "Because – wait, what's your name again?"
"Midoriya."
"– Because Midoriya actually offered to help me. What's your excuse?"
Midoriya tried not to grin.
"My excuse –"
Monoma's eyes glazed over.
"Yes!" Midoriya exclaimed.
"Give us your headbands!" Shinso ordered.
Unfortunately, the rest of Monoma's team realised something was amiss. Before Monoma could take off their team's stack of points, Shiozaki pinned his arms to his sides with her vines and Tetsutetsu started yelling at them, asking what he'd done.
Maybe Shinso could have taken control of him as well, but it wasn't to be. Before Shoto had the chance to try and freeze them, Iida charged onto the scene, Mei and Toga screaming with roller blades on one foot each, and Uraraka grasped a handful of Monoma's unprotected headbands as they passed, knocking him harshly on the head by accident in the speed in which they passed them by.
Monoma blinked furiously and Midoriya realised the mistake made even before Shinso swore under his breath.
With an angry cry, Monoma reached forwards, his hand splitting away from his body and grasping at the only headband he could before Shoto could create an ice wall between them.
Kacchan came into view in a whirl of smoke and sparks – Iida skidded around to join the fray again, but before anyone could do a thing –
"TIME'S UP!"
– Present Mic announced the end of the cavalry battle.
They all stopped in their tracks as the audience roared.
Wide eyed, Midoriya dismounted from his team, heart thumping against his rib cage as he took off the headband to see –
Ten million points.
"We won," he gaped. "We won!"
"In first place, it's team Midoriya!" Present Mic yelled as they celebrated. "Class A's president sure knows how to strategise – because second place is team Bakugo, closely followed by team Uraraka!"
The audience clearly had mixed feelings, but class A was over the moon. Everyone who was still free to actually move was cheering and clapping, knowing that everyone they desperately needed had made it through to the finals. Now all they needed was –
"But all hope is not lost! For team Monoma SQUEEZES into fourth place!"
– anything but that.
Midoriya face fell as he realised that last headband had been just enough for Monoma's team to pull ahead of Tsu's.
Ignoring the rest of the commentary, Midoriya glowered at Monoma as he appeared at the edge of the ice wall that Shoto had made, leaning against it and grinning, "All hope is not lost," he repeated.
"We'll just see about that," said Midoriya.
We'll see…
"How long do we have?"
"I don't know, but let's assume not much."
Toga slid her laptop across the table in the waiting room. Midoriya was expecting just a phone, but this was way better.
He was already well into his project – but it had been quite a while since he'd been able to practise such a feat, and if he was caught, he may just find himself, and the ex-member of class 1-A, in a world of trouble.
Immediately after the cavalry battle, and they were released for their second break, Midoriya said he'd be talking with Toga about some of the support items he'd be using in the tournament round. Whilst Mei was distracted, chatting with Uraraka, the rest just said they'd see him later, not thinking anything else of it.
In reality, what was hidden in Toga's case of extra support items, was her laptop, and Midoriya had just broken through the firewall.
After the second round, when the finalists were determined, someone had to input the names into a system which would randomly allocated battles in this year's tournament. However, Midoriya knew full well that there was a way to make the allocations a lot less random. He'd watched plenty of Sports Festivals before, and far too many times had perfect opponents been selected for a good show. Such as… someone from class A who had been facing off against a particular hero course student for the rest of the competition, and somehow ended up fighting them in the final of the tournament round, since all their previous opponents had been a bad match up. Of course, the battles were a little rigged – they needed the drama. This was a televised show, after all.
All that meant one thing – if there was a way to manually alter who fights who, then there was something to hack into, and a way to change that.
Five minutes later, and Midoriya found himself sitting before a copy of the tournament bracket. He clapped his hands together and Toga gave him a little cheer.
"Oh, we can't have that…" he grinned, dragging Honenuki's name away from his own. "No, no, no – you can fight… Uraraka. Sky verses earth – let's see how that turns out, huh? And if you beat her… you can fight Kacchan, who can burn Shiozaki to a crisp."
"Oh! Put me against Mei!" Toga exclaimed, pointing at the screen.
"Sounds like a plan," Midoriya laughed, and swapped her away from Iida to do just that. "Ok… no, I don't want to face Shinso. I'll face… I'll face Monoma – let's see if he actually took my advice and learnt how to fight Quirkless."
Toga giggled manically before slurping from a juice box loudly. It was blood orange.
"Ok, and I want to fight Yaoyorozu after that – if she can beat Mina. I'll leave that one as it is. If I win that…. No, Shoto will murder me – I fancy my chances with… Hm, who will get that far? Probably Iida, that sounds at least the slightest bit –"
His screen went blank.
Midoriya pursed his lips, hands hovering above the keyboard.
"…Did it run out of charge?" asked Toga.
"Nope – I… think I was just found out. Let's get out of here," Midoriya said hurriedly, shutting the laptop down and ushering Toga out the door.
"Did you… fix what you needed to fix?" Yaoyorozu asked curiously when the two of them walked back into class A's waiting room, where they'd all gathered. Toga disappeared soon after with Mei in tow, and Shinso was nowhere to be seen.
Midoriya laughed nervously, "Err… well, I guess we'll just have to wait and find out."
A few exchanged glances unsurely as he sat down.
"So… what's the plan?"
Midoriya blinked at Shoto, "What?"
"What's the plan?" Shoto repeated. "What next?"
"U-Um… we wait to find out who's fighting who?"
Iida stepped forwards, "There are four members of class B left in the competition. What do you know about them?"
Midoriya wavered, "Oh, oh, right. So, err… there's Monoma, we all know him well. From what I've gathered, he can copy three Quirks at a time, and have them available to him for the next five minutes. He has to turn off one Quirk to activate another. So, bear in mind that he will choose the three most effective powers against you from his classmates. If he touches your skin, he gains your power, and loses the ability he copied first. You'll always know your Quirk better than Monoma does. It may be better trying to force him to give up one of the powers he's copied in exchange for yours."
"We want him to be against you then, right?" Tsu asked. She was no longer in the competition and Midoriya felt kind of bad for it.
"Yeah, and I have a feeling he's not particularly good at fighting without powers… Anyway, the next person who got through is Shiozaki – the girl with the vines who did that introductory speech."
A few people sniggered as they recalled that.
"She's a huge problem," Midoriya explained. "She was first in the hero course entrance exam and has amazing control over her Quirk. But her vines are weak against fire or brute strength. We just have to hope for a good match up.
"Then there's Tetsutetsu – he has a steel Quirk that's weirdly similar to Kirishima's. In fact, it's kind of exactly the same… Except that the metal has some different strengths and weaknesses. Fire could prove to be a huge problem to him – I doubt he does well in intense heat for too long.
"Finally, Honenuki. He's the only member of class B who knows I'm actually Quirkless – although I doubt that's going to last much longer… He's a recommended student, meaning a pro hero recommended him to be in this school and he took a different entrance exam. He's easily as strong as Shiozaki. He can make anything softer – so turn the entire pitch into a mass of quicksand. Most support items won't work against him and if the match goes on for longer than a few seconds you might be in trouble. Knock him out of bounds as soon as you can or find a way to stay off the floor. Bear in mind Monoma might copy his Quirk."
Kirishima grimaced, "They all sound like really tough opponents – how are we going to best them?"
"Luck of the draw," Midoriya admitted. It really was luck – he had no idea if his plan to rig who was fighting who had even worked. "But we have some really strong people here too. Class B is probably talking it all through right now – thinking the same thing as us! Also, we out number them. Mei and Toga agree to forfeit after using their match to advertise their support items, so we don't have to worry about them – and it doesn't matter if Shinso wins, because our deal will still go ahead."
Midoriya stood up, adjusting the retractable shield that was now attached to his arm. "Other than that, we're fighting each other. It doesn't matter who wins, as long as it's not class B."
"But what about you?" asked Shoto.
"Me?"
"You have to be on the podium, remember?"
Kacchan stood up too, "No one's forfeiting any of their matches against freaking Deku."
"What?" Kirishima frowned, "But he has to make it to the podium, man!"
"If he can't hold his own then he doesn't freaking deserve the chance it'll give him!"
Midoriya hated how much he was right, "It's ok – and Kacchan's right. We'll just have to see what happens, but it would be unfair if you just gave up."
A voice rang out through the speakers, calling them all back to the stadium.
"Good luck, guys!" Hagakure exclaimed, "We'll be cheering you on – ignore the rest of the crowd!"
They parted ways in the corridor, the rest of class A waving them goodbye and shouting encouraging words as they disappeared up to the stands.
Midoriya and Iida led the remainder out into the stadium once more.
"Nervous?" he asked Midoriya.
"A little," he admitted.
That was all they said. The nine members of class A walked out through an entrance opposite to the other seven. It was definitely done on purpose. Shinso, Mei and Toga entered behind the hero course, as though to show that they were on the good side, and class B wasn't nearly as outnumbered as they might have seemed to be.
They lined up on a raised stage in the middle of the arena. It was made of concrete, and Midoriya could already tell that this was going to be painful to fall onto. A large, white boarder line indicated where they were forbidden to go past, and whilst Midnight reminded them of the rules, Midoriya scanned the crowd.
He'd been so focused on the previous two events, that he had yet to appreciate the sheer volume of people – so many eyes, focused on them. On him, the gold-banded class president of 1-A. And more than that – the cameras were the tunnels for eyes all over the country, if not the world.
He knew his mother was one of them. He wondered what she thought of him now.
"Without further ado!" Midnight finally exclaimed, "Let's reveal our tournament bracket!"
She waved her whip, and the screens across the stadium lit up.
Midoriya's plan had worked.
He couldn't suppress the grin that spread across his face when he saw that nearly all of his changes had been successful. Did Nezu know…? Oh well, he clearly hadn't made an effort to reverse the damage dealt.
"The first match will go ahead in five minutes!" Midnight proclaimed. "Competitors may prepare a strategy and ready themselves! Good luck!"
A timer appeared just below the tournament bracket, and they filed back off the stage. Once they were out of sight, class A erupted into cheers.
"OH, MY GOD!" Mina yelled. She then squealed loudly, jumping up and down. "I'm against Momo so I'm losing immediately but oh my God!"
"This is the best thing that could have happened," Yaoyorozu gaped.
"Hey!"
"All our strengths are matching up to their weaknesses…" she realised, ignoring Mina.
"Oh, what a wonderful coincidence," Midoriya smiled, clapping his hands together.
They all stared at him.
He grinned a little wider, "So, I'm going to go stalk Monoma to see what Quirks he's borrowing – have fun thinking up strategies!"
And he turned on his heel, waving goodbye over his shoulder before any of them could question what he had just done.
The game was on.
