17.04.2023

It is I, the Absolute Madman and I'm back with... an explanation. The reason as to why there wasn't a chapter last week is simple - I was unable to write it. Like at all. Me and my coworkers decided to organize a small party on Thursday before Easter and as expected from Poles - we ended up drinking, quite a lot. This Absolute Madman was also indulging in our traditional drink of choice - vodka - and then not only ended up driving back home but also served as a taxi for four coworkers. Flexing aside - some stuff happened and my mental ended up doing a triple backflip, but didn't stick the landing. Thankfully cold, hard concrete was there to break the fall, so I basically ended up drinking a couple of beers on Friday and sleeping through half the day. I had a mystical catharsis and though my mental is still fucked up and mostly confused - I'm doing better. Sadly I've been listening to too much Disturbed as of late and now I'm Down with the Sickness, but I'm not gonna leave y'all hanging for TWO weeks straight. So yeah, my fault, will probably happen again, really need to start that Twitter account/Discord server - you can say which option sounds better.

Excuses aside - let's check the comments!:

Tyrantking544 - If you'd like to see Izuku with a sword of Khaine or something along those lines then you need to wait for when I eventually get around to continuing Champion to Slay the Gods - my personal Magnum Opus of MHA x Warhammer Fantasy with a lot of changes to the different lores and cameos/easter eggs thrown into the mix! I don't unfortunately know when that will happen though so we both gotta be patient I guess!

Lestat719 - Well, they try to beat the shit out of each other here for two minutes in this chapter, that enough?

WellLifeJustAintFair - Right? He's basically comic relief material. My favorite ever Shinso has to be the one in 'building from the ground up' where Izuku is basically inspired into becoming an irl Iron Man and Shinso ends up becoming his Happy/Rhodes combo. I swear, it's perfect, unfortunately discontinued but it's still a great read!

And now, the chapter!:

"Hold onto your horses everybody, cause this year's second event is a Cavalry Battle!"

Once the crowd finally settled down Midnight went on to explain the rules of the second event. It seemed simple enough though there was the curveball of the winner of the Obstacle Course getting ten million points thrown into the mix just to spice things up. It might look like a free pass to the final event, but it's a pretty big hindrance if you are unable to fend off the competitors.

Izuku getting the 12th place had quite the bounty on his head as well, but all eyes were focused on the winner who seemed to revel in the attention.

"I expected nothing else from someone like Bakugo." Izuku mentally scoffed at his classmate's seemingly incurable behavior.

Instead of wasting time on him however, Izuku decided to focus on forming or finding a team. Teaming up with people that already had some points to their name sounded like a good strategy, but this was a team event so ensuring proper teamwork between the members was even more important in his eyes. As such he set out to find a couple of people, hoping that they didn't form a team with anyone else just yet.

Luck seemed to be on his side for now as he found both Kirishima and Ashido standing next to each other and probably debating who to invite to join their team. Ashido's face lit up as soon as she saw him and she immediately dragged Kirishima with her as she ran towards Izuku.

"Do you want to join our team?!" She offered right off the bat with sparkling eyes and an excited grin.

"That'd be so manly! We'd for sure be able to get the ten million headband if you join us!" Kirishima exclaimed, showing off even more energy than his partner.

"Well, I don't know if we'll be able to do what you just said, but I'd love to team up with you guys." Izuku responded with a small amount of bashfulness as he assumed that Kirishima's natural optimism was simply clouding his judgment. Still, it was nice to know that the redhead had such a high opinion of his strength.

"Sweet! Do you think that we should find a fourth person or are we good with just the three of us?" Ashido prompted, causing the other two to mull over the subject for a few moments before answering.

"I think we should be able to make it with just the three of us if we manage to score some more points during the event, but having a fourth person won't hurt, so we might as well have a look around and see if we can find someone." Izuku stated and even though he agreed to join their team it looked as though the role of the de facto leader was transferred over to him somehow. Well, it was a great opportunity to practice leading by example so he wasn't complaining.

Keeping in mind the matter of teamwork, Izuku led his team around the stadium to check up on a few candidates that could work well with their current lineup.

Sadly this was where his luck decided to run out as both people that he'd like to join them already had their own teams.

Tokoyami formed an unlikely alliance with Todoroki, Yaoyorozu and Iida, probably convinced to join by the speedster as Izuku doubted Todoroki had the charisma to rally people under his banner. Despite all the cons, joining Todoroki's team was a safe bet since his quirk was very strong and any attempts at taking his points would surely end up failing. Not to mention they had the evident speed advantage over most of the other teams with Iida at the forefront and a lot of versatility in terms of defense thanks to Yaoyorozu and Tokoyami forming the rear guard. Izuku and his team wished their friends luck and received similar wishes back from everyone besides Todoroki, who opted to give them the good old cold shoulder treatment, before moving onto the next person.

Unfortunately Shiozaki was also a member of a team already. Understandably she decided to side with Kendo and two other students from her class rather than seeking him out as she suspected that he'd likely ally with his friends as well. Having some long range attacks would be nice, but Izuku had no intentions of pressuring Shiozaki into switching teams. Instead they wished each other luck and parted in high spirits sprinkled with healthy sportsmanship.

Searching for both Tokoyami and Shiozaki took a bit of time and by now nearly all of the teams were formed already. It was looking as though their team would have to work with what they had at the moment. The time for forming teams was about to run out when Kirishima pointed something out.

"What about that guy?" He said curiously.

Izuku's eyes scanned the direction that Kirishima was pointing towards and a smirk appeared on his lips as soon as he recognized the person.

"He'll do." Izuku responded happily and began marching forward with Ashido and Kirishima right behind him. There was no time to waste after all!

"Are you sure this is okay?" Shinso asked just as the final countdown was sounding all around the stadium.

All the teams were currently standing around the outside of the stadium, waiting for the signal to open the floodgates and engage in some glorious combat. Most of the teams were composed of four people to both increase their versatility and initial score, with only a couple of outliers forming three-man teams. All the formations were quite tame, all things considered as Izuku really expected at least one team to have multiple riders or all ride on the back of a single horse. At least it looked neat on TV probably.

"Of course it's okay!" Kirishima immediately reassured the final member of their team.

Adding Shinso to the team was a spur of the moment decision as they had no way of knowing whether or not his quirk would be compatible with theirs, but leaving him all alone didn't sit right with any of them so they decided to bite the bullet and approach him.

As it turned out Shinso's quirk allowed him to mind control people if they responded to his questions. He used to get a lot of shit and get called a lot of bad things in the past just because of the ability that he was born with and both Ashido and Kirishima immediately began gushing over his quirk, hoping to convey that they found it amazing and not awful like most people that he's met up till now.

Izuku himself was quite proud of his classmates for cheering Shinso up like that even without being prompted to do so. It only went to show that they both had hearts of gold, a very important characteristic for a hero.

Since Shinso's quirk didn't interfere with any of their, and Ashido and Kirishima had basically already dragged him into the team without even asking him to join, Izuku officially offered him the last spot on their team. Shinso was apprehensive about accepting the offer as he didn't want to hinder their chances of winning but was eventually bullied into joining them.

In the end they decided to make him the rider of their team since he was by far the skinniest of them all - which Kirishima already offered to help Shinso with once the Sports Festival was over - and he could freely use his quirk from the elevated position. They put Kirishima upfront to soak up any attacks coming from the front and act as a battering ram if the situation demanded it, with Izuku and Ashido in the rear to protect the flanks.

"Don't worry Shinso, I'm sure you'll do just fine. And even if we lose, at least we tried as hard as we could and had some fun in the meantime." Izuku pitched in to raise not only Shinso's but also Ashido's and Kirishima's morale.

Sure, winning and advancing to the tournament phase would be really nice and was almost a guarantee that some pros would send them internship offers, but Izuku wanted to make sure that winning was not a priority. He was fine with any outcome as long as they did all they could to win, there'd be no slacking off on his watch however.

It seemed to elevate Kirishima's morale through the roof as he yelled out the loudest 'manly!' yet and turned his entire body to stone immediately, banging his fist together with a wide grin on his face. His energy was infectious enough to raise the spirits of someone even as pessimistic as Shinso as a small smile appeared on his lips.

"Begin!" The command finally sounded and all hell broke loose.

As expected, most of the teams immediately turned towards Bakugo and his posse to try their hand at snatching that ten million from his head. A hopeless endeavor for everyone besides Todoroki but the more attention was focused around Bakugo the less attention was focused on everyone else and Izuku planned to exploit that situation. Acting like the de facto vultures of the event didn't sound all that heroic, but it could be easily excused as being able to accurately judge one's chances.

There were a couple of no name outliers that seemed to adopt a similar tacting, but Izuku wasn't worried about them as he had a lot of trust in the prowess of his teammates. They also had their secret weapon that was Shinso so even if things went wrong they still should be able to fight back if someone was to get the drop on them.

Izuku and his team spent the first couple of minutes just watching Bakugo fend off all the attackers and evading the occasional skirmish headed their way. It didn't take long for the weaker teams to start giving up on snatching the juicy ten million headband and disengage in search of someone their own size. Soon it was only Todoroki who refused to yield and kept chasing Bakugo no matter what. There were teams that tried to use Todoroki's tunnel vision to catch him off guard and steal his points but they learned quickly and painfully that Todoroki was never off guard, especially with Yaoyorozu and Tokoyami acting like his bodyguards.

Ground-shaking explosions and ice structures marred the territory of the duel where no other team dared to approach once the two powerhouses got warmed up and started a full blown war with each other.

Izuku and his team meanwhile had to fend off more and more attacks as people started targeting them due to them teaming up with the sole student from the general studies. Kinda classist if you ask him, but it did allow them to sneak a headband or two from the more reckless teams that got just a bit too close.

Their formation was primarily close range oriented so they were pretty bad at stealing headbands, but once they got a hold of one it wouldn't be easy to take it away from them. Kirishima at the front worked overtime, always trying to face the incoming charge and absorb the impact with his quirk whilst Ashido chucked diluted acid to deter others from coming closer. Izuku meanwhile was on support duty and mostly focused on shielding his team from the attacks that Kirishima couldn't intercept in time.

"That's a really cool trick! When did you learn it?!" Ashido exclaimed with a grin after she got to witness the shimmering golden barrier that surrounded their team after one of Todoroki's ice projectiles went astray and almost threw their rider off their shoulders.

"A while back, just haven't had much time to practice it lately!" Izuku responded as the shield collapsed as soon as the projectile touched it.

The barrier was useful for stopping ranged attacks but Izuku didn't have much experience with it and it was quite tricky to set up on reflex which made it really brittle and unfit for prolonged usage. Simply flashing the barrier was far less taxing, but not nearly as reliable as keeping it up all the time which meant that Shinso had to duck out of the way of some attacks a couple of times.

Overall their team was able to comfortably cruise on the sidelines without engaging any tough opponents but that was about to change drastically.

"I'm terribly sorry about this Midoriya, but we'll be taking your points!" Shiozaki shouted as her team charged Izuku's from the side.

Shiozaki was the rider of her team with some steel-colored guy - who shared an uncomfortable amount of similarities in appearance with Kirishima - at the front and Kendo along with another guy in the back. Izuku's luck had once again run out as Shiozaki was definitely someone that he didn't want to face in this event. Her quirk was perfect for both defense and offense and Izuku was well aware of how much skill she had. Other than that he didn't have much information about the other members of her team, but he doubted any of them could be more dangerous than her.

They even picked a good time to strike as Izuku and his team were just recovering from a previous skirmish and their formation wasn't tight enough to turn on the spot. The vines came flying their way and Izuku put up a more powerful barrier to at least try and slow them down to buy his teammates some precious time. The thin layer of shimmering gold was no match for the sheer might of she vine-like hair that Shiozaki commanded like an expert. A couple of strands woven together acted like a spear and a single strike was enough to break through the improvised defense.

Izuku knew they had no chance to win like this so he ordered his team to run forward, hoping to put some distance between their teams.

With Shiozaki and her team right behind them Ashido could utilize her quirk to substantially slow down their approach by constantly changing the viscosity of her acid. Whilst the guy at their front could easily tank Ashido's more potent acids, the other two members of the ground crew had no such resistance and had to be more careful. The more diluted version of her acid was completely harmless but very slick which almost caused Shiozaki's team to collapse the first time they stepped onto it. They may have had the better offense, but Izuku's team was all about defending and it was showing right in this moment.

It was clear that neither team could really get the upper hand in this struggle and so Izuku decided to try out a more diplomatic approach.

"This is getting us nowhere! How about we make a non-aggression pact and focus on getting to the final event without getting in each other's way?!" Izuku shouted and was relieved to note that the relentless attacks stopped as Shiozaki and her teammates seemed to mull the offer over.

"You better make it to the final event then!" Shiozaki eventually responded and her team turned around to go after someone else.

With the heat finally off their backs, Izuku and his teammates were able to rest for a second before getting back into the action, they had to get some more points to advance after all!

In the end they were able to sneak into fourth place thanks to Shinso pulling a clutch save and successfully tricking some loud-mouthed blonde into giving all of his points away in the last minute.

Shiozaki and her team had them beat as they gathered enough points to advance from the third place and were close behind Todoroki who unfortunately was not able to take the ten million points away from Bakugo who managed to score two wins in a row already. Izuku would've loved to watch that battle live, but he was way too busy to pay any attention to it.

"I can always rewatch it at the dorms." He thought to himself with a shrug.

Truth be told he was quite tired already and a break before the tournament round would be really nice. Thankfully that's exactly what was announced next and he could breathe in relief that he could finally get some rest, all those barriers took a toll on him.

The commercial break would last about half an hour and was perfect to grab snacks, eat lunch or otherwise unwind before the final event. Izuku was planning on grabbing something to eat and then maybe lounging around the stadium for a while but his plans were quickly crushed by his overly enthusiastic teammates.

"Let's go grab something to eat guys!" Ashido declared.

"Come on bro, the more the merrier!" Kirishima hollered as he waved towards Izuku to follow them.

The greenette could only shake his head, unable to comprehend how those two could still have so much energy left after two back-to-back physical events like that. Still, he didn't really complain as having both of them around was actually very fun. He was about to follow in their steps when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. A fond smile appeared on his lips as he turned around and grabbed Shinso by the back of his shirt as he tried to sneak away.

"Didn't you hear him say 'the more the merrier'?" Izuku asked with a smile as Shinso turned around in surprise.

"You want me to join you?" He questioned, clearly bamboozled by the offer.

"Of course! I mean, you basically saved our back sides back then! I'm not gonna force you to join us, but the offer still stands." Izuku assured the purple-haired guy and he once again got to witness his rare smile.

"I'd like to join you." He responded eventually.

"Great! Let's go catch them before they leave us in the dust!" Izuku said and the two rushed after the other half of their team, both eager to fill their stomachs and regain strength before the final event.

Welp, we had one chapter for the Obstacle Course and one for the Cavalry Battle, but the tournament will probably be stretched to two, maybe even three chapters depending on how I decide to approach it. We'll live, we'll see.

Until that happens, have a great day and I'll catch y'all in the next update!