01.05.2023

It is I, the Absolute Madman and I'm back to post chapters and answer comments, not neccesarily in that order!

SeductiveSausage - I'm actually okay with the amount of attention this story already has. I've found that (at least on Ao3 where I do most of my reading nowadays) the fandom is being dominated by harem fics and those are the fics that get the huge numbers. As for the grammar even I know that I make mistakes since I'm not a native English speaker, but I do try to limit them with the help of Google Docs, so whilst my words are good my sentences might suck lol

As I said - I'm here to answer comments and post chapters and I'm all out of comments!:

Izuku would've liked to watch Shiozaki's match in its entirety, but he had to leave half-way through to prepare for his own fight. From what he was able to see however he had absolute confidence in his friend's victory as her creative use of her versatile quirk was nearly unbeatable without some sort of a counter.

Izuku also would've prefered to have a calm, uneventful trek to his waiting room but that also was taken away from him when he stumbled upon the number two hero of Japan himself - Endeavor. He was surprised to see the pro skulking around the corridors normally restricted for staff and participants, but that initial reaction was short-lived once he remembered that he literally had a Todoroki in his class. The man was probably getting the lay of the land so that he could wish his son good luck once his match rolled around.

After exchanging brief greetings on the go, Izuku continued towards his waiting room, hoping that he'd find the gear he submitted there. Whilst neither the first nor the second event gave him an opportunity to show off his fighting skills, the one on one duels of the tournament stage were made specifically for this purpose. As such Izuku didn't bother to submit his gear for anything except the tournament, betting that if he were to make it to the final event he'd be able to get a small power boost. Well, maybe not that small judging by the fact that his bastard sword was quite long..

He sensed the black case before he even entered the waiting room and felt the intrusive thoughts double in intensity as he approached it.

"And here I was thinking that you decided to fly solo for this fight too. I wouldn't be surprised if you handicapped yourself to give that scrawny kid a fighting chance, but I guess there are limits to your grace." The all-too-familiar whisper of the daemon reverberated within his mind and Izuku simply sighed.

"I should've known you were watching the whole thing." Izuku responded as he approached the case.

"It kept me entertained when you were too busy to have a chat." The daemon explained with a grin in his voice. "Don't be jealous though, I still find you much more entertaining than anything else in this time."

"Halleluyah…" Izuku muttered under his breath as he checked the contents of the case.

"Good try, but that won't work on me. I've had the most powerful psykers in the whole Imperium try and banish me, but I'm still here so you can guess how that went." The daemon said in a very prideful manner, as if boasting about his accomplishments.

Izuku was used to the daemon talking all sorts of nonsense to try and get under his skin or distract him long enough to pull some of his mental tricks, but he hasn't heard that line ever before and it puzzled him greatly.

"What's a 'psyker'? And what Imperium is he talking about? The Persians? The Romans? Was the Black Blade around all this time?" These were only a couple of things that Izuku wanted to ask, but he already knew that the daemon wouldn't answer so he didn't even bother. Still, it gave him a few more pieces of this overcomplicated puzzle, one that he'd have to solve on his own it would seem.

His train of thought was derailed when Midnight's pompous voice came through the speaker in the corner of his waiting room.

"And with one last tactically flawless maneuver Shiozaki Ibara advances to the second round of the tournament!" She announced and Izuku smiled to himself.

"I guess I should get going." He said as he closed the case and swung his sheathed bastard sword over his back, prepared for the fight ahead.

Having to find someone you just became friends with and even teamed up in the previous event was leaving a bad taste in Izuku's mouth, but he was very thankful that Shinso didn't have to face someone like Todoroki or Bakugo as those two would surely go all out and potentially injure the purple-haired gen ed student. Although now that he gave it some more thought, perhaps he could've goaded Bakugo into answering his questions and even eliminated him in the very first round? Ha, that would've been quite the show! Bakugo was bound to explode afterward however, so maybe this was the best case scenario afterall.

Walking out of the tunnel and out into the open Izuku could almost feel the weight of everyone's attention settle upon his shoulders as he approached the arena. The first event had way too many participants for people to pay attention to singular students and the second event was mainly centered around Bakugo and Todoroki. Now though it was only going to be him and Shinso, and between the two of them he was sure to garner much more attention than a gen ed student, though there'd still be a fair share of people rooting for the obvious underdog.

Thankfully Izuku was not as socially awkward and anxious as he might've been if his origin story was to be changed and was able to flawlessly navigate the complexity of social interactions with a simple strategy of smile and wave as the crowd above cheered.

"Approaching from the left - he's built like an entire brick factory, but still soft as a plushie! One of the gentle giants of class 1-A - Midoriya Izuku!" Midnight introduced him, once again using that 'brick factory' quote that he failed to understand time and time again. He'd have to ask someone to clarify it for him, maybe Ashido?

"And his opponent on my right - the only gen ed student to make it this far in the last few years! He's mysterious and looks about ready to fall asleep standing - Shinso Hitoshi!" Izuku was positively surprised when the amount of people cheering for his friend nearly matched the cheers that he himself had received just a moment prior. People sure do love the underdog story don't they?

Izuku walked up all the way to the center of the arena, Shinso following suit and soon enough they were standing directly in front of each other, friendly expressions on their faces.

"And so we meet again." Izuku greeted with a smile.

"Looks like it." Shinso responded with a much smaller smile.

"Let me remind you of the rules! The fight ends when one of the contestants is unable to continue or goes out of bounds! In special cases Yours Truly might decide to stop the fight if I rule that you're going too far! Remember to play fair and give it your best shot!" Midnight spoke her piece as she prepared to start the sixth match of the first round.

"Hey, before you inevitably wreck my backside, let me ask you something - no hard feelings?" Shinso asked with a friendly smile.

"Begin!"

"Of cour-"

"-se." Izuku responded with a smile, one that quickly faded as soon as he realized that he was no longer in the stadium. "What happened? What is this place?" He wondered out loud as he looked around.

His eyes were pretty much useless however as no matter where he looked all that he saw was a pitch-black void with the only somewhat illuminated area being the ground around his feet. His confusion deepened when he took a step forward and noted that the light was actually following him. He was scratching his head in search of an explanation when he heard something very familiar.

"Well, I wasn't expecting visitors." Izuku's head whipped around so hard that he almost made himself dizzy in a single move.

Standing there, just a few meters away from him, in a spot lit up similarly to Izuku's was the daemon in all of its shadowy glory, leering at the warden with a maniacal grin.

"And I certainly wasn't expecting you to fall for that trick!" The daemon exclaimed in glee as it laughed. "I had my doubts about him, but now I'm hooked. Oldest trick in the book I tell ya."

"What are you talking about?" Izuku asked, weary of the daemon's behavior.

"Don't tell me you don't know what's happened?" The daemon was no longer amused as it stared blankly at its host. Its expression morphed into one of pure dejection once Izuku shook his head, confirming the assumption. "How the fuck are you able to withstand my influence and see right through all of my schemes whilst being so damn blind all the same…" The daemon groaned before approaching its host. "The kid used that weird ability of his. He tried to take control of your body and make you forfeit your match or something. He surely didn't expect there to be a second driver with his foot directly on the break." The daemon explained simply.

"He used his quirk…?" Izuku mumbled out with wide eyes. "Wait, so this place is-?"

"Finally!" The daemon exclaimed with relief. "This here blank space is the expansive plane of your own imagination. Though let me tell you, it's usually way more occupied by all manner of illogical nonsense. I actually prefer it like this."

"So… what now?" Izuku asked, still weary though surprised by how cooperative the daemon was at the moment.

"I mean we can fight to the death right here and now, either I kill you, take over your body and bring apocalypse upon this world a couple of hundred centuries early or you kill me and… I'm not really sure what'd happen if you were to actually mortally wound me. Although I'm literally immortal so I'd either be banished to the Warp for the time being or get right back up to continue the fight." Somewhere along the lines of its monologue it looked as if though the daemon started talking to itself like a scientist mulling over the potential outcomes of his experiment.

"Do you want to fight?" Izuku asked, already aware of how low his chances were if the two of them were to clash, especially since he didn't have anything to use as a weapon.

The daemon seemed to dwell on the question just to mess with its warden a bit longer before eventually shaking its head.

"Naah… It'd be too easy." The daemon said in a matter-of-fact tone, indicating that he was also well aware of how their confrontation would likely end. "Besides, I don't want anyone's help. If I'm taking control over your body it'll be through my own actions." It said with a wicked grin.

"But how do I get back?" The greenette wondered out loud once he assumed that the threat had passed.

"I have an idea." The last thing Izuku saw was the daemon's razor-sharp claws about to slash him open like a cardboard packaging.

Next thing he knew he was on his knees and about to vomit, but he was staring at the concrete surface of the arena and not some magical void that was supposed to be his head. He fought back the gag reflex and was eventually able to get back onto his wobbly legs, panting and confused, but alive.

As soon as he was back up he noticed Shinso looking at him with a mix of fear and worry.

"Are you alright?" He asked wearily. "I told you to walk out of bounds but you just kept standing there and then collapsed."

"So that's what it meant with the foot on the break…" Izuku thought as he realized that the daemon had basically saved him from losing the match. It'd be a very notable achievement if Shinso was to actually eliminate a student from the hero course, but Izuku couldn't just give him the win unfortunately.

"Also, is that meant to levitate like that?" Shinso pointed out and Izuku looked to the side to see the daemon's prison hover just above the ground right next to him.

"Yeah, it does this all the time, don't worry about it." Izuku responded, recovering enough strength to smile at his friend.

"I guess my plan didn't work." Shinso stated with a smile of his own. "And here I thought I had this in the bag already."

"This was just a bad matchup for you." Izuku reassured his friend as he extended a hand for Shinso to shake.

"At least I didn't get to cosplay as a punching bag like some of the others." Shinso joked with a slight flinch as he remembered the previous fights. "And hey, I managed to stop you for a moment so I count that as a win." He added and shook Izuku's hand. "I yield." Shinso said as he looked at Midnight who was acting quite sus.

"Ah, such virile youth and sportsmanship!" She exclaimed in a manner that rubbed both of the teens in the wrong way. "Shinso Hitoshi yields! Midoriya Izuku advances to the second round! Let's give those two an applause for that show of friendship!" Midnight ordered and started clapping with nearly the entire stadium joining her right afterwards.

Even through all the noise Izuku could faintly hear Kirishima shouting all the way from the stands and already knew that the redhead wouldn't shut up about this for a while.

"Wanna go back to our spot?" Izuku offered and Shinso accepted the offer in a heartbeat.

"Don't walk away just yet ladies and gentlemen as we still have two more matches left in the first round! Now without further ado let's continue! Up next-!" Midnight continued her role as the umpire and started introducing the next contestants as Izuku and Shinso walked off the stage and towards the stands.

Meanwhile in the crowd, a pair of enchanting purple eyes with a fair glint of mischief watched the two vanish inside of the tunnel, processing what they'd just witnessed.

"There's no doubt about it. That kid's ability is mind control and he successfully used it on Midoriya. Did the daemon try to wrestle control? Or did they just talk it out? From what I've read the daemon that inhabits the Black Blade is quite prideful so it's possible that it took offense and temporarily joined forces with its warden…" Martin analyzed the situation, clearly intrigued and deeply invested into this new development.

"Temporarily being the keyword. They're probably back to normal already."

"That's a shame. We could've used this to study that daemon more. Welp, there goes that adventure. I'm just gonna have to figure out something else." Martin decided and stood up, hoping to stretch his legs before the second round.

This was probably the most interesting part of the entire Sports Festival in his opinion, but since he's already here he might as well stay till the end and at least see how far Midoriya makes it before being severely outgunned.

"Bro, what was that?!" Kirishima questioned as soon as Izuku and Shinso made it to the 1-A booth.

Izuku immediately noticed that there were quite a few people missing. Bakugo and Todoroki weren't there right from the start, but now even Yaoyorozu was gone and there was still some time left before her fight. Perhaps she was nervous and wanted some time to calm down her nerves before the bout? Whatever the case, Izuku hoped she was alright.

"That was super anticlimactic you know?" Ashido stated as the two friends approached them and sat next to them.

"You wanted me to put on a show like that girl from the support course?" Izuku joked with a smile and they chuckled at what will surely be the most memorable moment of this year's Sports Festival.

"I at least wanted to see you swing that sword around!" Ashido exclaimed. "But you just stood still like a statue! Did Shinso tell a bad joke or something?" She questioned.

"Nope. He caught me with his quirk." Izuku explained and both Kirishima and Ashido stared at him blankly.

"You're joking, right?" Ashido asked, hoping this was just a joke.

"Nah, I asked him a question just as Midnight was about to start the match and he fell for it." Shinso confirmed with a smirk.

Ashido and Kirishima remained silent for a few seconds before absolutely exploding with laughter.

"You knew all about his quirk and you still fell for it?!" Ashido said in between fits of amused laughter.

"I didn't expect him to be so ruthless…" Izuku trailed off as he scratched his neck in embarrassment.

"But… no hard feelings, right? You kinda didn't finish your answer." Shinso asked, taking a jab at his new friend at the same time.

"Yeah, no hard feelings. We both wanted to win and had it been anyone else you probably would've won." Izuku stated with confidence.

"Right, about that - how'd you break free? From what Shinso explained earlier, once you're gone - you're gone and the only way to break out is for someone to shake you awake." Ashido asked with a curious glint in her eye.

"Let's just say that I had some help from an unexpected ally." Izuku explained in a pseudo-mysterious manner.

"Daemon?" Kirishima guessed.

"Daemon." Izuku confirmed.

"Demon?" Shinso questioned.

"Daemon." Ashido corrected.

"Daemon?" Shinso questioned again.

"Daemon." The other three confirmed.

"Wait, he doesn't know." Ashido quickly realized.

"Don't know what?" Shinso asked in confusion.

"Buckle up buddy, we're taking you on a ride!" Kirishima warned as Izuku began the explanation.

Needless to say it took some convincing but eventually Shinso was able to believe in the existence of the daemon without anything to prove it. Although one could argue that the interaction his quirk had with Izuku was proof enough.

He did 'im dirty I tell ya! But friendship prevails! And sus Midnight is sus!

Have a great day and I'll catch y'all in the next update!