I picked idly at my food, stewing over the cavalry battle. The biggest mistake I had made was underestimating Todoroki. The time it took for me to replace the frozen tentacles meant that we lost 195 points. Had it not been for that, we would still be in the running.

But then there were the smaller things. I limited myself to only three tentacles the entire time. If I used more, if I had tried my hardest, I probably could have snagged some other points along the way. No matter how low the headband was worth, it would have given us enough points to be in the top 16. I also took a step back for most of the decision making, letting Hagakure act as the leader. Maybe if I—

No. I shouldn't think like that. Going down that route just leads to me blaming others when the blame should solely be on me.

I don't even know why I'm so hung up on all this. The main purpose of the sports festival is to advertise the potential of the hero students, and get existing pro heroes interested in our futures. I was perfectly content in fading into the background, being just another student in the class. My sole desire right now was to prevent societal collapse, and hopefully graduate without anyone close dying. I didn't want the attention of the sports festival. But I also wanted to make it to the third round. I had actually felt excited for this. Whether I just liked fighting, or wanted to hurt others free of critique didn't matter. Especially not since I wouldn't be able to compete.

"Attention all students. Please gather on the main stage for the announcement of the third round and some recreational activities."

I sighed and stood up from the table, lunch long since eaten. I had to swallow this disappointment and move on. At least I'd have top-notch seats to view the fights.

~X~

"Listen up, kiddies!" Midnight called out once we had all gathered on the main stage. "As you've probably guessed by now, the third round will be a one-on-one tournament! Before we get to the recreation games, we first must draw lots to see who fights who. So, without further ado—"

"Excuse me!" Ojiro called out; hand raised. Just what was he doing? "I'm withdrawing."

What.

Why would he drop out here? Unlike me, Ojiro actually wanted to be noticed by the pros watching. It was almost insulting to throw away that opportunity.

"Truth to be told, I don't remember anything of the cavalry battle. I just can't accept getting by without putting in any effort myself."

"Still! You shouldn't throw away this opportunity!" Hagakure yelled. "As long as you show results in the tournament no one will care—"

"It's not about other people," I interrupted her with a hand on her shoulder. "This is about him. His pride."

Ojiro nodded in thanks.

"I wholeheartedly disagree with the decision, but my opinion doesn't matter in this," I continued.

"U-um. I'm dropping out too," another boy from class B called out. I think he was also a part of Ojiro's team with that purple haired kid — I think his name was Shindo?

"How youthful…" Midnight muttered with a creepy smile. "Very well, I accept your withdrawal. Since we still need 16 participants, two members of the fifth-place team will move up!"

The fifth-place team. Which was ours.

I turned to Shoji and Hagakure. "Which of us should go ahead?" I asked.

"I didn't do much in the last round, you two should go," Hagakure said.

I shook my head. "You weren't the one who screwed up and lost half of our points, I should sit out."

"You two were the ones that got us all of our points, I am fine ending my participation here," Shoji said.

I sighed. "This is going nowhere. Rock paper scissors?"

We each shot our hands out, I chose scissors. Shoji went with paper. Hagakure…

"I can see the issue here. Be honest, what did you choose?"

Hagakure was silent.

"It was rock, wasn't it," I said.

"It was rock," she admitted.

"Enough," Shoji said calmly. "We are never going to agree on this, but I will not go into this next round. It is simply the truth of the matter that no matter how well I perform, I will receive very few offers. You two have something to gain here. Besides, did you two not want to fight each other?"

I just sighed. "Fine, you win. I'm not stubborn enough for this."

"Are you done now?" Midnight asked impatiently. I nodded. "Great! Then allow me to present the first round!"

Sero Hanta vs Hagakure Tooru

Wazawa Sotoki vs Shinso Hitoshi

Kaminari Denki vs Hatsume Mei

Tokoyami Fumikage vs Yaoyorozu Momo

Kirishima Eijiro vs Aoyama Yuga

Bakugo Katsuki vs Iida Tenya

Uraraka Ochako vs Midoriya Izuku

Todoroki Shoto vs Ashido Mina

…Who was Shinso again? Well, it had to be either one of the two students who weren't in my class.

"Aw man, I'm first?" Hagakure whined. "This sucks."

"Why does that matter? It's not like the order affects anything."

"It's the principle of it. Going first is always a sign of bad luck!" she cried.

I was about to respond, asking how any of that made sense, but before I could, Ojiro interrupted.

"Wazawa. We need to talk."

~X~

Ojiro had led me to one of the preparation rooms, a grim look on his face. "What I said earlier about not remembering anything during the cavalry battle was true. That Shinso guy… he walked up to me out of the blue, asked to team up, and I went to respond, and that's it. Next thing I know, ten minutes had passed, and we had come third."

I sat down on the bench opposite him and folded my hands in front of my mouth. "So probably some kind of brainwashing quirk, then. To be able to still move around with you under the effects of the quirk means he could order you around."

"It's likely activated by his voice since I was about to respond when I went under. I also snapped out of it when someone from another team bumped into me, so a jolt might be enough to break out of it."

"So, voice activated brainwashing…" I mused. "His plan will likely just be to try and get me to respond to him, and then order me to forfeit. Should be able to beat him by not speaking."

"Actually," Ojiro said, looking a little uneasy, "I want to ask a favour of you."

I turned to face him head on, straightening a little. "What is it?"

"If you were anyone else, I'd just ask that you win, to get back at him using me like that," Ojiro said with a scowl, no doubt thinking of his lost opportunities. "But I know well enough by now that you're good enough to win against him, so I'll ask something different. I don't want you to just win, I want you to beat him. To show that someone who only gets by on the work of others doesn't deserve a spot on the stage."

I hummed in fascination. "You seem to have a bit of a vicious side to you," I commented. "Nice."

His face reddened a bit at that. "W-well, there should be about half an hour left before the matches start, so I'll leave you to prepare."

Ojiro got up to leave, as I thought of how to utterly destroy my opponent. Physical violence wouldn't be enough. Sure, it would prove how much better I was than… Shinko? It would show that I was stronger than him, but more would be needed to show he wasn't deserving of being there. Plus, victory would be so much sweeter if I made my opponent believe he was undeserving as well. That would be true defeat.

But how could I do that without talking? Or more accurately, how could I destroy his will to fight without him activating his quirk against me. Breaking out of it might be possible with an impossibly strong will, but I had no way of testing that beforehand, and it wasn't like I could have another person shake me if I ever fall under his brainwashing.

I stopped Ojiro before he could leave, an idea forming in my mind. "I need your help testing something."

~X~

"Well, everybody! After that exciting first match, we have the shocking standout Shinso Hitoshi from 1C! Versus the most likely student to glare at you during an English lesson, Wazawa Sotoki!"

That was… okay, the only real surprise there was that I beat Bakugo in that category. I had spent the remaining time before my match with Ojiro, fully plotting out how to deal with this Shinso guy's quirk. I had missed Hagakure's fight against Sero, but did hear that she managed to win, so I'd be facing her in the next round.

The two of us entered the arena from opposite ends of the stadium. The purple haired kid — I swear I'd met him before — seemed to perpetually glare at me. Using my pre-prepared portals, we brought out five tendrils beneath our uniform and analysed The Verbal Puppeteer before I dismissed them again. Based on that title, it was safe to assume the voice-activated brainwashing assumption was true.

"All right you two," Midnight said, standing on the edge of the arena. "The match will end whenever one of you falls off the stage, forfeits, or gets knocked out. Other than that, just try not to kill each other or yourselves. Fight!"

"That dumb monkey talked so much about his pride," the other boy immediately said. "But don't you agree that he's nothing more than a chimp-brained loser for throwing away his chances?"

I said nothing, just staring at him with a bored look. I did agree somewhat that it was a dumb choice to drop out — especially since he asked me, the person who replaced him, to win against this guy — but on the other hand, I understood that some people had their pride.

"Tch. I bet that fucker told you all about my quirk. I bet he told you about how evil I must be, how only a villain would have a quirk like this. Bunch of high and mighty hero students," he spat.

Wow, this kid had issues. A lot of projecting and assuming going on here. I continued to stare silently, scratching the inside of my ear for show.

"I bet you must see yourself as so much better than the rest of us just because you were lucky enough to be born with a heroic quirk. You have no idea what it's like to live where everyone naturally thinks you'll be a villain."

I snapped my fingers in recognition. "That's why I recognise you! You're that weak looking kid from the other week!"

Everything went dark as the quirk took hold.

I was once again surrounded by pitch black with a bunch of lights flickering in the distance, far more numerous than usual. A shape obscured the lights and brought one of them forward.

"I want you to make me pass out."

"Yes, yes," I spoke into the void. "I remember, that was like 20 minutes ago. Will you just hit me already?"

A deep rumbling sound akin to a chuckle was my only response.

"— yourself out of the ring."

CRACK!

"Ow!" I complained, bringing a hand to my cheek.

"And Wazawa uses his quirk to… hit himself in the face?" Present Mic announced, confusion clear in his voice.

The dick took my instruction to hit me and chose probably the second worst place to do so. If it wasn't for the fact that I'm pretty sure the only emotion that thing could feel was mild amusement, I would say it hated me.

"Anyways," I continued, "are you ever going to actually fight, or are you content to rely solely on your quirk?"

"H-how?" he asked, eyes wide.

I shrugged. "Dunno how it works either, to be honest."

Surprisingly, I wasn't affected by his quirk this time. Perhaps he needed to activate his quirk while talking, and the response just makes it take effect. So, he hadn't used it in his momentary surprise.

"Are you two going to start fighting yet, or what?" Midnight called from her seat on the sidelines.

"Depends on whether he decides he's going to actually fight for himself or not," I called back.

"You fucking hero course students," Shinso growled. "Thinking you're so much better than the rest of us."

I took a deep breath and sighed. This guy had a one-track mind, it seemed. "You know—"

Darkness enveloped me once again. I told the entity within to hit somewhere else this time.

"—for someone who complains so much about the hero course," I continued with a grunt as a tentacle whipped my shoulder, "and about how we all have such flashy quirks, you sure do love relying on your own."

"So what? Why shouldn't I use my quirk, the only reason I failed the entrance exam is because they rigged it in favour of you people with flashy quirks, so that people like me had no chance of getting in!" he shouted, getting more and more irate, approaching in a jog.

It felt like every line that came from his mouth I had heard already, just repeating and repeating ad infinitum. I didn't move an inch as he broke into a run, seemingly enraged by something, and threw a wild punch.

It would have been so easy to avoid. There was no form, no misdirection, telegraphed ages in advance. The punch weakly collided with my chest, only making me need to shift one foot slightly back to keep balance. As I thought, he was horribly weak.

"You know, the person I'm fighting in the next round's quirk only makes her invisible. And yet she still passed the exam."

"Shut up!" He began to try and push me out of the ring.

It took all my willpower not to punch him in the face right then — just to stop him from touching me — but I needed to say one more thing before my retaliation. It would seem that words were no cure for stubbornness, and my only option was to beat my point into him.

"Tell you what, since I supposedly only got in due to my quirk, I'll beat you completely quirkless." I grabbed Shinso's wrist and twisted, breaking his grip. A quick knee to the gut sent him staggering back with a rush of elation going through me.

A step forward, a punch to the chest. Deflecting a jab so it passed over my shoulder, using the opening to land another punch. Ducking under a wild swing, and then his side was completely exposed. It only took a hard hit to the ribs, and Shinso staggered back even more, gasping for breath. It was good that I had habitually used a gate to cover my face, otherwise they would all be able to see how much I was enjoying this.

"You know, I can almost sympathise with you about having everyone assume you'll use your quirk for villainy. But you never even tried to work with your 'teammates' earlier, just taking away their free will and coasting by on the efforts of others. That seems pretty villainous to me."

"…Fuck… you…" he gasped out, struggling to catch his breath.

I could have ended this fight in so many ways. He was nothing more than a free target. But there was one way that just felt fitting.

I swept at his legs, knowing there was next to no chance he could keep his balance as he was. Grabbing the front of his uniform, I pulled him forwards as I dropped to the floor, having him fall nearly on top of me.

All it took was wrapping one leg over the back of his neck, having the other leg on the opposite side of his head, with the crook of the knee over the other foot. A pull on his arm was all that was needed, and the hold was complete.

To test whether my quirk could still move when I was knocked unconscious by something that wasn't my own decision, I had Ojiro put me in a triangle choke hold. But as an experiment, we redid the test half a dozen times just to make sure it wasn't a fluke. And in that time, I became intimately familiar with the hold.

"Yield," I told Shinso. He squirmed a bunch, trying to wriggle his way out, but he was locked in. If he were to somehow break the hold, it would be quite painful to him.

He refused to answer, so I pressed my knees together, compressing the arteries on the sides of the neck. Within ten seconds, the struggling stopped, and Shinso fell unconscious.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, the winner of the second match is Wazawa Sotoki!" Present Mic cheered.

I stood up off the ground, and without a second glance at the limp form of my opponent, left to the seating area to watch the rest of the first round.