There's no particular merit to being honest when doing so doesn't cost you anything. I myself was an exceptionally honest person in middle school, if only because I was so unpopular that nobody ever asked me any personal questions where the answer would be difficult to say out loud. Heroes, on the other hand, often have important secrets that need keeping and are constantly bombarded by the media with personal questions in the name of generating clicks and ratings. Even disregarding a hero's personal needs for privacy, making a positive impression on the public is crucial for a hero, and naturally the most effective way for a hero to accomplish such a thing is with a never-ending stream of embellishments, media spins, staged appearances, and other 'little white lies' to boost their credibility and appeal. Indeed, from a certain perspective, lies are more heroic than honesty could ever be.
So why couldn't I make my legs move? The student pledge was just a bit of nonsense that was said before sporting competitions, literally just lip service, so there was no reason I shouldn't be able to walk up and mutter a few insincere platitudes into a microphone. But still. Somehow, the thought of solemnly swearing that I would honestly abide by the spirit of fair play in front of an audience of tens of thousands - many of whom were Pro Heroes - made me want to throw up. Was it the fact that I was being insincerely upheld as an avatar of civic responsibility and virtue? Above the stadium on an electronic display screen I could see the smiling faces of all of the 'HEARTs' I had touched; somehow the simple acts of climbing a tree and playing tennis for a few hours had been reframed by UA's teachers as acts of heroism and used to dupe the gullible masses into thinking that I was some kind of paragon. What's worse was, I couldn't even be mad about it. Totsuka and Renji were too adorable to be blamed for my current predicament. Iwato was too pitiful. In theory I could have blamed Kawasaki Taishi, since the little cockroach had oh-so-helpfully filled out a HEART request as well, but the fact that I bothered helping him was my cute little sister's fault, so that was no good either.
And yet I was angry anyways. Of all of the ways that the teachers could have 'helped' me look more 'impressive', they just had to pick one that wouldn't improve my chances of being brought into a dangerous police investigation in the slightest.
The first person to notice my paralysis - no, the stadium was full of literally thousands of people watching me, she probably wasn't the first one to notice, but the first person to do anything about it was Yuigahama Yui. Which wasn't surprising, really; earlier in the morning, when the hotheads in the class had been trying to psych themselves up by issuing pointless challenges to each other (and while I had been 'calmly and stoically sitting in silence', aka tuning everyone else out while trying not to hyperventilate), Yuigahama had been one of the few people in the waiting room who was going around to other students and trying to comfort them.
Without a doubt, Yuigahama Yui was a nice girl, someone who would offer an encouraging word or a pat on the back to anyone who looked like they needed it. But regardless of my being aware of that fact, when all of a sudden I felt a warm and gentle hand on my shoulder blade, that light and comforting touch jolted me out of my stupor, seemingly burning in my awareness long after that contact between us had ended. I turned to see Yuigahama smiling broadly at me, looking fresh and energetic in the school sports uniform. "You can do it, Hikki!" She cheered. "You'll be fine! Do it just like that speech you gave last week!"
That damn speech. On the electronic display, below the faces of the people I had supposedly heroically helped, there was a little pie chart showing just how many of my fellow students had nominated me as the most influential of their peers - and it was all the fault of those purple-haired assholes from the Gen-Ed classes. Somehow the words I had spat out in irritation over the mere existence of morons with so much free time that they could waste it on petty challenges had metamorphosed into a malicious meme that had infected the whole school.
In all honesty, the fact that a pretty girl was cheering me on was motivating in and of itself, but beyond giving my ego a boost and helping my delusional libido suppress my moral integrity, her words had another, more important effect. I took a step away from Yuigahama, turning my torso slightly so that her hand naturally slid off of my shoulder, and gave her a nod. "...Thanks." I muttered. For reminding me that even if I was a lousy hero and didn't deserve to be up there giving speeches, I did have an excellent reason to do so - petty spite.
Slowly, I stepped away from the crowd of first-year students and toward the microphone. My hands clenched into fists as I approached it, anger and adrenaline beginning to sizzle in my bloodstream, transmuting the butterflies of stage fright into something more vicious. The closer I got to the microphone, the angrier I got. Sure, those gen ed students had been jerks with free time that they didn't deserve, but as much as I despised them, at the end of the day they were just morons without any common sense - also known as average teenagers. As I stepped up next to Midnight-sensei on the podium, I realized that if there was anyone who was really to blame, anyone who really deserved my anger, it was… "The League of Villains," I said into the microphone.
The stadium fell dead silent. Obviously, everyone watching had been expecting me to say something that started with 'Sensei, I pledge." Moreover, people were curious. The attack had only been a few weeks ago, and UA had been scanty with the details that it had released to the media. The suggestion that I would break that silence had an effect similar to waving raw red meat in front of a hungry dog, and so between their surprise and their curiosity - and possibly basic courtesy for someone giving a speech - everyone shut up to listen. Maybe Midnight should have stopped me, or given me some sign that I should have stuck to the pledge instead of making an impromptu speech, but instead she smiled at me and licked her lips in a way that made me distinctly uncomfortable.
Into the silence, I began again. "The League of Villains attacked the USJ with a goal in mind. One of their leaders said during the attack that they were there to cure a societal disease, that the fact that heroes are sometimes treated like celebrities was so intolerable that it justified them murdering kids." Realistically, the League of Villains had only attacked the USJ to try to murder All Might, but tarring their reputation as fame-obsessed crackpot losers was way more cathartic. "They aren't the only ones who think that way either," I continued, "the Hero Killer has been all over the news for attacking heroes that make a lot of media appearances, and you can find all kinds of people online with more free time than common sense who say that heroes who try their hardest to become famous are 'fake'." I stopped for a second, my hands up in air quotes around that last word, then let them drop with a shrug. "I could go over the enormous list of reasons that people like them are completely and totally wrong. But I don't want to bore you all, so I'll just say that for people like the League of Villains and the Hero Killer, today's Sports Festival goes against everything that they stand for, which is why I'm happy to be taking part."
That got a response from the crowd, a rippling wave of laughter and cheers echoing through the stadium. Of course, in reality I was a lot less certain of my words than I was making myself sound. Killing people was obviously the wrong way to approach social change, but I wasn't exactly ignorant of the problems that blind worship of heroism caused. I was probably even an example of just the sort of 'Fake Hero' that the Hero Killer supposedly despised. But there was no way in hell that was I going to treat the arguments of monsters like All For One with any kind of dignity, so instead those arguments were summarily dismissed as meaningless drivel, and laughed at by a crowd of tens of thousands in person and probably hundreds of thousands on television. Hope you're watching, asshole.
As the laughter died down, I continued my impromptu speech. "With that said, there are probably people out there who aren't murderous thugs using facile arguments as justifications for their crimes, who also think that events like this are fake and overblown. Unlike that former group, those people actually have a right to their own opinion. And in response to them, I just want to say this." I paused, taking a deep breath, and looked straight at the flickering news cameras. "Whether you think that media events like this one are real or fake; whether you think that all of us students are Real Heroes-in-training or Fake Heroes-in-training, our hard work, at least, is real. The sweat and tears and blood and bile we've shed, the hours we've put in after we were already exhausted, all of those are real. So for today's pledge, Sensei, I hereby pledge to show everyone watching here the results of our hard work. Thank you." And with that, I bowed and stepped back from the microphone.
The audience, not knowing that I had only decided to change the pledge because I wasn't capable of honestly pledging to play fair, cheered again; this time the cheers were louder, and not just coming from the stands. As I turned to walk back to the assembled students I saw a wide array of smiles, thumbs-ups, nods of respect, and other signs of approval. Kirishima gave me a congratulatory slap on the back as I passed him; Bakugo an 'encouraging' punch in the bicep. (After I passed the two of them I gave Midoriya a wide berth, just in case.) All in all it only made me feel a little sick to my stomach.
Thankfully, I didn't have a lot of time to dwell on the issue. With a swish of her flogger, Midnight was already continuing the ceremony, and by 'continuing the ceremony', I actually mean unceremoniously starting the Sports Festival proper. "Well said, Hikigaya-san! Now, it's time for what you've all been waiting for! Our first event, an event that crushes the hopes and dreams of three out of every four students who challenge it, that's right, the qualifiers! Every year, UA puts new challenges up against our heroes to be, and this year…" With a dramatic pause and a fan-servicey hip swivel, Midnight-sensei pointed dramatically at the huge stadium display. In the background, a brass instrumental track started being played over the public announcement system, and the display started mimicking the reels of a slot machine, flickering through 'potential events' too fast for any individual one to be identified - which struck me as an unnecessary bit of showmanship given that there was no way in hell that what we were doing was actually going to be decided at random, but then again, I wasn't in charge. Speaking of unnecessary showmanship, as the reels of the 'slot machine' slowed, Midnight continued speaking. "Our students first challenge will be -" Don-don! A cheerful musical cue rang out in time with the stadium display settling on a single challenge. "An Obstacle Course Race!"
I couldn't help but turn and stare at Hayama, who had the good grace to look slightly abashed. Damn, maybe it was randomly determined? Unless the obstacles involved things like 'ceilings', anybody with a flight quirk basically was getting an automatic pass on to the next round. Maybe this was UA's way of rewarding Hayama for having been the student who successfully went to get help at the USJ? As Midnight stopped speaking, Present Mic took over, his shrill and piercing voice blaring over the intercom. "That's right, ladies and gentlemen, it's an OBSTACLE COOOURSE RAAAACE!" His speaker-amplified voice warring with the roar of the cheering crowds, Present Mic did his best to grandstand. "And yours truly, Present Mic, will be here narrating it all to you, along with my co-announcer, the recently famous, former underground hero, defender of his class and savior of All Might during the USJ incident, Aizawa Shota, better known as ERASERHEAAAD!"
There was an awkward silence for a few seconds before the speakers finally crackled back to life. "...Yo," Aizawa-sensei's voice eventually said. Another cheer erupted from the stands, this one mixed with laughter and good-natured jeers at our homeroom teacher's obvious discomfort with crowds. After a few 'ums' and loud coughs to clear his throat, however, Aizawa-sensei managed to overcome his stage fright for long enough to speak. "There will be eight obstacles in this race. You can skip any of them by taking the pathway that leads around the obstacle area, but if you do, your time will be penalized, so don't skip an obstacle unless you're absolutely sure that going around will be much faster for you than going through."
"Whoa, good advice from my co-announcer there! Any other tips for the kids, Aizawa-san?" Present Mic's shrill voice asked.
Sensei's exasperated sigh was just barely audible over the intercom. Clearly, this bit had been scripted. Despite his apparent frustration, Aizawa-sensei responded, doing his best not to sound as exhausted and burnt-out as we usually saw him in class. "Mmm, well, I don't have a physical enhancement quirk, and I was able to complete all the obstacles in less time than the skip penalty would have cost me," he recited with the barest hint of artificial enthusiasm in his voice. "So if you're aiming for first place, don't skip anything."
"There you have it folks!" Mic-sensei cut back in. "The fastest way around the track is straight through! As long as you're up to the standard of a Pro Hero, anyway. Do you kids think you have what it takes?" That settled it. Normally, in a situation like this, I'd assume that the race was meant to be a test of judgement, where keeping one's cool and not acting like a moron by charging headlong into danger was rewarded. When they framed it like that, though, it was clear that anyone who took the bait of going around the obstacles would be used as a negative example in comparison to the 'brave' and 'heroic' students who 'dared' to break through all obstacles in their way. I could even smell a faint scent of match-fixing coming from the fact that they hadn't told us what the penalties for a skip were ahead of time, probably to keep someone with a speed quirk like Iida from deciding that it would be best to just skip everything that looked even slightly difficult and making up the penalties with raw speed. The notion that a hero only ever charged headlong into danger without thinking of clever ways to evade trouble was completely unrealistic, of course, but the audience watching us was here for exactly that type of unrealistic nonsense. If I wanted to look good enough to make my way onto the investigation, I would have to charge the obstacles no matter how asinine it would be to do so in real life.
Looking around, the expressions of determination on my classmates' faces showed me that the brighter bulbs of 1-A had also understood how the game was set up, and that the less perceptive members had fallen for Present Mic's childish taunting. Even my classmates who were normally a bit unmotivated like Kaminari had fierce looks of determination on their face - which I suppose in his case shouldn't be surprising, given how prone he was to falling for Bakugo's goading. The crowd seemed to feel a sense of anticipation too, as the cheers and whistles slowly died down to an anticipatory silence broken only by Present Mic's piercing shrieks. "Now, let's go to Midnight-sensei for the rules! Take it away, MIDNIIIIIGHT!"
"First rule!" Midnight proclaimed with a snap of a whip. "Stay on or above the track at all times! Second rule! To avoid being penalized for skipping an obstacle, you must enter the obstacle area from an entry gate and exit the area from an exit gate! Bursting through the walls, teleporting into or out of the area, and other methods of evading the obstacle will not count as successfully completing the obstacle! And finally, the third rule, no blocking the entries or exits to the obstacle areas!" Midnight gave all of us a predatory grin. "That's right! Other than that, there are no rules! Interfering with other contestants is fine everywhere but the obstacle entries and exits, using your quirks is 100% allowed, just show us what you've got!"
The audience roared. All around the stadium, the display screens switched to a picture of a traffic light. I took a deep breath and reached into my constellation of quirks, fusing Ooze and Mime in preparation for the race. Around me I noticed people getting into running positions, saw Midoriya beginning to crackle with green static, felt the cool breeze coming from my right as Yukinoshita surreptitiously began to devour heat. I could feel my heart pounding, my palms sweating, and I bit the inside of my lip savagely to calm myself down a little bit. For all that an obstacle race with a variety of challenges sounded like it should be right up my alley, I was going to have to ration my use of Stockpile judiciously. Stockpile made me faster, made me stronger, but if I tried to use it while also using one of my other quirks at their 'normal' levels I would immediately blow through my saved up quirk factor for that quirk whether I wanted to or not - and I couldn't afford to waste all of my hard-stocked quirks on the preliminary round.
Should I use Stockpile at all? Should I try to show off my base level quirks? Just run with my body to show my fitness? What would be most impressive, if I were a cop watching this? As I was furiously trying to choose a strategy, a loud tone sounded, the red light on the traffic light lit up, and Midnight called out "On your marks!"
Damn it, I needed more time to think! I threw two tendrils of Ooze out towards one of my newest quirks, the Noumu quirk I was calling Adrenaline Rush. The sunny stadium grounds suddenly seemed almost painfully bright as my eyes involuntarily dilated, and the noise of the crowd distorted as though I was hearing it underwater, but the super-adrenaline did its job and bought me a few more subjective seconds of frantic thinking. How should I run this race? Wait, forget that, I don't have to decide how to handle the obstacles until I see them, so what do I do right this very second, at the start? There's a crowd, everyone will be screwing each other over…
"Get set!" Another beep, and the red lights on the displays changed to amber.
Maybe it was the super-adrenaline running through my system, pushing my flight-or-flight reflexes to their max, maybe it was the stadium atmosphere and the weight of societal expectations on me pushing me to perform, but in that split second between Set and Go, I decided that the best way to avoid being sabotaged by all of the other contestants was to be too far ahead of them for them to catch me. That interminable pause before the starting buzzer stretched on even longer as I connected my third tendril of Ooze to Stockpile and all of the super-adrenaline I had stored up over the past few weeks flooded into my body at once. It flooded through my veins like fire, simultaneously pushing my nerves and muscles beyond their normal limits, and reinforcing them so that they could withstand the abuse that I was about to put them through.
Three things happened at once. The stoplight almost imperceptibly flickered from amber to green, Midnight's flogger cut down through the air in apparent slow motion, and I ran. For a few seconds, I was immortal. I swerved past a flying purple ball, evaded the grasping hand of someone trying to push me back, and jumped over a sheet of encroaching ice that tried to bind my feet, all in the span of a handful of seconds. Unfortunately, Adrenaline Rush was a little bit like Gigantify in that when I stockpiled it, all of the quirk factor I saved was devoted towards improving the power of the quirk, and none of it towards improving the duration of its effects; still, that initial burst of speed and reflexes did the job I needed it to do. After three seconds of slow-motion dodging the dozen or so attempts at sabotaging me, I was the first person to make it into the tunnel, and had a clear path to run forwards without being pressed by the giant mass of students.
It was a good start. I didn't seem likely to stay in first, though. Risking a glance over my shoulder, I saw more than a few familiar faces in hot pursuit. Midoriya and Iida, both keeping up through sheer running power. Yukinoshita, borrowing heat from the masses. Todoroki, taking advantage of the chilly air to create his ice slide with even less effort than it normally took him. Hayama and that girl from 1-B soaring over the crowd's heads, while Orimoto Kaori simply flowed around them all like a cloud of smoke. Gritting my teeth, I detached from Adrenaline Rush, doubled up on Stockpile, and ran faster.
108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108
"And, showing us why he's the president of Class 1-A, Hikigaya Hachiman is the first one out of the tunnel! But, the other students aren't far behind!" Present Mic's voice boomed out over the stadium, only barely making itself heard over the roar of the crowds.
"Idiot," I muttered under my breath around a mouthful of popcorn. "Nii-san's the president because people voted for him, not because he's a fast runner. I thought you were supposed to be a teacher?"
"Um, Hikigaya-san, calling Pro Heroes idiots is a little bit…"
Well, I thought it had been under my breath anyways. I managed to tear my eyes away from my brother's figure on the race display for long enough to roll them at Taishi. "Yeah, yeah. Which one's your sister, again?" I asked to change the subject. As usual, my parents had intended to come see Hachiman at the festival, had dutifully bought tickets, and then Work happened. I sort of doubted that when Dad gave me his spare ticket and told me to bring a friend to stay safe that he'd meant for me to bring a boy, but it's not like I was going to give the ticket to someone who didn't have a sister at UA when I knew someone who did.
"You can't see her now, she's still in the tunnel, but she's tall and she's wearing a white costume instead of the school uniform," Taishi said. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that he was leaning forward, his hands clenched tightly into fists as they braced against his knees.
I squinted slightly. The display zoomed into focus, my eyes magnifying the tunnel exit area so much that I could almost count the pixels. After a few seconds, I saw a flash of white and pale blue. "She's out!" I told Taishi excitedly, "She's in the front half, she's doing good!"
He beamed, leaning even farther forward to try to make out what I had spotted, but before he could, the display changed again. "And the leading students have hit the first obstacle, the Windy Plaaaains!" Present Mic's voice announced. "It might look like a flat field that's easy to run through at the start, but there are actually enormous fans on the outside of the obstacle that can blow a runner or a flier off course! To get through quickly, they'll need not just speed, but stability, and, oh! 1-A's Iida Tenya has taken the lead!"
Sure enough, as my head jerked back towards the display, I saw that Onii-san had fallen behind. Even though he was just as fast as that other guy when the race started, Hachiman was starting to slow down a bit. Even worse, whenever he tried to run, the super strength quirk Hachi was using was making him bounce up off the ground and into the wind. He wasn't the only one having trouble, though. A guy with green lightning on his body was having the same trouble Onii-san was having, only moreso, and both of the students who had tried flying into the obstacle were now battling against the wind and making only slow headway as a result. A few people, like the ice slidey guy with two-colored hair and the girl who could turn into a cloud, had even given up on using their quirks for the obstacle entirely.
Onii-san, of course, didn't need to stop using his quirk, he just switched to different ones. After a few seconds, he stopped glowing orange and started running more normally, with his body real low to the ground to help him beat the wind. Knowing him, he probably had some sort of other quirk active to help him stick to the ground or something - frankly, I stopped trying to keep track of all the little tricks onii-san had years ago. I think it was around the time I caught him sitting on the couch watching televison like a zombie, alternating between using an infrared quirk to change channels, using a telekinesis quirk that was just strong enough to levitate one piece of popcorn to his mouth at a time, and heating himself up with his stupid kotatsu quirk to get the cat to stay on his lap? Anyway, Onii-san had quirks to wash the dishes; I was pretty sure he had to have something to handle a little bit of wind. Sure enough, whatever he was using was effective. It wasn't enough to let him catch up to the first place guy right away, but it least let him keep his lead over some of the other people coming up from behind him.
"What are your predictions for the match, Eraserhead?" The intercom blared. "Right now it looks like class 1-A is off to an early lead!" The display changed yet again, showing a few of the other students leading the race. I didn't recognize any of them in person, but the explodey-hands-guy and the girl who turned her pants into giant springs both sounded like people Hachiman had told me about, so them being in his class seemed likely. Actually, now that I looked closer, that last girl looked like the person who had encouraged my brother before he did his speech… and he'd said the cloth control quirk girl was the girl whose dog he saved, didn't he? Oh ho? Hmmmm. As much as I wanted to speculate further, however, I was interrupted by Present Mic getting frustrated with his co-announcer's lack of response. "Do you think your students will keep that lead for the rest of the race?"
"It depends," the other announcer answered, and I scowled. Obviously Onii-san's class was going to win! "My students have been very motivated ever since the villain attack, but because of that attack's timing, class B has had some extreme environment and rescue training at the USJ that class A hasn't had the chance to make up yet. With seven obstacles left to go, class B has a lot of opportunities to use that training to make up the distance."
"That's right folks, we've only passed the first obstacle. It's still anybody's race!" Present Mic called out, receiving a resounding cheer from the audience in return. "Speaking of which, it looks like Iida-san has made it to the next obstacle, so let's see what the next of those opportunities will look like!" The display changed yet again, revealing a long stretch of water, like multiple swimming pools laid end to end with each other. The racetrack looked like it was set up to cross the giant pool across its narrow axis, but there was a huge fence in the middle of the water that stretched from the bottom of the pool up to the top of the cage enclosing the obstacle, and all the way down the length of the pool until it reached an opening at the far end. "After the Windy Plains, now we have the Deep River! There's not much room to run by the side of the river, so students will have to either hang on to the fence to slowly inch their way across, or swim all the way up the 'river' to get to the hole in the gate. Or, if they're skilled at diving, there are underwater shortcuts they can try for - but those are down pretty deep! Iida-san is the first racer to hit the obstacle, will he dive? Will he swim? And, yes, he's throwing off his sports jacket and jumping into the water without any hesitation! What a powerful flutter kick! He's like a motorboat, heading straight for the far gate!"
Despite all the spectacle that the guy in first place was making, it couldn't hold my interest; I was more focused on the entry gate to the obstacle at the bottom of the screen than the action at the center. Luckily, I didn't have long to wait. More and more students were passing the first obstacle and making their way to the second. After Iida came a girl with long black hair, who somehow was able to freeze the water underneath her feet for long enough to practically dance on top of it, and then the green lightning guy, who used his super strength to jump back and forth between the walls and ceiling of the obstacle's cage. Then, finally, Onii-san came into view, and I let out a cheer for him even as the PA system drowned me out. "Swimming the rapids! Running on the water's surface! Climbing the cage! The top three each have their own way of handling the obstacle, each using their quirks to their fullest extent! Now, how will 1-A's President rise to the challenge - whoa!"
Without slowing down, Hachiman charged the 'river' shore, aiming not for the distant gate at the end of the pool but for the underwater shortcut straight ahead. With a huge jump, he dove at the water, and all of a sudden in midair he grew to the size of a giant. A few students looked like they were shouting in dismay as Giant-Form Hachiman hit the water and they got splashed by the huge impact. Between the momentum he got from falling and the fact that he started to dolphin kick after he hit the water, Hachiman sank like a rock. Present Mic went wild. "It looks like Hikigaya-san is using a giant growth quirk to get down to the gate quickly! But at that size, he won't be able to get through the gate, so will he - yes! He's shrinking while he's holding onto the edge of the gate! Using shapeshifting to move is pretty advanced Quirk usage, folks, and it requires a lot of body strength, but looks like Hikigaya-san has plenty to spare! He's caught back up with the other racers, folks, and is back in the running for first!"
"GO, NII-SAN!" I shouted, my voice getting lost in the roar of the crowds.
"Your brother is amazing!" Taishi said as I leaned back into my seat. His turquoise eyes practically sparkled with hero worship, and for some reason I felt my cheeks heating up.
To dispel the embarrassment, I rolled my eyes. "He's so antisocial he's practically a hikikomori, he's so addicted to exercise and health food that I needed your help to trick him into going out to his favorite restaurant, and he's a complete and total slacker about anything that isn't related to being a hero… but I suppose he can be pretty cool sometimes." I caught a flicker of white out of the corner of my eye and pointed at the screen. "Hey, it's your sister!"
"Again, it's still early on in the race, folks, so anything can happen - but we're seeing some amazing initial performances from the non-hero classes this year! We've got a couple of Support students using their hero equipment designs to keep up with the faster racers, a few groups of General Education students running as groups in order to cover each other's weaknesses," Present Mic began, only to be uncharacteristically cut off by the other announcer, Onii-San's homeroom teacher.
"One of those groups is the Tennis Club," Eraserhead interrupted. "They requested training from the students of 1-A so that they could perform well in the Sports Festival, and it looks like they took that opportunity seriously." Obligingly, the camera zoomed in on a sporty-looking girl using a blue force shield to protect herself and her teammates behind her from the wind.
"Whoa, there's not many sports clubs out there that can say they got training from a future pro hero," Present Mic nattered inanely. "If that training is effective on the court as it seems to be on the obstacle course, I foresee a lot of Hero League tennis trophies in UA's future!"
I turned to Taishi. "Your sister's doing great!" I said, patting him on the shoulder to calm him down. Really, the clenched fists and the white knuckles were a little much. The race wasn't even half over! "They even mentioned her, sort of!"
"Go, Nee-san!" Taishi shouted in lieu of a reply. "Keep it up!"
He said something else after, but I missed it because Present Mic had started up his spiel again. "If the last two obstacles were tests of speed, the third obstacle is a test of strength! To pass the Mountain Lift, students will need to be able to lift heavy gates up and out of their way - or be able to sneak by while someone else is holding a gate open! There are a lot of gates, but the ones closest to the track are the heaviest - and oh, it looks like 1-A's Hikigaya is going straight for the heaviest one!"
Despite my earlier mocking of Taishi's nerves, I couldn't help but suck in a breath as the camera zoomed in on Hachiman. In front of him, the camera clearly displayed a label showing that the gate he had chosen to lift weighed 500 kilos. I mean, I knew I could lift that much. And I was sure that there were a bunch of UA students who could lift way more. The thing was, 500 kilos was the dividing line between what was humanly possible to lift without a strength quirk, and what wasn't - which is probably why they chose it. It was as good as a sign on a door saying 'Superhuman Strength Only.' Had onii-san really gotten that strong? Or was he doing that thing where he used up one of his quirks temporarily? Did he have enough quirks saved up that he could spare one on the very first event, especially a super useful one like super strength?
However he accomplished it, that super heavy door didn't slow him down at all. Neither did the next obstacle, the 'Earthen Minefield', because Onii-san did a long jump and just flew over it like it was nothing. At that point, even Present Mic had to admit that my brother was awesome. "And once again, Hikigaya is continuing to dominate the lead! So far from him we've seen super speed, shape-changing, super strength, and now flight! What kind of overpowered quirk does this kid have?" I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Oh please, like anybody's going to believe that you don't know what his quirk is, you're literally one of his teachers. If you're going to sell Onii-san's good points to the heroes in the audience, would it kill you to do it without all the unnecessary showmanship?
Then again, at least he was more exciting than the other announcer. "If you asked him, he'd probably tell you it was the weakest quirk in Class 1-A," Eraserhead answered in a dull voice. Despite the dryness of the reply, I still snorted in amusement. Yeah, that sounded like Hachiman, all right. "According to his quirk paperwork, it's called 108 skills..."
Years of elementary and middle school allowed me to tune out a boring teacher explaining things I already knew like I'd been preparing for it all my life. Instead of paying attention, I leaned in towards Taishi. "Hey, hey. What does your sister's costume actually do? Did she say?" Unlike a lot of the girls from the non-hero classes, it looked like Taishi's sister hadn't skipped any of the obstacles yet, and she was still holding on with the hero classes. She and a round-cheeked girl with brown hair were neck and neck coming out of the Mountain Lift - Saki had been ahead initially, but the brown haired girl had caught up by lifting the 500 kilo gate with even less apparent effort than my brother or the green lightning kid a little bit before her had used, while Saki had to lift her slightly lighter gate with something like a folding carjack that she pulled out of her backpack.
Taishi nodded in response. "Yeah, Nee-san said it was a suit designed for disaster recovery called the Angel, with a bunch of rescue tools to help people reach injured survivors and stuff."
"It certainly seems useful," I said as the monitor showed his sister pulling out a second metal stick, this time one that unfolded into a metal detector. It was pretty interesting seeing all the ways that everybody had to pass each obstacle, and what things tripped them up. The green lightning guy had been in second place behind my brother at the Mountain Lift, for instance, but when he got to the minefield he had to slow down because he didn't have good enough control over his super strength to watch his step. Then there was the girl who walked on water, who was just as fast or faster than the green lightning guy at the obstacles, but who seemed to be slowing down on the sprints between the obstacles for some reason. On the other hand, there were a few students like the flying guy and the guy who sort of flew by exploding his hands who had gotten slowed down by the heavy gates, but who were now catching back up. (There had been a girl who could fly, too, but I didn't see her out in front with the other fliers so she was probably still back at the Mountain Lift.)
So far, there were only three people whose quirks looked like they could handle anything the course threw at them. Onii-san, obviously. Ice slidey guy, who'd had a little bit of trouble in the wind zone, but who had fought his way forward all the way back into second place. And the girl who was coming up behind them both at a startling pace. "We're halfway through the race now folks, and for the moment the top three racers have broken ahead of the pack! There's 1-A's Hikigaya Hachiman, with a quirk or combination of quirks for every obstacle! 1-A's Todoroki Shoto, skating past obstacles left and right with his incredible control over ice! And with a Fog Transformation quirk that's letting her breeze past everything in her way, catching up quickly is class 1-B's Orimoto Kaori!"
108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108*108
I've never considered myself a particularly competitive person. Well, before coming to UA I had never really won at anything before, so it's possible that unbeknownst to myself I was like an uncultured philistine who declared that they didn't like ramen after only having tasted the kind that comes from a styrofoam cup. Maybe if I tried a genuine victory, I would find out I actually liked it? After all, I already knew I hated losing.
Coincidentally, rapidly approaching from behind me were two people who I didn't want to lose to. It was hard to say why I still held onto so much resentment against Orimoto Kaori. Sure, she was two-faced, a hypocrite, a 'fake hero' more concerned with her social status and the appearance of kindness than the genuine thing, but it was hardly like I was one to talk. After all, I was just as fake, just as hypocritical myself. I was completely over her romantically, so maybe at the end of the day I disliked her just because I didn't want the competition. The reason I disliked Todoroki, on the other hand, was way less ambiguous: he was a stuck-up arrogant jerk. Also, he kept throwing blasts of ice at me to try to get me to slow down.
So despite the fact that my energy was starting to flag and I was starting to tire, despite the fact that I was feeling more and more off-center due to the fusion of Ooze and Mime, I didn't slow down at all as I charged at the entrance of the fifth obstacle. Unlike the other entrances, this one was covered by what looked like some kind of blackout curtain; as I passed through it, the brief flash of light I let in illuminated a twisty maze of corridors for a split second before the curtain closed behind me and left me in pitch darkness. My first instinct was to use a quirk to give myself some light, but I quickly suppressed it, even as I raced forward through the maze by my memory of what had been revealed in that brief flash of light. As soon as I illuminated myself, I would reveal my position and Todoroki would probably shoot a wave of ice at me. More to the point, even if neither Todoroki nor Orimoto attacked me, if I lit up the area they'd be able to see, too. If I could come up with a way to make it through the obstacle without light, I could maybe use the chance to widen my lead.
That thought in mind, I stopped channeling Stockpile and swapped two of my Ooze tendrils over to Tokoyami's Dark Shadow quirk. In the pitch blackness, the original version of his quirk would probably be completely uncontrollable - I'd be surprised if he didn't skip this obstacle - but in exchange for my weakened copy of the quirk being completely useless in any kind of light, in the darkness it powered up into near-usability. As dark as it was, I felt the quirk activate more than I saw it; all of a sudden there was a gentle tugging sensation on my navel, and a strange echo to my thoughts and emotions. I probably didn't need to say it out loud, but I did anyway. "Find us a way out of here," I told it, and pretty shortly thereafter found myself being tugged along by the quirk-shadow coming from my navel.
As clever as an idea as it was, though, I wasn't able to get through the obstacle before I started hearing a regular pop, pop, pop; it was as if someone was setting off firecrackers every few seconds to see by. A shudder went through one of the walls I was tracing with my hand to avoid getting lost, as if someone had run into it at high speeds; I suddenly realized that the excess power from Stockpile that Midoriya's body couldn't contain was probably bright enough to see by as well. In short, my light advantage was about to be a moot point, if it hadn't been already. Disregarding stealth, I quickly bared my teeth in a savage grin, producing just enough faint light with two copies of the Megawatt Smile quirk that I could actually see to move.
In the end, I fought my way out of the maze not having gained ground over my pursuers, but actually having lost it instead. Sure, I had maybe given Todoroki and Orimoto a harder time than they'd have had if I'd used lights from the start, but in doing so I had been forgetting about the other 237 students in the race. I was still in first place, but the hard-won lead I had acquired at the start of the race had evaporated, leaving me within range of everyone else's attempts at sabotage. Of course, I wasn't the only target, just the most prominent one - as one student after another left the fifth obstacle, quirks started flying left and right. The road to the sixth obstacle wound up half breakneck sprint, half grand melee as the best hero students at UA began battling me and each other for the lead.
KRAKOOM! "Get back here, DEKU!" Even with an explosion ringing in my ears, I could still hear Bakugo's shout and the PAPAPAPAPA of superstrength feet slapping the pavement. In a flash of green lightning, Midoriya raced past me, only to have to swerve wildly as the STKSTKSTK of cracking crystals heralded the creation of a wall of ice right in his path. Between the facts that I was going a little bit slower than Midoriya and that I was a little further behind him, I had enough time to jump and hurdle over the wall. In midair I had enough time to look behind me, and I saw an enormous fogbank racing after the four of us, almost making it look like we were all trying to outrun the pyroclasmic dust cloud of a volcano. While I wouldn't be immediately incinerated if Orimoto caught up to me, I knew full well that if she caught me, not only would it be incredibly difficult to see where I was going, but there was a chance she could materialize her hands and feet inside the cloud to trip me as I ran.
The good news was that on flat ground, it seemed like I was faster than her. The bad news was that there were three obstacles left, one of which we were about to enter. I knew for a fact, having copied her quirk, that there was barely anything that could slow Orimoto down other than high winds; unfortunately I couldn't really say the same for myself. I wound up having to pull off a swerve of my own as Bakugo passed me and was the first person into the sixth obstacle; to avoid being blown up by his explosive backwash I attuned two copies of Kirishima's quirk and one of Tetsutetsu's. I put my arms up in front of my face to protect it and flexed my skin - it was a little bit like deliberately trying to give myself goosebumps - and managed to grow a silvery dusting of almost fishlike scales just in time for Bakugo to launch himself into the air with another BOOM.
Despite not being at ground zero of the blast and it not being a particularly large explosion by Bakugo's standards, I still found myself staggering. The shockwave buffeted my body, and small pieces of gravel impacted my reinforced skin painfully. Around the dust and debris, however, I saw the next obstacle. Giant robots lumbered into view, multiple mechanical menaces that resembled the zero-pointer from the opening exam, accompanied by even more robots of a smaller size. They were intimidating. They loomed. And not one of the five of us at the head of the race slowed down as we charged towards them.
What even was my life right now? I didn't even know what was worse, the fact that I had thought that inventing a quirk combo specifically to take down killer robots was a good idea, or the fact that it was actually about to come in handy. Dropping my Fish Scales, I grabbed Backdraft's Hydro Cannon, Mina Ashido's Acid, and Kaminari's Electrification quirk. Electricity and Water were a well known combination, of course, but the addition of an acid solution to the water made it an even better conductor, and the stickiness of the fluid Mina's quirk could excrete also helped there keep from being any breaks in the current. Ahead of me, Bakugo blew past the robots with a shout of "Out of my way!" and several subsequent explosions; I took advantage to run up to an already off-balance robot and hit it in the leg servos with a 12,000-Volt liquid stun gun. It was hard to tell whether I short circuited the whole robot or just its leg but either way the result was the same, it never recovered its balance and fell in a cacophonous heap. Midoriya opportunistically sped by me as the robot fell, and the two of us passed the second robot just as Todoroki froze it in place.
With an elated grin I started slaughtering my way through the mechanical enemies ahead of me. All it took was one touch from my Short Circuit quirk combo to knock a robot out, and even the steadily increasing nausea from using the Ooze-Mime combo couldn't discourage my happiness from the fact that I'd found yet another way to make my quirks useful even at the base level. After incapacitating five or six of the smaller robots, though, I suddenly realized the combo's fatal flaw. It didn't make me any faster. Midoriya kept getting further into the lead ahead of me, Todoroki and Bakugo both passed me, and every time my head turned I could see fog in my peripheral vision. With a grimace, I abandoned the Short Circuit combo for my plan B. Two tendrils to Giant Growth, one tendril to Beast Form; I didn't have a fancy name for the combination yet but there weren't many physical obstacles that being a five and a half meter tall juggernaut of solid muscle couldn't solve.
Bodily throwing robots out of the way where I couldn't just outrun them, by the end of the obstacle I had I caught back up to Midoriya, Bakugo, and Todoroki. From behind them, I could see all three were clearly starting to tire. Bakugo's hands were shaking and he was using his explosions judiciously; Todoroki was starting to frost over and was running stiffly. Stockpile was a perpetual motion machine of power, so Midoriya looked like he still had gas in the tank, but he was covered in dirt and scrapes from where he had lost control of his super strength and taken tumbles along the way. It could have been my chance to retake the lead, but unfortunately for me I wasn't feeling any better than they looked. Plan B had been plan B for a reason - combining multiple transformation quirks on top of Ooze-Mime's typical body dysphoria only exacerbated the problem. My brain was getting conflicting sensations telling it my body should be big, should be an ooze, should be an animal, and I was starting to stumble and trip as my motor centers started to forget how long my legs should be, or whether I was even supposed to have any.
So instead of just bull rushing my way into first place I hung back a little, attuning to Komachi's quirk to catch my breath and to give my brain a few minutes to recover. My body was feeling sore too; between the adrenaline at the start of the race, the multiple quick transformations I had put it through along the way, and the amount of pure effort I was running with, I was starting to feel the burn.
Two more obstacles.
I had two more chances to take the lead, two more opportunities to show off for the audience.
I could ignore how sore and nauseated I was for two more obstacles, at least.
Midoriya, Bakugo, and Todoroki all made it into the seventh obstacle ahead of me; unfortunately, of the three of them, only Midoriya had to slow down. The seventh obstacle was composed of a 'swamp' of water about thirty feet down, made crossable by bunch of small platforms which were connected to each other by tightropes and narrow bridges. Nets of vines also hung from the ceiling in places, possibly intended to slow down fliers, possibly there so students could try their Tarzan impressions. It was just the thing to slow down someone with super strength and control issues; Todoroki, on the other hand, could make ice bridges between platforms, while Bakugo could just jump and course correct with his explosions to land in the right spots. I couldn't just fly from island to island across the whole course without dropping my sister's quirk and risking throwing up, but if I attuned 2 ooze tendrils to Power Triangle I could use that girl's flight powers to fake having perfect balance, which would have to be good enough.
As I jogged on the tightrope toward the far side of the 'swamp' I could clearly see the expression on Midoriya's face fall as first Todoroki, then Bakugo passed him. As I passed him myself, walking on top of the tightrope that he was hanging from, I could see the tears forming in his eyes, the frustration and panic that he had as he fell further and further behind the lead. He clearly knew he wasn't going fast enough, and yet he still didn't try to trip me up as I passed him. Was it just that he didn't want to lose to Bakugo? Was he afraid of disappointing his dad? Whatever it was, it clearly wasn't enough for him to start resorting to foul play, but he was obviously upset just the same.
I sighed. When I thought about it from Midoriya's perspective, I didn't really want Bakugo to be able to gloat about being in first any more than he did. Plus, having the next All Might owe me a favor wouldn't exactly be a bad thing, right? Thinking that, as I got to the next concrete bollard in the middle of the 'swamp', I stopped running, fell to my hands and knees, and combined Stockpile with Cementoss-sensei's Cement quirk. Slowly but surely, the ground reshaped itself underneath me, one spar of cement shooting up and forward from the bollard towards the end of the obstacle like a ramp, while a second spar extended flat backwards toward Midoriya to shorten his climb and as a counterweight to keep the bollard from falling over.
"What are you doing, Hikigaya?" Midoriya shouted even as he reached out towards the spar coming from him. "You don't have to help me!"
I scowled at him. "Shut up and jump for it already, Midoriya!" Stop acting like I'm such a nice person. "I need to jump to catch up too, so if you're not going to use the platform then get out of my way!"
To his credit, Midoriya did. In three fast super-strength steps, he hurtled up the impromptu ramp I had created, and then he jumped for his life towards the far wall of the 'swamp' chasm. He managed it by the skin of his teeth, landing in an ungainly attempt at a recovery roll just a few inches from the edge of the water hazard, then popping back up covered in dirt to continue sprinting forward, now solidly a few tens of meters ahead of Todoroki and Bakugo. I followed him a few seconds later, having used Stockpile's strength-boosting power to get up to speed and then Hayama's flight quirk once I was in midair to stretch out the long jump even farther. Apparently Todoroki was irritated at my interference and having helped Midoriya out, because as I was about to land he created a sizeable wall of ice between me and the exit. I was able to climb it without too much trouble, but he killed my momentum enough that I left the obstacle once again solidly in fourth place.
As I reached the top of the wall of ice, I could see that by this point, either too many people had reached Orimoto for her to hold them all back, or she had never been trying to sabotage other racers in the first place. Just at a glance I could see Iida awkwardly balancing on a tightrope with his calf thrusters, Asui crawling along a rope on all fours faster than some people could run, a girl from 1-B practically swinging from her vine-like hair, and Yuigahama bouncing along on the constructs she had created from the majority of her gym uniform. It was enough of a sight to let me know that I didn't have time to hesitate.
The sprint to the last obstacle was short, and unlike the rest of the obstacles it wasn't caged in. It was an artificial mountain with a gate at the top and multiple ways to scale it. To the left was a long and winding staircase that Bakugo was completely ignoring in favor of just blasting himself to the top. To the right was a rock-climbing wall, where Todoroki was using his ice to create additional handholds in order to haul himself up as fast as he could. And in the middle was a long walled empty column, almost like a three-sided elevator shaft, that Midoriya was wall-jumping his way up at tremendous speeds. Frankly, I didn't have a prayer of catching up to any of the three of them - but, eh. Fourth place behind the son of All Might, the son of Endeavor, and the first place finisher on the entrance exam was still pretty respectable. With that thought in mind I bit the inside of my cheek to center myself and dropped my connection to Komachi's quirk so that I could launch myself up to the top of the mountain.
My stomach roiled, my gorge heaved, but it was all worth it. I skipped all of the tedious climbing everyone else would have to do and made it up to the top, firmly in - well, fifth place, because Hayama had flown in from behind me, moving about twenty times as fast as I was, but given that I'd barely touched any of my saved up quirks I was still feeling pretty pleased with myself. I wasn't the only one pleased with me either. As I ran down the tunnel from the top of the mountain back into the stadium and crossed the finish line, the audience's ongoing roars of approval for Midoirya and the rest swelled for a second in acknowledgement of my presence.
Fifth place. It wasn't a win, but it wasn't a loss either.
It was pretty okay.
The roar of the crowd swelled again as a cloud of mist erupted from the finish line and coalesced back into the shape of a frizzy-haired girl, attractively red in the face from exertion and breathing heavily. She smiled and waved to the crowd before coming over to stand with the rest of us who had already finished, eliciting another round of applause from the crowd in a way that made me belatedly realize that I should probably have done the same thing. As I was awkwardly trying to decide whether it was too late to try and look friendly, I was saved by Orimoto coming over to me specifically.
Surprisingly, she gave me what by every indication was a sincere smile. "Good race, Hikigaya! Who knew you were this fast? I can just picture everyone from Jaku Middle's faces! Hahaha, hilarious!"
Despite the shock and confusion I felt at Orimoto behaving in a friendly fashion towards me, I couldn't help but snort in amusement. "Think any of them will try to invite me to a middle school reunion?" I asked sarcastically.
"Invite you to - hahahaha!" Orimoto Kaori kept laughing. "Oh my god, that's so wrong, but how are you so right?"
I didn't know how to reply to that. I couldn't laugh along with her; every time I looked at her I still felt an echo of pain in my chest from how I had felt after being rejected. I still remembered Zaimokuza awkwardly consoling me, rattling off examples of historical generals and fictional figures who had been rejected in one way or another over the years, only to rise up again later after finding someone better in the future. And I still remembered how she had covertly sneered when I said that I wanted to go to UA.
But as she stood in front of me, laughing openly and freely, I nevertheless came to the unpleasant realization that maybe I wasn't as completely over Orimoto Kaori as I had thought.