My Hero School Adventure is All Wrong, As Expected

by storybookknight

Hikigaya Hachiman is the last person on earth who should ever apply to U.A. High School. Yet somehow, he gets in anyway. In a world of irrepressible optimism and idealism, these are the adventures of a young man who believes that idealism is a lie.

16. Even Side Characters Have Their Moment

A/N: Man, it feels good to be posting the abbreviation for "Author's Note" again. Due to work, illness, and writer's block, this chapter has been a long time in coming. I'd like to say thank you to everyone on Spacebattles who kept the discussion alive, an even bigger thank you to those who contributed omakes to inspire my imagination and tide everyone through the drought, and an especially huge thank you to my newfound trio of beta readers and editors, who kept me company and troubleshot for me through all 20,000 words of this chapter.

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Raising his eyebrows up nearly to the base of his spiky yellow hair, Present Mic turned off the microphones and let out a low whistle as he turned to me. "Damn, Shota. What are you feeding those kids?" Below us, one student after another ran into the stadium. Most of my Class had already made it into the stadium, while Kan's were still straggling in one at a time.

I turned to Hizashi and shrugged. "Ask Lunch Rush," I said, deliberately winding him up a little by pretending to miss his point. I was still a little ticked at him for shanghaiing me into being his co-announcer again despite the fact that I wasn't any good at it the first time, but according to him it was a 'tradition' now. Damn it Hizashi, me doing you a favor once is not a tradition! Well, twice, now… ugh, this is going to be a thing, isn't it?

"No, man, I'm serious!" Predictably, Hizashi's volume increased as he got excited, and I couldn't help but smirk a bit into the concealing folds of my capture scarf. "All five of the top five? Eight of the top ten? Sixteen of the top twenty? You're obviously doing something right."

"Don't be too impressed," I said dully, watching Class B jogging past the finish line one after another. "Kan-san told me his kids were planning on racing slow in the preliminaries so they could scope out Class A's quirks and make a comeback in round 2."

Hizashi snickered, matching my sentiments exactly. "Let me guess, you conveniently 'forgot' to mention all the prep work your class had already done?"

I tried not to look too pleased with myself. "Well, originally I was planning on telling him, but then he just had to offer a friendly bet on how many students of each class would make it to the finals…"

"Are you kidding me?" Hizashi exclaimed, his eyes going so wide that I could see them behind his sunglasses. "A bet like that, when your kids have real villain experience? That's brave of him!"

I put my hand in the air and waggled it in a 'so-so' motion. "Kan's optimistic, but he's not completely unrealistic. He bet that Class B would get at least six out of sixteen spots in the finals, loser buys the winner a bottle of something decent for each spot over or under." After a second, I smirked, and Hizashi smirked back in shared camaraderie.

"I suppose I can see him thinking that might be a fair bet, especially with you not having told him what your class was up to, but from everything you've told me - oop!" Hizashi interrupted himself abruptly before flipping the microphone back on. "THAT'S RIGHT FOLKS, THERE ARE JUST A FEW SLOTS LEFT! JUST FORTY-EIGHT STUDENTS WILL BE MOVING ON TO STAGE TWO, AND WE'RE FAST APPROACHING THOSE LIMITS!"

As he turned the microphone back off, I snorted in irritation. "I still don't agree with that decision, you know."

"Eh?" Hizashi's moussed hair swept an arc through the air as he tilted his head to the side in confusion. "Weren't you the one who brought up the fact that the general education class was extra motivated this year at the planning meeting, though?"

"I was." I glowered down at the remaining students of 1-B who were just now finishing up the race. "But there are better ways to make sure that students with potential don't get overlooked than just blindly expanding the cap on the number of racers who make it to the second stage. Personally, I think getting eliminated in the preliminaries because they didn't compete as hard as the General Education kids would have been good for a few of the lazier students in the class."

"Ah, well, they're only first years," Hizashi said with a shrug. "We can't expect them to have everything figured out from the beginning. They'll learn over time."

"If they have it, anyways." I muttered darkly, only to be interrupted by a slap on the back that made me let out a grunt.

"Come on, Shota, stop being such a pessimist! We're heroes! If there isn't time, we'll make time, right?" Hizashi asked. The corner of my mouth twitched as I attempted a reassuring smile, but I couldn't help but continue frowning. "... You think it's going to get that bad, huh?"

I looked out at the kids below, seeing where a small knot of 1-A students were beginning to gather around a single student in particular. "Let me put it this way. If not for Hikigaya being in the right place at the right time, All Might and I honestly might both be dead by now."

Hizashi followed my gaze. "Speaking of pessimists, huh? Who'd have thought a kid who wrote an essay like that would've been the one to step up to the plate? Hey, is that why you argued to have him in your class? Pessimist sympathy?"

"Hardly," I denied. Despite myself, however, I couldn't help but smirk at the memory. Hizashi's jaw had dropped when he'd read The Essay; Cementoss had kept rubbing his free hand over the flat top of his head, Ectoplasm had coughed so hard his hand came away silver, and even Nezu's fur had bristled. "Like I said at the time, he met the points cutoff fair and square, and despite what the essay said, he apparently cared enough about being a hero to take the test on a broken leg, so he deserved to be given a chance." Besides, if you looked past the twisted metaphors and the relentless negativity, he was more realistic about what being a part of the hero industry actually meant than the majority of his peers... "Either he was going to shape up and stop whinging once he got in, or he wouldn't, in which case I would have had no problem tossing him out on his ass as an instructive example to the rest. Which I still won't, if he backslides."

"Brrrr!" Hizashi shivered for effect. "That's some heroic gratitude towards your savior, Shota," he said sarcastically. "Oops, there's the last of them, hold on." Switching his mic back on, he took a deep breath and once again began ranting at the top of his lungs. "AND THAT'S THE LAST STUDENT, EVERYONE! PLEASE GIVE ALL OUR RACERS A ROUND OF APPLAUSE! NOW, ARE YOU READY FOR ROUND TWO? I SAID, ARE YOU READY? WELL, THAT'S TOO BAD, BECAUSE IT'S GOING TO TAKE US A MINUTE WITH ALL THE STAGE SKIP PENALTIES TO FIGURE OUT THE FINAL RUNTIMES! STRETCH YOUR LEGS AND GRAB SOME SNACKS, FOLKS, THE NEXT EXCITING CHALLENGE WILL BE STARTING IN JUST A FEW MINUTES!" After he turned it off, he sat back at me and raised an eyebrow. "Would you really be willing to kick Hikigaya out, even after everything he did at the USJ? I mean, you've fake-expelled kids before, but what you said sounded like you would even kick him out for real."

"Damn straight I would," I said bluntly. "And I'd be doing him a favor. This industry..." I paused for a second, remembering the sickening crack I had felt when the Nomu piledrived me into the concrete. X-rays had later shown a hairline fracture in my skull and my orbital bones. I had been one good hit away from blindness or death. "... The hero industry isn't a place that someone ambivalent about it should stay."

Hizashi sighed in disappointment. "Like I said, Shota. They're first years. Not everybody walks through the doors of UA knowing for sure, 100%, that they really want to be a hero. It's not just skills that we teach here. Hell, I remember you being kind of ambivalent about things when you first started, and look at you now!" Hizashi wasn't usually one to scold or to argue, but he had a point.

I shrugged and settled back into the chair. "You're not wrong. I used to be a cynical little shit. If I hadn't made friends with a certain pair of idiots, I might not have been suited to be a hero in the end either." Predictably, the compliment soothed Hizashi's ruffled feathers - but, as usual, the reference to a fallen friend killed the mood even further. As the sole surviving member of the 'pair of idiots' that I had just mentioned settled back into his seat next to me, I looked back out onto the field, seeing the ever-growing knot of 1-A students. So far, at least, none of them had experienced a painful loss like that one… and if I did my job properly, as long as they were students in my care, none of them ever would. I closed my eyes to rest them for a second, offering a last piece of consolation to the still-pouting Hizashi. "Don't worry. I'm not about to do anything drastic. As a matter of fact, I'm not too worried about having to expel Hikigaya. From what I can tell, he's got some pretty good friends of his own."

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"Hikigaya!" Bakugo's words dripped with palpable menace. He was never the sort of person who would glance in a direction when he could glare at it instead, but even adjusting for that fact his eyes were locked onto me with the simmering anger of twin volcanoes about to erupt. "What. The. Fuck!"

I turned away from Orimoto Kaori, muttering "sorry." Which I wasn't. Of all the excuses I could possibly have found to escape my awkward conversation with her, I admit that dealing with a pissed-off Bakugo wasn't exactly my first choice, but what the hell, I'd take it! "What's up, Bakugo? You're going to have to be a little more specific."

His right arm shot out in an accusatory gesture towards Midoriya, who was busy being congratulated by Uraraka, Tokoyami, and Iida. "Fucking helping Deku? Fucking again? What the fuck, Hikigaya? I'm gonna fucking kill you!"

Yeah, that was specific enough. Uncomfortably, I shrugged. "I was helping myself, he just took advantage of it. What's the big deal? It's only the first round."

"What's the big deal?!" Bakugo yelled in disbelief. "He beat me! Because of you! Again!"

"Hikki! Bakubaku! Good job you guys!" Again, I blessed the heavens for yet another timely interruption, this time in the form of a smiling Yuigahama bouncing over in our direction. I mean, using her pant legs which she had turned into fabric springs, not the other kind of bouncing. Though, that kind of bouncing was there too, and hard to avoid noticing, especially given the way that her sweat plastered her shirt to her torso. After a second of staring, I hastily tore my eyes away from Yuigahama's Yuigahamas, only to notice Bakugo doing the same thing a heartbeat later.

As my eyes met Bakugo's, I could see that the anger in them had faded slightly, short-circuited into something more like dull irritation. "Stop calling me weird shit, Airhead," Bakugo muttered.

For her part, Yuigahama had clearly noticed the strange atmosphere, because as she stopped right next to the two of us, she blinked curiously. "Eh? Is something wrong?"

After a few seconds of Bakugo grinding his teeth in silence, I shrugged. "Bakugo's mad he didn't get first."

"Ah! Don't mind, Bakugo! I saw the finish, you were super close!" Yuigahama bubbled excitedly, giving him an encouraging slap on the back. As she did, I saw Bakugo glaring at me, getting ready to unleash another round of accusations, but before he could Yuigahama kept talking. "At first I was sure it was going to be you or Todoshouto, but then Dekkun took advantage of you fighting each other and was just like, woosh!"

Seizing the opportunity to redirect Bakugo to another target, I decided to chime in. "You know, if Todoroki had slowed you down a little less, Midoriya probably wouldn't have been able to catch up with you."

Bakugo looked over his shoulder at Todoroki, who was currently standing off to one side, responding monosyllabically to Hayama's well-intentioned attempts at conversation. After a second, he clenched his fists. For a second, I thought I was safe, and that his attention had been successfully diverted.

Unfortunately, Yukinoshita Yukino chose that exact second to catch back up. "Hikigaya-san." Her voice was as cold as the air that typically surrounded her, and I looked up to see her wearing a sports uniform rimed with frost, a few patches of it more liberally coated with ice. "Before you perform such crude feats as taking on an enormous size in order to dive into the water, I would recommend developing a level of situational awareness superior to that of the common earthworm." Her eyes skewered me like a butterfly on a pin, and despite the fact that she was warming herself up and so not using her quirk at all, I still felt a shiver go down my spine.

"There, there, Yukinon, I'm sure Hikki didn't mean to splash you this time…" Yuigahama said in a doomed attempt at peacekeeping.

After all, even if Yukinoshita had been the forgiving type, with Bakugo right there to salt the wound - "What's the matter, Ice Queen? Did your loyal subjects start getting rebellious?"

"Oh?" Yukinoshita put her hand to her mouth in false surprise. "I'm sorry, Mr. Second Place, I didn't notice you standing there." - well, there was never any chance that things weren't going to turn out this way.

"Shut the hell up!" Bakugo snarled. "I don't want to hear that from you, uh -" he briefly whirled around to stare at the scoreboard for a few seconds, before whirling back to her. "Ms. Seventeenth!"

"So that's what happened!" Yuigahama chimed in, a thoughtful tone in her voice. "I was pretty surprised when I got in ahead of Yukinon, but if Hikki splashed you by accident that makes sense."

For someone who regularly adopted an attitude of being both perfect and used to being perfect, Yukinoshita sure was uncomfortable being directly praised. "That's not - Yui, you made it into the top ten! You don't have to feel surprised at being faster than me."

"What? No, no, no." Yuigahama said, waving Yukinoshita's reply away in a display of reciprocal compliment-awkwardness. "I just got lucky. If the teachers hadn't put in that water section I'm sure Yukinon would have done way better than me."

Good going, Yuigahama! Inevitably, it's the teachers who are to blame! I nodded emphatically in agreement. "Right? And would it have killed them to put the wind obstacle after the water obstacle? My clothes are still damp."

"How inconvenient for you, Hikigaya-san." Ah, crap. Open mouth, insert foot. "It is very uncomfortable having to run a race with moisture clinging to your clothes, isn't it?" Damn it, what was with me today? As Yukinoshita's faint blush vanished and her shy expression narrowed down into a cutting glare, I immediately resolved to just keep my mouth shut until the next challenge started and distracted everyone. It's not like they would keep holding a grudge after something else got their attention, right?

I looked from Yukinoshita, to Bakugo, and back. Yeah, I was screwed. Both of them were glaring at me now, and I silently prayed for someone, anyone to rescue me -

"Hikigaya-san!" Suddenly, a tired yet cheerful-looking Yaoyorozu Momo answered my prayers as she rushed over to our group. "And of course, Bakugo-san, Yukinoshita-san, Yuigahama-san, good job, everyone!"

"Yao~mo~mo, I already told you, you don't have to be so formal!" Yuigahama chided. "And good job to you, too! What brings you over here?"

"Hikigaya-san!" Inwardly, I groaned. How did I manage to offend almost everyone I knew in one single race? As my mind frantically worked to try to remember if I had kicked dirt into her face or something, Yaoyorozu short-circuited my panic by bending forward into a formal bow. "Thank you very much!"

"...Hah?" I replied wittily.

"Actually, in addition to thanking you, I feel as though I need to apologize as well," Yaoyorozu explained, her eyes shining with an … unusual fervent light. "When you had me help you work up profiles on all the Class 1-B students, and then even the General Education students, I was originally a little hesitant, and I doubted you a little bit, and I never, ever should have, because if you hadn't done so?" Yaoyorozu flung her arm in the direction of a pair of students who had just finished the race. The purple-haired midget from the General Education classes appeared to have used his adhesive hair quirk to stick himself to a hapless fox-faced redhead from 1-B. His face was thoroughly bruised, and he appeared to have a black eye, but despite his injuries and the fact that the race was over, he was persisting in lecherously clinging to her back and nuzzling his face against her. Yaoyorozu looked at the redhead, who had a visibly freaked-out look of disgust on her face as she attempted to pry the perverted gnome off of her body, and turned back to me. "If you hadn't warned me, I could have wound up like that."

There was a moment of silence. Yukinoshita and Yuigahama's faces both twisted into identical expressions of revulsion, while Bakugo's was more a look of utter disdain. I looked from the diminutive pervert and his victim back to Yaoyorozu. "You're welcome," I said in a deadpan voice.

Another moment of horrified silence passed. "Congratulations, Hikigaya," Yukinoshita said, still staring at the terrifying trainwreck. "I think I'm finally going to have to stop implying that you're a moral degenerate. Even you don't deserve to be compared to THAT."

"Oi," I protested, despite knowing that it wouldn't do any good. "Say that without the 'even'."

Bakugo exhaled sharply through his nose as the redhead tried and failed yet again to dislodge the groper limpet on her back. "Hikigaya. Didn't that handout of yours say that chick had super strength if she stopped flying? How the hell is he still attached?"

That was an excellent question. I took a second to compare both of their quirks in my head, and arrived at an answer. "He doesn't have super strength exactly, but the fact that he has a normal person's amount of strength packed into such a small frame gives him a lot of leverage. And… well… her quirk does work by multiplying the user's base level strength..."

"Hmph. That's what she gets for skipping arm day," Bakugo said with a sneer.

Yuigahama wrapped her arms around herself in discomfort at the ongoing scene. "I feel kinda bad just standing here watching this. Shouldn't we go over and help her?"

"I could make a crowbar," Yaoyorozu offered. "If it fails to pry him off the normal way, as a last-ditch effort it could always be applied sharply to the back of his skull."

Before the sight of the girl's predicament could fully tempt my previously innocent vice-president down the path of H*lf-L*fe themed violence, however, one of the redhead's fellow 1-B students solved the problem by grabbing his entire body with a single oversized hand and threatening to squeeze. Normally I would scoff at heroes' first resorts to problems always being violent, but upon further consideration I was beginning to see the merits to that sort of behavior.

"Hachiman-kun! Katsuki-kun! Yukino-chan, Yui-chan, Momo-chan! Good job, everyone!" Suddenly, a ray of sunshine illuminated the entire field, causing formerly dull colors to suddenly glow with bright and vibrant life. The fact that a cloud happened to finish passing by just as Totsuka came running up, his eyes bright with excitement and his face faintly flushed with exertion was probably just a coincidence, right? "Thank you all so much for your help!"

Yukinoshita smiled politely. "Our help would have been useless if you hadn't put in the necessary time and effort yourself, Saika-kun. Don't discount your own hard work."

"I suppose that's true, but you guys still helped a lot! It's always more fun to do that sort of thing with friends, right?" Totsuka asked, his eyes wide and sparkling.

Bakugo scoffed and looked to the side. Wait, was he uncomfortable? For someone who got so high and mighty about calling people by their first names, he sure was tsundere about being called someone's friend, huh? "Don't go thanking us yet, moron," he said gruffly. "What place did you get? Did you make it to the next round, or not?"

"Um, well, we were sixty-first through sixty-third through the door, but if you look at the leaderboard most of the people who aren't heroes who are in front of us all skipped stages, and we didn't skip any, so I think we probably have... a pretty... good chance?" Totsuka replied, initially energetic but slowly faltering under Bakugo's disapproving glare.

"So, you're saying maybe you succeeded. Maybe you made it to the goal that you were working towards." Bakugo said, harshly but with what passed for him as a neutral tone of voice. "And you won't know for sure until something outside of your control happens. Are you satisfied with that?"

Totsuka blinked. "I… well… I suppose if I do make it to the next round, then I would be?" He said, sounding slightly unsure of himself.

Meanwhile, Yukinoshita and Yuigahama were both glaring at Bakugo, who eventually noticed the disapproving atmosphere and let out an exasperated sigh. "Look, I'm not saying you guys didn't do pretty decent for extras. I'm just saying, if you really want to run over and say 'thank you' first chance you get, next time you should aim to place in the 40s." He paused. "Or 30s. Because I sure as hell don't want to be thanked for something I didn't actually get done."

Slowly, Totsuka's face broke into a smile. "I see! Thank you, Katsuki-kun!" Damn it Totsuka, don't encourage Bakugo! Even if you did correctly manage to interpret his criticism as a backhanded compliment and encouragement, if you respond to him as though he said something normal, he'll never learn that he has a communication problem!

Predictably, Bakugo compounded his errors by waving Totsuka's thanks away with a disinterested expression on his face. "Like I said, thank me when you know there's something worth thanking me for."

"ALLLLLL RIGHT EVERYONE! THANK YOU ALL FOR WAITING!" Present Mic's echoed from the speakers, and a frisson of excitement pulsed through the arena. "WITHOUT WASTING ANY MORE TIME, WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, HERE ARE YOUR TOP FORTY-EIGHT RACERRRRS!"

As the stadium displays flashed to life, Totsuka's hands came up to his chest, and he bit his lip adorably as he started scanning up from the bottom. Despite the distraction off to the side, however, I managed to tear my eyes away to do the same, only from the top down. I knew my own results, of course, but… I let out a small sigh of relief as I finished counting names. All twenty members of 1-A were present and accounted for. And just as I was about to check for Totsuka's results…

"Thank you, Bakugo-san!"

Well, that really said it all.

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Say what you will for UA as an educational institution, but they knew how to get things done in a hurry. It was barely more than a minute or two before the students who hadn't made the cut finished taking their assigned places in the stands, and Midnight was once again standing in front of the display. "The second round of the U.A. Sports Festival First-Year Stage is," she said, pausing as the display changed to reveal a familiar graphic. Once again, the U.A. Sports Festival's unofficial mascot, 'Fixed Roulette-kun', has made his appearance! You can do it, Fix-kun! Throw off the shackles of tyranny, and decide who makes it to the finals with a poetry slam, or a shiritori competition! Finally, Fix-kun settled on a final graphic, and Midnight finished her sentence, "with the 48 students moving on from the first round, a Cavalry Battle!" It's okay, Fix-kun. I understand. If Midnight-sensei was standing right next to me with a whip in her hand, I wouldn't dare to act up either!

Unsurprisingly, not a single student from either hero class had failed to find themselves in the top 48, although I noted with a certain Bakugo-like smugness that unlike with Class A, there were a few class 1-B students who had come in behind non-hero students. What was a surprise was that in addition to five students from the general education department - many of whom were students who didn't quite make the cut for the Heroics program, and so could plausibly compete with those of us in the hero track - two students from UA's Support Course had made it in, as had a single student from the Business Course. In theory, the fact that four out of the eight non-hero students were friends and acquaintances of mine (in addition to the trio from the Tennis Club, Kawasaki Saki had made it into the top 48) should have made me feel happy for their success. In practice, the fact that I had worked up elaborate plans ahead of time to keep anybody not from Class 1-A out of the finals just meant there were four more people who I was going to be undeservingly screwing over.

If the teachers allowed it, anyways. All of the game-rigging and underhanded shenanigans that I wracked my brain to come up with would be useless if the teachers did something as simple as declaring that people 'must team up with at least one person from another class'. If that happened, then I would be out there trying to not just compete but distinguish myself against forty-seven other students, pretty much all of whom had better quirks than I did, even the General Education students. So as Midnight introduced the format of the second round, I was listening with bated breath. Each headband worth points according to your team members' placement in the race? No problem. First place finisher of the race's headband is worth a guaranteed pass to the next round? Well, if I hadn't set anything special up then everyone would be gunning for Deku, but as it stood, I was happy to let him act as bait. Teams of no more than four students, headbands around your neck, riders could fly but if someone forced them to the ground they'd have to give up any headbands they possessed to the person who brought them down, fifteen minutes to pick teams… I let out a sigh of relief mixed with curdled guilt. I'd gotten away with it.

"And those fifteen minutes start… now!" Almost instantly, the field was a mess of people rushing around, trying to meet up with their friends or to convince more powerful students that they should be allowed to sponge off of them, and generally shouting with frantic energy. That is, everywhere other than the 1-A students. Not one by one, but by twos and fours, my class gravitated towards me, forming up in a loose circle surrounding me.

For a second, no-one spoke. "... so in theory as long as Ii don't lose my headband i move on to the next round but that isn't a guarantee so maybe a strategy where Ii focus on getting points from other teams would be better but then again there's also no guarantee that i would be able to get enough especially if all the other teams from 1-a collected more than me because they would get less pressure at the start and then it wouldn't be nice to target them so i should probably focus on escape and evasion which would mean picking -"

"Psst! Deku!" Mercifully, Uraraka put a stop to Midoriya's mumbling with a sharp poke to his ribcage.

"Hieee!" He shouted in surprise before looking around and getting ahold of his surroundings. "Oh! Uh, sorry, right. Um, so… how are we picking teams? There's twenty of us, and only sixteen spots..."

Oh. Maybe that was why the teachers hadn't done anything to stop us. All of my clever planning and scheming, and I had completely overlooked that single, simple fact. Somebody was going to be left out, even in the best of scenarios. "Well, Hikigaya?" Todoroki asked coldly. "How do you plan to make this work? I don't think anybody here is going to meekly roll over and sacrifice themselves for you so that you can go on to be famous. I know I certainly won't."

I froze. I had talked myself into accepting the fact that I was going to be sacrificing other people for my own satisfaction and revenge by focusing on the 'fact' that it was going to benefit my classmates as well, but ... I couldn't really deny Todoroki's accusations. At the end of the day, that's what all of this maneuvering was for. Luckily, I was a sufficiently convincing liar that when it looked like I was in danger of being 'misunderstood', a nice guy leapt to my defense. "There's no need for that," Hayama offered with a smile. "If we settle into five teams of four, then all we have to do is say that whenever someone finds themselves in fifth place, they're allowed to try to grab headbands from the other four teams, especially if there aren't any headbands left from the other classes to grab." The expression on his face turned slightly sharper, and he looked Todoroki straight in the eye. "Personally, Todoroki-san? If you think your team is behind, I'm fine with you coming at me anytime."

As sounds of assent met Hayama's plan, Iida raised his hand enthusiastically. "If I may, members of Class 1-A, I think we should discuss team compositional strategies! Obviously, in a competition of this nature, synergies between classmates will be of the utmost importance! Therefore, we should -"

"Um, Hikigaya-san?" I felt a tap on my shoulder, and reflexively turned to see Kawasaki Saki standing behind me. Iida's voice behind me fell silent, and I could feel the oppressive weight of nineteen pairs of eyes staring at my back in curiosity. Kawasaki herself didn't appear to be expecting so much attention, because she almost immediately blushed. Damn it, don't come up here looking all shy like that! Everyone is totally going to misunderstand! "I, uh," she stammered for a second, before she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "I came to ask you if you had a team yet, Hikigaya-san." It probably would have come off as confident and self-assured, except that due to the awkward circumstances she couldn't quite manage to look me in the eye, instead turning her face to the side to look back at the majority of the other students. "I figured since you have a lot of quirks, and I have a lot of useful tools in my Support costume, if we worked together that would give us a lot of options. What do you think?"

What did I think? Well, the last time a pretty girl specifically requested to be on the same team as me for something, it was so she could dump all the work of cleaning the classroom on me and leave early with her friends, so the fact that you were actually asking sincerely almost made me agree right away. Despite myself, I felt my face heat up. "I, uh… I don't think I can," I said with regret. "I'm still working out the details, but, uh, I already made some plans with people ahead of time…"

I almost didn't catch the slight drooping of her shoulders before Kawasaki shrugged and made a 'hmph' of dissatisfaction. "Oh well. Your loss."

"I-" I called out as she turned to leave, wanting to say something but not knowing what. "Uh, if I wind up with an extra spot on my team or can't find one, I'll come find you?" Even as I said it, I knew it would be obvious that it was just a kindly lie.

Despite that, Kawasaki Saki received the offer not with a look of gratitude, nor a hurt expression, but rather a wry smile. "Better hope my team doesn't fill up first. See you in the finals, Hikigaya."

"You too!" I called after her departing back. I turned back to Class A, and then immediately regretted it, because as bad as those stares had been boring into my back, they were infinitely worse face-to-face. "What?" I asked peevishly.

Ashido Mina let out an excited whistle, her eyes sparkling at the sudden potential for gossip. "You've been holding out on us, Class Pres! Who was she?"

"Dude, giving up being on a team with your girlfriend, just to stick with your class?" I couldn't help but overhear Kirishima muttering to Denki, and a glance in his direction showed an emotional expression. "That's so hardcore!" I felt my eyebrow twitch.

"She's just an acquaintance of mine from middle school," I said through gritted teeth. "Is this really the time?"

"No," Yukinoshita replied to my rhetorical question. "No, it is not. We don't have time to be getting distracted," she said with an accusatory glare in my direction.

Oi, it's not like I interrupted things on purpose! Someone else might, though. "Speaking of which," I said, looking back over my shoulder at the other classes, specifically eyeing a student with messy purple hair. "Shoji. Mind keeping a few eyes out? Not everybody coming over to talk to us is necessarily going to be doing so with good intentions."

"Whoa, that's the president for you!" Tobe said excitedly. "Or maybe he's being more like a team captain right now? Oh! I know, he's the Hikitaicho!"

"So, the maximum team size is four people," I interrupted, doing my best to move things along before that awful nickname stuck. "In theory, that means we should probably split into five teams of four each."

"I concur," Yaoyorozu chimed in, though rather than sounding definitive there was a slightly distracted tone to her voice. Her head bent in thought, she added "given the necessity for maneuverability and stability in such a contest, a three-sided support structure for the rider would be ideal. But, how are we going to assign teams?" She glanced around at the group. "While I think most of us get along with our HEART service groups, I don't think they would be ideal for this sort of contest…"

"Hmph," Bakugo said, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms. "I'll tell you how. First off, we take the four weakest extras here, and shove them all in one group so they stay out of the rest of our way. Then the other four teams clean up the field, we all get into the next round, and the guys who didn't get in wind up with the consolation prize of being a part of the winning team."

There was a general recoil of rejection at that idea, but the first one to voice his disapproval was Hayama. "I don't think there's even one person in the class who all of us would agree is the weakest here," Hayama said sternly, "let alone four. And I don't think there's anybody in the class who we would all trust to decide who gets left out fairly, even the Class President." Oi, don't go bringing me into it! It's not like I came up with Bakugo's antisocial idea! "And that's completely leaving aside the fact that someone who might have a so-called 'weaker' quirk might be really useful as part of the right team."

"Tche. Fine then, Flyboy, how would you pick?" Bakugo asked sullenly.

Hayama smiled. "Well, I mean, I know who I'd want on my team. Why don't we all just talk it over and decide?"

I shook my head. As expected of an ikemen, Hayama was the type to come up with a solution that assumed everybody knew how to talk to other people, and that would leave weak and unpopular people - specifically, me - behind through the magic of collective responsibility. In the end, it was just Bakugo's plan, repackaged so that nobody had to feel guilty about it, and if I called Hayama out on it, nothing would change. Luckily, I had another equally valid objection. "That'd take too much time, and we've already wasted a few minutes. We need to decide as a group," I declared.

"How about this?" Miura interjected, before I could say anything else. "Hayama, you know who you want on your team, right? And Midoriya, Bakugo, Todoroki, Hikigaya, you four probably have ideas about who you want too? You guys were the top five in the obstacle race, and have the five most valuable headbands... Is there anybody who would be unhappy with being on a team with one of the five of them?"

I saw the sea of shaking heads in front of me and sighed. There went my hopes of leeching off of Small Might to get into the third round. "Fine. Then, Midoriya, you pick first, and if you pick someone who the rest of us would also want on our teams… I guess we'll ask the person in question, and they can decide whose team they want to be on?"

"O-okay!" Midoriya said, before dropping his chin into his hand and beginning to mumble (inaudibly, for once) as he worked through his options. While we all waited for him, I suddenly felt a warm pressure against my shoulder. I turned to look at Yuigahama, who had for some reason bumped me with her own shoulder, and was turning to look at me with a beaming smile on her face. I raised an eyebrow to ask her what she was doing, but she just kept smiling and returned her attention to Midoriya as he finally settled on a strategy. "Uraraka, Iida, and Fumikage. Between Uraraka-chan and Iida-kun, we'll have the mobility to keep away from people after our headband or to chase it down if we lose it, and Fumikage-kun and I would provide a good mix of offense and defense."

First choice from anyone in the class, and he picks his friends. It wasn't a bad lineup, but… I managed not to frown or shake my head. "Okay, fine. Are the three of you okay with that?" Unsurprisingly, all three of them gave me firm nods, so I moved on to the next question. "Anybody want to offer one of them an alternative?"

Hayama took a step forward. "Uraraka? Care to help me build a flying team?" Midoriya's eyes bugged out wide in shock, and he slowly turned to look at the girl next to him.

She smiled sweetly, though, and rejected Hayama, causing Midoriya's eyes to water with relief. "Sorry, but I'd rather stay with Dekkun."

Despite being shot down, the flyboy ikemen didn't seem too upset at the refusal. "Fair enough."

When nobody else spoke up, I moved on to the next person in line. Damn it, how did my grand plan to coast on other peoples' momentum into the finals wind up with me picking last? I should have kicked Midoriya into the pit when I had the chance. "Bakugo, you're up next."

"Okay. Well, there's only two people in the class who won't get immediately fucked up by my explosions, so I'm taking Spiky Hair and Airhead." Bakugo began.

"Umm…" Yuigahama said tentatively. "Bakugo? I… kinda don't have my helmet? I mean, I suppose that's fine, I'd could put someone's shirt over my face or something which I suppose is fine, it'd just look silly, but… if my clothes get damaged after too many explosions… I kinda don't want to wind up naked in front of, like, half of Japan." Her face as she finished was bright red. Visions of white lace filled my head for a second before I desperately turned away to avoid meeting anybody's eyes and started considering baseball. Come to think of it, has UA ever sent a team to Koshien? "Don't get me wrong, I'd be happy to be on a team with you if you think you need me, but, um, maybe not in front?"

The loudspeakers crackled to life. "Five minutes have passed!" Midnight's voice echoed. "Only ten minutes remaining!"

Bakugo rolled his eyes and sighed in exasperation. "Dammit, we don't have time for this shit. Spiky Hair, you're fine with it, right?"

Kirishima thumped his chest with his arm in response, letting out a dull clunk that almost sounded like wood knocking against wood. "It's Kirishima, man, Kirishima! And yeah, my quirk was made for stuff like this! I'm a horse that'll never falter!"

Bakugo grinned. "So you're defense, I'm offense. I want some mobility." He looked around for a second, then settled on Ashido Mina. "Raccoon Eyes, you can make slippery crap that won't burn if I blow shit up near it, right?"

"Yep!" Ashido said, holding up her fingers in a confident v-for-victory sign. "Leave it to me! And it's Ashido!"

"And… there's people who can fly out there," he finished. "I need someone who can catch me after I fuck them up. Froggy, you're in." Tsuyu looked off to the side, not acknowledging him, and Bakugo set off explosions in his hand. "Dammit Froggy, pay the fuck attention! We don't have time for this shit!"

"My name is Tsuyu, kero!" Unintimidated by Bakugo's volume, she just stared him straight in the eyes, until he finally broke.

"Who gives a shit!" He shouted back. I winced.

Tsuyu just maintained her even stare. "I do."

Bakugo sighed. "Whatever, fine! Tsuyu," he said with exaggerated emphasis, "you're in."

Although her quirk meant that she didn't have the most expressive of faces, Tsuyu's thin-lipped smile had a definite aura of smugness about it. "Okay, kero."

Bakugo glared at those of us who hadn't chosen teams yet, as if daring us to try to poach one of his choices. When nobody spoke for a second, I turned to Todoroki. "Your turn," I indicated to him with a nod.

"I need teammates who won't be impaired by my ice. Yukich-Yukino." After a brief stammer over her name, he indicated Yukinoshita with an impassive nod, and Yukinoshita nodded back with a similar near lack of expression.

"Wait, did he nearly call her Yuki-chan?" I heard Ashido's gossipy whisper say.

"I think they're cousins," someone responded, though I couldn't tell who.

Ashido's voice, more distinctive, replied "you know, I've read some manga where that wouldn't be an issue," and then Todoroki raised his voice abruptly to cut off the discussion.

"Yaoyorozu-san, can you make something that can insulate yourself and the other horse from our cold?" He asked.

My vice-president smiled affirmatively. "It's actually fairly easy for me to create vacuum-filled insulators that would be difficult to create using ordinary manufacturing processes. Oh! And if we wanted to make it hydrophobic even at low temperatures, I could cover it with perfluorooctyl-triethoxysilane modified nanoparticles on a polyester mesh with a perfluorodecyltrichlorosilane CVD treatment!"

For a second everyone was stunned into silence. "Uh… Yaoyorozu-san? Does that, uh, perfluoro-pterodactyl stuff protect against electricity too?" Kaminari asked hopefully. "Take me, Todoroki, me and Yaoyorozu cleaned up together at the USJ! Right, vice-pres?" He looked at her with hopeful eyes that almost reminded me of Komachi trying to get mom to buy ice-cream on the way home from the pool. It was tempting to just ascribe his pleading to him wanting to be on a team where he could use his quirk, but given all of the times I had caught him looking at Yaoyorozu in her hero costume and the way he was shamelessly bootlicking her, I couldn't help but wonder if he also had ulterior motives.

For her part, Yaoyorozu frowned, holding her chin with her hand in concentration. "Alkyl silanes are electrophilic, so I'd have to skip the waterproofing or you would probably set us all on fire, but an ordinary vacuum blanket should be an electrical insulator as well as a thermal one." After a second, I smirked as I noticed that she never actually answered his second question.

"Fine," Todoroki said. "Yukinoshita, Yaoyorozu, and Kaminari. Any objections?"

For a second, I almost thought that Hayama was going to speak up and say something, but he didn't. "Alright, Hayama, you're up next," I said, looking around at the rapidly shrinking pool of classmates and wondering who I would be left with.

As Hayama also considered his available options, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked over to see one of Shoji's tentacles, which then contorted itself to point at a quickly approaching purple-haired figure. It then melted like wax to reform into a mouth. "How do you want to handle it, Hikigaya?"

Briefly, I entertained the notion of tapping into Backdraft's quirk and squirting the mind controller in the face with a water hose any time he tried to talk to any of the 1-A students, but instead I just held up a hand and said, "Everyone, don't say anything for a second."

As silence fell, I turned away from the group to face towards the general education student, and saw the rest of the class all turning as well to see what the issue was. As they all turned and spotted him, out of the corner of my eye I saw hard expressions appearing on peoples' faces, wary frowns and hostile glares. As he saw them, the purple haired guy stopped short of our class with his hands in his pockets, and put on an obviously false smile. "Hey there, I'm Shinso Hitoshi from 1-C. Anybody want to be on my team?" Shockingly, nobody answered - verbally, at least; I saw a few slow head shakes, and Bakugo flipped him off with one hand while setting off crackling explosions in the other. "Huh, I guess not," Shinso said with a casual-seeming shrug. However, I could see a little bit of discomfort and worry in his eyes as he realized that his Quirk was going to be nearly useless against half the field.

Shinso opened his mouth to say something, maybe planning to see if we would respond to insults or just to take advantage of the fact that we wouldn't respond so he could get in our heads, but before he could actually speak the loudspeakers crackled to life. "Five minutes left, everyone! Just five minutes!"

He must have realized that he didn't have time for games, because his mouth closed with a clack and he turned to try and finalize his team, one hand leaving his pocket to wave a mocking goodbye. I released a breath I hadn't realized that I'd been holding, and turned back to Hayama. "Sorry, you were saying?"

"Miura, Tobe, and Jiro," he answered promptly, "I'm going to be flying for most of the match, so I want people with attack power." So, just like Midoriya, you picked your friends. Wait a minute, are you serious?

"Then I'll take Yuigahama, Shoji, and Hagakure," I said quickly before any of the other team captains could notice their mistakes or change their minds. "We've all got a little less than five minutes left, so let's all split up and discuss strategies separately. Just remember, the other classes are priority targets; no attacking other 1-A teams unless that's the only way to get out of fifth place, and if you see a chance to interfere with another team targeting one of us, take it. Everyone agreed?" I specifically locked eyes with Midoriya, Bakugo, Todoroki, and Hayama in turn, and received a nervous nod, an exasperated nod, an impassive nod, and a confident nod in reply. "Then, good luck everybody," I said, internally rolling my eyes at the sheer corniness of what I was about to say, "may the best teams win."

As I walked away with my new team in tow, I let a smirk creep onto my face. Idiots! They were all idiots! I did my best to keep myself under control, biting my tongue to keep from laughing out loud. Unfortunately, it seemed that as usual, I had a face that was easily misunderstood. "Hikki…" Yuigahama said, a guilty look on her face. "You didn't have to just accept the leftovers just because you came in fifth, or to spare our feelings."

I couldn't help it. I snorted. "Leftovers?" I said derisively, and turned to face her directly, putting my hand on her shoulder. "Yuigahama. You were my first choice." Her eyes opened wide, and she clutched one hand to her chest even as I let my gleeful smile grow. "And if they had a single brain cell in between the four of them, they would have picked you first too." I let her go, shoving my hands back into my pockets as I shook my head and snickered. "Not a single one of them even considered someone other than themselves being the rider, which is how they all missed the fact that the headbands are made of cloth."

"Eh? You want me to be the rider?" Yui said, and I nodded and turned towards Shoji and Tohru.

Belatedly, I realized that both of them were looking down as well, and that I should probably reassure them both that they weren't leftovers either. "The same goes for you two. Hagakure, your invisibility makes you a great headband grabber." She put both sleeves to her face in a gesture of what was probably surprise, or maybe embarrassment. "And Shoji, you're big and strong enough that you could probably hold a rider up by yourself, meaning any team you're on can have two riders."

One of Shoji's tentacles formed a mouth. "I see. Then you, Hikigaya -"

"Yeah, I'll be a horse." Yup, that's me. I'll just run around, hold other people up, and save all of my Stockpiled quirks for the third round. Such a noble sacrifice I'm making. "Shoji, will it be easier for you if I take the front or the back?"

"The front, I think," he said after a second. "I'll have to run a little bit bent over to keep someone on my back, so my center of gravity will be forward."

"Then, you'll be carrying Yuigahama, while I carry Hagakure, to maximize everyone's visibility." I turned to Tohru, whose hands had moved away from her face. Without her making any abnormal poses or saying anything, her emotions were hard to read. "Hagakure-san?" I asked. "Are you okay with being a rider? If not, we can work something else out…"

"Ah! Yes, of course!" She shouted, and jumped in exaggerated excitement, one hand shooting up into the air as if to pump a fist. "I'm super stoked! I'll be on top where everybody can see me!" I'm sorry, Hagakure-san. No one will see you. "Ne, ne, Yui-chan. You have a cloth quirk, right? Do you want my shirt?" Wait, what?

"Oh! Yeah, having more material would be super helpful!" Yui said, shaking her own sleeves out to reveal the haphazard modifications she had made in order to use them as springs and other tools in the Obstacle Race. "I can do all sorts of stuff with this! Thanks, Tohru-chan!"

Oi, you're going to be standing on my hands and leaning up against the back of my head, you know! Are you really okay doing that without a shirt on? "Uh, Hagakure-san…" I can't say it. It's too embarrassing! "Um. Are you sure?"

"It's alright, Hikitaicho-kun!" She said, putting the ends of her sleeves to her hips proudly before reaching to the buttons of her shirt. Despite myself, I swallowed heavily. "It's like All Might said! Pro Heroes sometimes have to deal with issues like this! Even if everybody will see me…" her voice turned bashful for a second, before she resolutely unbuttoned her top button. "I have to put my modesty on the line if I want to be a pro!" No, your modesty isn't really the issue here! After a few more buttons popped, revealing the white undershirt under her uniform top, she started to wiggle and squirm. "Um… would you mind looking the other way? It's embarrassing…"

I whirled around on my heel with my face feeling hot, distracting myself by looking out at the other teams. It seemed like most of the other students had also formed four-person teams, though I did see a few three- and even two-person groups as well. Suddenly, my eyes met with someone who was doing the same thing as I was, a nimble-looking blonde boy who I quickly identified as the power copier from 1-B. I couldn't help but curl my lip in self-mockery. How many times as a kid had I wondered what it would be like to have a copy quirk that actually worked?

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"That's right, you high-and-mighty poser," I muttered to myself as I turned away from 1-A's president. "Just keep looking down on us and thinking you're special because you placed well in the race. We'll show you who the real heroes are soon enough."

"What makes you so sure they're looking down on us?" Tsuburaba asked, pulling one arm close to his chest to stretch out his shoulder in preparation for the next round. "We've literally barely even talked to any of them."

With a sneer, I threw out an incredulous arm in 1-A's direction. "Did you SEE the way they acted when the non-hero students came over to talk to them? The way 1-A just all stared at them together until they left? And the way that not a single one of them teamed up with anyone from another class? I'm telling you, we'll be doing them a favor when we puncture their egos by finally taking them down a peg."

Unfortunately, my superlative insights fell at least partially on deaf ears. "Oh, I'm sure they aren't all bad," Isshiki said dreamily. I followed her gaze to a tall blonde, who was hovering in mid-air while his teammates configured themselves to form the 'horse'. I didn't understand the way girls thought sometimes. What did he have that I didn't? Wasn't he just a little bit taller?

"Monoma-kun," a monotone voice spoke up suddenly, "if you get the chance, try to see if you can acquire one of Hayama Hayato's hairs. I recently purchased a Book of Shadows that in addition to other matters has a detailed description of binding an Anima to a Gris-Gris. I would be more than happy to lend it to you if you wanted to begin your sojourn into the mastery of hidden powers in order to obtain the attention of your would be paramour, Iroha-chan."

"Ah ha ha… thanks, Reiko-chan?" Isshiki said, doing her best to smile at Yanagi despite the creepiness of what had just been said. "I'm sure there are ways to do that that don't rely on voodoo, though…"

Yanagi nodded, a slight smile appearing on her impassive face. "Hmm. You're right. Now that you mention it, one of my tomes on Witchcraft could-"

"Forget coming back with one of his hairs," I cut in to forestall another occult rant from Yanagi, "I'll come back with his whole quirk."

"Doing so much for me?" Isshiki said with mock astonishment, putting one hand to her mouth. "Are you trying to get me to fall in love with you by playing the nice guy and then hoping to heal my broken heart after I get rejected? I'm sorry, but we've only just met! It's too sudden! I can't go out with someone I don't know very well! Please forgive me!" Her rejections came at me rapid fire as usual, giving me no time to react before she ended her speech with a conciliatory bow.

"That gets less funny every time you do it," I groused.

"You need a new excuse, Isshiki-chan," Tsuburaba said merrily. "We've been in the same HEART group for over a month now. You should just be honest with Monoma-kun and tell him that you're really only in the market for a guy who can 'fly' with you for longer than five minutes at a time." He waggled his eyebrows at her teasingly.

"Ugh," Isshiki said, her cheeks pinking even as her face screwed up in disgust. "Really, Tsuburaba?"

"And… TIME!" Midnight shouted. "The fifteen minutes is up! Riders, mount your horses, and collect your headbands!"

Despite their earlier bickering, Tsuburaba and Isshiki swiftly came together in formation with Yanagi, Tsuburaba taking point while the two girls brought up the rear. I tapped Isshiki on the palm to borrow her quirk, first lightly soaring up and then stepping down into the joined hands at the center of the 'horse'. "Ew. Did you have to take your socks and shoes off, Monoma?" Isshiki complained. "I can practically feel the foot-sweat already."

"I need skin contact for my quirk," I said sotto voce to avoid tipping off the other teams. We jogged over to where Power Loader was printing out custom headbands for each team. "If it really bothers you I'll get you some hand sanitizer later."

"Eh? Buying me gifts?" Isshiki said, and I braced myself for yet another fake rejection. Instead, she just smiled up at me devilishly. "I suppose I'll let you make it up to me."

I was distracted from my infuriating teammate by the fact that we were next in line for headbands. I decided to leave mine around my neck, where a bunch of other headbands would soon be joining it. Before I wore it, however, I let Yanagi reach up and touch it with her free hand, and shifted my quirk to mimic hers. A sudden wave of realignment swept through my body, as if every molecule in it had suddenly rotated on the spot, like the minute hand of a watch sweeping from twelve to two o'clock. Feeling Yanagi's quirk, I could almost understand why she was so focused on the supernatural. I felt a cold wave of shapeless, ephemeral force welling up from inside my torso, then flowing through my bloodstream down my arms until it wrapped itself around the headband. If someone did manage to steal it from us, Yanagi and I would be able to grab it right back. "Part one of the Flawless Combo, complete," I announced in a low voice.

"So, whose headband are we taking first?" Tsubaraba asked. From my position above him I could see his head shifting from left to right, evaluating potential targets. "Just let me know, and I'll try to get us a starting position near them."

"You have to ask?" I said rhetorically. "Let's show the crowd just who the real power copier is this year."

As everyone spread out, I spared a second from my focus on 1-A to take a look at the teams my own class had formed. Orimoto and Tokage had unsurprisingly teamed up with each other; I didn't recognize the tall boy from the business course or the redheaded support student, but given how much synergy Orimoto and Tokage had I honestly wasn't sure if the other two's quirks would even matter. The biggest threats to our team were Kendo and Tetsutetsu's teams; Kendo had joined up with Shiozaki, Awase, and Kuroiro to put together a team full of grapplers, while Tetsutetsu was sitting on the shoulders of Bondo, Honenuki, and Fukidashi, any of whom could potentially tie us down at medium range. The rest of the class had either found smaller teams, like Kodai and Shishida, or had decided to team up with non-hero students, like Kaibara and Shoda with the bluenette support student and the taller purple-haired general education boy, or… "Hey Isshiki. Look to your right."

"Oh no!" Isshiki said with genuine distress in her voice. "Did Ebina and Tsunotori get stuck with the sexual harasser? I should have warned them!"

Tsuburaba snickered. "I'm gonna be honest, Isshiki-chan, I don't really know who to feel bad for in that situation."

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"Pony-chan, we're going after Tetsutetsu's team first! Mineta-kun, you'll use your hair to restrain them, and then! Tetsutetsu's rock hard firmness… Honenuki's yielding softness… Ufufu, ufufu! Their passions will grow like mushrooms after the rain!" I was torn. On the one hand, the words coming out of the mouth of the woman sitting behind me sent shivers up my spine. On the other hand, I was sitting on the back of a gorgeous blonde, with the two soft cushions of a second girl pressing right up against the back of my head.

Well, it was too late to change teams now anyway. "Alright, but first we're going after them!" I shouted while pointing at the jerk president of 1-A's team and the pair of sport uniform pants seemingly standing unsupported on his hands. "Do you see that? She's topless! Topless! One little 'accident'!" My fingers convulsed in mid-air, as if reaching out to grab something. "One little accident, and-!"

"Sorry," Tsunutori interrupted in her thick American accent. "I think I no understand. Which way we go?"

"That way!" Ebina and I shouted, pointing in different directions.

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"Well, I doubt they'll be much of a threat, either way," I declared. "Tsuburaba, head over there, a little further away from Kendo's group."

Finally, we reached a decent starting 'spot'. The five teams from 1-A, along with Tetsutetsu and Orimoto's teams, had congregated towards one side of the athletic field. There were three teams on either side of the luckless kid with the million-point headband, all six of them clearly intending on dogpiling him at the first available opportunity. The other side of the field belonged to teams like mine, the jackals and vultures, all waiting for the moment that the prey was distracted so that we could charge in and tear away our individual lumps of flesh.

"Are you READY?!" Present Mic's voice squealed from the auditorium speakers. The crowd roared in approval. The stadium displays switched to a graphic of a countdown. I felt my heart racing, and my lips twisted up into a confident smile.

"Wait for them to get tangled up with each other," I said in a low, urgent voice. "Then? We go!"

"Three!" To my left, the three kids from the Tennis Club looked around nervously. The girl acting as the horse conjured a pair of blue oval discs to her sides, preparing a defense against sudden attack.

"Let's do this thing!" Tsuburaba said.

"Two!" To my right, I heard a deep rumbling growl as Shishida's body expanded, fur growing over his extended arms and bare feet as his all-fours posture grew more natural, Kodai clinging to his mane to hold on.

"We shall teach our enemies the true meaning of terror and despair," Yanagi intoned.

"One!" Straight ahead, 1-A's president had apparently chosen to be a horse. Damn. I'd been hoping to show him up personally. Well, even if he already knew his place as a side character in the grand scheme of things, I had no issues with reinforcing that lesson.

"Remember Monoma-kun, we're on live T.V., so don't screw up!" Isshiki ever-so-helpfully added.

My eyes narrowed, my heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest, and then finally, Midnight's whip cracked down and she shouted, "Start!"

And that's when it all started to go wrong.

As everyone was bursting into motion, as my own 'horse' started running to the side to stay out of the melee, as Tetsutetsu and Kendo's teams started racing forwards… not a single team from Class 1-A went for the ten million point headband. On the left side of the field, a massive wave of ice headed for Team Tokage, forcing two of their members to discorporate their bodies and the other two to make a massive jetpack-assisted leap out of danger. On the right, I saw Tetsutetsu's team having to rapidly back up as Bondo's initial spray of glue was thrown back in their face by a massive explosion. Ebina's team was fleeing in panic from its own sticky hairballs being somehow reflected back at it, and my own intended targets were squaring off against Kendo's team, pitting fabric whips against oversized hands to good success. And Midoriya, the first place target who everyone should have been aiming to beat, was under such little pressure that his team could glide around the battlefield looking for targets the same way that mine was.

The target team! The bait! The shiny dangly piece of string that all of the meat-headed, fame-obsessed morons from 1-A should have been chasing after with all their might, had the leisure to use MY strategy! "Those… those rat bastards! They're cheating!" I shouted, gritting my teeth.

"Whoa, Eraserhead! What's going on!?" The intercom crackled to life, Present Mic's voice full of simulated shock. "It looks like Class 1-A is working together?!"

"It might be the result of the USJ incident," Eraserhead explained in his usual dull, dry, voice. "Ever since, they've been determined to prove that the villain attack only made them a stronger, better team, and it looks like this is the result."

"That's pretty amazing, Eraserhead, but is that even allowed?" Mic asked. Yeah, that was what I wanted to know!

Even from my position across the field from her, I could see Midnight making the O-K symbol. "I didn't say it was against the rules, and it's interesting, so I'll allow it!"

She'll allow it. Yeah, that was totally fair, huh? The teachers weren't biased against the class with the #2 pro's kid at all, were they? I'm sure it was just a coincidence that their homeroom teacher was an announcer, and ours was nowhere to be seen, right? Well, no matter how biased they were, I wasn't just going to lie down and take it! "This means war," I said to myself, suddenly finding a laugh bubbling up from my stomach, feeling my lips stretch into a grimace of a smile. "This. Means. WAR! Everyone! Change of plans! Forget waiting for them to be distracted! 1-B isn't going down without a fight! Our counterattack starts now!" Across the field, I saw Kendo's headband be pulled from her head as if it were just floating away on its own, and pointed a finger straight at the culprit. "We'll sandwich Hikigaya's team between us and Kendo! Now go!"

As we barrelled down on the other team, I started evaluating my approach. Their rider was shielded from the back and sides by the enormous squid-like mantle of the rear horse, while the front was guarded by an invisible woman and by whatever Hikigaya could conjure up without his hands free. The gaps in the formation were covered by the rider's cloth whip… but she couldn't whip too far forward, or she'd risk hitting her invisible companion. And I didn't have to go for the headband itself to start - as long as I touched the rider's skin, I could neutralize her control over her own cloth and render her defenseless. "What's the approach, Monoma?" Tsuburaba asked.

"From the front at a bit of an angle, and give me some cover!" I temporarily abandoned Yanagi's quirk, reaching instead for a combination of strength and durability from Isshiki's. Faintly, I hoped that our charge would come as something of a surprise, but between the fact that we were charging from the front, and the fact that their rear horse's squid mantle was apparently covered in eyeballs, I wasn't shocked in the slightest when their rider reacted to our approach by attempting to steal my headband with a heavy fabric whip. I defended with an aikido block, redirecting the force of the blow off to the side. But while I'd expected the blow, I hadn't expected it to be so heavy. Due to their horse's taller stature, she had the height advantage, and despite my muscles being supplemented by Isshiki's quirk the rider's cloth quirk seemed to give her the strength advantage as well. Yanagi and Tsuburaba staggered from the force the hit sent through my body, and I had to hastily adjust my borrowed quirk to manifest flight in order to keep us all from falling over. "Tsuburaba! Now!"

Just in time, Tsuburaba's exhalations solidified invisibly in the air between us, causing the whip's second attack to waste all its momentum in shattering the barrier. Knowing that Tsuburaba would need a second to catch his breath, I took a deep breath myself, exhaling an identical barrier to replace it. For a second, our two teams stood facing each other, both trying to evaluate our next moves. "Hey, you guys are breathing pretty hard there!" The air above 1-A's president said mockingly, "That must make you guys Team Blowhard, right?"

"Blowhard?" I said incredulously. "Blowhard?! You, who are going around making speeches like you're someone important just because you got attacked by villains; you, who are having to resort to cheap tricks to move forward in the tournament, are calling ME a Blowhard?!" My hands balled up into fists, and I prepared to attack them from the only way they wouldn't see coming - from above. I realigned myself to Isshiki's quirk and prepared to show them just who the fakes were, but before I could take off something wet, heavy, and sticky hit me in the side of the head, yanking away my headband along with what felt like a few hairs from my scalp.

"You should pay attention, Copycat!" I heard a jeering voice coming from off to my left. I turned to see the spiky-haired blonde that made all the explosions during the Obstacle race, his team jogging past me while the froglike girl holding up the back of his horse took my headband from her tongue and handed it to him. "Just because Hikigaya has a better copy quirk than you doesn't mean you can ignore everybody else!"

A cool wind blew through my hair where my headband should be, doing absolutely nothing to calm the simmering cauldron of rage inside my skull. "Oh, yeah, his quirk's totally better than mine. His quirk must be able to do this, too, right?! Yanagi!" I shouted, and I pointed my two fingers at my headband, yanking on it with enough force to lift a human body into the air. After a second, Yanagi's fingers joined mine, and reluctantly Bakugo had to let go of my headband before he was pulled off his perch and onto the ground.

Just as I released my telekinetic grasp and was about to tie the headband back onto my forehead, however, I heard Hikigaya shout. "Get over here!" Abruptly, the scrap of fabric yanked itself out of my hands and back towards Hikigaya's group, where their rider used her makeshift shirt-whip to snatch it out of the air.

Furiously, I tried to reclaim it with telekinesis once again, only to discover to my shock and horror that the fabric was firmly adhered by an even stronger force to the cloth-user's neck. "Thanks Bakubaku!" She shouted cheerfully.

Looking disgruntled, Bakugo let out a sigh. "Yup. He can. Which you'd know if you weren't a moron. Quit stealing my kills, Hikigaya!"

"Quit stealing ours, first!" Hikigaya shouted back.

I just stood there dumbfounded. How had it all gone so wrong? "Damn it. Damn it!" I shouted, before setting my sights towards Bakugo's team. "Fine, if we can't get our own headband back, we'll just have to grab someone else's! After them!" After a few abortive steps in Bakugo's direction, however, we were stopped in our tracks by a sizzling wave of acid that melted the ground between us. Well, if my horse couldn't chase after them, then I'd just have to go it alone! Attuning to Isshiki's quirk, I jumped into the air after Bakugo, hoping for the element of surprise to allow me to grab a headband.

I didn't even get halfway there before I had to trade most of my flight for durability. My view of Bakugo vanished in a wave of fire and smoke, and only a panicked last second flailing of Isshiki's quirk kept me hovering above a pit of acid instead of falling in. Despite the ringing in my ears, as I stared up at the clear blue sky, I could faintly hear Bakugo's contemptuous voice. "Don't you get it yet? Hikigaya researched all your quirks, dumbass! And if you hadn't been a lazy fuck, you'd have done it too!"

For a second, I just floated there with the wind knocked out of me, staring blankly into the sky in disbelief. Then an athletic silhouette passed through my field of view as it soared through the sky, and I gritted my teeth and recovered my resolve. Fine! If I couldn't get the drop on Bakugo, I'd just have to go after someone else! The fact that Class A had taken the time to research our quirks was a shock, of course, but it only made sense that if they'd been preparing to cheat during the Sports Festival that they'd have more than one dirty trick up their sleeves. Well, no amount of dirty tricks would hold back a real hero. I felt the wind whistling past my ears as I soared up into the sky, my gaze trailing after Hayama Hayato.

He was making multiple high-speed charges through the vast cloud of fog that made up Orimoto Kaori's body. With each pass, the turbulence his body generated roiled in shockwaves through the mist, and it was clear that she wouldn't hold on for long. Even now I could see the fog thinning, revealing Tokage Setsuna's multipartite body within. I flew up into the cloud myself, shouting out to the girls. "Orimoto! Tokage! Class 1-A's teamed up! We should, too! Truce?"

In the mist, Tokage's head and torso reconnected for long enough to hook her lungs to her windpipe so she could speak. "I won't say no!" She shouted back cheerfully. "Tamanawa, Mei!" She called down to her teammates below. "Did you hear that? This blondie's on our side, now!"

Seeing movement out of the corner of my eye, I flew forward in a tackle, pushing Tokage's head and torso out of the way just in time as Hayama came around for another pass. He clipped me in the side, the blow sending me spinning like a top through the air, but I grabbed Tokage and hugged her tightly to my chest to keep her from being thrown out to who knows where. With my field of vision, all I could rely on were my ears; unfortunately, any potential signs of danger approaching were completely drowned out by Present Mic's excited shrieks. "What a dominant display by Class 1-A! We're a little more than halfway through the battle, folks, and already there are just two headbands on the field not being worn by 1-A members! Not only that, but one after another, Todoroki is icing the other teams over, taking them out of the fight permanently!"

As I finally managed to stop my spin, I noticed that Tokage's headband was still wrapped around her head, one of the two Present Mic mentioned. I saw her notice that I had seen it, and for a second, our eyes met, a hint of fear creeping into her gaze. I admit, for a second I was tempted, but… no. I'd offered a truce, and since I wasn't a dirty cheater like those jerks in 1-A, I was going to keep my word. "You alright?" I asked Tokage, seeing her looking a little bit dizzy and disoriented from the spin.

She blinked a couple of times, then gave me a sarcastic smile. "Why Monoma, I didn't know you cared!" Then, her eyes went wide as she looked over my shoulder. "Dodge!" I dove for the ground at a sideways angle, making it out of the way just in time for several arrows of light to pass through the space I had just vacated. I looked over to see Hayama's team, where a curly-haired blonde girl was firing one plasma beam after another to try to knock us out of the sky. "You need to fly back closer to Tamanawa and Mei," Tokage shouted at me, "Orimoto can give us cover there!"

"Yeah, cover's totally going to be enough!" I shouted back sarcastically. "We don't need cover, we need more firepower!" Despite our difference of opinions, however, I flew back in her team's direction anyways, the business student's above-average height and the support student's pink hair making them easy to spot despite the concealment of Orimoto's thinning mist. As I did, my height above the battlefield made it easy to see just how dire of a situation Class 1-B was in. Kodai, Kendo, Tetsutetsu, and Ebina all had not only lost their headbands, but their teams had been immobilized with ice, preventing them from recovering their losses. My team and the team that Kaibara and Shoda had made with some non-hero students were still able to move for now, but had lost their headbands. Other than Tokage, who I was holding, the last team with a headband outside of Class A was the Tennis club, and even now 1-A's Todoroki was bearing down on them with waves of ice. I watched as Todoroki fired blast after blast at the Tennis Club, only to have the ice knocked out of the way by those reflective blue discs. "Tokage," I said urgently, "Bring your arms over, grab onto me."

"Huh? Why?" She asked. Despite her confusion, however, I saw a swarm of her body parts heading my way, and her floating hands grabbed onto the jacket of my sports uniform, while the rest hovered around me in a loose cloud. The two of us were cut off from reaching Orimoto's mists by another one of Hayama's cannonball-like charges, Tokage's hands pulling on me even as I flew to pull us both out of the way of danger. "Sure, we can keep dodging like this, but I can't go after other teams' headbands if I'm holding on to you!"

"Wait for it!" I cried. Together, we dodged another pass from Hayama, and then Tokage forestalled an attempt by Bakugo as he made a rocket-propelled jump up to attack us by knocking him off-course with her body parts and forcing his teammate to rescue him with her long, frog-like tongue. Bakugo hit those body parts with an explosion in retaliation, unfortunately, and despite the fact that she could regrow them Tokage still winced in pain and bit her lip to keep from crying out. "Orimoto!" I shouted, "If you can hear me, screen us off from as much of the right side of the field as you can!"

In the few breaths of space that Orimoto's cover bought us, finally, it happened. Todoroki lost his patience with the Tennis Club, and hit them with a huge wave of ice that even their leader's defensive quirk couldn't block completely. Just like I'd observed by watching him in the obstacle race from behind, his body stiffened as the accumulated cold slowed his movements. "The reason you need to hold onto me," I replied to Tokage with a vicious smile, "is because I can't keep flying if I'm going to be switching quirks!" In one smooth motion I dove down from our position above and behind his team and grabbed every single headband, along with the quirk that would give us our class' comeback, from around Todoroki Shoto's neck.

"Oh shit!" I heard Todoroki's blonde teammate say, and I flew backwards just in time to avoid a burst of crackling electricity. A few more of Tokage's body parts weren't as lucky, but despite the pain on her face, her hands never stopped pulling me away from danger.

I wrapped my right arm tightly around her torso. Without being told, Tokage took the few remaining body parts she had left and braced them under my feet. I took the headbands I was holding, and without bothering to check their point values I draped one of them around Tokage's neck before adding two to my own. With my hand finally empty, I was ready to unleash some serious revenge. "Let's see how you like being frozen!" I shouted, and I held my left hand out towards Todoroki's team as I aligned myself to my newest copied quirk.

My arm promptly caught fire.

In the stands, a blaze of fire erupted to match it. I spared just enough attention from the fight to notice that it was Endeavor before deciding that I did not give a good goddamn whether the #2 hero was pissed off at me copying his son's Quirk, and turned my attention back to the younger Todoroki. The shell-shocked look on his face just pissed me off even more. Seriously? Were you so incredibly cocky that you thought you could get through the second stage of the tournament while holding back? Were you going to show off your fire in the final round to impress everyone? Well, sorry, but I was going to ruin those plans! "Class 1-B!" I shouted, and I whipped my left hand around, forcing Bakugo and Hayama back with a wall of flame as they tried to chase me down. The crowd roared at the flashy display, and my triumphant grin spread ever wider as I focused my aim directly at the iced-over ground holding all of my classmates frozen in place. "It's time for our comeback! Let's show those jerks in 1-A what happens when they mess with us!"

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I groaned as the owner of the Mime quirk, floating in midair while seemingly holding a severed head, began laughing like a madman and setting fire to the arena. Damn it, we had been so close! If not for Todoroki getting overconfident and letting his guard down, we could have finished off the cavalry battle with a 1-A battle royale. I might not even have had to waste a single extra Stockpile! Instead, one after another the teams from 1-B were pulling themselves free from the weakening ice, going after headbands with a combination of righteous vengeance and panicked desperation.

"Wow! And in a spontaneous display of teamwork, Class 1-B is rallying!" Eraserhead shouted. "What once appeared to be a sure thing is now full on, class-on-class warfare!"

"That's the thing about complicated plans," Eraserhead's voice added, a note of humor in his usually disinterested voice. "When they work, they work well. But when they fail, they tend to fail spectacularly." Message received, sensei. Message received.

If there was any silver lining to the situation, it was that since Midoriya's headband was an instant pass to the third round, his team was a much more attractive target than my own. Unfortunately, there were still a few students who were willing to seek out what they thought was easier prey. I saw Hayama falling prey to a wave of green vines that snatched him out of the air, saw the mind-controller (carried by Kawasaki, damn it) running up to Bakugo and trying to bait him into speaking, and... "Mwa ha ha ha ha!" Joining Mime-guy in the maniacal laughter division was the brown-haired girl with the mushroom quirk, who came charging toward me together with her team. "With all the melted ice making things wet, my mushrooms will be unstoppable! Charge, Pony-chan!"

"I try! My legs still cold!" As the opposing team charged us for our headbands, I quickly realized that while my team was well set up for close range combat, there wasn't a lot we could do against ranged attacks. Purple balls of hair and telekinetically flung horns shot at us in a flurry, and all we could do to defend was to have Yui try to knock the attacks aside with blows of her increasingly tattered-looking shirt-whip.

"Eeek!" Tohru shrieked at what was presumably a near-miss, and she ducked down to take cover behind me, moving the unnamed pieces of her body that had been in contact with the back of my head for the past twelve minutes and counting down until they were pressed up against my back. "Somebody do something!"

"Shoji!" I called out, "Let's keep our distance! Where's clear?"

A single tentacle reached out to form a mouth near my ear, prompting a startled squeal from Mushroom Girl. "Five o'clock!" I nodded, and together we moved back, managing to keep our distance thanks to the somewhat shaky legs of the American blonde acting as their only horse.

Unfortunately, all of the haphazard attacks were just a smokescreen for the real danger. A horn with a purple hairball stuck to it appeared to be coming at us in a straight line just like all the others, only to swerve out of the way of Yuigahama's cloth whip at the last moment and to impact straight on my shoulder. Ordinarily that might not have been much of an issue, but all of a sudden the horn, my shoulder, and Tohru's previously-invisible arm were suddenly covered with rapidly growing mushrooms. "Ew ew ew get it off get it off get it off!" Tohru shrieked in disgust, trying to pull her hand away from my shoulder but being unable to do so due to the purple ball's glue.

"Shoji!" Yuigahama cried, seeing this happening. "Drop your arms!" I turned my head to stare at the fungal vector on my shoulder, trying to figure out how to deal with it, so out of the corner I was able to see Yuigahama standing up to her full height on Shoji's back. With her feet anchored in place by strips of fabric connected to the back of Shoji's shirt, and her range of motion no longer constrained by Shoji's protective mantle, she was able to put her whole body into a sidearm throw that launched her now hairball-and-mushroom covered cloth whip into a vicious arc that wrapped around Tsunutori's legs like a bola.

I could feel the rhizomes of the fungi beginning to prick into my skin through the fabric of my shirt, and I was guessing that it wasn't any more comfortable for Tohru. Unfortunately, the only solution I could think of on short notice wasn't going to be any more comfortable than the affliction. "Grit your teeth, Tohru," I said, sticking one end of Ooze into Stockpile and readying the other, while simultaneously passing her right foot to my left hand so that I could get my right hand free. "This is going to sting like a bitch." With a 30% stockpile, I covered her arm, my shoulder, and the sticky hairball with a dose of the slipperiest version of Ashido's Acid that I could manufacture. Even despite the inherent protection of Ashido's quirk and the protective layer of my shirt, I could feel my shoulder stinging as the acid soaked through. I felt my gut twist as I heard Tohru's cry of pain, only able to imagine how much worse it was on her unprotected skin. The slippery acid did its job though, as Tohru finally managed to pull her hand free of the purple hairball, and the mushrooms sizzled and fell off her arm in clumps. As soon as she was free, I swapped out Ashido's quirk for Yui's Cloth Manipulation so that I could tear away my acid-soaked, fungal-infected shirt before I took any more damage or she got stuck to it again.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, you weren't lying, Hikigaya," Tohru said shakily. I could tell from the way her weight was distributed on my back that she was holding her arm off to the side to keep any of the acid remaining on her from splashing me, and looking to my left I could see the glistening liquid outline of a slender arm.

I disengaged from Stockpile and switched over to Backdraft, and after a second of thought added the Soap quirk that I used to wash dishes in case there were any lingering spores left. "Hold still, I'm going to rinse you off," I said apologetically, matching words to actions as I began spraying soapy water from the center of my hand at both her arm and my shoulder. "Are you all right?"

"I'll live," she said, but I could hear the pain in her voice.

Before she could protest, or my embarrassment could get the better of me, I used the fact that I could see the water still clinging to her arm to reach out and grab her hand, then brought it to my mouth. Trying hard not to think about what I was doing, or the fact that Tohru's bare chest was now pressing against my naked back, I combined Stockpile with Recovery Girl and kissed her hand. "How about now?" There was an embarrassed silence. "Tohru?"

"Uh, yeah! Better! Ahahaha I'm fine now! Yep!" She stood up as straight as possible, no longer pressed against my back, and I felt my face turning even hotter than it already had been. Great. And I'd just gotten rid of those 'sexual harasser' rumors, too. Sure enough, the entangled trio who had been chasing us were now all staring at me with disturbing lights in their eyes, the women with stares of accusation, while the diminutive pervert's eyes were burning with undisguised jealousy. Even worse, now that the panic to remove my acid-soaked shirt was gone, I was acutely aware that I was completely shirtless and liberally splashed with soapy water, and I was on live television. I was never going to live this down.

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"Hikigaya-san," I pulled my face away from my monitor and swore internally. Before I was interrupted I had been just about to figure out exactly how those idiots in Sales had misfiled their claim documentation, and it was going to take me at least five minutes to retrieve my train of thought. "Hikigaya-san, you've got to see this!"

"What!" I growled in exasperation, looking up to see Tanaka's familiar head of blue hair and irrepressible smile as he held out a cell phone to me. I didn't take it immediately. "I-Island has a four week mandatory security screening on all support gear being showcased at the expo," I said, "which means that I have to find a way to fit eight weeks of documentation into the six weeks that we have left before Product ships everything overseas. I've got people three steps up the corporate ladder from me breathing down my neck for these reports, so this had better be important."

Tanaka put one hand behind his head in embarrassment. "Ah, sorry, sorry, Hikigaya-san, it's just - it's your son!"

As soon as he said that I practically snatched the cell phone from him with indecent haste. "Hachiman? What happened? Is he alright?" In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have panicked. Nothing about Tanaka's posture or tone of voice had indicated bad news in any way, and in theory Hachiman was at a school event rather than anywhere dangerous, but after two similar school events had ended with my son coming home bloody and traumatized, I was maybe a little bit oversensitive.

"No, no, sir, he's fine!" Tanaka swiftly reassured me. "Hell, he's better than fine! He's trending!" Bemused, I turned the screen to face me, only to see a clip of Hachiman giving a speech at a podium, that then suddenly cut to him shirtless, kissing what looked to be an invisible - I presumed girl, though you never knew - on the back of her hand. #PresidentialTreatment, it was helpfully labeled. I scrolled down. Another gif had the words, 'You thought it was a sporting event!' followed by a still frame of my son lifting a heavy-looking steel wall, the text 'When actually…', a slow-motion clip of Hachiman ripping his shirt off all at once, and finishing with 'it was a romance novel!" #HeroNameCasanova.

I couldn't help it. I let out a snort of a laugh before I recovered my composure. "Alright, Tanaka, you're forgiven. For interrupting me, that is. I'll forgive you for looking at hero news when you should have been working" he made some noises about having been on a cigarette break, which I cheerfully ignored, "as long as the competitive intel analysis of Detnerat is on my desk by five this afternoon, got it?"

Sagging slightly, he left my office, closing the door, at which point I gleefully pulled out my own phone. I had to send these to Matsuri immediately! As expected, however, my wife had beaten me to the punch, sending me a few of the more entertaining memes, followed by a totally unfounded accusation. "He gets that playboy instinct from you, you know."

"Excuse me?" I typed back, "I seem to recall only one of us was ever the campus belle, and it certainly wasn't me."

"What do you call someone who can get together with the campus belle, if not a playboy?" She asked rhetorically, then sent another picture that had me stifling my laughter to avoid being heard outside. It was a close up of Hachiman's face, looking almost bored as he brought the invisible girl's hands to his lips, but if you knew him as well as my wife and I did you could see the wide eyes and the poorly suppressed panic in the back of them. My phone buzzed again. "... He looks like he's having fun," it said.

There were paragraphs of unspoken sentences packed into that single three-dot ellipsis, and I stared at it for a long time before I could muster a reply. "... I know," I said. After another pause, I put the matter aside for the moment. I hadn't been exaggerating when I told Tanaka I was busy. "I don't have time to check the news right now," I said, "how's Hachiman doing?"

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"Ladies and gentlemeeeeen! With just two minutes remaining on the clock, the full on first year class warfare is still going at a frantic pace!" Present Mic's commentary was punctuated by the repeated booms of Bakugo's explosions as he went exploding-hand-to-giant-hand with Kendo's team, by the roar of flame and the hiss of melting ice as Monoma suppressed a visibly furious Todoroki, and by bestial roars mixing with roaring engines as Shishida chased Midoriya's team through Orimoto's fog. All of my focus, however, was reserved for the team of 1-B students whose leader's steely gaze was currently focused on Yuigahama. He wasn't a huge threat to us personally - no matter how hard his skin was, it wouldn't do anything to let him pry the headbands away from Yui - but the glue-headed boy in the back of his horse made me nervous. I'd already stripped out of my shirt, damn it, I didn't want to lose my pants too!

Suddenly, the ground underneath us started to liquefy and soften, as the skull-faced student in the front of their formation sent out a wave of quirkforce that gave it the consistency of quicksand. Shit, more Stockpiles I had to spend! Thinking quickly, I grabbed out to Uraraka's Zero Gravity quirk, dropping the weight of everybody I could reach as far as I could make it, and then channeled Triangle Flight to push us all up out of the mire and back onto solid ground. Every time I expended a stockpile, it was like I was seeing literal hours of sitting and meditating just going to waste, and the process caused me an almost physical pain. "Just a little longer, guys!" I shouted, "Let's just keep our distance! Shoji, keep telling us where!"

"Eight o' clock direction, but we need to put up some kind of barrier!" He shouted back. "Otherwise they'll just keep chasing!" Gritting my teeth, I reached out to one of the most difficult quirks to use I had available to me: Yaoyorozu's Creation. Frankly, I had no idea how in the hell she managed that beast. Even after a decent amount of practice, I couldn't create anything other than simple geometric forms. On the other hand, all you needed for a decent ball bearing was a perfect sphere, and I had a lot of exposed skin right now. Dozens of metallic orbs scattered forward from my bare chest, rolling all over the cement floor between me and the other team as Shoji and I backpedaled frantically.

"They're getting away!" The steel-skinned rider shouted. "Bondo! Glue them!" Finally, the quirk I had been dreading appeared. I took a deep breath, then blew out as hard as I could, creating a panel of air in between us and the gloppy spray that spread it out wide and kept it from anchoring us to the floor. It was an effective defense - but unfortunately, it was the kind of trick I could only do once. "Hit 'em again, Bondo!"

The second arc of glue lobbed through the air, and I prepared to dodge to the side in panic, only for the need to be eliminated by a massive wall of ice that cut us off from the enemy team. A huge wave of chilled air brushed past my shirtless torso, but nevertheless I let out a huge sigh of relief. "Thanks, Todo-" Funny thing. Before becoming a hero, I never had to worry about being electrocuted during my day-to-day life. Yet somehow, when the coppery taste of 10 yen coins filled my mouth, as every muscle in my body seized up, I instinctively realized just what had occurred. The sour tang of ionized air filled my nostrils as I desperately grasped for breath, and I forced my head up just in time to see Yukinoshita's guilt-stricken face only inches away from mine. "Sorry, Hikigaya." I heard Todoroki's voice saying from above me. Then, the soft whisp of fabric brushing against fabric as Todoroki took the headbands from a stunned and unresisting Yuigahama. "Your plan almost worked."

The creeping sensation of cold coming from the massive ice wall in front of me intensified as Todoroki iced over our team's lower legs. Somehow, I doubted that the blond guy with the Mime quirk would be flying over to melt us free like he had with his classmates. I was furious. You were sorry? The only reason my plan failed was because you fucked it up, and therefore that makes it okay for you to electrocute me? My whole body felt like it had been pummeled with a baseball bat, but as I slowly regained control over my arms and legs I held back on my instinctive first impulse to channel Regeneration. "One minute remaining!" Midnight's voice called out, and my eyes narrowed. If I healed myself now, I'd be incapacitated for a few seconds from the pain - and furthermore, Zaimokuza's Regeneration pulled from the same well of calories as Yaoyorozu's Creation. No, if I wanted any chance of recovering my headband I'd have to just power through.

"Tohru!" I shouted, "Get off my back, hang on to Shoji! Shoji, can you hold both the girls for a second?" His tentacle quivered and shook for a second, but when I looked over my shoulder to check on him his primary head gave me a firm nod. As Tohru's feet left my palms and her hands left my shoulders, I wasted no time in disengaging myself from Shoji and ducking as close to the sheet of ice imprisoning us as I could go. With my ankles locked, I couldn't lean forward, which meant that I wound up sitting down in front of Shoji and then flopping backwards in an ungainly fashion, so that I was looking up at his torso from below, my bare back resting on ice. Then, I used a stockpile of the quirk that I had been hoping to save for the one-on-one tournament matches. Hot Skin.

A huge sizzle of steam erupted from the ground beneath me, and I could immediately feel the ice around my ankles loosen. I used its anchoring to push myself back to my feet using only my legs and abs, a motion that would have been nearly impossible without Stockpile and my recent fitness regimen, then as soon as I was standing I used those same muscles to kick my legs free. I grabbed Shoji's hands once again, and braced myself as he, too, was able to take advantage of the loosened ice to free himself. "Everybody get ready!" I shouted.

"I'm sorry Hikki it's all my fault I lost the headbands but I couldn't focus my quirk and-" Yui's voice was cut off by the stadium loudspeakers.

"Thirty seconds!" Midnight's voice shouted.

As Tohru jumped back down from Shoji's shoulders to our crossed palms, I shook my head fiercely. "Not your fault! Now come on, we don't have much time!"

"Come on everybody! We can do it!" Tohru shouted.

Now was no longer the time to save up Stockpiles. Using the unspent half of Zero Gravity, I lessened the burden on Shoji's weakened legs, and together we started charging towards Todoroki, whose shocked face was a thing of glory. He was rimed with ice, our two teams were cut off from the field in our own little glacial arena, and I had under thirty seconds to try to take back our team's headbands and secure revenge. No pressure. Without breaking stride, I threw up, silvery ectoplasm falling in a torrent from my mouth. As it hit the ground, it formed into a plurality of angry Hikigaya Hachimans, all of them looking as shirtless and singed as I was. I had intended to have them fan out, maybe surround Todoroki's team, but I had never practiced with Ectoplasm's quirk before. Apparently, he could see through the eyes of every clone he made, and the sudden flood of information was so disorienting that it was all I could do to keep my clones moving in straight lines.

Nevertheless, apparently the sight was intimidating enough that it rattled Todoroki. "Denki!" He shouted, pulling an insulating blanket up to shield himself. Denki's blast of electrons knocked out my clones all at once, but the effort knocked Denki out as well… which meant that Todoroki's team couldn't run from us any longer.

He must have realized it, because Todoroki raised a hand to try to wall us off with ice. A gust of invisible pressure blew my hair back from my face as I spent my stockpile of Erasure, turning the glacial wall into little more than a burst of snow. "Get ready, Tohru!" I shouted as we got into within closing distance. "We're only going to have time for one shot!" There were just a handful of seconds left on the clock, but I felt confident that victory was possible. Tohru was deadly at close range, and Denki was out of commission. Todoroki's ice was suppressed by my gaze. We could do it!

Unfortunately, I realized that I had overlooked the crucial variable known as Yukinoshita Yukino right around the time that she kicked me in the gut. All of the mass and momentum behind the four of us charging toward her came to a sudden stop right at my midsection, folding me around her foot like a cheap towel. As I gasped for breath, Tohru stepped up onto my back, leaping up at Todoroki to make a last-second, desperate grab for our ticket to the finals.

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"Monoma! Quit setting things on fire, already! I'm getting sick of holding you up!" More accurately, I was running out of steam. Between explosion boy, electric boy, laser girl, and all of the other counter-counterattacks from Class 1-A, I had lost and regenerated the majority of my body over the last fifteen minutes. Suffice it to say that I. Was. Feeling it. Earlier, adrenaline had kept me going, but with only a few seconds left on the clock and the skies more or less uncontested, I was starting to fade. Also, I was concerned about Monoma. His face was bright red, he was dripping with sweat, and he was panting like a dog in the summer. "It's okay," I added a little more softly. "We won."

Slowly, he let the flames on his arm die. "Haah. Haah. Haah. We did, didn't we?" He said in quiet wonder. The honest smile that spread across his face almost made my heart skip a beat. Then, he collected himself, almost visibly pushing out his chest like a peacock ruffling its feathers, and I rolled my eyes internally. "Yes, we did! Haha! Well, it's a shame that Kendo wound up losing the headbands she got from Hayama to Bakugo after all, but still, two 1-B teams going on to the finals isn't bad at all, especially given their premeditated treachery and perfidious -"

"Monoma!" I cut in sharply. "You're heavy! Fly, already!"

"Sorry," he said sheepishly. "It's been longer than five minutes since I last touched Isshiki. I'm out."

"Use my quirk, nimwit!" I shouted. I could feel the burn in every detached piece of my body, lactic acid building up despite the fact that their flight should theoretically have nothing to do with muscles. "You don't even have to split! Just fly!"

"Oh!" Blessedly, the weight I was holding up suddenly vanished, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I let myself sag against Monoma, not caring what it might have looked like to anyone below. I wasn't snuggling with his sweaty ass, damn it! I was just letting him hold me up for a change!

"Ten!" Midnight shouted, and I slowly started gathering body parts, piecing myself back together one step at a time.

"Torso bone connected to the, belly bone," I hummed. Looking up at Monoma's amused expression, I flushed. "What?!"

"Nine!"

"Hey, blonde kid, thanks for the defrost earlier!" One of the general education students called from below. "What's your name, anyway?"

"It's Monoma Neit-" Weirdly, he cut himself off.

"Eight!"

"Hey, come over here!" My right arm finally connected itself to my right hand, which had been clinging to the back of Monoma's shirt to hold him up, and I pivoted as Monoma decided to humor his fan. It was a purple-haired boy, and his team was running toward us even as we flew down.

"Seven!"

"Monoma," I said, "You should keep your distance. He might try something."

"Six!"

I realized something was wrong about the time that Monoma kept going without even acknowledging my words. "Monoma. Monoma!" I shouted.

"Five!"

As we got down to the purple hair kid's level, only a few feet above the ground, I was more than close enough to see that kid smirk. "Great. Now hand me your headbands," he said. "Hers too."

"Four!"

I started to struggle as Monoma's left hand unceremoniously stripped my headbands from me. I tried pinching him, shouting again, but my hand was weak from exertion, and nothing I did seemed to register.

"Three!"

Finally, with a surge of effort, I managed to levitate my body just enough to change my position. With a cry of "Dammit, Monoma, wake the fuck up!" I sank my teeth into his neck.

"Two!"

"Ow!" Monoma shouted, and I prayed that I had been in time. "What the-"

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"And now, the winners of our first year cavalry battle! In first place, Team Midoriya, who held onto the ten million point headband through the entire event! In second place, Team Bakugo! In third place - what? Team Shinso? How did that happen? And finally, in fourth place, Team Todorokiiiiii!" I sighed as Present Mic's voice rang out over the intercom. Then I immediately clutched my gut at the pain that the movement brought me. To say that I was frustrated would be… well, maybe not an understatement; I felt like I had acquitted myself impressively enough in the final minute of the battle that it was possible Cyberpunch would cut me some slack. But it was accurate.

"Don't mind, Hikitaicho-kun," I heard Tohru's voice say, and an invisible hand rested itself gingerly on my bare shoulder. Despite myself, I turned to look at her. I didn't see her, of course, but behind her I could clearly see Yuigahama and Shoji. Both of them were singed, looking as glum as I felt, and had wild hairdos with every hair standing straight on end from static electricity. I reached a hand up to my own hair, discovered it to be in a similar state, and started patting it down self-consciously.

Ours was hardly the only team looking worse for wear. Hayama's face was covered in scrapes and scratches, Kirishima's shoes and pants looked like they had melted straight off of him, Totsuka was visibly shivering to try to warm up, the blonde kid who had been throwing fire around had a massive hickey on the side of his neck, and the short kid who had been throwing sticky hairballs at us was being treated by Recovery Girl for mushroom exposure. Even the teams who were in relatively better shape looked exhausted. "It's alright," I said eventually, doing my best to paste a smile on my face for my team's sake. "We came really, really close."

"I'm sorry, Hikki," Yuigahama said quietly. "I let you down."

"No, Yuigahama." Shoji spoke up. "If it was anyone's fault it was mine. I saw Todoroki's team coming, and didn't realize that they weren't acting as allies until it was too late."

"No way, Shoji-kun!" Tohru said, stamping her foot as a substitute for not being able to show her emphaticness with her facial expressions. Faintly, I saw a few drops of water seemingly hanging in thin air as they trailed down invisible cheeks. "You guys were counting on me to grab the headbands back at the last minute, and I missed!"

I wanted to put my hand out to comfort her in turn, but not knowing where exactly would be safe to put it I just wound up holding it out before abortively pulling it back. "And if I'd been a little more cautious, I could have used Kirishima's quirk or something as I was running up to keep Yukinoshita from slowing us down," I said, trying to forestall the blame game before it got too heavy. "We all did the best we could."

"Let's give a round of applause for everyone who participated!" Midnight shouted, and the crowd responded enthusiastically. It was a bit of a balm on my wounded pride. Even if we'd failed in the end, we sure as hell had put on a good show. "Now, don't feel too bad for those who didn't make it into the top four teams! They'll get a chance to show their stuff one last time over the break with some more traditional Sports Festival events as the finalists prepare for the tournament showdown at the end of the day!" Honestly, that didn't sound too bad. My bruised ribs and I could go for something low-stakes like a bread-eating race right about now. "And now, without further ado, let's reveal the bracket for the final -" She paused. The blue-haired kid with the palm strike quirk from 1-B had raised his hand, practically standing on tiptoes and waving it about in order to be seen. "- yes, Shoda-kun?"

"Sensei, I'd like to withdraw from the tournament!" He shouted. "I don't know what happened! All I remember is that one minute I was trying to find a team for the cavalry battle, and the next moment I was standing here! I mean, I do want to show my stuff off in the finals, but how can I call myself a Hero if I let myself take credit for someone else's work?" So, that was what integrity looked like. I thought back to all of the schemes I had concocted in preparation for this event, and despite the fact that, unlike him, I had avoided falling victim to Shinso's quirk, somehow I felt like I was the one who didn't measure up.

"Sensei, me too!" His other hero teammate said. Despite their defection and clear unhappiness at having been mind controlled, the purple-haired general education student who had used them seemed wholly unperturbed by their dismay. Unfortunately, the same could not be said of Kawasaki Saki.

She was clearly torn, looking back and forth between Midnight and her teammates, and for a second I thought she was going to keep her mouth shut. Then, to my horror, I saw Kawasaki Saki look directly at me. Her shoulders firmed, and she turned back to Midnight with a resolute expression on her face. "Me too, sensei," she said in a clear, unwavering voice. "There are people here who deserve to be on that stage more than I do." No, you're wrong!

Midnight's gaze tracked from Kawasaki Saki, to me, and back before she broke into a leering smile. "Interesting! Interesting! How hot-blooded! This, ladies and gentlemen, is the passion of youth!" The crowd roared again, and I began to desperately wish that Tohru's invisibility quirk was one that I could copy, so that I could just disappear. "That means that there are three vacancies in the final lineup that need to be filled - unless anybody else wishes to withdraw, such as for medical reasons?" No-one did. "Normally, we would fill any empty spots with members of the fifth-place team! However, it just so happens that right now all of the headbands on the field have been collected by the top four teams! Which means that other than the top four, it's a nine-way tie!" She paused to let that sink in, still smiling like the show-woman she was. "Therefore, we'll be filling up those last three spots with one member each from the last three teams to lose a headband! Team Monoma! Team Tokage! And Team Yuigahama! Discuss it amongst yourselves, and figure out who among you will be going to the next round!"

Monoma's team was the first to make their decision. After no more than a quick huddle, they quickly stood aside to let their blond leader step forwards. "Team Monoma nominates Monoma Neito," he stated clearly.

Team Tokage seemed to be less unanimous. "You should go, Setsuna-chan," I heard Orimoto Kaori say urgently.

"No way," Tokage replied, "I am completely wrecked. No way in hell am I recovering in time for the finals."

The redheaded support student bounced up and down excitedly. "Ah! Pick me! Pick me! I still have so many adorable babies to show off!"

"I understand where you're coming from, Mei," the tall business student on their team said, "I want to be in the finals myself, but compared to Orimoto-san and Tokage-san, you and I didn't really help out much."

"It's gotta be you, Orimoto," Tokage said, and seeing Orimoto's tearful nod she turned and addressed Midnight. "Team Tokage nominates Orimoto Kaori."

And then it was our turn. "Yuigahama-" I tried to say, only to be completely cut off.

"No way, Hikki, you're going, and that's final!" Yuigahama said, shaking her head emphatically. "I let you give up your spot on top of the horse for me, and because of me, we lost! I'm not going to let you do that here, too!"

I turned to Tohru, only to hear a refusal. "Hikigaya-kun," she said, her voice unusually serious in her comparison to her typical bubbly personality, "I don't think I can beat Todoroki-san by myself. I don't think Shoji-kun can either." Behind her, Shoji shook his head solemnly in agreement. "You're the only one of us who stands a chance."

Revenge, huh? Briefly, Zaimokuza's smiling face crossed my mind, as did the monstrous beak of the Nomu at the USJ. I looked over at Todoroki, then over to Shinso Hitoshi, who had ruined Kawasaki Saki's chance to shine, and my hands balled into fists. I didn't deserve to move forward in the tournament. I certainly wasn't any kind of hero. But revenge… I could work with that. She must have seen it on my face, because Yuigahama Yui stepped forward. "Team Yuigahama nominates Hikigaya Hachiman," she declared.

"All right!" Midnight shouted. "In that case, these will be the brackets for the tournament! On the left side! Midoriya vs. Shinso! Uraraka vs. Yaoyorozu! Kaminari vs. Iida! Todoroki vs. Tsuyu! And on the right! Bakugo vs. Kirishima! Hikigaya vs. Monoma! Orimoto vs. Fumikage! And Yukinoshita vs. Ashido! Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for your top! Sixteen! Heroes!"

I almost didn't hear the roar of the crowd. I was staring at the display. Todoroki Shoto was all the way on the other side of the brackets from me. To even stand a chance of reaching him, I'd somehow have to make it all the way to the top. And you know?

I could work with that.