And we're back. I am so happy I spent as much time on these as I did in advance, because getting to release like this is euphoric. I've rearranged my room again for a second set up in writing, and so far I found it helped tremendously to draw words out of me. I'll stick with it some more and hopefully turn profit with it.
I meant to cap off last chapter with something about this, so I'll say it here; Welcome to the Sports Festival proper. I wanted to set in last chapter going through each of the main cast of characters for the rest of the story and for this arc specifically to set up not only their actions here in the bouts to come but also for where they go after it. Sure, Izuku is leading the show, but I didn't want to fall into the side characters feeling less developed and left behind in their stories as Izuku pursued his. All of their stories are ones that will carry on to the end of this story, bouncing off and motivating each other into their ideas with the shared, green-haired centerpiece helping to define it most of all. One of Metal Bat's defining traits is his love for family; no reason a found family of friends shouldn't be treated the same.
And you will live with the mohawk so long as I live and breathe. You think I gave it to him just so it's a transitional period into getting Bad's proper pompadour in the future more naturally? You think I don't have more story pieces and conflicts to bring his new hair and scars into? Allow it to build up time, because I know this delay between uploads can make it come across like it's done nothing at all for so long with the story. But I am making choices with what I put in and what they become involved in. Make no mistake, I am batshit wildin.
Thank you for sticking around, and welcome to you new few to find this fic after five goddamn years its taken me to make it to chapter 22. We're hitting 50 by the year's end, I promise you that. Stay tuned, and enjoy.
Heroes were funny creatures. Protectors of society, savers of lives, figureheads of marketing ploys and company products, stars within media and fictional entertainment. A position meant to "balance the new age of quirks'' quickly became just another job for quick profits and adoration. Such a life and the glamor marketing of it all had made them weak. All For One never encountered heroes as formidable a foe as those in his brother's comics —,sans one man — over all his years trying to control Japan in a free, peaceful, and even more profitable design than his enemies did. The evolution of quirks should have provided him greater foes, but the heroes diminished any chance they had at providing him a challenge when marketing turned from products to themselves.
Even their children were a brand to sell.
"This is pointless, master," Shigaraki complained into his microphone.
All For One tsked his apprentice, drumming his fingers on the chin of his headpiece. "This is informational, Tomura," he argued. "If we are to best our enemies and foes, then we must study them. Know who they are." With a single click of his keyboard did his computer flash to life, the image of a stadium from overhead coloring his screen. Not something he could see, but definitely an event he had to keep an ear to while his student watched on for him. "Your fight with them has revealed key characters to plan for not assumed a challenge prior. If you are to beat them the next time around, we must know what to plan against."
The Sports Festival; Yuei's smartest business decision and their worst moral decision in years. An event meant to showcase the skills of their students to heroes and agencies in place of a resume to intern with the pros, that inadvertently revealed a child's strengths and weaknesses in themselves and their quirks to any viewer with a keen eye and the intention of taking advantage of such knowledge. Last year, it had revealed to All For One the school's most likely candidate as All Might's successor after his return to the country since their last bout.
"Any of these hopefuls could be a threat if we allow them to improve their strengths unwatched," he continued. "It is in our best interests that we allot our time to discover what these children are capable of currently."
"We should be dropping the Nomu on their heads," Shigaraki groaned again. "Have it kill the weaker children in the center before the heroes could act to save them. Destroy their hearts and morale. Show them their strength and reliance that heroes will keep everyone safe is a lie."
"Not only are the Nomu not ready for action," All For One informed him, "it would be a waste of resources to do so. The doctor has only just begun on the next batch, and the High Ends have months before they can see the field. And if we send them out at the wrong time, we may not remove the most threatening in their classes, or we lose the chance to study their quirks before the event even begins." His screen cheered alive, the filmed crowd's roars signifying the show upcoming. "Patience is a virtue, young Tomura. What are weeks to men who have spent years preparing for the death of All Might and the society of heroes?"
Tomura grumbled back through the microphone but bit his tongue and swallowed his words. All For One bit back his own about the young man's still incompetent leadership skills, but there was still time to train and shape him into the man he needed to be. He was the perfect apprentice for both their ambitions; all the child needed was to graduate his teachings.
But he would be lying if he said Tomura was the boy plaguing his mind the most. The doctor had done a reconnaissance for information of the first year who had damaged his Nomu like it was made of putty, and that child's circumstances were far too interesting to pass up on a day like this. Three events to showcase what he was capable of, and the boy would either prove or disprove his own medical records before the day ended.
And the Midoriya boy got to give a speech to the world, too. What a joyous event to serve these children on a silver platter.
Shouto did not want to participate in Yuei's Sports Festival. He could fight just fine, and the strength behind his mother's quirk was strong, enough to know most of his classmates couldn't put up a fight against him. Competition like this meant only to humiliate the less fortunate students in his school when paired against people like himself. It was his father's encouragement that discouraged his own participation.
Endeavor, Japan's second-highest hero in the public rankings, had only ever trained Shouto with a single end goal in mind: surpass the image of All-Might. The fiery man had forever played second fiddle to the greatest hero in the nation, and debatably the hero icon of the modern world, and no training, arrests, saves and interviews could ever propel the Flame Hero to the status of the Symbol of Peace. Impregnating a woman with an ice quirk until she produced a boy who could properly use both their quirks himself was the only reason for Shouto's birth. Training Shouto since he was a toddler was all in an effort to grow him not just as a successor to Endeavor's burning iconography, but as a replacement to All-Might's too. Shouto had to live up to the legacy of both heroes and surpass them before either would even have the chance to retire. That mentality was why Endeavor enrolled his youngest son in Yuei, the hero school that fostered both the older heroes.
Attending such a prestigious institute meant nothing to Shouto, and he had even submitted applications to normal high schools across the nation before his father forced him to attend Yuei's recommendation exam. He aced the exam with ease, his mother's quirk overcoming obstacle challenges and physical tests, while his studies from Kunugigaoka Junior High left his written exams simple to complete. His father would have boasted his son's success, flaunted his acceptance and probably congratulated Shouto for passing with flying colors, all had he not heard how he had only done so using his mother's quirk and not a hint of his father's.
It was that moment — watching disgust and disappointment wash over his father's face while he could only begrudgingly allow his son to follow through with his success and attend the hero high school — that Shouto had decided to willingly attend Yuei. He found a reason of his own to become a hero: to spite his father. To use both his father's fire and his mother's ice was Endeavor's own intention; it would represent Endeavor's legacy and image with a complementary quirk that worked around the fire's shortcomings on the human body. To succeed without it while carrying his family name meant Shouto would only bring shame to the man's legacy. It was the best realization Shouto ever came to, and he planned to make that threat a reality with his own sweat and blood and his mother's quirk only.
But even that wasn't enough to convince him to willingly participate in the Sport Festival.
The red-haired boy of his class — Kirishima, if he remembered correctly how their classmates referred to him — had chosen to sit by Shouto in their quite large waiting room. "You doing alright bro?" the rock-quirked boy asked him. "You're looking a little pale."
Shouto grunted as a greeting. "I'm fine," he dismissed the other boy's concern. "It's my skin."
Kirishima did not take the hint to move on and bother the rest of their class with conversation, and instead laughed at whatever joke he took out of Shouto's words and stayed by the boy's cold side. "An ice quirk would probably do that to a guy, yeah. But it's not always active, right? Or is it like a tied mutation like Ashido and her acid and pink skin?"
Shouto barely humored his classmate's following attempts for small talk with short responses of his own. A good chunk of their class diddled aimlessly around them, alone or in groups, all waiting to be called out to the field. But he was waiting for something else. Someone else.
The door to the waiting room opened, and in flooded a few more boys returning from the changing rooms. Leading the pack was one blond-haired classmate, sulking 'round the door and slumping into a chair in the room's corner. "I wish we'd gotten to wear our costumes. We're all gonna look the same out there to the hero scouts."
"We'd be putting ourselves at an advantage against our other classmates, Kaminari," a taller, blue-haired boy strode in behind him. "The general studies and business course students don't receive gear like ours that would help them in this competition. We're on a far more even playing field with our peers this way."
Another blond boy followed in behind him, a tail draped over his shoulder. "You're telling the guy who shoots out electricity that we're on an even level with him," Ojiro (because of course Todoroki remembered his name the best of the three) mocked the taller boy's choice of words. "Besides, dress code like this isn't gonna hide that" — he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder to the green-haired boy that ended their group's entrance — "from anybody. Midoriya's got an unfair advantage from the start."
The mohawk-styled teen threw his hands into the air in disbelief, squeaking out an offended huff at the other boy. "I didn't even say anything."
Kaminari shrugged sluggishly while sinking in his chair. "Bro, that style is louder than anything you'll ever shout. At least people will notice you."
"You're actually making me consider dropping out of this now before I go on to know you for three more years. It's starting to sound like the better option."
Shouto watched their banter silently, fully tuning out the boy beside him to focus his sights on the punk-styled, green-haired boy across the room from him. Midoriya Izuku; class president representative, top scorer of the Yuei's last general entrance exam, and the sole reason Shouto was participating in the Sports Festival at all.
Against everyone else in his class, Shouto saw no competition. Yaoyorozu and Iida hailed from their own notable families within the world of heroics, but their families' quirks couldn't hold a candle to his mother's. Kaminari's electricity and Ashido's acid could be powerful, but how he'd seen them fight before didn't convince him they'd be a challenge. Everyone in their class had a versatile quirk in their own right, but that's not what they needed to challenge Shouto. It wasn't Midoriya's superior strength and durability that caught Shouto's eye.
It was his ties to All-Might.
Shouto had noticed a familiarity between them from the start; how the hero and the principal had watched Midoriya's performance alone during the exam; how he was singled out from the physical examination on the first day; how he had met with the hero after their battle training day; constantly meeting with the school's principal; not to mention the strength of his quirk. As similar to the pro-hero as Togata was, as Asui had pointed out, Shouto saw it only as an imitation. His costume, his smile, his hair, his strength and how he wielded it; everything about their upperclassman screamed an attempt to copy the hero out of admiration, not because of any connective tissue. Their dynamic and performance in teaching their class, both together and separately, displayed only a workplace companionship.
But Midoriya and All-Might were connected - related.
Shouto wouldn't have assumed the number one hero had children before — not when his own father was convinced the man was more dedicated to the work of a hero than the man off the clock — but it made sense. That level of favoritism had little options for explanations outside of that theory, but he couldn't convince himself of any other to be as likely.
Though their dynamics couldn't be any more dissimilar — All-Might's boisterous, bright and welcoming display of his personality was like the sun to Midoriya's muted, delinquent, and combative moon of an attitude — something about it felt right to Shouto. Maybe he saw a similarity of him and his own father between them; Midoriya's rebellious choices in style, looks, language, demeanor and the forlorn expressions Shouto stole glimpses of whenever the hero was brought into conversation were like kin to his own attempts to usurp his father's attempts to control his life. But his father and All-Might were nothing alike, so why Midoriya chose to act in such a way was a mystery.
That could matter another day. What mattered now was their connection.
"Midoriya." Shouto had been swift to leave his seat and approach the green-haired boy, addressing him as he came close. The teen turned to face him, and Shouto paused to study the scar on his face. He tried not to stare the first day he saw him back after the villain attack, but now he could not help but notice how uneven his face had become, where the skin left of his scar dipped just slightly lower than normal. He remembered briefly the sight of his classmate taking a punch from the monster of a man that only All-Might could stop with his aide.
The several seconds of silence Shouto took to stare gifted him the sight of Midoriya dropping his brows to stare back. "Yeah, Todoroki?"
Shouto took another look into his emerald eyes before responding, "Objectively speaking, between the two of us, you have the stronger quirk."
Midoriya's face returned to a softer expression, one surprised by the words even Shouto bit his tongue at. His mother's quirk had little competition amongst his peers to match him, and he would have originally considered the other boy's strength too simple and straightforward. After watching him fight a villain meant to fight All-Might and survive that near-death experience, however, Shouto knew the teen's quirk was on the level he was supposed to be. With power like that, Midoriya was well on his way to live up to All-Might's image after they graduated.
For that discretion alone, Shouto claimed his classmate as his one and only rival. If he hoped to taint his father's image and surpass All-Might's all at once, then he'd have to prove himself above the competition for that title, and that competition was Midoriya Izuku.
"But your skill with it is far below mine," Shouto continued his declaration. "Without challenging your strength into a weapon, you'll be fighting quirkless" — Midoriya's face visibly hardened at the comment, but Shouto paid no thought if he had found it insulting or not — "and your fight against Bakugou proves you can't carry yourself without it."
Instead of his green-haired classmate providing a response, it was Ojiro who had butted in, stepping up beside Midoriya with a glare thrown Shouto's way. "That's rich coming from the guy who lost his battle trial," the tailed boy shot back in his friend's defense.
Shouto could feel the sneer tug beneath his lips as he maintained his composure, returning the glare back to the blond boy. He had kicked himself already for allowing his ego to blind him from the obvious mistake of approaching either of the physical combatants his opponents were. "Maybe so, but" — he locked his eyes back to Midoriya's — "All-Might cares about you."
While the three boy's around Midoriya all had different expressions and reactions, the green-haired teen barely flinched at the accusation. But that 'barely' was in his eyebrows leveling out and changing his prior glare to a simple stare, and it was enough for Shouto to know even his broad statement was right.
"I don't know why, and I'm not going to ask you for answers. But for that reason alone, I will be the one who beats you."
The following silence in his ears was enough to tell him that the room around them had quieted down greatly, and probably well enough to hear his declaration to Midoriya. The first response he got came after Kaminari's whistling. "A shounen rival challenge. Way to keep it interesting, Todoroki."
"But uncalled for, man." Kirishima had interjected back into Shouto's space, clapping a hand on his shoulder to pull him away. "Don't pick a fight now. We've got like five minutes before we go out—"
Shouto shrugged off his classmate's grip, glancing back at the frustrated redhead behind him. "I'm not here to make friends with any of you. This is a competition, and I don't plan on losing. Especially not to you, Midoriya. Not in front of Endeavor."
No doubt his father's mind had probably thought the same, Shouto concluded sourly. It may have been a mistake to mention the green-haired boy to his family, especially with the old man's view of his work. The Flame Hero most likely saw Shouto's focus on his classmate to have some reason behind it, and if the man found out why then he'd likely connect the same dots. If he were to lose to All-Might's clearest successor in front of the world, Endeavor would not let him live it down, nor let up on his 'training.' It didn't matter who else would lose to him, if Midoriya was the only one he couldn't beat.
"Tough shit."
Shouto blinked, stuttered out of his thoughts by the unamused glare Midoriya pointed at him.
"We're classmates, Todoroki," the green-haired boy continued, crossing his arms over his chest. "We're already each others' friends, even if we do or say dumb shit sometimes." That felt entirely uncalled for, but Shouto guessed there was a moment referenced behind the undirected insult. "And I don't care about your challenge. You want a fight? Look at everyone else."
He didn't, not for several seconds after Midoriya's demand. But then he did, glancing out from the corner of his eye to the rest of the waiting room and their classmates glancing over at them with hushed conversations or silent stares.
"Everyone here is trying to impress. We all have a reason to fight today. If you want to win, then you'll have to fight more than just me to get anywhere close. And if all you do is half-ass it, then I don't see that happening."
Shouto scoffed at the challenging remark. Don't care my ass, the dual-haired boy snarked internally. "I'm not half-assing anything. I'm not holding back against you when we fight."
An insulting smirk graced its way over Midoriya's face for Shouto to see. "Thanks for the bout of confidence that I'll still make it that far after saying I can't fight for shit. But if you want to challenge me, you might as well extend that offer to everyone else who has the chance to kick your ass before, after or even if we face off."
Shouto didn't extend his offer to anyone else, of course, as he spun on heel and stomped back to his seat. Nothing against the rest of their class — all of them could probably be real heroes one day — but none of them were as close to All-Might as Midoriya was. None of them showed the talent to grow up and take that man's place at the top; no one but him.
If Shouto was to be better than All-Might, then he would first have to be better than Midoriya.
Izuku wasn't sure verbally matching Todoroki like that was the smartest decision he'd made that day. It had stiff competition in waking up that morning, and attending the festival at all was maybe a close third. But there was no reason not to talk to his classmate about the layers of analytical accusations lobbed his way. To doubt his ability to fight was insulting, but the green-haired teen reflected on how frequent his reliance on his bats were in all his past fights, and he was still uncertain if Hunter's training was going to pay off in any meaningful way.
To tie him to All-Might was equal parts hilariously misguided and disgustingly offensive to think about. The hero had stayed true to his word since their last conversation and never went out of his way to discourage him as he'd done a year ago, but Izuku could count on one hand the amount of times he'd seen the man again, in his hero form or his lanky disguise. He'd gone from feeling targeted to being ignored, and he wasn't sure which felt worse or why; it just annoyed him.
"Welcome, one and all, to Yuei's 55th Annual Sports Festival!" Present Mic's voice blared into his ears, ringing through the hallway he and his class stood in. He heard a faint, "I'm awake!" from Kaminari somewhere behind him, though it drowned in the roars of the crowd beyond them and the hero's continued opening announcement. "The one time each year when our fledgling heroes compete in a ruthless grand battle! First up; you all know who I'm talking about! The miraculous rising stars who brushed off a villain attack with their mighty power!"
Izuku snickered at the overdramatization of the event, his scar crying at the cheers that followed the man's description. He nudged back Ojiro's elbow when the blond boy asked aloud if their English teacher was making a pun at the end, before taking the first step forward and leading his class onto the massive field.
"The first years of the hero course! Class A!"
Izuku knew going into the event that there would be thousands of people watching them - watching him - not just from home, but present in the stadium too. He had tried to swallow the jitters that came with the realization, practicing to keep him cool when the time came. The crowds had been visible on the television years prior, and were once a detail he marveled at when tuning in to the program. And he had been surrounded by hundreds of other kids just trying to enter the heroics program just a few months ago. He had readied himself to stand in front of those numbers.
Truth be told, however, the screen did little to drill into him just how big over ten thousand people were in person.
"Holy Jesus," Izuku muttered as he took in the sight around him. The rows of seats may have only been three sections tall, but the rows that made each of those must have climbed thirty each. There were civilians, heroes, sidekicks, scouts, children, adults, men, women; the sea of color waving around before him was his first exposure to what he assumed epilepsy felt like. "That's a lot of people…"
"And we're expected to be on our best behavior in front of them all," Iida finished the green teen's sentence for him. The blue-haired boy's own chest rose and dropped with a shaky breath, while a hand fiddled with his glasses to realign them. "Performing calmly in the eyes of the people will definitely be essential to learn if we are to become heroes, so I suppose this is one simulation of that reality."
"Yeah, but this is like an extreme version of that," Kaminari whimpered behind him, stumbling around as his head wrapped around the numbers surrounding them.
"And following Class B, it's Classes C, D, and E of the General Studies courses! And here come the support courses of Classes F, G, and H! And the Business Course of Classes I and J!"
"They're really giving us too much credit," Uraraka noted, her hands fidgeting in front of her. "That's putting really big expectations on us, don't 'cha think?"
"We'll be expected to meet them," Yaoyorozu flatly answered, her own eyes darting around the crowd. "Yuei is the biggest hero school in the nation, and we're the selling point of their work and analytical eye to prove only the best graduate from here."
"Being here is enough pressure, guys," Ojiro grumbled. "Don't need to pile more on top of that."
While Izuku tuned out his friends' continued rambling ons of their situation, he turned his focus onto the stage before them and the lone figure standing atop it; the distractingly-clad, R-rated hero Midnight. Their Art History teacher gazed upon their class a moment before directing her gaze to the other first-year classes joining theirs to huddle in front of the stage, and pulled along Izuku's own gaze. His eyes scanned through the heads of school mates he didn't recognize, a few heads he did from their sister class and the boy from General Studies, and not too long after did emerald orbs connect with ruby red. Eyes that had singled him out the same way Izuku had searched for them.
Bakugou was permitted to participate, the green-haired teen noted dryly. The school still had faith he could clean up his act and at least present himself like a hero more than the bully Izuku still labeled him as internally. Guess he had no choice but to put his faith in theirs.
"And now for the Athlete's Oath!" Midnight carried on Present Mic's speech, her voice ringing through the microphone before her. He tassel cracked the air as she whipped it around and pointed it over the heads of students in front of Izuku to point right where he thought it meant to. "Your student representative, from Class 1-A: Midoriya Izuku!"
The crowds continued cheering around him almost deafened him from the call of his name, but the dead stares from heads that rolled back to look at him and the heavy hand that landed on his shoulder to check on him clarified it enough. He gifted his blue-haired friend a smile before he moved forward, swerving around a few students before he climbed onto the stage.
He had a speech in mind, drafted a few times over before handing in the final cut to the principal that he thought would be best. He hadn't asked any of his friends for help or advice, as what little Hunter provided in his own speech the other day had inspired an idea inside of him. Yet after practicing in the mirror and doing everything he could to remember his lines, he could feel key words and sentences jumble together and escape his grasp. The roar of the crowd and fleeting comments on the state of his head filled up space draining in his speech. Midnight's greeting glance — a mix of kindness and regret — as she offered him the microphone hazed out so many other words. By the time he stood still and stared out past the mic, gazing once more at the massive crowd while his brick of a hairdo bobbed in the top corner of his vision, the world around him had gone quiet; and along with it went his mind.
In its silence, he looked down. He gazed upon his friends, nervously smiling but cheering him on with their gestures. He could have given thanks to them; how their support and alliance had brought him to the school of his dreams and down the path he had wanted for his future. He found Hatsume, a bright pink standing out from the more average colors of her class around her that warmed his heart to finally see again, but then his eyes dragged behind them to lock with Todoroki's. The dual-haired boy's challenging words buzzed in his ears, and the silence he took from directing it towards anyone else danced with the idea of parroting it himself. But that thought struck itself down once more as his eyes scrolled along, and once more found Bakugou glaring up at him. There was a chance, even a slim one, that they would face each other directly. Even if the blond boy had improved his behavior, it wouldn't stop either of them from trading blows, hoping to beat the other and find a winner to their last fight that had essentially ended in a draw. Bakugou was going to give his all to win, no matter what.
And then everything in his head mixed.
"Midoriya," Midnight addressed him silently, dragging him from his seconds of prolonged silence that brought confused and even mocking stares at his stage fright. Instead of responding to her, he did as he was wordlessly asked and spoke into the microphone.
"Everyone here should be putting in their all to win," he finally began, eyes darting up to the crowd of color and shapes he barely had the time to make out. "We're all here to stand out; to be seen and show off why we're Yuei's best and brightest future." He tried putting life into his voice, to raise it and shout it out, but all he could feel in his lungs was a thumping heat of his heart toning him to a plain speaking voice. "But we're also here to show why we're better than the competition, and what we can do better than everyone else. Why we should stand bigger and brighter in the pictures. If you're not trying enough, then you're going to lose no matter how far you make it.
"But if you're going to give it your all?" His eyes dipped back down to his schoolmates, meeting the questioning and challenging gazes, familiar and new, with his own hardened stare. "Then I expect you to give it at all times. If you don't, then I'll make sure you lose to me." He jabbed a thumb into his chest, grunting as he pressed hard into his ribs. "I'm not bowing out of this without a good fight. I intend to let the world know who I am. If you're planning to win this, then know that I speak for everyone around you when I say you'll have to go through us first."
His eyes darted briefly to the blond and dual-colored haired boys whose glares directed at him shone brightest in the crowd.
"Prove to me you know what it means to be Plus Ultra."
The silence returned after his final words, but only for a moment before the stadium boomed once more from Present Mic's voice, drowning out even the return of the cheering crowd. "What a fiery speech that was! And slipping in a last-minute call of this school's motto, too! Your kids are already shaping up to be some perfect students, Aizawa!"
"None of that is from my teaching," the dry voice of their homeroom teacher echoed around them as Izuku stepped off the stage. "These kids are using one another to propel themselves forward, either by challenge or by aid. Keeping that speech to themselves proves that all they needed was each other."
All the fire in Izuku's chest died to a small flicker as a true smile worked onto his face. The roughness around him aside, their sensei was the best teacher the green-haired boy could have asked for in the day. And his friends, the same.
"You really had to one-up Todoroki's fightin' words, didn't you?" Kaminari asked with exasperation. "I don't know if I should be encouraged or feel threatened."
"Let's just say I felt inspired," Izuku smirked to greet his friends. "But that challenge was directed at all of you, too. I don't plan on making enemies out of any of you here, but like we agreed: if we have to face each other, I don't want you holding back. I promise I won't."
"Free permission to smack your ass around the ring?" Ojiro taunted, bumping a fist to the end of his tail. "It'll be like we're back at Parchamento's studio. I don't plan on letting him down." Izuku shared the sentiment, both boys shouldering Iida's apprehension to the vulgar language.
"Don't go whooping me too hard, is all I'll ask," Kaminari pitched in, waving his hands up in surrender. "I'll try not to fry any brains today but I'm leaving with all my teeth. Fair trade?"
"You drive a hard bargain."
Uraraka was the one to step up and dump her fist atop Ojiro's tail, looking at the three boys with a fiery determination. "We're going to make it to the final match," she declared. "All of us. I won't let anyone get left behind."
The tall blue-haired boy, finally settling from his criticism of their profanity, shuffled beside the brunette with a kind sigh and settled his fist beside Izuku's. "We may be competing, but we are still in this together. Everybody is watching us now."
"And we're going to show them who we are," Yaoyorozu continued for him, stepping up beside Izuku to rest her hand beside his. "We'll show them the kinds of heroes we are and can be."
"Will be," Izuku corrected her, peering up to flash her a grin she returned in kind. Kaminari took the silent message from everyone's stares directed at him and hopped into their huddle with a fist bumping into the fluff of Ojiro's tail. "Let's make today an event."
As their huddle broke off with a silent cheer and a shake, Izuku thanked them all in his head. Though he had asked Iida and Ojiro to perpetuate a lie on his behalf, the two continued to stand strong by his side. Though he had lied to Uraraka and Yaoyorozu about having a quirk, the two stayed his friend and promised to stand beside him too. And though Kaminari was the only one in his close circle still out of the loop, the fact he sought a friendship with Izuku beyond his quirk was the kind of relationship he was hoping to build. As he looked past them to their other classmates, scattered off in their own huddles and groups hyped for the challenges to come, he prayed silently that he'd get to share it with them too. The truth and the comradery.
"Alright ladies, gentlemen and every frequency in between!" Present Mic's voice boomed through the stadium's speakers, drawing their eyes to the now flashing screens above the spectators. "It's time for our first event of the Sports Festiva, and our pre-game rally has already selected for us the Obstacle Course! Students will be pitted against one another in a race of various challenges ahead, and the first 42 to finish the race will move on to the next event! The stage is yours, our beloved Midnight!"
"It already is, my dear Mic," the R-rated heroine called back to the event's host, cracking her flogger in the direction of a large, opening door. "Alright, all you cute boys and girls! Line up and get ready to run! The track is a single loop path, so you won't have to worry about getting lost! We'll all be watching and waiting for you back here!"
Izuku rolled his shoulders with a breath as everyone split apart for space, each dropping into a running stance of their own in preparation. His first action, instead, was analyzing the starting line of their first event. There were around one hundred of them making up the first-year student body, and that door did not look wide enough to fit them in any even manner. Looking over the heads of the rest of their grade year, he could tell it was going to be a fight to push past a few people like Shoji and his wingspan; or a broad-shoulder, rock-headed boy who walked out with Class B; or Satou and his muscles; or Todoroki and his-
"On your marks!"
The green-haired boy clicked his tongue and drew his eyes back to the open door. "Any of you want a guess as to what's about to happen?"
Ojiro shook his head with a dry laugh, clenching his fists tighter. "I've already got an idea," he answered on everyone's behalf.
"Get set!"
Izuku dropped his body, extending a leg out behind him and pressing his fists into the dirt. "Then don't look back!"
"START!"
"What a fiery speech that was!" Yamada shouted by his ear, not even activating his quirk to still shake Shouta in the seat beside him. Agreeing to co-host with his husband may have been a mistake. "And slipping in a last-minute call of this school's motto, too! Your kids are already shaping up to be some perfect students, Aizawa!"
"None of that is from my teaching," the underground hero commented, plucking out an ear plug and ignoring the blond's dismayed cry. "These kids are using one another to propel themselves forward, either by challenge or by aid. Keeping that speech to themselves proves that all they needed was each other."
"Good to have some healthy competition, isn't it?" The announcer hero remarked while turning off his mic. He flashed the dark-haired man an apologetic smile. "Sorry about that, Sho. Didn't mean to use my quirk."
"You haven't yet. I'm not awake enough to handle your excitement at its base. Blame Nemuri." Their wife was a worrywart sometimes, spending most of the night before in the living room practicing her lines just to assure herself that her charm still worked. He should have vetoed her request to try everything three times in sequential order.
Yamada set a hand down on his husband's shoulder. "We can get back at her tonight. Your cooking." Shouta gave him a warning glare that the vocal hero only snickered at and shook him by the shoulder. "If all goes well today, she'll set herself up thinking of a celebration dinner."
"If," Shouta stressed the one word, gazing out the window of their booth to the crowd of students below. Small as they were from a distance, the block of green hair was quite easy to spot trying to distance itself from the clutter with only a few straggling beside him. Yamada followed his gaze, humming and nodding his head slowly.
"Do you think we should have told him?"
Told Midoriya what? That the school board requested Nedzu to forbid him from competing in the Festival altogether, because of course they all knew he was quirkless, but of course the damn rat withheld all footage of the boy's true strength from said board? "He doesn't need to," Shouta reasoned. "Not now. It would only be a pointless distraction. The kid's got enough on his plate as is; he can worry about some decrepit bastards breathing down his neck when they directly try to sabotage him."
"We'll fight them then," Yamada amended, waving a finger and nodding his head faster in agreement. "I've been meaning to cross 'yelling at an old woman' off my bucket list."
"Chiyo is on campus almost every day."
"Yell at one and survive, Sho. I'm ambitious, not stupid".
Shouta shrugged sluggishly. "Well." He puffed a breath out his nose following his husband's offended but overexaggerated cry. He agreed that the school board deserved no sympathy from them. Despite the regulated freedom Nedzu permitted the teachers over their classes, the Hero Public Safety Commission's middle-man that was their appointed hero school boards across each province continuously tried to impose their own governing rules on Yuei's actions. It was a partnership meant to properly employ and guide hero course students into the real world following their graduation in a more streamlined manner, but their bias and favoritism could be read like a children's book as to which students were prioritized over others.
The same could be said about their blatant disrespect towards unfavorable students. Anyone they deemed unimpressive or unremarkable were quite obviously redirected into minor roles in hero society to blend in with the overpopulated professionals while their star students could shine. Sometimes it worked and threw their names into obscure or niche roles, other times you were Mirko and the Association couldn't muffle you as loud as you could scream and you'd pave a path into the country's ten most popular heroes all off independency. Not everyone could be or wanted to be a big selling name in the hero world, but the HPSC cared too much about maintaining an identity of heroes for the public's safety and support for Shouta to give it praise.
He wouldn't think them to go so far as to sabotage a child's chance at becoming a hero because of his quirkless label, but he wouldn't put it past them if they took poorly to Nedzu's ignorance of their request. He'd have given such a child a second thought, too, if they had the worth to match the fight against the variety of quirks without an extra skill of their own; if it wasn't a quirkless kid with an extra skill of his own despite the genetics. There was too much at play with Midoriya's situation, and none of it in sync or mutual understanding. It gave Shouta a headache to ponder on in his freetime; he wondered what it was like for the kid at its epicenter, because even he sure as hell was withholding information and a perspective of his own from their helping hands.
Though given the Commission's dismissal of him, it was understandable why. Their own slip up in reining Bakugou likely halted any progress of trust between them and Midoriya.
"Alright ladies, gentlemen and every frequency in between!" Yamada continued his hosting, and Shouta blinked out of his thoughts. At least his hearing was awake enough to handle the blond's volume again. "It's time for our first event of the Sports Festiva, and our pre-game rally has already selected for us the Obstacle Course! Students will be pitted against one another in a race of various challenges ahead, and the first 42 to finish the race will move on to the next event! The stage is yours, our beloved Midnight!"
"It already is, my dear Mic!" the explicit heroine called back through her microphone, blowing a kiss their way right after.
"PDA," Shouta chided him with his mic still turned off. Yamada blew a raspberry at him. Standard affair, all things considered.
"Alright, all you cute boys and girls! Line up and get ready to run!" Shuffling through their teacher's teasing tone, the students did as instructed, spreading out and turning to the loud, opening door across the field. "The track is a single loop path, so you won't have to worry about getting lost! We'll all be watching and waiting for you back here!"
Shouta peered through the crowd of kids, picking out his students all breaking off and settling into their stances. He had pitched the idea to Nedzu in postponing the Sports Festival another week or two for his students to recuperate and recover while the rest of their schoolmates could be reassured of their safety from another attack, and the principal agreed to his points. But the image the Sports Festival shaped of them in the eyes of the public was also important. Japan built its new society, free from the United State's control and influence, upon the shoulders of its heroes and eventually even the children that aimed to be them; a brave youth they could guide and mold into the protectors they needed to maintain their country's independent image. The Festival provided just that to the people; with up-front honesty on what their students could achieve at the start of each school year; with each grade level taking place on the same day; and with the heroes of the school's staff ushering them on and essentially bragging about their potential. Citizens, heroes, and criminals would all be watching the event at some point in their lives, and they all needed to for one reason or another; the assurance of safety, the promise of comradery, and a disway from villainy respectively.
"On your marks!"
Delaying their schedule would send a message that would ripple across the nation and its effect on its psyche could be damning, the school board and Nedzu argued in response. Yuei was supposed to be an impenetrable fortress that fostered only the best future heroes, and for villains to have broken in and the school to forgo a public event within the span of a few weeks would set a tone of fear the people would feel, perpetuate, and spread. It was a flawed and taxing social standard Shouta had to work in to keep people alive, and even though Nedzu agreed, the brainiac rat saw the only way out was to first find true peace and work steadily on reformation from there. That meant keeping up appearances, sticking to schedules, and encouraging their students to do the same.
"Get set!"
As brave a face his students could put on, Shouta knew they were still recovering mentally and emotionally from the villains' attack. A few seemed to handle it much better, and he'd directly recommended a few others to Hound Dog's sessions, but all of them were pushing through it together. They were holding each other up on their feet, helping each other move past their fears and fight on for their dreams. His students this year weren't only serious about becoming heroes and working to be, they wanted to make sure their peers did too. Yuei was asking them more than anyone to be brave and partake in the Sports Festival and they only agreed to do so because they had each other to have their backs even in competition. If those who attacked them were watching from the shadows, they were to see that his students' codependent bravery did not waver under their threats. They were going to become great heroes still.
"START!"
So long as they did something.
Shouta followed the crowd as it raced to the door, students bumping and clumping together to fit in and make it through the entrance; until it became clear not everyone had run and his scarred, green-haired student was standing still. Or crouched still, dropped with a leg stretched back like a track runner and his head facing down to the dirt beneath him. His back heaved visibly, dirt kicking about below him as his breath huffed out in long drawls.
"Uh, Shouta," Yamada called his name, pointing through the window directly at the boy, "do you know what he's doing?"
The underground hero, instead of responding, looked the other way to their display monitors capturing various angles within the starting hallway and one dedicated to singling out the unmoving Midoriya at the starting line. The kid had agreed to participate, informing Nedzu and himself directly of his intention despite his new wounds. His power, odd as it was, proved beyond his control still after the two weeks he spent trying to channel it, but he understood the importance of the event for the public's sake and his own education. He had no intention of sitting by with his hindrances and letting his ambitions leave him behind, so why would he stay when everyone else moved forward?
The answer became clear as Shouta looked to the other screen, as Todoroki took the lead and activated the ice of his quirk to freeze the feet of all the students closest, like a barrier to trap the rest behind them. On Midoriya's screen, he took another long breath, and his head immediately shifted up before his legs finally took off, booking it to the course's start as the doors finally began to close them off.
"What he is capable of," Shouta soon answered his partner.
There were several things that could have happened at the start of the race, and Izuku would admit he was damn lucky his hunch proved to be the right outcome. Someone with the right quirk was bound to sabotage the competition, and he couldn't predict every possible scenario knowing only a tenth of their student body, but he also knew he had nothing to counter anything caught in that pile up. With still no control over his strange power, he was entirely quirkless in this event.
The only weapon he had now was his brain.
Once he could see his own breath in the air, he took off after the crowd. The doors of the pth were closing as he bolted past them, so like everyone else he was now stuck on the track to the end. It didn't take too long for him to catch up to the rest of the student body, a few swerving around the plenty who found their shoes encased to the floor in ice. Izuku had to make up ground and catch up with his friends and classmates, so he had to work around the ice faster.
So he took a shortcut on the back of his schoolmates.
Izuku used the first crouched by trying to yank his feet out of his frozen shoes as his climbing platform, shouting, "Sorry," as he stepped on his back and launched off to the back of the next, and then the next, and the next. Faces he didn't recognize shouted at the back of his head while he returned them apologies over his shoulders as he made it through the hall. He huffed a laugh spotting none of his classmates caught in the trap.
He nearly made it through on that idea alone, until the next person he jumped to twisted their body trying to break out the ice, and he fell past them to tumble across the ice. He winced as he smacked the ground ass-first and slid out to the rest of the course, but hopped to his feet immediately when he skidded to where the ice on the ground ended and broke back into a run.
Right towards a frozen Zero Pointer.
"And Todoroki Shouto has taken the first obstacle head-on!" Present Mic's voice boomed overhead, annotating the glistening sight before Izuku. "The faux villains stand no chance against his powerful ice, and everyone's taking advantage of the open path he's created!"
Izuku peered past the heads around him, spotting the dual-haired boy running ahead of their competition between two frozen Zero Pointers. Todoroki didn't spare a look back of his own, even as many of their classmates took advantage of the same path, but the green-haired teen still smirked at the back of the other boy's head. That challenge of using everything they had to win was meant for Todoroki to hear, along with broadening the pact he made with his friends. The other boy's refusal to use his fire was problematic on many levels, but the green-haired teen especially found it insulting after the dual-haired boy tried issuing a challenge of his own. As if he was going to use his fire, he mused dryly, and as if it was that much weaker than his fire unless he was too prideful to say so. All Todoroki declared was that he refused to use his fire altogether, which was dumb and stupid and something Izuku should have probably inquired about directly sooner but that would have been like shouting at a brick wall without knowing why. Maybe if he used his fire in the first place, Izuku could have given the more meaningful and heartfelt speech he stayed up until the morning writing a few days prior.
Maybe his face wouldn't have been split open if Todoroki actually tried fighting—
Izuku scoffed a curse as he tripped a moment, booking it between the big faux villains as they began to tilt and fall away. His scar wasn't Todoroki's fault, it was the villain's and his own. All Todoroki tried to do was help, even if he failed spectacularly and could have harmed himself with how the ice seemed to reach his body's limit. He didn't deserve anger over that directed at him; for considering himself to be better than everyone without using his whole quirk, however, he would face less mercy from more than just Izuku.
"I'm happy to see you're still here," Shoji greeted the shorter teen and he began to catch up with his class. "I saw you still at the start as we entered the tunnel; I thought you might have felt sick suddenly."
Izuku pulled his lips into a greeting smile towards his masked classmate. "No, just have stupid plans, is all. Have to win this somehow."
"Staying back wasn't a bad move," the taller boy reasoned, looking back over their shoulders to the fallen giants and the crowd of other students trying to climb around them. "Making it past in time is to our luck, though."
The green-haired teen knocked a knuckle on the masked boy's lowest arm. "Given none of you guys got caught in Todoroki's plan, it's more our knowledge than our luck. Everyone else is just unlucky they don't know him."
"And our students find themselves deep within the second obstacle in their path: The Fall!" Present Mic's commentary boomed around them, and Izuku peered ahead where the others clumped together where the treeline on either side of the path ended. "Don't try climbing down below because you're out if you hit the bottom! Your only way over is across the wires!"
"A small canyon?" Shoji predicted audibly. "The bottom is probably padded or filled for anyone who falls. That'll be a problem to cross."
"You're not able to spread your arms out and fly with them? I keep meaning to ask you about how they look."
The taller boy shook his head and shrugged. "I can glide a little bit with them; I haven't trained for flying yet. But I'll only manage that from a good height up and a run up like this. We're gonna be stuck on the ropes."
That would be a problem, Izuku sighed in disappointment. He was prepared for a host of on-foot obstacles to set everyone on a more equal ground, but he guessed this was just another way to determine who had the better skill with their quirks and the right physical fit for the demands of the hero world. Not like the same quirks would have helped against the faux villains in the same way, he assumed, so technically the course was designed for equal footing. Though anyone who could fly probably had an advantage, if they were allowed to stay only above the track and not take a shortcut. That'd probably disqualify them.
Closing in on the next obstacle, Izuku knew he needed to catch up. People had already started to climb ahead — he could hear Hatsume excitedly announce her gadgets and grow quieter as she advanced too — and he still had to make ground, and fast. He couldn't stop and map out the shortest path, waste time standing around, fall behind so many and end up disqualified after the first round. He had to pick the first path he saw and go for it. So when he finally caught up to the few still judging the obstacle for themselves, Izuku twisted to the first wire he saw and did the most sensible thing he could.
Jump.
Ignoring the people he shoved aside with his shoulders and the few cries of his name from Jirou and Shoji, he leapt off right at the edge without a second to spare. Though, as he fell, maybe a few would have been good as to not go slightly to the side of the wire. He reached out in his descent, gripping the wire under his arm as the rest of his body passed it by, and bounced up with it as the slack that brought it down for a second rebounded under the mechanisms holding it in place on either end of the canyon. Izuku swung his body until he could wrap his legs around the wire, and after a second of catching his breath (Jesus Christ that drop was deeper than he was expecting, he shouldn't have looked down) began to climb the wire feet-first.
Not too long later, Bakugou passed over in the sky above, and Izuku soured his breath as the blond quickly overtook him. Even if the explosive boy couldn't use his quirk indefinitely, he definitely had the advantage of avoiding the traps unlike the majority of them. But he was also another person gaining ground ahead of him. Not even having maneuvered around the first trap and Todoroki's ice had allowed him to run ahead enough people to pass for the next round. He had no time to slack—
"That was really reckless of you, Midoriya."
Izuku threw his head back suddenly to come eye-to-eye with the green-haired, frog-quirked girl of his class, hanging upside down like him on the same wire. "You throw yourself into too much danger," Asui commented flatly. "It's a miracle you're even allowed to compete if you're going to pull stunts like that."
The green-haired boy scoffed, pulling his head back up as his cheeks grew warm, and continued to climb across the wire. "I thought that was going to go smoother," he admitted.
"You took a leap off a cliff. You knew it was dangerous."
"Honestly, I've made dumber decisions."
"You have." Izuku blinked to a stop just a few feet away from the wire's end, holding the wire tight as the green-haired girl climbed over his hands and legs to touch solid ground again. "That doesn't excuse this."
"You really do speak with an iron fist," Izuku grumbled softly, quickly sliding the rest of the way and taking the offered hand from Asui to pull himself back to his feet. "Sorry if I scared you again."
"I'm more surprised than scared," she corrected him. "You're pretty durable, after all you've gone through. But then I only know that because of the situations you put yourself in. I shouldn't be surprised at all." She took no time waiting for his next response, turning on heel and hopping off to continue the race. Overhead, Present Mic's booming voice announced that the leaders of the race had reached the final obstacle, so he carried on after her with a sharp breath sending him off.
Sure, he made the choice to step into conflicts and fights he really shouldn't have — and he was lucky to be more than just the powerless quirkless he thought he was to have survived them — but it was still other people who hurt him; gunmen, robots, villains, Bakugou. His ideas weren't dumb, they were just made to adapt to bad situations. They were meant with mostly good intent.
Then he remembered that the Sports Festival was being televised, and if any camera had caught him taking that leap of faith, it meant his mother back home must have too. He was going to get grounded for a month for that, wasn't he?
"And our two leading contestants are in a neck-and-neck battle for first place," the pro hero's commentary blared, just loud enough over the explosions and eruptions Izuku could see ahead from The Minefield that the same hero had just named. Pink smoke bloomed into the air, and he could see a few other students thrown into the air by them. "They're halfway through the field already! Who's going to take victory for themselves?"
That far ahead already, Izuku cried internally, dragging his feet to a stop as he finally reached the field. He could spot Todoroki and Bakugou straight ahead of him, arms grappling each other in an attempt to not let one take the lead. He wasn't going to make it to the second round if he took it easy with the field, either. No matter how many others were struggling to advance already, there were people behind him who could pass him up in this and take even those low positions from his grasp. It didn't matter if he took first place in this event; he just needed to make a passing position! How the hell was he supposed to catch up now?
It was a bad thing to take notice of the other students sent several feet in the air by a single mine's explosion. It was even worse to look down at his own feet and spot the obviously planted mine set before him. This was a stupid idea, he concluded in his head, even as he crouched down to dig his hands through the dirt. This was a terrible idea. He shouldn't be doing this. No way in hell was this going to work. He was trading in one dumb idea for something even dumber. It was a theoretical bet, at best.
Do you have a better idea to not lose? another corner of his mind asked. To that, he did not. He did have a better idea on how to stay safe, and carrying a mine — even a non-lethal one — in his bare hands was not the answer.
But still he held it tight, flipping it upside down so its trigger faced the ground. He tip-toed past the hole he made, tricking his feet around the next mine before him and turning around to face it, his back to the rest of the field and the finish line beyond it.
Mom is not letting me see the sun for the rest of the year, he accepted with a deep breath, raising the mine high over his head. He didn't stop when other students he didn't recognize asked what he was doing, or when people asked him not to move. He knew what he was doing, and he had to move. So he did.
He threw the mine down on the other, their triggers colliding together, and threw his body back as the world turned vibrant before his eyes.
Katsuki hated Deku, and no amount of time or distance was going to change that.
The few weeks he had spent in another class without his annoying presence had been a quiet blessing in his tortuous journey back into the heroics course. The muttering and whining and crying that had plagued his ears for a decade was no more, and despite the insulting jabs and shit-eating grins at his demotion from the General Studies bastards he felt oddly light. This wasn't the same happiness he felt when acing his exams or outperforming the extras in junior high; he wasn't quite sure happiness described it in any way, either.
But then Deku — stupid-looking, scarred-faced Deku — had to be the one who aced the entrance exam above him and declare a no-holds-barred competition with everyone else in the Festival like he wasn't the powerless, quirkless wimp that had been following Katsuki's tail for years. Standing before the world with his stupid new haircut and his ugly scar, presented like he was some tough shit and even acting like it himself. There was nothing great about Deku being handed and given respect he didn't deserve. He didn't deserve a lick of attention.
So he wasn't going to give him any, Katsuku decided. The short rat of a principal had warned him that directly targeting Deku was prohibited from him and trying to harm or sabotage anyone's efforts in the event beyond fair competition, so why not just outright ignore him? And an obstacle course for their first event? The plan couldn't have been easier. Deku would be left eating his dust and losing to every extra with the quirks to boost their speed to the end like him, and embarrass himself with a first round loss after trying to challenge them all.
So he did just that. As the race started he simply dashed forward, not darting an eye to see where Deku was or if he was keeping up, just simply looking ahead through the crowd that ran with him. He didn't use his quirk until ice sprouted out around them, catching his shoes and trapping him to the floor. But that delayed him only a few short seconds, as he blasted the thin coat away and launched over all the stuck heads with a trail of explosions behind him. He nearly forgot the dual-haired bastard used his icy quirk on the first day's physical tests, and while finding a Zero Pointer bot encased as he left the tunnel was a far greater show than he'd seen during their first day, he was still unimpressed. The extra could have put up a full ice wall and stop so many others from passing, and all he does is stick a robot to the ground out of everyone's way? Nor was he propelling himself forward on ice?
Wasted potential.
His own explosions never let up as the faux villain he froze fell over from its overreaching pose, launching him over the fallen robot and keeping him moving forward. So many other extras were already hopping the robot and climbing over it or around through the still open spaces; as if it would be a good enough substitute to a proper barricade slowing down the weak. But there were still plenty others who had made it past the robot before it fell, fending themselves off the weaker and smaller faux villains the school had placed as distractions.
And in the middle of it all, he spotted Deku's stupid green mohawk booking it through the chaos and running ahead without hesitation.
"Damn piece of shit," Katsuki grumbled to himself as he carried on forward. Several other of the worthless heads called his schoolmates had gathered around at the next obstacle — a wide canyon strung together by a web of wires — but it meant nothing to him. Even as a few of them stopped to analyze and map their own paths, Katsuki did not slow himself down, straining his wrists to carry him through the air and across the open canyon.
No later than overcoming the trap did his descent begin, and Kasuki could only spare a few more explosions to stall his fall and lessen his landing. The course was too long for his explosions to just avoid everyone and make it to the finish line without dislocating one of his arms from the backlash of constant usage. But he would be fine, he reassured himself as he broke into a run, because Deku was far behind him now and only a single obstacle remained to overcome.
"And our kiddies make it to the final obstacle in their path," the obnoxiously loud hero announces overhead. "The Minefield! Our traps are non-lethal, rest assured; but stepping on one will still send you bouncing around!" He shouldn't have wasted so many explosions avoiding the shitty robots, Katsuki chided himself as he slowed yo maneuver the obvious triggers under mounds of dirt. He wasn't going to lose to some quirkless freak, but he still wasn't ahead of everyone. He locked his eyes on the dual-haired extra leading the charge and hastened his pace around the mines. If he was going to retake his spot in the hero course, he had to be better than everyone and win — no exceptions.
"You ain't winning this, shitty hair!" Katsuki shouted as he grabbed the other boy's shoulder to try and shove him aside. The other boy swayed a second as Katsuki came up beside him, but managed to hold himself up and push back against the blond maneuvering beside him.
"As if the victory will go to you," the other boy argued back; as if Katsuki bothered to remember his name. "I won't let you win, either." He tried to turn his body to the blond, aim his right foot in his direction, but Katsuki was a step ahead to not stay a step ahead of the other boy. If there was anything he did retain from their first day's physical exams, it was how the dual-haired boy led with his right side to use his ice. Given how he wasn't doing it now as Katsuki gripped his left shoulder to shove him off balance until he could manage a good blast to upset his footing and take a safe lead, the blond was confident he could only use his ice from the one side. A pitiful quirk, really.
"Like I'm losing to you!" Katsuki shouted over the mess of extras setting off charges behind them, failing to catch up to them both. "I'm the only one here worthy of being the next great hero. All of you extras can fall behind me and weep!"
The other boy's eyes darkened a tad, burning a glare into Katsuki's eyes. "How do you expect to do that from down in General Studies?"
The explosions set off behind them did little to drown out the string of curses Katsuki hurled at the other boy. Even a slightly larger burst of pink clouds barely matched the blond boy in volume. What did manage to silence him was the sudden string of explosions whose shockwaves nearly knocked the scuffling boys over. Katsuki spared a glance back to the drastic increase of explosions — the other boy doing the same — to find Deku ragdolling in the air their way, a wall of pink pluming smoke behind him.
Bewilderment was the only thought rummaging through Katsuki's head as he watched the quirkless boy hit the ground like a potato sack and tumble over several more triggers in his path. That reaction only grew with the blond's eyes as Deku, just before the mines he hit blew, rolled onto his feet with his tumble and leapt. The new chain of explosions behind him bellowed into the air, and once more launched Deku forward through the air.
High over Katsuki's head.
Fire erupted in the blond's stomach as his glare sharpened at the greenette, the cackling of its embers muffling Present Mic's commentary. To Hell with avoidance, he decided, and shoved the other boy away as he bounded around the mines with new speed. As if he would let that quirkless bastard overtake him in even one event of the Festival. "Deku!"
Just before said shithead hit the ground again, falling head-first towards the ground still riddled with mines before the final stretch, Katsuki got a good look at his face; his dirty cheeks, straining eyes, and a fitting shit-eating grin staring back at him with that horrendous haircut not blocking an inch of it from view. And if that was a directed middle finger extended out to him, Katsuki was going to bite off all his fingers.
Before he could reach the green-haired bastard, the boy had already hit the ground again, setting off but a single explosion between them and hiding the quirkless teen from his view with a wall of pink. To Hell with his arms, Katsuki cried as he leapt and swung his hands back, erupting with explosions to shoot him through the bright-colored cloud. Nothing else mattered; not the extras behind him nor the possibility of dislocating his arms. All that mattered was Deku, miraculously on his feet and, despite the brutal bouncing he'd gone through on coarse dirt, sprinting through the stadium tunnel ahead.
He wasn't losing to Deku. He wasn't going to fall behind someone who should have stayed behind a quirkless nobody. He wasn't about to let that happen.
And yet he wasn't the first one to exit the tunnel.
"And Midoriya Izuku has stolen first in the obstacle course!"
Eri wasn't allowed to play outside often anymore. Mama and Papa wouldn't allow her farther than the backyard. Scary men would try to grab her again, they said. It was too dangerous. She had to play at home from now on.
"We could fight bad guys off, Mister Pepper," Eri mumbled to her stuffed billy goat. "We can be strong like big brother too."
Being stuck in her room was no better than the backyard. Even when surrounded by her toys and coloring books she was bored and wanting more to do. She wanted to go back to the parks and the pools, but because bad guys showed up at the mall then they were everywhere? No one was that fast, right?
"You could knock them down though," she reasoned with her stuffed animal, lifting the small toy above her to look into his beady eyes. "No one can take on a goat's horns. And when I grow my second horn, I can be strong like you and Papa and big brother and knock everyone down." She lowered her toy to butt horns with it, knocking her small stub on his felted curve.
"Maybe you could teach me how to fight?" she asked the stuffed toy aloud.
"I've never fought a bad guy in my life," the toy gruffly — which was Eri slapping a hand over her mouth and lowering her voice — responded. "They're all too afraid of my horns to come close. The day I do see battle, I'll make sure to tell you all about it!"
Eri huffed and dropped her toy beside her. "Papa won't teach me how to fight either. I can't wait until I'm taller to use my horns if the bad guys are already everywhere."
She twisted the head of her doll away. "We could get Izu to teach you."
"But we haven't seen big brother in months. Papa won't call him. And his horn was in his hands. I can't do that."
"That's an easy trick. I could teach you."
She cast her toy a disbelieving glance. "Can you teach it to me now?"
Mister Pepper stared at the ceiling silently for a few seconds before looking back at her. "Well, you have to be older to pull it off, so I'll teach it to you then."
Eri groaned playfully and kicked her feet while they laid on the bed together peacefully. She rubbed a hand on her stubby horn gently, dancing on the few bumps between the tip and her forehead. Horns were her Papa's special power, making him big and strong even if he never fought people other than his friends. Hers was too small to use like his, but Papa said when she grew older they'd grow in and she could learn to protect herself the way he did. One day…
A quick drum of knocks came from her door as it creaked open, two clean white horns pulling in the rest of her Papa with a computer in his hands. "Are you awake, princess?"
"Yes Papa!" she exclaimed, bouncing backwards on her bed to snuggle up against the pillows. "Mr. Pepper and I were just saying that when I grow up, and I get my second horn, then I can be strong and fight bad people like you and big brother!"
"Big Brother?" he repeated after her. "I haven't heard of him before. And who might that be?"
"Izu from the mall!"
Her Papa looked away confused for a moment before his face glowed happily. "Oh, the green-haired boy from the shopping mall, Midoriya. I remember him." His fingers twirled over his own short white hair, reminding Eri of the curly hair her big brother had. "In fact, that's why I came to see you. Have you been waiting to see him again?"
She nodded her head wildly, bringing Mr. Pepper to her chest while her papa sat down beside her. "He's gonna teach me how to use my horn like he could!"
He blinked again before the smile he had shook with a laugh "Well it's a baseball bat, technically, but maybe your horns could be used like that too. And we won't be able to see him too much for a while, either. Your grandfather finally got in touch with his parents but Midoriya's in high school right now, so he doesn't have a lot of free time."
Eri slumped into her toy, dipping between his horns with a pout.
"But I was catching up on the news and saw this was going on today" — her Papa unfolded his computer and set it down in front of her, the screen lighting up and displaying a crowd of people running down a track and pink smoke — "and I thought maybe you'd like to watch it?"
"And Midoriya Izuku has stolen first in the obstacle course!" the screen screamed at her, cutting the camera to the green-haired boy Eri barely recognized running through a line of tape at the end of the tunnel. He stumbled to a stop and hunched over his knees as the announcer continued, "The Daredevil Child who started the track last has won the first of our competitions today! I don't think anyone was predicting that! And behind him now comes Bakugou Katsuki for second and Todoroki Shouto only barely behind in third! There is blood in my ears from all that explosive action—"
The booming voice carried on in the background of Eri's hearing, as her attention and the screen before her continued to focus on Izuku, scarred down the left side of his face, near-shaved head on either side of his curly mohawk, a star of a mark almost hidden on the left side of his head, but his eyes and his smile remained undamaged and captivated the young girl, gluing her eyes to the screen and clutching Mister Pepper to her chest as she watched on.
"I'll take that as a yes," her Papa noted. "Tengai is preparing cold katsudon for lunch later, but if you want to eat it in here then—"
"Suno." Eri turned away from her big brother on the screen to her Mama at the room's entrance, shining steel hair coated over her shoulders, and cold steel eyes glaring down at the white-haired girl before turning onto her Papa. "We need to talk," she told the horned man with her grating voice.
Her Papa clutched at her bedsheets before he sighed an, "Alright," to her Mama and stood up. His fingers eased up and brushed Eri's hair back for her, while his lips smiled down to her while hiding his teeth. "Stay here, Eri. You can keep watching." With that he left the room, ushering out her Mama and closing the door between them and Eri.
"With the remaining contestants starting to pour in by the masses," the computer continued to blast, "we will begin to tally up our forty-two winners for the next event! The students this year have put on quite a spectacle for us all today with their tricks and their speed; who knows how their skills will fare within their next challenge!"
Eri gripped her stuffed toy harsher as she tried to focus on her big brother out of the screen's focus, surrounded by other girls and boys with colorful hair and one tall lady with long, dark hair she could remember too. What little of Izu's face she could see continued to smile, at the faces around him and everything else too, even while the rest of his head looked scary.
"She is not sick, Kita! Her horns won't grow properly until she's ten! It was the same for me and my father!"
"Horn! Singular horn! The doctors told us she isn't getting a second and the one she has is already ingrowing! And she has two toe joints! It's a birth defect; we could get her an actual quirk!"
"We're not handing our daughter off to some man to perform medical torture on her until she's suddenly something else for you and Kito! There is nothing wrong with her!"
Eri dug her nose into her toy's head, hiding behind his horns while funny commercials played on the screen before her. "I'll be big and strong like Papa," she mumbled to her doll. "Like Izu. So I can fight for people too."
Now to add a tease like I should have last time.
Next time on Dragon Ball Z: Round Two, the Cavalry Battle, from its start to its end. No brakes on this bus.