A/N- Hey guys. So this one is coming a bit late. Good news is that real life stuff got in the way in the best of ways. I graduated from Uni at the beginning of this week. This means I have a lot more time to dedicate to my writing, so I hope that translates to an uptick in quality. There's so much shit I want to explore and have fun with and now I get to do that. As for this story, expect the next update on Wednesday next week and know you could skip the wait and rea the next four chapters as well as continuous updates on Pa-treon right now. Since I now qualify as an unemployed member of society, all subscribers on my pa-treon are much appreciated. If you enjoy my writing, then please don't hesitate to support it if you can. For Pa Treon, you can remove the hyphen between Pa and Treon and Google it, then search for my username—Oghenevwogaga. Or you could copy the link in my bio and remove the spaces before pasting it in your address bar.
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When things were finally calm, he called over the next person for their throw. Most of the class was fairly predictable in how they approached the throw. Momo made a giant canon just like she had in canon but the difference was that this one was 100% her own design rather than a repurposed pre-industrial age relic. She easily cleared the 10km mark and went as far as 21km. She was the highest and had me at a distant but still respectable second for a while until the gravity girl stepped up. This time, she just used her power on the ball and gave it a good toss upwards.
The ball flew and flew and flew. It flew so far that it went past Momo's score with no hope of stopping. I watched Aizawa flip the infinity button on to the screen with his own hand before he turned it around to show the class. How sly. Both Momo and I turned to each other with smiles on our faces. Aizawa hadn't been with us in a bit but it seemed that some things would never change. Like his Nezu-inspired abhorrence for being straightforward.
The test passed along in a fairly routine manner until someone I had been doing my best to ignore stepped on to the plate. Katsuki Bakugou. In this world, he never truly knew Izuku Midoriya. I'd avoided him like a plague from my first day of pre-school. In fact, the only contact we'd ever had was when the teacher had called the both of us to the front of the class in Kindergarten to spit some drivel about how we had quirks with the potential for heroism. Foolishness like that went a long way to explain why Bakugou from canon had had such an enormous chip on his shoulder. Nevertheless, we never got any chance to interact much. The Institute had come for me shortly after I'd turned 10 and I'd never even seen him after that day.
He most likely had forgotten that I ever existed, and the world would provably be all the better for it. He reared backwards, taking a perfect pitcher's stance. A precise copy of the stance that I'd taken for my own throw. I narrowed my eyes. Okay, not a perfect copy. But close enough. He didn't get all the micro movements quite right but he had most of them correct. Further assessing his stance I was forced to amend my conclusion. He didn't get the micro movements wrong. He adapted them for the differences in our body types. He reared back and fired the ball like a missile. The shockwave tossed most of the class to the ground while I put a single hand on Momo to keep her stable as I remained upright myself. What power. I thought to myself. Such an explosion surely had to be in the kiloton range. If it wasn't, then out was definitely close.
Aizawa's face remained a careful mask of boredom but I could see it behind his eyes he was wary. He turned to show us the screen; "3.97 Km? What the fuck?" Bakugo helped us read out the score with audible frustration.
"Give me another ball. Let me go again" He said, advancing on Aizawa, but the man just looked unimpressed.
"Return to position before I expel you out of hand for indiscipline" His bored voice delivered the threat with the right amount of apathy. Like he was saying, 'Do not make me go to any more trouble than I want to or I will be punishing you'. Bakugo heeded the warning for what it was and walked back to his position to the awed stares of our classmates. His body trembling with suppressed rage. Yeah, that was definitely going to end well.
The next test was the 100 metre dash. The rules for this one were simple, 'Remain within the bounds of the race track, and cross the finish line.' We ran the race in groups of two. I had the perfect power for an event like this one so there was no need for me to spend extra time thinking. The first group to run the test, Kaminari and Tsuyu, did not do much to impress, but it was still noteworthy how even without much of an inherent advantage, Kaminari's run time was still shorter than what had been the world record in my old world.
Bakugo and I were called next and he was seething. There was so much rage in him that I almost reached out to ask him to calm down. Surely this could not have been healthy. I engaged 'Line of Sight Teleportation' and waited for the machine to blow the horn. Beside me, Bakugo took a stance were his hands were splayed out behind him and he had bent lower to have a lower centre of gravity. The buzzer rang, I blinked, and then stepped through the finish line. Time: 0.81 seconds. Bakugo finished barely a few seconds later with a time of 3.21.
"Fuck" His voice rang out again, but this time he just sullenly went to join the rest of the class. I did likewise and took my usual place by Momo's side with no hesitation. She was called upon next, along with Tenya Lida. In a shocking display of consideration, Aizawa had allowed Momo to produce her equipment before the buzzer rang, and once it did, she shot across the race track with a jetpack of all things. Lida somehow managed to remain ahead with his quirk, but it was close. Time: 2.87 seconds. Time: 2.93 seconds.
At this point, the rest of the class had ceased being awed by displays of quirk power and instead seemed to be falling into a collective dread around one simple realisation. Those who failed to make it to the top 10 would be forced to say goodbye to their dreams.
The only person to even get vaguely close to Bakugou's score in fourth position was Todoroki. He skated across an ice platform propelled by his fire half like some sort of jet and finished with 3.23 seconds. When I'd first seen him without a scar across his face, I had been surprised, but not too surprised. In this world, medicine had advanced so far that even the most complicated procedures from his old world where more or less routine. Things like plastic surgery happened so often that it was almost extremely unlikely that someone in the position of being the son of Japan's number two hero would have a burn scar of that magnitude on somewhere as visible as their face. It would have brought up so many questions about Endeavour as a parent and a person that Shoto merely showing up at Kindergarten with such a scar would have put an end to the man's hero career. That was why it made sense that the scar would not exist in a world like this one.
Mina's performance was another that managed to catch my attention, and that was for an entirely different reason. She'd spread her acid on the floor and slid to victory. Her movements had done beautiful things to her chests. Looking at Momo from the corner of my eyes, I made the quick decision to keep my eyes to myself henceforth as she was glaring daggers into the side of my head. Luckily, the next event came up. And this time, it was something we could all do at the same time. A 50km run. Quite longer than what would have been considered a marathon in my old world, but understandable.
We took our positions at the starting line of the massive track that Aizawa led us to. The rules were simple. You had to stay within the track and you weren't allowed to mess with the other competitors. I noticed that he hadn't included completing the race as one of the rules, but I figured that was more to allow people to quit when they got tired. He'd placed the marathon run right at the beginning half. This was a test. What he was testing was not hard to see. Not for me at least.
He was testing common sense. Anyone with common sense would forfeit from the race if they didn't have much of a chance of finishing in the top 3. Even people likely to finish in the top 3 would probably be better served by forfeiting the race if they didn't have powers that would allow them finish without being too gassed out for the remaining events. Events that still hadn't been disclosed. The smarter ones in the class were probably fighting that dilemma right now. Thankfully, he didn't have to worry about something like that that. He had a power for this particular situation. 'Restless'. It was a power that let him do one thing and do it essentially forever. It basically made it impossible for him to get tired. This was only for physical exertion however, so he could get quirk exhaustion regardless. The difference between physical and quirk exertion had so much nuance to it that it was better left for a different day. The other two powers he added to his rotation were supercomputer and superhuman. Supercomputer was a staple, but superhuman was one he used rarely.
It basically allowed him to enhance all his physical attributes by an order of magnitude. He rarely used it because he oftentimes had more powerful abilities that enhanced one particular thing or the other, like super strength or even supercomputer itself. This power just gave a flat boost across the board. Perfect for a test of endurance like this one. Aizawa rang the buzzer, and he shot out like a bullet from a gun. The only person that came close to matching his speed was Momo who was on an amped up electric scooter, but in virtually no time, he had left her behind. Lida ran at a steady speed right behind Momo and the rest of the class lagged behind, content to conserve their energy.
The track Aizawa had taken us to was truly massive. It would only take three laps all around it to complete fifty kilometres. It took me quite a while to finish the first lap, but not long after that, I noticed that I was about to lap some of my classmates. I took a sick pleasure in their moans of tiredness as I passed them by. Both Bakugou and Todoroki were jogging without seeming very tired. Clearly more focused on finishing the race than with any sort of speed. That didn't stop the former from cursing and the latter from narrowing his eyes at me when I lapped them towards the end of my second lap.
Eventually, right when I was about to cross over and finish my third lap, and the race itself, I felt a rush of air pass by me. Momo had strapped some sort of thruster to her scooter that allowed her cross the distance with ease. Behind her, Lida was also prepping up some sort of ultimate sprint to allow him overtake me but I did not allow that happen and just teleported right to the finish line. Lida crossed a second or so later, and looked to be on his last legs. After him, it took a while before Tokoyami flew across the line. After him was Todoroki, who managed to just barely edge out Bakugou.
In the end, only about eight people ended up finishing the marathon by the point Aizawa decided that he wanted to move on to something else. The next task? The long jump. The test was simple, stand at the jump point and go as far as possible. The long jump platform topped out at about 15 metres. I was reasonable certain, since this was a test with a very fixed upper limit, that there were going to be quite a few people tied on first place. I could fly. So could Tokoyami. Momo could make a jetpack. Tsuyu's body was made for jumping. The rest had a few applications of their powers that could help them with it.
This time, Todoroki and Bakugo were the first to go. The buzzer rang and the explosion quirk user bent his knees and shot off the ground with a single explosion and bolted through the air before smoothly landing beyond the zone. Todoroki was much showier with his choice. He put his hand behind him and in a second formed a large enough glacier to push him past the zone. The test was changed to one person at a time while Todoroki melted his massive glacier. Aizawa's twitching eye was a sight I burned into my memory.
Momo brought out her jetpack again and flew across. Tsuyu cleared the entire thing in a single leap. Kenpachi stood on the platform and jumped in place for a second before jumping once with meaning. When he struck the ground this time, he was sent flying and sailed right over the zone. I had to activate telekinesis to catch him and prevent him from taking a painful floor when it became clear that he hadn't thought his plan through to that point. He smiled at me and said "thank you long range Sniper-san". Aizawa glared at me from the other side. I just shrugged. I quite liked him.
Aoyama pushed off with his navel laser but fell right at the edge of the zone. Lida took a few steps backwards to get a running start and managed to accelerate enough to jump over the whole thing with that little space. On my turn, I simply flew across. A feat that Tokoyami replicated, but he arguably didn't look as cool when he did it. Uraraka activated her quirk before pushing herself off the ground. She sailed across the air for a few seconds before she deactivated her quirk when she'd passed out of the zone. Sero, Ojiro, and Kirishima all had shockingly good attempts. Mina managed to clear the whole zone with nothing but pure athleticism. A feat I applauded quite enthusiastically.
We moved on to the next test, a 2km swim. It seemed to be Tsuyu's lucky day as we'd gotten two tests that heavily favoured her. This one was just a test of who would complete the course fastest. Aizawa led us to the school pool, and I noticed that it was large enough for us all to go at the same time. Something that Aizawa seemed inclined to do. I went through my powers for a few seconds, not finding anything especially suited for the test. In the end, the only options were superhuman for optimal physical stats, super strength to allow me to push through the water with more force, and super computer to allow me pick the optimal swimming posture to account for my physical advantages and maintain it.
Now, I just had to go change to my swimming outfit with everyone else.
The changing rooms were massive. And also a testament to how large UA as a school was. Each student got their own changing room. For the upperclassmen, theirs had their names etched on the doors. Ours were printed on pieces of paper and glued to the doors. If there was a way to tell us that our places here were yet to be set in stone, then this was clearly an efficient one. I could already see some of those who had had terrible performances in the first few tests begin to fold in on themselves. They were literally watching their dream collapse around them. I stepped into my changing room and made sure to shut the door behind me before I began changing.
I looked through the locker and saw three different swimsuit variations. One was a set of speedos, the other was a full-body divesuit, and the third was just a pair of swimming trunks that reached down to my knees. I was comfortable with my body, but not enough to wear speedos, and I didn't need the divesuit. I picked up the trunks and began to strip down. First with my tracksuit jacket, and then the pants. My undershirt went down next, and just as I was about to pull down my boxers, I could have sworn I heard a gasp.
A very feminine gasp. I waved a hand at the door, locking it with a flash of telekinesis and began looking around. "I know you're here, Hagakure" I said.
There was no reply. I walked around the room, careful to keep a close watch on my surroundings and began to feel out with my fingers. It was only when I'd finished with the left corner that I felt a breeze move past me. I instinctively reached out and grabbed a hold of her hand.
"Got you"
"Fine, you've got me. What are you going to do about it?" She asked, sounding vaguely disappointed.
A/N; There's the chappy. As I said earlier, the next chapter comes up next week or skip the wait and read the next four along with daily uploads on pa-treon. For the pa-treon, you can remove the hyphen between pa and treon and google it then search for my username- Oghenevwogaga. Or you could copy the link in my bio and remove the spaces before pasting in your address bar.