With Midnight on her platform, she was amazed and stunned. Sure, she knew Izuku was sharp as a tack in battle but pales in comparison in person; then she felt jealous for reasons she didn't understand when she saw two of the three girls kiss Izuku and engage in a group hug.
She looked at other teams and tried not to laugh when she saw them looking funny. "I hate to break up the tender moment over there," she spoke.
"But Izuku, could you please return the students to normal?" Midnight told him.
"Oops, sorry about that, I forgot," Izuku replied half-heartedly since he does not like arrogant people. But being respectful to his teacher, he snapped his fingers, and the odd-looking ones glowed an eerie blue and turned back to normal.
"That wasn't cool," one of the arrogant participants grumbled.
"Neither is arrogance," Izuku countered as his team walked to meet up with the rest. "You would do well to remember this; those who boast before something even starts are the ones who fall the quickest," he said, with a cold-sided glare.
"Alright, everyone, the next game is," Midnight spoke into her mic, then snapped her whip on her platform, making the wheel spin, which landed on a random selection; she opened it.
"Call of Duty: Paintball." "That's a new one," Midnight announced. "Who plays Call of Duty games?" she asked.
As the umpire posed the question, a sea of hands shot up on the field. However, Izuku was not among the numerous boys who eagerly raised their hands since all he did growing up was Train, study, learn to survive in the wilderness, and be the man of the house to give his mom a hand since Hisashi got kicked out of their lives, he didn't have time to play games. Instead, only a handful of girls from the crowd timidly lifted their hands in response.
"Well, everyone, you have 10 minutes to gear up and form teams," Midnight instructed. Many people asked Izuku to be on theirs but turned them down.
Itsuka, Yui, and Toru asked to form a team with Izuku. "Sorry ladies, I'm doing this alone," Izuku replied. "I won't always be there to be available. Sometimes, you must stand without leaning on me," he said softly.
"Alright, but next time we team up, and no ifs or buts," Yui said sternly.
"Understood," Izuku agreed.
"Please, just this once," Toru pleaded.
"No," Izuku replied firmly.
"You are no fun," Toru complained.
"Not everything is supposed to be fun and games," Itsuka said firmly. "I understand where Izu-Kun's coming from; we must grow independently, we can't always rely on Izuku for strength, we must get stronger on our own," she stated.
Izuku nodded with a smirk as some understood the reason.
Izuku then walked away from the crowd. "Uhm EXCUSE MIDNIGHT-SENSEI! COME HERE FOR A SECOND!" he shouted across the field, as loud as he could, getting the woman's attention; she walked over to him.
Kyoka, standing next to him, covered her ears. "Can you shout any louder?" she stated.
"Oops, sorry, I should've warned you," Izuku apologized as he walked over to the approaching umpire off to the sides.
"What is it Izuku?" Midnight asked.
"I have a request for you," Izuku said.
"Hopefully, it isn't anything too naughty," Midnight teased.
"None of the sort," he promised.
"Alright, I'll do it," Midnight agreed. "But if you want me to do a favor, you will do something for me," she winked.
"I will regret this. But announce to the others that I will be doing this game alone," Izuku informed.
"I admire your grit, but everyone will be after you," Midnight warned. "The odds will be against you," she said
Izuku had a confident smirk as he spoke up, his words laced with determination. "I'll admit it; it does sound like an uphill battle. But on the other hand, if this game were easy, it wouldn't be any fun, would it?" His eyes sparkled with conviction, and his tone made it clear that he was ready to take on whatever task that lay ahead. Despite the obstacle of one person facing 41 other opponents, Izuku was eager to rise to the challenge; after all, he was the one who got himself into this position, and now he must see it through.
"Alright, but you asked for it," Midnight granted. "Now my request; from here on out; You're only allowed to call me by my real name," she said sternly.
"Okay, but what is it?" Izuku asked.
"Nemuri Kayama," Midnight informed. "But just call me Nemuri," she said.
Izuku honestly expressed his thoughts, "I won't lie, your name is quite pretty." He acknowledged.
"Thank you. You don't look too bad yourself. You're very handsome; you on camera doesn't do it justice," Midnight said. She returned to her platform and grabbed the mic.
"Attention, please, I just got an interesting request," she voiced, getting everyone's attention. "Izuku is going lone wolf for this game," she informed.
Everyone looked at Izuku again like a piece of meat, but his girlfriends and Jiro just glanced at him with determination to prove themselves.
Izuku confidently summoned blue energy with a flick of his fingers, fearlessly challenging his opponents: Come at me with all you got bro and sis.
"Well, my students, you heard Hercules, he's ready for you," Midnight smirked. "You all have 15 minutes to prepare," she instructed.
"Ha! You led yourself into a trap; no one is covering you this time," one mocked.
"Yeah, you should quit while ahead," another snarked.
"Cocky Bastard," one classmate spoke.
"He's never played Call of Duty, he'll lose," "I play it every day," another arrogant player bragged.
Izuku looked them dead in the eye, undeterred by the rude comments, with his resolve and unshakable will of not backing down from an opposing challenge. "You think playing games alone will help you in the real world?" he questioned. He spoke coldly, "Real-life experiences and hard work are the keys to success, not wasting time playing games on TV."
"Instead of bragging about playing games so much, why don't you focus on preparing for the game and not wasting time flapping your gums?" he said. He spoke in a cold and icy tone that made Antarctica seem warm and gave a sharp, piercing gaze before turning to walk away. "Although honestly," he said, then turned his head, looking back at the haughty ones with a side cold stare. "I don't care much about your comments. Give me a reason to waste my time on arrogant people like you." he concluded, "After all, actions speak louder than words." With that, he continued his way.
Asui, the green frog-like student from Class-1A, stated with a hint of disapproval, "That seems rather rash and foolhardy, "Ribbit"." she declared. "He's more arrogant than Bakugo at times. At least Bakugo teams up," she said.
"Leave me out of this!" Katsuki yelled.
Momo stood up for her boyfriend, clearly offended when Asui accused him of being arrogant for wanting to test his limits. "It has nothing to do with arrogance, Asui," Momo said sternly. "He has been working hard to improve himself and wants to see how much he has grown. By pushing himself to the limit, he hopes to learn from his experiences; he's not driven by arrogance, but by commitment and drive to become the hero he wants to be and the best version of himself," she claimed sternly.
Setsuna commented snarkily. "You're just intimidated by how he responds to a challenge with determination and no fear." Setsuna seemed to suggest that the person being addressed felt threatened by someone else's confident and bold attitude toward tackling challenging tasks.
Asui looked at the couple in front of her with a look of confusion as the two stood up for Izuku. "Why are you even dating him?" she asked. "I mean, have you not noticed that he's unfriendly and cold-hearted? "Ribbit?" She questioned.
"He's warm, kind, funny, brave and strong. It takes time for him to warm up to and trust new people," Itsuka informed.
"Shouldn't we arm ourselves and get ready, not stand around arguing if Midoriya's warm or cold," Iida said, cutting in.
"Iida's right, we should get ready," Momo agreed.
Everyone was gearing up, but Izuku took five minutes to study the map of the fake city they would play in, the alleys, the angles, buildings, and paths, and counted the distance and the miles; then he took pictures with a Polaroid.
Izuku placed the photos into his pocket as he entered the building to get suited up. Izuku was dressed in dark camo pants and a long-sleeved shirt, black shin-high combat boots with a vest, and carrying a face mask; there were lines and spaces filled with paint for throwing objects, and he was wearing knee and elbow pads, with fingerless gloves.
He was armed with two paintball pistols with holsters on his hips with cartridges for ammo; he had a rifle paint gun, a holder filled with dull throwing knives on his right thigh, and an ankle holder hidden under his pant leg, in the holders it was a ball of string, a small mirror, tape, and some spearmint gum sticks.
He had paintball grenades hooked to his belt and two smoke grenades, and on his back, he had a tactical bag with a laptop case with a paintball sniper gun, which he could assemble. He also placed a spare outfit, binoculars, a collapsible bow, and a quiver of arrows with gumball-sized paintballs for the arrowheads, with an extendable stick.
Izuku met up with the others, dressed and armed with paintball stuff. According to the rules, you can only use your Quirk if you have a defense aspect. Everyone arrived at the gate that led to the fake city; this time, they were told to wait.
Izuku steeled himself, counting and remembering the other 41 opponents and the number of weapons and ammo he had. Also, without a sound, he walked silently to the back, getting a defensive tactic ready, predicting when the game started, they would open fire to get him out fast.
Then, a green light and buzzer sounded, and everyone turned with their paintball guns. Still, Izuku, knowing this would happen, already got prepared, as his body was glowing with the energy around his body as a surge of intense light off the energy. "Helios's Brilliant Radiance!" he yelled, unleashing a defensive tactic, a blinding flash of dazzling whitish-bluish light, making them close their eyes. When the light vanished, everyone saw that Izuku had disappeared.
Everyone charged in and branched off into their teams. Izuku imagined this game in an actual combat situation and put his hunting skills to use. He headed into a building, closing it behind him; he felt a team coming. Izuku used the small mirror behind his corner, seeing they were armed with crossbows with marble ball-sized arrow tips; Izuku then stealthily crept behind them.
Izuku then grabbed the last in line in a sleeper hold, covering his mouth, squeezing for 4 seconds, rendering him unconscious, lowering him to the ground. "Yo," he spoke.
"Hey to you too," they glanced at him before turning back around. They froze before whirling back around, but Izuku, already moving stopped a guy from turning his crossbow, kicked another on the ground, fired his pistol hitting two of them, then turned elbowing the first in the side before throwing him over his shoulder on the ground, nailing him in the chest with a paintball and got the last one in the face.
"One team has been eliminated," Present Mic's voice came from the speakers. As they left the city, Izuku picked up their crossbows, brought them into a fake store, then made a booby trap and put two of them into a room with a closed door arming them, tying a string, a piece of wood, a mouse trap which he found in the store, tied the string to the door tightly ready to shoot.
Izuku hid the other two, one at the corner of the doorway held up by triple-threaded fishing wire and duct tape, the other behind the L-shaped counter ready to use. Izuku then closed his eyes, spreading his senses around himself. He felt another team coming, opening his eyes.
He chucked a bowling ball at a shelf at the frame hard, breaking it and making a loud crash. The team burst in the crossbow fired since Izuku designed it to a hair-trigger, sensitive to the slightest motion, hitting one in the head.
"Teammate out," Mic announced. The others moved in. Izuku stayed silent and crouched behind the counter since he offset some things in the room with the closed door; when they passed, he grabbed a fishing wire tied to a chair in a tiny hole and yanked hard, knocking it over, making a thud.
"He's in here," one announced. They swung the door open, and the crossbows fired, hitting two in the chest. Izuku darted to them, throwing one of his dull knives at one hitting one in the lines, puncturing it as squirted paint. Then, he ran up a wall, avoided paintballs, pushed off with a foot, landed on the opposite wall, tucked, and rolled in mid-air, landing gracefully with three dull knives between his fingers, throwing them accurately down the barrel deep.
He caused them to backfire. Izuku blitzed forward, grabbing the barrel of one's rifle pointing it away, ramming a knee into one's stomach and sidekicked him in the torso, knocking him back into the wall cracking it, and rear-kicked another in the lower stomach, ducked under a paintball rifle, grabbed the barrel, sliding to the side under the paintball gun, with a turn disarmed him and elbowed one in the ribs, and snapping in, punching one in the diaphragm, knocking the wind out of him.
Izuku grabbed an arm trying to hit him and round-housed the opponent across the stomach with a short but sharp kick, sending a step-in sweep-kick to the ankle; turn flipped him on the floor. Two team members recovered and charged at him, pulling out paintball pistols. He closed the distance in a blink of an eye, grabbing the pistol by the top and the wrist twisting the joint as he sidestepped rearkicked the second in the ribs, turning to the side with a turn on a knee, took the first off his feet over him throwing him on the floor, taking the paintball pistol away, ducked under a strike from the second sent a sideways palmheel strike in the lower-stomach, followed by a snapping forward, sent a palmheel-strike to his face, finishing with a vertical-fist in his stomach, knocking him back into the cracked wall, breaking through it, crouched under a kick and punch, spinning with a pivot, sweeping the ankle out from under the first, then taking the second one down with a double-leg takedown, which he rolled to his feet firing with the paintball pistol he captured tagging all of them.
"Second team out," Mic announced.
Izuku then went out the back and got to two the roof with his parkour skills; quickly getting to the roof of a tall building, getting his binoculars out looking and several blocks away, he saw the two arrogant teams. Izuku then got his bow ready, shouldering his Quiver, counting his opponents and the arrows.
Then, holding four of them in his hand, he knocked his arrows and let them fly one by one, hitting all of them precisely and accurately hitting them in the chest area. Izuku saw the other arrogant team looking around frantically, shouldering his bow and bag before running and jumping from rooftop to rooftop. He arrived on top of the building, made it down into the alley, and stealthily crouched on a platform, knocking three arrows, hitting three of them in the side; the other three ran in, looking around, unaware he was above them, firing with his paintball rifle, hitting them in the torso.
Then, sensing more coming, he let off one of his smoke bombs, hiding and vanishing as the smoke cleared.
Then moving around unseen or unheard by the other opponents was 5 miles away, he set up his paintball sniper, assembled it and loaded it, and placed the scope on it; exhaling looking through the scope with razor focus, firing a shot hitting one in the leg, another in the shoulder, another in the side ribs.
Izuku, not staying in one place, moved two buildings away and down the block every two shots.
Five minutes later he cleared out half the teams with his sniping, stealthy movements, and hunting skills. The other teams were looking around for the other teams.
"Half of the teams have been eliminated," Present Mic announced.
"What but how!?" Mineta cried.
"Take a guess genius. Who is not here and we can't seem to find," Kyoka stated.
"But where is that bastard?" a random team member asked.
"He could be anywhere," Toru gulped. "Jiro can't you find him?" she suggested.
"I've been trying to, but he's too far away, and he's being too quiet for me to pick up," Kyoka stated. A smoke bomb rolled behind them and went off, blindsiding everyone. They stood back-to-back when Jiro received a chop to the back of her neck, knocking her out. Unseen Izuku moved around silently in the smoke, quickly and quietly, swiping off paintball grenades, tying them together between a pair, tying a fishing line around an ankle, and attaching to the grenades, then disappearing again.
When the smoke cleared, everyone looked around, seeing no one. They moved away before the group smelt something was smoking; they looked down and saw their paintball grenades before they went off, splatting them with paint.
Soon, only four teams were left: Momo's: it was her, Setsuna's, Itsuka's, and Uraraka's.
"Still think he's arrogant?" Setsuna stated to Asui snarkily, who was on another team.
Just then.
'PING PING PING'
"KYAA!" squealed Momo, Setsuna and Itsuka felt the sting of a paintball hitting them in their rear end behind them. They turned around and saw Izuku 40 yards from them.
"Hello ladies," Izuku smirked. Then he suddenly appeared 5 feet from Asui, shooting her with his paintball pistol from the hip, firing off rapid shots that struck the rest of Asui's team. Then, without a glance, he threw a knife between the finger and trigger of Uraraka's paintball rifle, stopping it.
Without looking, he fired off a shot behind him, hitting Uraraka in the stomach. Asui was taken aback by the sudden arrival of her opponent, who had appeared behind them without warning. He fixed his gaze on her with a cold and piercing intensity that sent shivers down her spine. The intensity of his gaze seemed to bore into her soul. "Just so you know, I heard what you said earlier. Never compare me to Bakugo ever again, and do not confuse pride with arrogance," he stated firmly, then headed off. Asui turned her head back at him, only to discover he ghosted again.
"Okay, how does he move that fast? Does he have a teleporting Quirk," Uraraka spoke.
"I'll get him back for shooting me in the butt," Setsuna blushed, rubbing the sting out. "But bold move," she smirked.
Minutes later, it was just Bakugou's team; Izuku got Shoto's team out by booby-trapping a doorway.
Methodically, strategically, and stealthily, he took down his team one-by-one. He left him alone, but of course, Bakugou was so blindly driven by beating Deku that he didn't notice, taking one of their communication equipment with him. Minutes later, he was standing on the roof edge of a tall building 3 miles away, looking at Bakugou through his binoculars with a cold, calculating, sharp, piercing expression, and his gaze was set with razor focus.
"Hey! Extras, did you see that damn Deku yet!?" Bakugou's voice came from his earpiece.
"Sorry your team can't come to the phone right now," Izuku spoke into the earpiece.
"DEKU!? WHERE ARE YOU!" Bakugo yelled.
"Somewhere you can't see me, but I can see you," Izuku replied calmly and coldly. "Also very considerate to not notice your team disappearing," he added sarcastically.
"So you're not going to face me right now!?" Bakugo sneered.
"Nope, not this time," Izuku calmly said.
"Why are you too scared to face me!" he claimed.
"You're a fool to think that; I've never been afraid of you then and sure as Hell not now," Izuku countered coldly, looking through the scope of his Sniper paintgun, which had one shot and one opponent left.
"Yet you're hiding from me, coward!" Katsuki sneered.
"It's called being smart, for one: I wouldn't stand out in the open like you are like that, totally exposed," Izuku countered, ready to fire with his weapon aimed dead between the eyes. "Because if this was a real-life combat mission," he started before firing his last shot, seeing the paint splatter between his face mask and his eyes, knocking him on his ass, as he tripped backwards over the curb.
"You'd be dead," Izuku finished coldly, piercingly staring through the scope.
Present Mic excitedly announced. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner after a long and fierce battle!" The audience sat on the edge of their seats as Present Mic continued, "With an impressive display of skill, brains, wits, tactics, and strategy, Muscular Listener has emerged as the champion of Call of Duty!" The sound of applause filled the room as the audience rose to their feet to congratulate the champion. With admiration and respect, the other contestants joined in the applause, recognizing the hard work, grit, determination, resolve, and dedication that Izuku had put into the game. Several rotten eggs didn't clap, but Izuku didn't care, for he didn't do it for attention or praise; he did it to test himself; after all of Izuku taking an uphill battle and overcoming the odds to stand on top of the hill, standing tall proud and strong.