"The first event will be a race!" Midnight said. "The rules are simple; stay on the track, use your Quirks to win without causing unnecessary harm. Got it?"

A wave of murmurs passed through the crowd of students gathered on the field. Izuku immediately felt his brain kick into overdrive, where he started considering if he could bend any of the rules to his benefit. He caught himself doing this, however, and stopped himself as Midnight gave a gesture to Cementoss. As a part of the wall to Izuku's left melted and revealed a tunnel leading to a running track that turned out of sight around the stadium, he internally chastised himself for his first instinct being to throw away the rules if it served him. Izuku's whole goal with this festival was to show the world that he could do it by the book and still succeed, so disregarding the few explicit rules the festival had wouldn't give anyone a very good impression of him or his priorities. This needed to be legit, so he'd go along with it and try his best to do this the right way. As he came to this decision, everything seemed to be in place for the race to start, as Midnight spoke again.

"Is everyone ready?" she asked. When another scattered round of mumbled affirmations came from the group of participants, Midnight held up a hand. "Okay, then. Get ready to go in three, two, one!"

Izuku, with every other participant, shot off towards the tunnel as soon as the signal was given. However, he paused as soon as it became apparent to him that the tunnel itself was the first real challenge to overcome in the race. Of course Izuku thought that there'd be obstacles to get past, especially obstacles that they wouldn't be telling the participants about, because it was UA. To have the actual entrance to the event be a choke point was a shock, though, as when every attempted to run into and through that tunnel, they got clumped together and stuck when everyone tried squeezing through and got locked between two or three other people. Izuku wondered how he was going to get past it all, and couldn't fathom going through. Going through them all seemed like a nightmare made real, since that would mean having to push through and touch all those people, and Izuku didn't think he could stomach that. But then, how would he do anything? Izuku figured that he'd need to touch some people in this festival, but so many blocking his way right out of the gate seemed like a personal insult from the universe telling him to just give it all up. Izuku knew he couldn't, but couldn't think of any way to get past everyone without facing one of his greatest limitations: crowds.

Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, a sheet of ice spread across the ground and instantly froze a good hundred people to the ground by their feet. Most of the participants were now actually stuck in place now, and Izuku realised with a start that an annoyed Todoroki had run past him and done it with his Quirk. Izuku had seen his ice in action before, during training, but he hadn't seen any of Todoroki's upper limits with it, and he doubted he was even now. Izuku took only a moment to be in awe of Todoroki's Quirk before he realised that he had his own. With his mind recalling the various creative applications he'd used his Quirk for, Izuku remembered a little trick he'd tried out at the USJ and had found surprisingly effective. Knowing that he only had a precious few moments before people started breaking out of Todoroki's ice, Izuku began to rip one glove, his right, off of his hand and stuff it into his pocket with an awkward left hand.

He visualised what he wanted to do in his mind as he ran up to a clear patch of wall just inside the tunnel's mouth. Izuku honed in on the exact spot he wanted to start from and sprinted up to it. He took his right hand and pressed his middle three fingers tightly together, and then dragged them across and inwards for a few inches. He then, quick as lightning, pulled his fingers out of the indent he'd made in the wall. It was about a metre high, so he could fairly comfortably lift his foot up into the gouged-in portion of the wall and test how well it held his weight. He'd Decimated enough of the wall to make room for at least the very front of his toes and some of the ball of his foot, which was all he really needed, so he knew this could work. He only needed a good swipe to get this kind of foothold made in under a second, so he could do what he was thinking of, but it'd be tricky. Taking steadying breaths, Izuku backed up and heard the trapped people begin to break out of the ice that had trapped them further into the tunnel. This would only be viable for a while, so he had to act now or be permanently behind.

Izuku backed up to the other wall and then kicked off it to gain as much speed as possible. He moved as fast as he could toward the wall, at an acute angle, and then leapt when he was near enough. He stuck his leading foot in the foothold and swiped at the wall with his free hand to create the next one. As he pushed off the foothold, Izuku soared over the bunched up participants, who looked up at him in shock as he scaled the wall above them with seemingly nothing but momentum. Izuku felt a grin stretch across his face as he had to twist to put his left foot in the new foothold, as he'd fall if he tried to hop along the wall. Luckily, he only needed to clear a few metres more, which he could with the leap he transitioned into with his left foot as he jumped from the foothold he'd made mere centimetres over the heads of the frozen participants. There were only a big bunch of them at the very start, as Todoroki had frozen them before they could really advance through the tunnel, and so getting himself over the few that really blocked the way was easy with his height advantage. Izuku touched back on the ground on the other side of the frozen group and made his break for the exit of the tunnel and the actual challenges.

The sun hit his skin as Izuku exited the tunnel. He saw a good portion of his classmates ahead of him, having avoided Todoroki's opening move. Todoroki himself was skating on a long, thin sheet of ice that he propelled himself with, and a few different people were chasing after him. Iida was racing along the ground, not too far behind, Sero was in the air, swinging off the trees, Ashido was skating as well as she made an acid slide for herself, and Asui was hopping along at an impressive pace. Izuku saw this and kept the grin on his face as he ran after the lot of them.

"Well, it looks like our mighty competitors are coming up on the first obstacle in this obstacle race! Let's get warmed up with a Robo Inferno!" Present Mic bellowed through the speakers all around the area.

Izuku didn't know what he was talking about, but he quickly became aware of the ground under his feet rumbling as dust was being kicked up onto the track from the sides, further into the wooded area than Izuku could see. But it was then that the cause of the disturbance revealed itself, as a 0-Pointer from the heroics entrance exam crawled out of the ground to the side of the track. Not just one robot emerged, however, as ten whole skyscrapers of metal and wires broke out of the ground and stepped onto the track ahead of the competitors. They were blocking the path, and they'd need to engage with the robots to get through the obstacle, but Izuku didn't see how most people were supposed to do something like that. Izuku had been terrified of just one 0-Pointer, but now he and his classmates, and the other competitors now catching up, were facing down a horde of them!

He didn't have time to think of a plan to get by them, as Todoroki seemed to coordinate himself first among the students. A gigantic blast of cold air was launched upward at the nearest 0-Pointer and ice crawled up the metallic beast as if it were alive. It was at least sixty metres tall, but it froze solid in a flash of white and a burst of cold that washed over Izuku just from proximity. The robotic antagonist was defeated, and Izuku could've sworn he saw the characteristic red of Todoroki's left half disappearing under its legs.

Following Todoroki wouldn't be so easy, however, as the second the boy vanished from sight behind the humongous robot, a piercing creaking sound rang out around the small clearing the track cut through. Izuku looked back up at the 0-Pointer that Todoroki froze and saw that it wasn't completely still; it was moving, swaying, and the reason became clear as Izuku looked back down. It was only standing on one leg. Its other foot was lifted into the air, and so it was off-balance, and Todoroki had to have known that when he froze it. Izuku had to admit that Todoroki was as close to a master at using his Quirk as one could be at their age, and regretfully respected that. However, he also felt it was a statement to Izuku himself in particular, a warning not to try going against Todoroki. Izuku felt like there was only one option in response to that, and needed to get past, so what else would do both of those things but a similar show of raw power? Izuku paused to think for a moment. He wondered how long it would take a Decimate a whole 0-Pointer. Would it slow him down? It would, with no doubt get a message across, though. But what if he just moved on and didn't even acknowledge Todoroki's threat? That seemed like it would anger the rich kid even more. Izuku laughed to himself and ran off to advance through the course.

As he weaved around smaller robots that popped up out of the ground, Izuku had to wonder what kind of budget UA gave to the sports festival. It had to be in the range of a hundred million yen. Or maybe they just had these robots on standby all the time. That would make more sense. Still, the production costs of these robots had to be unimaginable. Izuku's middle-class heart almost couldn't bear it. Either way, Izuku ducked and dodged through the waves of robotic obstacles, using his Quirk liberally to reduce them to ash and dispose of them as he made his way through. The only time Izuku needed to worry was when he'd outstretched his hand to Decimate a robot and Iida had zoomed in for a kick at the same time, which had forced him to retract his whole arm a little more forcefully than was strictly needed, since Iida didn't impact for a few seconds after that. Still, it was a force of habit, and even if Iida did notice the way he jerked his arm back and out of the as if he'd burned himself, he didn't say anything, simply proceeding to run off further into the course and let Izuku manage himself.

By the time he emerged from the first obstacle, Izuku estimated that he was in roughly sixth place. Todoroki was in first, as he'd mostly avoided the worst of the obstacle, Iida was in second, obviously, Asui was in third, as she could simply sail above the whole Robo Inferno, Ashido was in fourth, as she could melt a path through, and Sero was in fifth, as he, too, could avoid the obstacle. That left Izuku, as he stumbled out of range of the robots' aggression, was in sixth place, which wasn't bad considering he'd started near the back of the large crowd that had jammed itself in the first choke point. He felt a surge of confidence, and he found that it pushed him to run just a little faster as he sprinted to catch up with the slowest of the pack so far besides himself, Ashido.

It took a while, but Izuku did eventually catch up with Ashido, as well as Sero and Iida. They'd all stopped in their tracks as they came upon the second obstacle, a canyon with a series of islands coming up out of the dark gap in the ground, connected by innumerable cords that looked thin yet dense. Izuku had no doubt that they could hold a person's weight if they crossed it correctly, but it would be easy to fall off if one wasn't paying complete attention to it. Izuku felt envious of Asui, who simply leapt across onto the different platforms and entirely circumvented the need for the ropes. Todoroki, too, was flying over the pit with remarkable speed, as he simply kept up his ice-skating technique across the ropes, making them solid enough to cross with no problem. Izuku knew that Quirks that aided in mobility were best for this, as Iida could probably build up enough momentum to emulate Asui and they could both cross without an issue. Izuku, though, would have to get crafty. He thought he may have had a plan, but didn't want to be too hasty. This would need to be done methodically.

Kneeling down, Izuku took one of the cords in his gloved hand. He pulled it taught and saw that it stretched more than he'd thought it would. Looking at it hanging there, he'd thought it was about ten metres long, but it could probably stretch to a metre or so longer if he threw his whole weight on the end. He judged the distance from the spot he'd chosen and the next platform over, on the other side of the one the rope was connected to. If he made the most of his momentum and jumped, he could make it if he detached the rope from his side of the gap and swung around. He'd be able to do it, but it was risky. Well, if Todoroki could get by on just his raw power alone, Izuku would have to be creative enough to match that power. He had to catch up, and this was the fastest way.

"Oh, this is gonna suck!" a familiar voice cried as it got closer.

Izuku turned to see Uraraka passing him, giving him a smile as she passed, which he returned. She then took a running jump off the ground and into the open air above the chasm, a pink glow momentarily flashing around her as she began to soar across the gap, her momentum carrying her as her Quirk took away the limit of things like gravity and falling. Izuku watched her and became breathless as he did, feeling heat rush to his face as he saw Uraraka flying through the air with a smile, unbothered by earthly constraints such as inertia. He was briefly distracted by just how cool Zero Gravity was, and realised that she had always become sick whenever she made herself weightless with her own Quirk. This must have been the outcome of her dedication to physical training after the USJ. Izuku felt a rush of pride and admiration for his girlfriend — which Izuku thought he'd never get used to saying, even in his own head. Girlfriend.

However, as Izuku did have to worry about things like inertia and gravity, he needed to get this exactly right, or he was basically forfeiting the whole festival. It'd take him enough time to recover if he got this wrong that he may as well just sit down and lose the initial event, let alone get far enough that he goes up against the likes of Todoroki. Taking a deep breath, tearing his eyes away from Uraraka — which was a great effort — and kneeling down once again, Izuku prepared himself for what was to come. He only needed to pinch the very end of the rope with his pointer finger and thumb to Decimate it. He took the now freed cord in his gloved hand before it could fall away, and gripped it tightly. He layered his hands around the rope in a way that it didn't Decimate it, and began to search for the perfect stance to leap from. He edged towards the chasm and sucked in a harsh breath, trying to calm himself. It was time.

As Izuku hopped in place with only a slight push forward and to the right, he left the ground and immediately began falling down into the darkness of the pit. The rope went taught after a moment, and the disorienting lurch it forced through Izuku's whole body was nearly painful with how his legs were thrown around with the force of it. As his stomach seemingly trailed behind him several metres, Izuku tucked his legs in with an effort he wasn't expecting. He was moving fast, faster than he'd foreseen, and he was rising as soon as he could think about making any adjustments to his form to reduce things like surface area and drag. Izuku was swinging around, his momentum sending him around the side of the pillar. As approached the apex of his swing, Izuku swung his legs forward and let go, getting the most out of his forward momentum. As he soared through the air, Izuku rose into sight and was spotted by the others, who he heard exclaim at his appearance. He hung in the air for a moment, long enough to make eye contact with Uraraka, who paused and gasped with a wide smile on her face, and then landed with a roll on the platform. Izuku stumbled to his feet as his stomach settled, and he looked forward to see how much distance he had to go. He was about a third of the way across, so he had two or three more swings to go, which meant he had to get going immediately.

The next few minutes were spent carefully judging angles and praying that Izuku's grip was strong enough. It was, luckily, but he thought he came close to slipping off and dropping into the abyss below one time, which he was not eager to repeat. He was done with it soon enough, though, even if he did slide back in the placements to around fifteenth place by the time he was finished. Izuku didn't love that, but he could work with it. Judging from the way previous festivals played out, they always let a pretty big number of people through to the second event, so he was fairly sure he was safe where he was. He wouldn't let himself fall even further, though, so took off down the dirt track once again, weaving between less athletic Gen Ed students and passing what looked like a human pyramid with one guy at the top who looked like he needed a nap. Izuku ignored that, though, and pushed himself to catch up to the leaders, who looked to still be Todoroki and Iida.

Eventually, Izuku came upon the final obstacle: a literal minefield. Izuku took a moment to comprehend what he was seeing. Todoroki had slowed down, actually taking steps as he must have realised that the other participants were using his ice slide for themselves, as they still were. He'd stopped using it a few metres into the field, and so it was fairly useless for Izuku. He tried to think of a way to get around this, to use his Quirk in some way so that he didn't have to slowly step over the mines, carefully moving only in the gaps between them so that he didn't set any of them off. He didn't think he could do anything with his Quirk to help him here, so he would have to just do it the normal way. He didn't think he'd be too bad at it, it was just a pain to have to do it at all. Todoroki looked as though he were gliding across the ground with the skill of a trained dancer, and Iida, though he was built for speed, did not look to be very good at precision, as his big feet kept setting off mines every once and a while, which really hampered his progress. As he considered everything, a plan started coming together in Izuku's head. He could pull a trick with a Quirk, but Uraraka had already passed him and he didn't want to do anything to hurt her progress. He looked around, but Izuku was all out of ideas. He didn't know what to do, and the majority of the others that had largely been left behind at the beginning were now catching up.

As a compromise, Izuku began to make his way through the mines. He needed to do something, and making some progress now was infinitely better than doing nothing now and maybe making progress later. So, Izuku ran forwards, taking advantage of the large amount of mines that had been detonated towards the front of the field and getting a decent area to simply run through unconcerned. When he approached an area with a heavier presence of mines, he slowed down and an idea entered his head. It was an idea that made him grimace even as he considered it, but it was kind of his only shot at catching up to Todoroki, so he was going with it. He arched his feet up and began to tiptoe in the gaps between the mines as he kept himself at the pace of a casual jog. It was a lot of work, and he bumped into the stocky frame of Iida on his way through so hard that it made him trip over and almost trigger a mine, but he quickly found the pace and focus needed to navigate the bed of explosive devices underneath him. He quickly passed Uraraka, who seemed to have taken a slower approach that was less likely to get her blown up, which was definitely the smarter choice. From what Izuku had gathered from their conversations, Uraraka wanted to do well in the festival so that she could get scouted by a hero agency early and have the smoothest path to getting the big payouts that heroes got when they were signed up with agencies. She wanted to be a hero to bring her parents out of poverty, which was just another reason that Izuku was enamoured with her, but that's besides the point. She needed to place highly, which meant that, in her position at the moment, it was better to play it safe and not do anything flashy that could screw her over. She wanted to get as far in the festival as possible and not do anything particularly stupid, but that wasn't Izuku's thing. Todoroki had gotten under his skin, and now he needed to find out what his deal was. So, as usual, he was doing the stupid thing.

Izuku was catching up to Todoroki quickly. He must have made a noise, or his noisy footsteps being much faster than the others' must have tipped him off, because Todoroki used a split-second opportunity to turn back at him, which caused a look of surprise to flash across his face. Todoroki then scowled at Izuku and turned back around and began running as well. He wasn't content with just running, however, as he began using his ice-skating technique again, paving a path for himself with a sheet of ice that kept him from setting off the mines as he sped off on the slippery surface. Izuku felt annoyance bubble up in his chest, but a grin slip onto his face at the move, as it meant that Todoroki was seriously that worried about Izuku that he wasn't focusing properly on the fact that everyone could basically skip the last section of the minefield now, using his ice slide. Izuku made a point of this by hopping onto the slide and pushing himself along it to follow after Todoroki, easily passing the final stage of the obstacle course due to his opponent's efforts.

The two of them exited the minefield within seconds of each other. Izuku had more momentum when entering the ice slide than Todoroki had, so he was launched further when he leapt off, causing the two to be running almost completely beside each other as they rounded on the finish line. The only problem was that Todoroki was fast, faster than Izuku by a large margin. Izuku was pretty nimble and agile, but he had never been very good at athletics. His ability was more confined to 'evading' than 'outrunning', which Todoroki had clearly put a lot of practise into, as he was able to step over the finish line a good four or five seconds before Izuku did, and while Izuku was huffing and puffing, Todoroki seemed to be seething in anger more than he was out of breath. The two of them came to a stop on the grassy field, Izuku dropping down and propping himself up with his hands on his knees, and Todoroki looking off into the crowd, or maybe up at the sky.

"You've got an annoying habit of somehow overperforming," Todoroki said in his ice cold voice.

"And you've got an annoying habit of underestimating people. See how that works?" Izuku asked after gaining his breath back.

Todoroki gave Izuku a look that made him shiver, even though he was sweating so much even Izuku himself was kind of put off by it. Izuku gave him a glare in return, though he hoped Todoroki would keep talking. Anything that let Izuku know how he thought was useful in figuring out exactly why a kid who should be the happiest hero hopeful in the world was the way Todoroki was. It perplexed Izuku to no end, but he was distracted from his contemplation of this by Uraraka arriving in twelfth place. She ran up and tackled Izuku in a hug that threatened to send them both to the ground, though they both managed to stay standing.

"You were so cool!" she said, laughing.

"Uh, thanks! You were, too. I saw you launch yourself over that pit!" Izuku said, wrapping one of his arms around her shoulders as he held his uncovered hand away from her.

"I know, right? I didn't really know how I was gonna handle that one, but it just came to me at the moment!" Uraraka said, releasing Izuku and beginning to walk to the side with him to make room for new arrivals from the course.

"That was so awesome! Did you see my move with the ropes? I kinda took inspiration from you on that one," Izuku said, putting his right glove back on.

Uraraka nodded and smiled brightly. Izuku felt heat rise in his face once more as he realised that people had seen them hug, but looked back at Uraraka and smiled in return. Then, it hit him. They'd just hugged on television, live international television. He could've sworn he heard his mother crying, though it was probably just Mineta after getting smacked for being a weirdo again. The two of them made their way over to the gathering group of students by the stage, as most people had arrived and the stragglers were just now dragging themselves over the finish line. Izuku and Uraraka put themselves near Iida and Ashido, and listened to Midnight as she began to speak.

"So, we have the results for who's moving on!" she announced, sending tension through the students. "The first forty-two runners to pass the finish line will continue into the second event! Take a look, and if your name's not on the list, you missed out. Sorry."

A list of names flashed on the large screen up above the audience. Izuku's name was obviously on there, as was Uraraka, and a whole bunch of other people he both did and didn't know. Most, if not all of 1A made it, a lot from 1B also went through, but only a couple of participants from other courses moved on to the next event. That was certainly something, but Izuku didn't want to dwell on it and get tripped up. Instead, Izuku felt Uraraka's hand once again slide into his under the veil of anonymity they got from being in a crowd as they listened to Midnight continue.

"As for those who made it, the next event will be a …" she trailed off. Two words came onto the screen above the audience, and Midnight called them out. "Cavalry battle!"

Murmurs came in waves, people discussed what they knew about cavalry battles in groups of three or four. Izuku had gone to a school that did cavalry battles, and it wasn't fun. Technically, every official school event was Quirk-free, but the teachers never cared when Bakugou and his friends used their Quirks to win, and then get Izuku in trouble for using his when he never even thought about it. Izuku and cavalry battles didn't get along so well. The idea of being in prolonged contact with people put him off as well. All that being said, he could already spot a few people with whom he could make a good team. However, Midnight was not done explaining.

"There is a catch to this event! Every person will get a headband with points on it, with the points being determined by where you placed in the race. Forty-second place gets five points, forty-first gets ten, and so on. The catch is that first place doesn't play by this rule. First place is automatically worth ten million points all by themself!"

Immediately, two or three dozen hungry, piercing eyes turned to the bicoloured hair in the back of the crowd. Izuku felt a rush of energy as he began to work out a plan. He would use this catch to his advantage. He turned to Uraraka and saw that she was looking with a smile of sympathy for Todoroki, which slowly turned into a cheeky smirk when he looked at her. Izuku felt that same smile spread to himself, as Uraraka turned to him and looked him in the eyes with a determined fire in her own eyes.

"Wouldn't wanna be where he is," she said in a faux-casual tone.

"Nope," Izuku said, in the same tone.

She gave him a smile that asked him to kiss her on live, international television.

"You're gonna put us there."

Us. It wasn't a question, either, but a statement, like she'd known it all along and still signed up for the ride. Izuku fought the urge to kiss her on live, international television.

"Absolutely."