"And so, for the first day of the sports festival, the second round will be–!" Midnight called in her announcer voice, "A cavalry battle!"

"Oh man, I suck at these!" Kaminari groaned.

Izuku wasn't especially confident in them either, though maybe his new circumstances might actually prove beneficial for once! If he could get a team full of girls he could make it the sturdiest one on the field! Or... Well, it would depend on the strength of the people on the team. But maybe if–

"And first place will be worth TEN MILLION!"

"Huh?" Izuku murmured, forcibly removed from his internal strategising to look at the monitor and see a little picture of himself at the top of the leaderboard, his value in this game almost fifty-thousand times the value of second place. He could feel the eyes of his fellow students locked onto him. The target on his back for being number one. So this was the pressure All Might felt all the time?

Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes to make a team. Kyoka would be– No, she had already linked up with people and made a great team already! Damn! Okay, Yaoyorozu– With Todoroki who... Was still glaring at him murderously. On one hand Izuku kind of understood. He hadn't meant to forcefully activate the other boy's quirk but there wasn't anything he could do in that moment to try to smooth things over. Okay then, not Yaoyorozu. Then... Uh...

"Hey there!" A voice he had heard before interrupted his increasingly frantic searching for viable teammates. Turning, he saw a vaguely familiar head of red hair, blue-green eyes and a much more familiar pair of breasts. "Izuku Midoriya, right? Good job on getting first place."

"Ah, thanks!" he answered bashfully, rubbing at his neck. "Umm..."

"Kendo. Itsuka Kendo."

"Nice to– Oh, I know that name!" he exclaimed suddenly, "We tied for points in the entrance exam!"

"Oh yeah! I did tie with someone!" she said with a cock of her hip, "I guess it just makes sense that we'd work so well together, huh? So how about it? Wanna team up again?"

Thoughts, plans quickly ran through his mind. "Absolutely! We'll need two more though!" She would be perfect as the front horse! If he sat on her shoulders she would have both hands free to use her quirk for defence!

"Sounds good to me."

"Kendo?! What are you doing?!" a blond boy Izuku didn't recognise screeched. "Did you not hear what we just talked about?!"

"You talked, Monoma!" she shot back, "I plan on making it to the finals, not just playing into your inferiority complex!"

"You're a traitor! You're supposed to be our class rep and here you are working with the enemy!"

"Enemy?! Have you gone that nuts over this?!"

The argument only grew as more from Class 1-B joined in. Izuku decided that was both not his business and not worth getting involved in. Besides he still needed two–

"Izuku!"

Uraraka! Her arms spread wide as she approached him and he was so glad to have her support he wrapped her in a hug. Her head suddenly looked like a tomato with how hard she was blushing at the unexpected gesture. Only after he had done it did Izuku actually realise what he was doing, not to mention how soft Uraraka felt against him. He suddenly understood the cuddly-looking girl didn't just look cuddly.

And to make an awkward moment worse...

"Yeah! Team group hugs!" another female voice came from behind him as another pair of arms wrapped around both him and Uraraka, yet more softness pressed against his back.

"Huh," Kendo said as she returned from the argument with her classmates, "Looks like you found our two more. Think I'll opt out of the hug though. You and I did enough of that for one day."

"Uh, who are," he tried to look her in the eyes to ask, but found he had to pry himself off of Uraraka before doing the same with the new girl. One awkward disentangling of limbs later he got a look at her. Pink hair that bunched together, whether styled that way or part of a heteromorphic factor of her quirk he couldn't say. Golden eyes with cross-shaped pupils and a natural smile in their shape. She was very pretty in a kind of manic way, and he couldn't deny she had a very womanly figure. Realising he had been looking for a bit too long his eyes snapped up, but the girl seemed to neither notice nor care how obviously he was checking her out. "Who are you?"

"Mei Hatsume, Class 1-H, support course!" she answered grinning eagerly, "Nice to meet you, Mister First Place!"

"Uh, Izuku Midoriya," he corrected, introducing himself properly.

"Right, sure, sure," she waved his name away, clearly not caring, "What's important is you have the spotlight right now and that means you're perfect for showing off my babies!"

"Your," Izuku swallowed, eyes flicking down to her chest again, "babies?"

"Right!" Suddenly, some sort of machine was thrust in his face, "My babies! The support course students are allowed to use the equipment they designed as part of the festival! Since it's about showing our stuff and all, I need the biggest spotlight to impress the support company reps in the audience!" She thrust the machine toward him again, forcing him to take it in hand to avoid getting smashed in the face with it. "This is a jetpack I built! It's based on the one that–"

"Air Jet uses!" Izuku finished excitedly. "Man, he's so cool! And it works?!"

"It has the Hatsume seal of approval!" she announced proudly. "... And Power Loader's I guess," she added quieter.

"What other stuff do you have?" Izuku asked, suddenly serious as more plans started to form in his mind.

"Hey before that, shouldn't we figure out who's what?" Kendo asked, wrists on hips with her hands facing outward.

Izuku shrugged. "Front horse," he pointed at her, "Rider," he pointed at himself. "You're in great shape," he remembered well the feel of her abs rubbing against him, "so if you're in front we can still be stable with my legs over your shoulders and Uraraka and Hatsume forming a one-arm bridge underneath me. That gives you free use of your hands for defence."

"Okay, but you're buff too and have a physical enhancement quirk. Wouldn't it be better if you were another horse?"

"You'd think, but no," he denied with a shake of his head. He had considered that. "If you and I are both horses then we'll be imbalanced one way or the other with one person unable to keep up with the other two. We could have you as rider and me the front horse but that both has the same problem of imbalance and means we're not as equipped for offence. You could defend, probably even easier than I could, but you wouldn't be able to attack as well as I can." He took another look around the field where even now as most teams had formed they were still looking at him, whispering and plotting. "I don't think we'll get by just on defence when every other team is gunning for us. I can think of at least three people from 1-A who could get past your hands and that's without them having to get creative. How about from your class?"

In lieu of answering, she just gave him a pleased smile. "Guess I made the right choice hitching myself to this wagon."

"Huh," Uraraka murmured, "Wagon. Cavalry battle. That's clever."

"Yeah yeah, let's get back to talking about my beautiful babies!" Hatsume insisted, pulling out yet more devices for the team to peruse.

Around ten minutes later Midnight cracked her whip. "Time's up! It's time to get the teams into starting positions!"

It took only a matter of moments to get all twelve teams in their proper places and mounted. It helped that there were only two non-hero course students still in the competition. Part of the heroics curriculum was getting where you needed to be in as little time as possible. It had been a tedious and frustrating class but not a one of the students taking it considered it useless afterwards. UA was very well-practiced in providing object lessons.

"Huh, looks like we're not the only team who mixed classes," Kendo noted, looking at where an invisible girl was riding Shishida and the gen-ed kid's team made up of students from both heroics classes. "Guess I'm not the only one who thought Monoma was full of it."

"Is there anyone we should watch out for?" Ochako asked.

"Everyone," the redhead answered simply. "We're all hero course students after all. I mean except our Goggles, and Sleepy over there."

Izuku nodded. "Right. Everyone will be gunning for us as long as we have this headband. We'll just have to roll with it, play defensive and maybe grab some more points if we get the chance."

"Are all teams ready?" Despite Midnight's question, there was no reasonable way for anyone to answer. Not that she would have cared if she had gotten one. "Begin!"

A rush. Of course it was. The whole team knew it would happen. They held a ticket that would take the team holding it straight to the finals. Almost every time was moving at best speed to assault them and grab that ten million point headband wrapped around Izuku's head. In hindsight, maybe he should have had the number facing inward. As it was, each zero looked like a bullseye.

Kendo looked to their left and saw a familiar skull-like face bearing down on them. "We need to move now," she warned.

"Right! Girls, heads down!" he said, firing up the jetpack to launch the entire team up into the air.

"Damn support course!" Tetsutetsu cursed watching them.

"You will not escape!" a girl with vines for hair exclaimed, the vines showing their prehensile nature by chasing down the airborne team, only to get slapped away by a giant palm.

"Nice one, Kendo!"

"We're landing!" Ochako called in warning, needing a breather from using her quirk to that extent. Slowly, the four of them came down to the ground with a soft landing thanks to the hoverboots Uraraka was wearing. Only when they were properly settled did she release her quirk's hold.

Izuku let out a relieved breath. With this, they could win. Hatsume's support items along with Uraraka's quirk could keep them ahead of the other teams and Kendo could handle their defence while keeping them aware of the unknown threats from her class. It wasn't a perfect setup. He was only capable of contributing so much himself without putting their lead in jeopardy, but it was enough to–

Ominous laughter interrupted his thoughts. "You thought you could get away, Midoriya!" Turning he saw the webbed arms of Shoji, but he could have sworn that was Mineta's voice.

"We've got some this way too!" Kendo warned, seeing Tetsutetsu barrelling down on them.

"Alright let's move!"

"Uh?!" Uraraka uttered in confusion and worry.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm stuck!"

Looking down, Midoriya saw the problem. One of Mineta's sticky balls. So it was him! Looking into the shell Shoji had formed with his arms he saw Mineta, as well as Asui, both staying safe. "Hi Midoriya!" the diminutive heroics student taunted, "Your flatty girlfriend stole my headband so we're just gonna take yours!" A barrage of balls started flying from the gap alongside Asui's tongue.

"Hold on, I'll block it!" Kendo announced, pulling her arms back around the others–

"No, don't!" Izuku shouted in alarm. If she tried to block the balls they'd just stick to her!

"We have to do something!"

"Rrgh!" In frustration, he slammed the firing button for the jetpack, ripping the stuck thruster of the hoverboot off but allowing them to take to the sky.

Not that their battle ended there either, Bakugo abandoning his horse to chase them in the air. For all his screams he was safely fended off by a giant palm in his way. The look on his face as he fell wasn't one of anger... Well it was but it was more frustration than rage, he looked more like he was considering how to peel away at the team's defence rather than destroy everything in his path.

Once again, Team Midoriya dropped to the grass, this time much less steadily with only one hoverboot to stabilise them. They wouldn't be able to take off like that again.

"Alright! Now that we're approaching the halfway point let's take a look at the standings, shall we?!" Present Mic's voice blared over the loudspeakers. "Oh boy, looks like aside from Team Midoriya and Team Jirou, Class 1-A aren't doing so great!"

Looking up at the scoreboard for just a moment, Izuku saw the truth in those words. Jirou's team were fifth, just shy of enough points to move forward. And of course his own team were at the top. But of the other ten teams, the only four with points were from 1-B.

Even Bakugo had fallen victim after dropping out of the sky. It seemed 1-B had had a plan this whole time.

A plan that meant... They wouldn't actually care about taking his headband. "Guys, I think we're gonna be okay!"

Kendo laughed nervously, skidding to a stop. "You sure?"

Midoriya saw what she meant as soon as he looked up to see Todoroki's hateful gaze. Not only that, other teams who had lost their own points were coming in to attack out of desperation. "Okay, this is bad!"

Kendo's hands grew to their full size, ready to make a wall if she needed to. Team Todoroki were coming in as the leader of the pack but it seemed they weren't settling for just that. Izuku knew what Kaminari's quirk was, could see the preparations for it. A insulating sheet, Momo grounding herself, "INDISCRIMINATE SHOCK–"

"No you don't!" Izuku called out, reaching out and tearing back, the insulating sheet meant to protect them from Kaminari's quirk blasted away by a wave of fire!

"Again!" Todoroki growled, his cold rage building as his father's quirk was again forced out of him. His plan hadn't worked as he wanted it to, but there was no harm in trying the next stage anyway. A wave of ice spread from him, trapping some teams but not others.

"Hey, thanks Todoroki," Kyoka said half-sarcastically, her team running freely past one of the trapped teams and snaring another headband. "You guys have fun." With that, she was gone, leaving the teams there to fight it out.

Todoroki did something very similar to another team as his own blew past them but beyond that, he was in no mood to share this battlefield with anyone. A wall of ice rose tall enough that very few would be able to traverse it in the time left and still expect to score more points. Not that it seemed to matter to Hagakure's team, their sole rider, the beastly Shishida leaping over it before it could lock him out.

"Oh," the invisible girl uttered as she took in the situation, "Hey Shishida? Mayyyybe you shouldn't have done that."

"Little late for that, he's not so good at listening anymore," her other riding teammate informed her. "You're not wrong though. Three teams, one with a headband worth enough points to give us a shot, another with the golden ticket, and then us with only the points we had when we started."

"Looks like Todoroki doesn't care, but Yaomomo is keeping an eye on us."

"Okay... Let's pick our moment."

Meanwhile, Team Todoroki and Team Midoriya circled each other warily, Kendo's large hands held steady on the ground, ready to defend against whatever might come at them. Izuku kept them moving counter-clockwise, staying on the left. He didn't know why Todoroki was so sparing with his fiery side but as long as he was, Izuku wasn't going to let it pass just for the sake of being sporting. "We're running out of time," Momo warned.

For some reason, Iida suddenly lowered himself into what was halfway to a sprinter's starting pose. "They're about to try something," Izuku warned, not knowing what might be up his friend's sleeve. Probably something involving running. Did he plan to outpace their manoeuvring around his team? Or was it–

And then in an instant, his contemplation and awareness was proven meaningless as in the blink of an eye the opposing team were blazing past them, for a fraction of that instant he felt the pressure of Todoroki's fingers as they snagged the headband.

"Now, Shishida!"

GRRRRAH!"

Just as the newly leading team were celebrating their victory, the third party in the altercation jumped in. The bestial horse roared forward at impressive speeds, Rin reaching out to grab the ten million points in Todoroki's hand while Hagakure went for the points tied around his head. The fingers of a scaled green arm punched through a steel shield, halting its momentum and giving the two-tone boy time to move the headband away. But at the same time, the invisible girl snagged another headband for her team.

"OHHHHHH, WHAT AN UPSET! In the final minute of play Team Todoroki lose their own headband to Team Rin, but also snag the ten million points from Team Midoriya! Team Rin are off and running, Team Todoroki are in the lead and Team Midoriya are left with nothing!"

"No...!" Ochako mourned, amazed that they had lost their chance so suddenly after all that hard work.

"Thirty seconds left on the clock!"

"We have to get those points back! It's too late to go for others!" Midoriya shouted.

"I'm all for it but how?!" Kendo demanded. "We barely fended them off alone! They beat back everyone else that was coming for us without even trying!"

"Just get us... close..." he trailed off as a thought slammed into him like a freight train.

Everyone wanted that headband. Everyone. Every student had their eyes on it. The audience watched it like hawks.

'Soooo I was right! It worked on Uraraka because he thinks she's super hot!'

'You're pretty hot-blooded, aren't you, Kacchan?'

Once again, his arm reached out toward Todoroki, who frowned. Surely Midoriya wouldn't try to unhorse him, that was against the rules. The scarred boy's eyes widened, his rage turning from as cold as his right side to the inferno of his left. Was Midoriya going to forcefully activate his quirk again, out of spite?!

… No.

Not with a yank but with a beckoning gesture, the son of Endeavour felt his head move forward, pulled by something as–

The headband! He snatched for it as it pulled off of his head before fluttering away. "Yaoyorozu–!"

The class representative was way ahead of him, a pole reaching out to snag the piece of durable cloth before it could get away, only for a second gesture from Midoriya to see it come to him all the faster, quickly out of reach.

All he needed... Was the ability to apply the word 'hot' to something. It wasn't something he could arbitrarily trigger. He had to believe fully that the thing he was trying to pull was hot.

"What? But... How...?" Ochako stammered.

"What do you call something everyone wants?"

"And in the closing seconds of this game we have Team Midoriya returning to first place!"

"Did you know you could do that?" Hatsume asked, looking up at him and seeing the surprised but pleased expression he wore. He shook his head. "You should pretend you did anyway. It'll make you look more impressive."

"Thanks for the advice," he acknowledged, feeling a little numb.

The crack of Midnight's whip rang out once again. "Time's up!"