Chapter 26: Tag
After weeks of worrying over details of preparation, how she was going to place, and what the hell she was going to say for her athlete's pledge, Kyoka was more than ready for the sports festival to finally get under way. Thankfully, Izuku had been more than helpful with her worries on all three fronts. He had helped her train with the rest of their class, reminded her that how you placed was generally far less important (and more luck based) than the skills you showed in getting there, and although he didn't realize it, their date had actually given her some inspiration for her pledge. And now, today, finally, the sports festival was here.
Almost.
It nearly seemed a cruel joke that after two intense weeks of preparation, to take all of class 1-A and stick them in a waiting room together, just moments before the festival was to begin. It made sense, as they all had been issued special festival gear for (presumably) the first event and were expected to enter together, but putting this many competitive students together just before one of the most important competitions of their first year was just asking for trouble.
Everyone in the room was showing some sort of tension or anxiety, even if they expressed it very differently. Tokoyami, for example, continued to brood silently in one corner, leaning against the wall, but his eyes would open and flicker around the room far too often for him to be calm. Kamakiri had brought a small block of wood to whittle as a way to work of his nerves and make sure he didn't explode on anyone else; it had been reduced to saw dust within five minutes, and now he simply sat uselessly sharpening his own blades while Kaibara, Awase, Kirishima, Mina, and Setsuna sat near him quietly talking with each other.
Everyone's heart was racing, even if only Kyoka (and possibly Shoji) could hear them, ratcheting her own stress higher. The worst offender was Izuku, sitting right next to her. Anyone could tell from a glance that the boy was anxious, but his heartbeat was racing far faster than it normally did.
Anxiety always left Kyoka jittery, with more energy that she knew what to do with. Normally she would find some relatively calm music to help tamp down her nerves and bleed away her excess tension. That wasn't what she wanted now though. The sports festival was looming, and even if she didn't exactly expect to finish well, she wanted to do as well as she could. Kyoka wanted something to focus her extra energy towards, and the ska-punk band from a few nights ago was right up her alley for that.
With one earjack plugged into her phone, she snaked the other around to the back of Izuku's head, before beginning the album she had picked up on their date. Izuku startled at the sudden noise that only the two of them could hear, looking over to Kyoka in confusion.
"Bone conduction, Green." Understanding flooded his features, followed by an excited gleam in his eye that Kyoka always knew preceded a barrage of quirk-related questions. "Just listen to the music to get amped up for the festival. We can talk quirks later." Kyoka managed to preempt the explosion of questions, but knew she'd get at least twice as many later, once he'd had time to think about it. That was a trade off she'd make in a heartbeat.
As the album continued, she felt herself calm slightly, focused more on the tasks in front of her than the potential consequences of failure. Similarly, Izuku's heart rate slowed slightly, from a rapid and inconsistent beat to a firm, steady, staccato that she recognized as determination. The two of them reached out simultaneously to grasp each other's hands, squeezing tightly to show they were there for each other.
Hand-holding like this was as far as either of them felt comfortable going in public, and most of the other members of their class were far too focused on their own preparations to note (or care about) what the two of them were doing. They had told their friends that they were dating, but aside from that only Setsuna had figured it out. Kyoka had expected her to tell Mina as soon as possible, but Setsuna had just laughed and said it would be funnier to see how long it would take the pink girl to see what was right in front of her.
Considering that two weeks had gone by and Mina didn't seem the least bit wiser about her relationship with Izuku, Kyoka agreed that it was pretty funny. While she and Izuku hadn't been making out in the hallways, they hadn't been hiding anything either, and so for the class's self-proclaimed love expert to simply miss it altogether was hilarious.
As it was, she was just happy to be able to get a minute with Izuku before the craziness of the sports festival started. If anything, his presence at her side as the two leaned slightly into each other, helped calm her down even more than the music did.
Of course, her moment with Izuku was ruined after just a few minutes, as Todoroki took this opportunity to loom over the two of them, face impassive as ever.
"Midoriya." The two-toned boy's voice cut through whatever focus Izuku had managed to cultivate, and had his heart racing once again.
"Todoroki. Can I help you?" Kyoka retracted her earjack from the back of Izuku's head so he could hear more clearly with only a slight glare spared for Todoroki. It was obvious that neither Izuku nor her were particularly interested in speaking right now, but that hadn't stopped Todoroki at all. Their classmate never seemed particularly interested in social niceties, so this was perfectly in character for him. Something about the conversation between the two had attracted the attention of the entire class, as every other conversation in the room died down.
"Objectively speaking, I believe I am, for all practical purposes, stronger than you." Well. That was one way to start a conversation. Also, was Todoroki completely insane, or just blind? Had he seen how much power Izuku had when he went one hundred percent? Izuku seemed to sense her outrage and gave her hand a gentle squeeze to let her know that he had this, and Kyoka settled for simply intensifying her glare.
"R-Right now? Probably." Kyoka squeezed her eyes shut and, with a herculean effort, managed not to sigh. Izuku really needed to work on his self-confidence still. "I-I'm not …" Whatever he had been about to say vanished as Todoroki spoke over him without a care for politeness.
"But somehow, you have caught All Might's eye, more than any other student in this class."
"I-I have?" Kyoka would have said that Izuku was a terrible liar, but she had only recently found out that he had been hiding a secret of gargantuan proportions from her, so she may have had to revise her opinion. With that said, the sheer guileless confusion in his voice indicated to her that he really didn't understand that it was painfully obvious that he was All Might's favorite. They really had to work on that.
"Yes. It doesn't matter why, or what your relationship to him is. Just know this: I will beat you." With that, Todoroki turned on his heel, apparently done with the conversation. From across the room, Kyoka could hear Ochako take a breath to say something, but it was Kirishima's voice that rang out first.
"Dude, isn't this all kind of sudden? We're about to head out there and…"
"I don't care. I'm not here to make friends." Well, obviously. If anything, Todoroki seemed to actively avoid social interaction whenever possible.
"Todoroki wait." Izuku stood as he called after Todoroki. Surprisingly enough, he did in fact wait, and turned around to listen to Izuku's reply. "I don't know exactly what's going through your head right now. You're right that I can't use all of my strength right now without hurting myself, but I want you to remember one thing." Izuku's heart rate had stabilized back to the solid beat of determination that she had heard earlier. If anything, it rang so loudly in her ears that Kyoka was surprised that no one else in the class seemed to hear it.
"Strength is not everything. Every single person in this room has their own reasons for being here today. Every single one of us is aiming to win. And any one of us could defeat you." To his credit, Todoroki did not scoff or reject the notion out of hand. Kyoka, on the other hand, had to restrain a cough of surprise, more so because Izuku's heart rate didn't vary at all as he said this. He honestly believed it. Kyoka wasn't entirely sure how she was supposed to combat endless glaciers with her earjacks, but it was nice that her boyfriend had such confidence in her. And that he had the same confidence in the rest of their class, too, she guessed.
"I'm going to be doing my best, just like everyone else in this room. I'm already behind everyone else in terms of experience, I can't let myself lag behind anymore. So I will bring everything I have against you or anyone else. I can promise you that. I hope you can promise the same." Despite the intensity in Izuku's voice, Todoroki merely hummed in response, once again turning his back to Izuku and retreating across the prep room.
Conversations again cropped up around the room, and Kyoka could easily hear that they all centered around the confrontation that had just gone down, with most of them being about how inspired people were by Izuku's words. Izuku, however, was apparently too busy blue-screening after publicly telling off Todoroki to hear one word of the conversations around him. Ochako seemed like she wanted to come and thank Izuku in person, but Momo and Shoji seemed to understand what was happening and made sure that she left him and Kyoka alone for the moment.
Kyoka stood and grabbed Izuku's hand once again. As soon as she squeezed, she heard him whisper, almost too quiet for even her to hear. "Oh my god did I really just do that?"
"Yup! Have fun with that through the festival!" Izuku just groaned. "On the plus side, I think you've got everyone in the class all pumped up." A glance around the room showed that where earlier there had been nervousness and tension throughout the room, it had now been replaced primarily with eagerness and excitement. "That's one class I don't have to worry about my pledge for, so thank you."
"Anything for you, Kyoka." Sarcasm was heavy in Izuku's voice. If he had anything more to say, though, he let it die as the announcement for the beginning of the sports festival came over the intercom system, and the class began to move out towards the stadium floor.
---
"Welcome, one and all, to the one, the only, U.A sports festival! Today we're watching the first years of U.A prove themselves on our hallowed competition grounds!"
Toshinori was very glad that he had managed to convince the powers that be that he wouldn't be any good up in the announcing booth with Present Mic. While it was apparently tradition that one of the primary heroics teachers for a given year would provide analysis during Mic's color commentary, there had apparently been quite a push to have All Might himself providing analysis on the first years, even if he was a simple teaching assistant.
There were a number of reasons why that would have been a terrible idea, not least of which being that the festival for the day would go well over his three hour limit. He also wasn't entirely sure if he'd be able to hide his bias for young Midoriya for a full day of commentary. Thankfully, Nezu had intervened with the HPSC to avoid that particular fate. All Toshinori had to do as All Might was to show up at the very end of the festival each day to present the medals to the top finishers.
Somehow they had convinced Aizawa to take over the announcing duty for today. Toshinori wasn't entirely sure how they had managed it. Maybe it was part of being vice principal. Either way, Toshinori was glad that he hadn't been the one tasked with that particular duty.
"Let's get a look at our first years as they come onto the stage. First up, you all know who it is, the ones who fought off a villain attack in just their first week of school like it wasn't no thang, it's Class 1-A of the hero course!"
Having seen the aftermath of the USJ attack first hand, Toshinori wouldn't necessarily call it "no thang." Although given the double negative in Mic's sentence he supposed that the voice hero was actually calling it a "thang." Which merely raised the further question of what a "thang" was. If a "thang" was something negative, then Mic's commentary was accurate, but if it was positive, then Toshinori was back to disagreeing with him. He was pretty sure that twenty-something years ago he had fought a villain who had named himself "The Thangler". No other hero had wanted to step up for fear of being "thangled," but it ended up being a very simple case when all was said and done and left him no closer to a definition of "thang."
It wasn't until Snipe elbowed him from his left that Toshinori had realized that he had been muttering, nearly oblivious to the students filing into the stadium in front of him. Yeesh, perhaps young Midoriya had rubbed more off on him than he had thought.
"And now, coming with less media attention but no less skill than their counterparts, the hero students from Class 1-B!"
Midnight and Cementoss stood at the central stage, directing the students on where they should stand for the opening events. Looking among the rapidly growing crowd below, Toshinori quickly picked out all of the students that he had helped scout, proud to see how far they had come. Young Midoriya and young Jiro stood together near the front, even at this distance obviously somewhat awed by the size of the crowd.
"And following the hero course, we have Classes 1-C, 1-D, and 1-E from the general education course, Classes 1-F, 1-G, and 1-H from the support course, and Classes 1-I, 1-J, and 1-K from the business course! Let's give it up for all of our competitors today!"
That didn't sit well with Toshinori. Back when he attended U.A, the other courses were accorded just as many accolades as the hero course. U.A was not necessarily the top high school in any of those fields, but it was certainly in the top five for each. The students in those courses had earned their admission through just as difficult an entrance exam as any of the hero students.
"Say, Snipe, I admit that it has been some time since I have watched the opening of the sports festival, but are they always so … dismissive of the non-hero courses?" Snipe turned to look at him, mask making it impossible to say what he thought of the question.
"The sports festival used to be a lot less marketed than it is now, I reckon. The commission has given us all kinds of instruction on how to run it, from what events to prioritize to how to announce it. Mic ain't a fan, but he knows to keep up appearances. 'Specially with Eraser as co-announcer."
That made an unfortunate amount of sense. Toshinori wasn't surprised that the HPSC would want to focus on the hero students above all else, just somewhat disappointed that they would throw the rest of the school under the bus. The cheer as young Jiro climbed the center stage to give the athlete's pledge as the top scorer in the hero course entrance exam drew Toshinori's attention away from his ruminations on the HPSC, and he eagerly leaned in to listen to what she had to say. Jiro steeled herself as she stepped towards the microphone, eyes wide but hard at the number of people ready to listen. When she spoke, though, her voice was clear and steady.
"One year ago I did not expect to be here right now, giving the athlete's pledge here at U.A. Even now, I know there are some people who don't think I should be the one to represent U.A here." Toshinori's eyes narrowed. Who would think that? Young Jiro had everything that one could hope for in a hero. Hopefully she was just trying to make a point and didn't have anyone specific in mind.
"But I earned my way here, through hard work, and with the support of family, friends, and one very important mentor. I'm not special in this. Every single one of us students has worked hard to be here today, no matter which course we are in. All of us have had help along the way, from parents, from friends, from teachers, and mentors. But our journey hasn't stopped at getting into high school. We still need to push ourselves further to achieve our goals." Young Jiro looked across the students in front of her, and extra excitement began to bleed into her voice, as she seemed to be feeding off the nervous energy of the crowd.
"I pledge to you all that I will put everything I have into this competition in order to win! I pledge this in memory of those that have helped me along the way, out of respect for all of you that I am competing against, and with a thought to those who I will one day save! All of you should make the same pledge so that together we can go Plus Ultra!"
The students and audience echoed the school motto in a deafening chant, and Toshinori beamed. The athlete's pledge was never a huge moment in the festival, but it was always nice to see one of his students begin to come out of her shell and provide some inspiration for others. He noted with pleasure that most of the general education students that had been scowling before now seemed at least somewhat less upset. It was probably the best that could be hoped for from a speech that was under a minute long.
Without wasting any time, Midnight immediately began her explanation of the first event. While each of the events had been decided on weeks ago, only those who were directly involved in the running of the festival had been informed as to what they were. As such, Toshinori was hearing this all for the first time right alongside the students.
"The first event will be…" Midnight allowed the spinning wheel behind her to land on a pictogram that Toshinori could not decipher for the life of him. "Full Contact Tag! Each of you has been given a special jacket with a target on the back of it. Once the game begins, you will each be given fifty points. When one student tags another on this target, the tagger will receive half of the tagged student's points, rounded up. If you lose all of your points, you are out!" A bit of mental math and Toshinori worked out that with fifty points to start, it would take six tags in a row to knock someone out entirely. That was the likely fate of most of the business and support students, more interested in networking than actually performing in the festival for the most part. The general education students would likely last longer, especially if any were interested in moving up to the hero course.
"If you get tagged, you will be unable to tag or be tagged again for the next five seconds in order to prevent consecutive tags. The game will continue for thirty minutes, or until enough players have been eliminated." That seemed like a long time to Toshinori, but depending on how few players they were aiming to have left, it could very easily devolve into an endurance match between hero students. "As far as quirk use, as long as you don't directly attack another student, anything goes! The game will start on my mark, so get set, get ready…"
Toshinori watched as all of the students quickly prepared themselves for an immediate beginning to the game. They were all surprised when, instead, Cementoss reached down to touch the floor of the stadium and flared his quirk. The very ground itself turned against the students, flinging them to the far walls of the stadium roughly by class. While that was happening, various pillars, arches, and columns sprung up throughout the entire open space, as the platform that Midnight and Cementoss were standing on was raised high above the stadium floor so they could oversee the proceedings.
"And go!" Midnight shouted out the beginning of the game as soon as the athletes stopped moving, and chaos ensured.
---
It took Sen just two seconds to regain his bearings and drop into a defensive stance as soon as the ground stopped shifting underneath him. Luckily Yo had stayed relatively close to him in the chaos, and he could see a few other of his classmates, Rin and Tokage, nearby as well. A pillar of ice erupted from elsewhere in the stadium, obviously Todoroki's work even if Sen couldn't see him from where he stood.
"Wow, what a start to this event! I've been crowd surfing before, but I wouldn't want to be down there dealing with all of that! Everyone's been all tossed around" Present Mic's voice boomed over the loudspeakers.
"Quickly recovering and assessing the situation is essential in hero work. That's the first thing the competitors will need to do. Several are already up and moving." Sen still wasn't sure exactly how they had convinced Aizawa to help out with this; it seemed very out of character. Regardless, he quickly tuned out the announcements from his teachers, not wanting to be distracted.
Aizawa was right though, and to Sen, the next step was obvious: team up with the others in his class. There had been no restriction on teamwork mentioned, and he really didn't want to try to deal with either Yo or Tokage in this match. Both of their quirks were well-suited to earning points quickly. Working as a team it'd be far less likely for any one of them to get knocked out of the competition, although their individual scores (especially for Yo and Tokage) might be slightly lower than if they went their own separate ways.
That didn't really bother Sen too much. Everyone knew that the first event was a weed-out event. The real interest came in the second and the third events. Far better to make sure he got there and impress then rather than go all out immediately. Thankfully, it looked like his classmates had the same idea, as Rin and Tokage quickly found their way to where he and Yo were standing.
"Alright, we ready to end some assholes?" Tokage was loud and boisterous enough for four people. Which was good, because none of the rest of them were particularly vocal people. Their nods were all she needed as approval, thankfully. "I'll keep an eye out for where we should be heading to find some victims!" She accompanied her plan by literally popping an eye out of her body, floating it up and away for scouting purposes. "And Awase, you can make sure they don't get away, and we can all tag them once they're stuck. Let's go!"
Before the four of them could set off, Present Mic's volume jumped again as he excitedly commentated from above. "And we have our first student eliminated! And it's a Class 1-B hero student no less!"
"Minoru Mineta was eliminated in exactly thirty-two seconds," Aizawa helpfully supplied. "Ambushed by four of his own classmates." Given Mineta's behavior during their joint training sessions, Sen was pretty sure he could guess which students had taken it upon themselves to immediately remove him from the competition.
"Yeah! Tsuyu Asui, Kinoko Komori, Tooru Hagakure, and Reiko Yanagi sure showed him that they mean business!" Nailed it. "Don't mess with these girls!" Sen hadn't planned on it, but perhaps the advice was more for those who hadn't sparred against Tsu or Hagakure, or seen Yanagi tear apart a fifteen foot tall concrete pillar with only her mind
"Although they wasted two seconds. They could have been more efficient."
"It seems like their teamwork was short-lived, though. Yanagi and Hagakure are splitting off on their own to earn more points!" Hopefully Tokage was smart enough to keep them away from Yanagi. Any of the rest and they'd likely be fine, but he had no idea how they'd deal with her quirk. He supposed they'd burn that bridge when they came to it.
"We've got a pack of business students nearby. Follow me!" Tokage led their small group further from the center of the stadium, towards the outer walls. The obstacles put up by Cementoss were fewer and further apart in this area, providing essentially no shelter to their target. The four of them descended on a pack of eight business course students like wolves amongst sheep, tagging all of them enough to drop all eight of them out of the competition.
There was a nearly palpable sense of relief from the business students as they were eliminated one by one. Even if Yo hadn't used his quirk, Sen was sure that they would not have resisted in the least; they had no desire to make it to the next round of competition.
"Heads up, boys. We've got two 1-B students incoming." Sen glanced in the direction that Tokage was pointing, seeing two of the larger boys from 1-B headed their way, Sato and Bondo.
"Careful of Bondo's glue…" He began to speak before feeling someone touch his back and a slight vibration from the target on the back of his coat. He'd been tagged. Turning, he saw a cheshire grin fade away into the shadow of one of the pillars that they were standing near. "Shit, we've got Kuroiro here, too." Two of the more difficult 1-B students to run into. Tokage could simply fly away if she wanted to, but the rest of them were in a difficult situation.
Thankfully, Tokage was in it with them for the long haul. "Ok, we get away from the pillars and their shadows. Kaibara, get close to Bondo as fast as you can. He can't use his glue if we're in his face. Awase, lock down Kuroiro if you see him. Rin, we'll keep Sato busy til he goes silly. Let's dance!" With a deranged expression on her face, Tokage split her body into half a dozen pieces, sending them all towards the muscle-bound student on his way in.
Sen, on the other hand, began spinning his arms and hands, loosening them up for the real meat of the event. It was somewhat unlucky that they had run into 1-B students this early in the competition, before they could really get a bunch of points from eliminating general education, support, and business students.
But it was going to be more fun this way.
Spinning his leg and foot to allow for a bounding leap, Sen jumped to engage Bondo, unaware that the expression on his face was nearly identical to that on Tokage's.
---
"And just like that, half of our competitors have been eliminated! We might only be eight minutes into the event, but already there's a clear pair of leaders!" Present Mic's voice was a constant ringing in Ochako's head. "Reiko Yanagi and Shoto Todoroki are blowing away the leader boards!" A quick glance at the jumbotron scoreboard high above them showed both of the named students rapidly approaching one thousand points each. How was that even possible? They must have each eliminated nearly an entire class worth of students without having been tagged once.
"They've decided to strike out on their own, which can lead to some very impressive point totals." Aizawa drawled. "But they need to be careful, because they can lose their points even faster than they gained them. And they don't have teammates to help them out, unlike most of the other hero students out there."
Ochako had originally felt lucky that Cementoss hadn't scattered her too far from the rest of her friends, and that they had formed a relatively large and well-balanced six person group for the event. Jiro and Shoji were acting as scouts, letting the rest of them know which ways to head for the most points, Honenuki and Yaomomo used their quirks to trap their victims, while Midoriya and herself were in charge of dealing with anyone who avoided their trap.
That was the theory, at least.
In practice, Honenuki's quirk was powerful enough to trap nearly everyone, Yaomomo made a net gun to trap anyone who was outside his range, and Midoriya was fast enough to deal with the two students they had run into who had dodged the net. Ochako was getting a fair number of points to be sure, but she didn't feel like she was really contributing anything. And looking at the leaderboard, they were doing well but not spectacularly, falling somewhere around twentieth place on average.
She wanted to do more. The sports festival was not only a chance to show off what she could do, but also an opportunity to really go all out in competition. Their practical heroics class involved healthy competition, but nothing at the level of the festival. Ochako knew what she wanted, and since they currently were able to take a breath for a moment, she might as well bring it up.
"Hey guys," It was the first she had spoken up in several minutes, and everyone turned to her, although Shoji kept a few of his eye stalks looking in other directions. "Why don't we split up for a bit. It's still early enough that we should be focusing on getting more points. Later on when there's fewer students left, we can come back together. I bet Shoji and Jiro could find each other from across the stadium." The named students exchanged a glance before nodding slowly to each other.
"It would allow us all to get more points, I suppose." Honenuki seemed to be seriously considering Ochako's suggestion, which was a point in her favor. What really mattered, though, was the opinion of Midoriya and Yaomomo. Everyone in class knew that those two were the smartest students in 1-A, and generally deferred to them on tactical or strategic points. And in moments where a decision needed to be made quickly, Yaomomo almost always followed Midoriya's lead.
Ochako was surprised, though, to find that Midoriya did not have an answer nearly immediately. Instead, he was mumbling to himself, looking quickly and frequently between the five of them that were accompanying him and the overall scoreboard. Whatever he was saying was too fast and too quiet for her to pick out. Jiro rolled her eyes and used one of her earjacks to jab him in the side, shocking him out of his mumbling fit.
"There's a few 1-B students coming close. I don't care what decision we make, but we need to make it fast." Her words weren't harsh, more reminding him that they were under a time crunch still. Midoriya blinked rapidly at Jiro for a moment before shaking himself, apparently coming to a decision.
"Ok, we can do that. It's harder to stand out in a larger group I guess." She tried not to show it, but on the inside, Ochako was cheering. "Let's try to meet back up in fifteen minutes, or when there's less than sixty students left, whichever happens first. The fewer students, the more likely we run into other 1-B teams, and for that there's power in numbers."
So far their pack of six hadn't been searching out 1-B teams, preferring to build up their points slowly. It seemed as if most of the 1-B teams were smaller than theirs and had been avoiding them in turn. Ochako wouldn't mind tangling with a few of them if it happened, though.
"Myself, Kyoka, and Yaoyorozu will form one team, you, Honenuki, and Shoji the other. Does that sound good Uraraka?" Wait, he was asking for her opinion? Ochako supposed she was the one who brought it up, but that didn't mean she had any insight into how they should split up. Putting one person from each role on each team made sense, and it was obvious that Midoriya and Jiro would stick together, which made the only real choice Yaomomo versus Honenuki. No matter how much Ochako loved Yaomomo, Honenuki's quirk had been doing a lot of heavy lifting in this event, and Ochako didn't really want to give it up. She quickly nodded while making a noise that sounded roughly affirmative.
"Remember. Fifteen minutes or sixty students. Stay safe." With that, the other three students were gone, running off towards the center of the arena.
"Where to, boss lady?" Now Honenuki was looking to her for ideas, too?! The adage be careful what you wish for filtered through her brain. She had wished to have something more to do. Deciding where to go was certainly something more to do, after all. Well, Midoriya and Yaomomo had been a little timid in their approach, avoiding 1-B whenever possible. If they weren't her, maybe Honenuki and Shoji would be willing to be a little more adventurous.
"Shoji, are those 1-B students still nearby?" After a moment of concentration, the larger student nodded. Ochako let herself slip into her competitive mind-set, a predatory smile growing across her face. "Let's hunt some higher value targets."
Honenuki met her smile with one of his own as Shoji pointed towards the outer ring of the arena. The three of them took off quickly, darting from pillar to pillar to avoid notice and make sure they got a drop on their 1-B prey.
Three 1-B students, Ojiro, Fukidashi, and Tetsutetsu stood panting in the middle of a group of five general education students, having apparently just finished taking them all out of the game. None of the three had quirks that were particularly well suited for any part of the competition, but Midoriya had also pointed out that none of them had shown the full extent of their skills during training. A glance at the leaderboard showed her that each of them had between one and two hundred points each, much better targets than the non-hero students that usually had no more than fifty points.
Honenuki struck first, capturing the three hero students in his mud while carefully avoiding the general education students in a fine show of control. Hopefully someone important saw it. As soon as the three hero students were roughly waist deep in the ground, Honenuki solidified the ground once again. Ochako and Shoji were already most of the way towards their prey, ready to strike.
Between the two of them, they were roughly the same speed, but Shoji had a massive advantage in reach. Two of Shoji's arms grabbed Ojiro's tail from where it was flailing behind him, attempting to ward taggers away from the target on his back, while a third snuck through to tag the tailed teen. Without letting go of Ojiro's tail, he extended two more arms to tap the target on Tetsutetsu's back as well. Just like that Shoji jumped up a dozen places in the standings, easily into the top ten.
Ochako, on the other hand, seeing Shoji's aim, went straight for Fukidashi. She would have gone for him either way, as he was stuck up to his chest in the concrete, with neither of his hands free. Ojiro and Testutetsu each could defend themselves, somewhat, even if inexpertly while trapped. Even if he wasn't as free as the other two, Fukidashi didn't seem to even be struggling against his concrete prison, having simply gone limp, held up by just the ground at this point.
However, Ochako tagging Fukidashi seemed to shock him out of whatever funk he had been in. Well, at least he was moving again. It was hard to read emotions on a literal speech bubble, after all.
A sharp inhale of breath was all the warning that Ochako had before Fukidashi used his quirk, yelling out the noise "CRACK!" at a nearly deafening volume. The concrete beneath him shattered as if it had been struck by a wrecking ball, enough to allow Fukidashi to work himself out with a little effort.
On reflex, Ochako's hand shot out to remove Fukidashi's gravity and make life generally more difficult. The speech bubble turned towards her and she heard a loud "FWOOSH" sound, and suddenly there was a gust of wind blowing all around her, forcing her away from where Fukidashi was stuck.
Or, at least, where he had been stuck. Unfortunately for the boy, the wind generated by his quirk was more than enough to push him backwards, tumbling towards one of the pillars ringing the arena. As soon as he collided with the pillar, she released her quirk, not wanting anyone to accidentally go floating off into low orbit.
"We should get going, we've got what we wanted and it's only going to get dangerous." Honenuki appeared at her side, having taken the opportunity to tag Ojiro and Tetsutetsu once each while Shoji continued to restrain them. Fukidashi was already pushing himself up off the ground, presumably ready to try to free his two teammates.
"Right. Shoji, let's go!" The three students fled no worse for the wear, leaving their 1-B classmates down roughly two hundred points in total. Despite herself, Ochako was thrilled. That was so exhilarating! Now to see if Shoji could find any other 1-B groups for them to plunder.
---
The five second cooldown between tags was quite annoying, in Shoto's opinion. Once he had a student trapped in ice, there didn't seem to be any difference if it took five seconds or not between tags. Either way he was going to eliminate them.
The packs of general education students were getting smaller. Only two were left together in this group, although both would be out in roughly twenty more seconds. Shoto took the opportunity to listen in on the commentary from Present Mic and Aizawa to see if anything important was happening.
"We're down below seventy students left! And there are still ten minutes to go! It's still anyone's game and anything could happen! Any words of wisdom for us, mummy man?!"
"No."
"There you have it folks!"
Well, at least he knew they were getting to the end of the event. Shoto tagged each of the students frozen in front of him once more each and got the final point from each of them. It wasn't particularly efficient in terms of point acquisition rate, but it made sure that no one else would get the points instead. Taking the time to fully eliminate each group also let him rest his right side so he wouldn't get too cold. He'd made sure to freeze his victims with as little ice as possible so they'd be able to break out as quickly as possible. After all, as long as the event was still on, he was still in battle and could not use his father's quirk.
A quick glance to the scoreboard showed that he was still in second place, behind this Reiko Yanagi from Class 1-B. Midoriya had made a recent charge up the leaderboard and was currently sitting in third place, although he was still several hundred points behind Shoto. He hadn't expected Midoriya to go down so easily, but then this was only the first event.
Regardless, with the field rapidly thinning and this first event nearly over, Shoto's path was clear. He had to find Yanagi and take most, if not all, of her points.
There had been a moment earlier in the event when he could have struck. Shoto had just finished off a group of business students when he saw Yanagi standing in the middle of a pack of seven support course students, each of whom were being held in place, a few inches off the ground and glowing light purple, while the girl turned in a circle tagging them in turn. It was an impressive display of power, but it had left Yanagi open. Shoto could have struck then and there, but he figured that she would fall to some other hero students before too long, and that focusing on gathering points from the other courses was the most effective strategy.
Now, with relatively little time left in the game, however, the calculus had changed. Summoning an ice pillar, Shoto lifted himself high enough above the floor of the arena that he could see across the entire battlefield. It was easy to pick out Yanagi; the distinctive glow of her quirk bathed much of the south-eastern section of the stadium in a ghostly purple light. The final trio of business course students were held in place by their clothes as Yanagi calmly yet quickly swapped between tagging the three of them.
One of the business course students, a girl with slate gray skin, apparently had a projectile based quirk, which was likely what had allowed the three to last as long as they had. Every second or so another rock sprouted from her skin and shot towards Yanagi. Each and every one of the rocks that had been fired so far, however, had been caught in the ghostly girl's quirk and hovered above the quartet in a growing dome.
A handful of the few remaining general education students nearby were attempting to escape from a group of his classmates headed by Tokage, and headed directly towards Yanagi and her current victims. A slight curl of her fingers and the general education students found themselves bombarded by all of the girl's accumulated ammunition, stopping them in their tracks. Almost immediately they were set upon by Kaibara, Awase, and Tokage, quickly removing the five students from the game, before retreating from Yanagi.
If Shoto was going to make a run at her points, he would have to do it sooner rather than later. She was currently bereft of too much ammunition, there weren't any outside forces that could distract him, and if he didn't strike now the current event would end. He quickly took stock of his body temperature, and found it warm enough to go all out for what he expected to be the remaining time in the event.
A flash of his quirk created an ice slide back to the ground near to where Yanagi currently was, and Shoto jumped down it. He didn't want to get too close while on an ice construct; she would likely be able to destroy it and send him tumbling. She did, however, appear to need line of sight to her targets, so he'd be able to use his ice to keep himself safe, at least.
Yanagi seemed to realize that Shoto had changed his tactic and was now deliberately targeting her. Foolishly, she appeared to be simply waiting for him to arrive instead of retreating or preparing.
Her loss, Shoto supposed.
Throughout the event Shoto had been observing her, and had realized that her telekinesis could only affect objects within her line of sight out to about ten meters. That was the key that would let him win.
As he approached her limit, he let his quirk flare and created a curved ice wall, blocking him from sight, just a hair more than ten meters away from Yanagi. Shoto immediately began running to his right along the wall, aiming to flank his telekinetic foe. It was a good thing that he did, as the wall immediately in front of where he had been standing suddenly began to glow purple. Cracks formed and the wall shattered into dozens of pieces, flying in every direction in an impressive show of force.
However, Yanagi's focus on the center of the wall gave Shoto a chance. He stepped around the edge of the wall and let his ice run along the ground, encasing Yanagi's feet and trapping her in place, extending rings of ice around her knees and waist so she wouldn't be able to break her bonds immediately.
Her head whipped around to face him, her left eye hidden behind her bangs but her right eye blazing in intensity. In an instant, he felt his clothes constrict around him, attempting to lift him from the ground. On instinct he let loose a large glacier between the two of them and was immediately rewarded with his freedom.
Taking the initiative he darted forward, making sure to keep the glacier between himself and Yanagi. The entire construct began to glow purple, and Shoto reinforced it with another blast of ice. As cracks began to form in the glacier, Shoto approached where he expected Yanagi to be, just on the other side of the ice wall in front of him. It beggared belief that she would be able to exert the fine control needed to break the ice from around her own body and the power needed to break a mass of ice of this size at the same time.
As the glacier shattered, Shoto struck out with his ice, aiming to fully incapacitate Yanagi, tag her once, and disappear. She was, in fact, still standing where he expected her, still iced to the ground. Shoto used his quirk to cover her in ice up to her neck, creating a bowl-like structure around her head. This left her face clear for safety purposes, but surrounded on all sides by ice so she would not be able to affect him before he tagged her and got out.
Breaking into a sprint, Shoto raced towards her back, the target the only part of her body not covered in ice. With just steps to go, however, there was a change in the air. One step later he found himself battling a massive pressure from Yanagi, as the ice surrounding her simply exploded outwards in every direction. Yanagi herself had turned to face him, right eye now glowing purple. Shoto didn't even have time to attempt to change direction or use his quirk again before his clothes wrapped around him tighter than before and he was hauled bodily off the ground towards Yanagi.
How was she this powerful? Had she really been holding back so much during the rest of the event? Shoto attempted to create enough ice to connect to the ground and break her line of sight, but any attempt was immediately destroyed by her quirk, shattered into dust.
A drop of blood dripped from her nose, followed quickly by a steady stream. She had a limit. Shoto just had to fight for another few moments. Yanagi walked towards him at a steady, but unworried pace, and Shoto wondered if she even knew about the blood running from her nose. He redoubled his efforts to create enough ice to overwhelm her as she approached his own target, but found no further success. Her hand dropped onto the tag on his back and Shoto just wanted to scream. If he could break out, just one tag would still be enough to reverse their positions once again.
"AND THAT'S THE GAME FOLKS! WE ARE DOWN TO FORTY CONTESTANTS MOVING ONTO THE NEXT ROUND!" Present Mic's voice shocked Shoto from his focus on Yanagi, and he realized that he had failed. Yanagi gently set him down on the ground and dabbed at her nose, seemingly surprised to find it bleeding, before quickly hurrying off.
Shoto didn't even notice, unable to focus on anything other than the scoreboard showing the standings at the end of the event.
Reiko YanagiIzuku MidoriyaShoto TodorokiJuzo HonenukiYosetsu AwaseNirengeki ShodaMezo ShojiShihai KuroiroItsuka KendoJurota Shishida
He had lost, not just to Yanagi, but also to Midoriya. This would not stand. His only mistake had been going after Yanagi too late. If he had had longer, he would have been able to overwhelm her and take her points. Ignoring the deep chill that had overtaken his right side, Shoto comforted himself with the knowledge that the next round would be very different.
---
There had been a short break in the festival while anyone injured in the first event was seen by Recovery Girl. Of the forty competitors moving on to the next round, only a few had needed healing, but it included the top finisher, Reiko Yanagi.
Izuku was impressed at her finish. While she had been a full participant in the training sessions with class 1-A, he had never seen her show quite the power that she demonstrated at the end against Todoroki.
He and his friends had done quite well overall, as Uraraka's idea of splitting up had allowed all of them to earn quite a score. While only he, Honenuki, and Shoji ended up in the top ten, Kyoka had placed eleventh, with Yaoyorozu and Uraraka close behind in thirteenth and fourteenth, respectively. Their exact placement didn't really mean much in that area of the leaderboard, as all of fifty points separated fourth place from twenty fourth place, but his friends seemed happy. Kyoka had been all smiles as the final scores were shown, and Uraraka was currently recounting some of their more daring moments while punching the sky in excitement. She had really gotten into the event.
Overall most of class 1-A had done well, with six of the top ten and fourteen of the top twenty places going to them. They also had all twenty students pass to the second round, while class 1-B had only had nineteen. Izuku wasn't shedding any tears for Mineta, though. Based on what he had seen in training, the boy had earned his quick ejection any number of times over. The final student making it to the second round was a support student, Mei Hatsume, coming in a respectable twenty seventh place.
The conversations around him muted as Midnight strutted back up on the main stage, cracking her whip for attention. "Now that we've kissed all of your boo-boos, it's time to decide on our second event! Our second event will be…" The wheel behind her began spinning once again before coming to rest on a pictogram of a shining sphere. "...A team scavenger hunt!" Izuku blinked. Over the past ten years, he couldn't remember such an event. Perhaps it was new; it had been known to happen.
The screen behind her changed from the wheel to a map of the U.A campus with a marker placed in Training Ground Omega, the forested edge of the grounds. "A twenty acre plot of Ground Omega in the shape of a decagon has been fenced off specifically for this event. Ten teams will be assigned and each team will have a collection point assigned to them near one of the corners of these grounds."
The image changed to a small, silver sphere as Midnight continued. "One hundred of these targets are scattered across the event grounds. The goal is for each team to find and return as many of these targets to their collection point as possible over the thirty minute time frame of the competition. Every minute that a target remains in your collection basket, you earn one point. You earn an additional ten points if that target is in your basket at the end of the event."
Plans and strategies were already swirling through Izuku's head. There was an interesting balance between aiming to hold on to and protect targets throughout the round, and making sure to have as many as possible by the end. Whichever teams were best at finding the targets would likely not be the best at defending them, so the game would quickly switch from a scavenger hunt to a variant on capture the flag, just with one hundred flags. So much depended on the team compositions.
"However, the team containing our number one finisher from the first round, Reiko Yanagi, will receive a bonus." The image behind Midnight changed once again, to a slightly larger, golden sphere, with the U.A logo emblazoned upon it. "They will begin the event with this golden sphere. It awards no points, but if any other team has it in their possession at the end of the round, in their collection basket or not, they will automatically proceed to the final round, regardless of how many points they have. If Yanagi's team has it in their basket, they will advance only if they have enough points to pass otherwise. If this target is not in Yanagi's team's basket at the end of the round, they will automatically fail, again, regardless of how many points they might otherwise have." All of a sudden Izuku was very glad that he had not come in first place. This changed up all of his considerations. Again, however, everything depended on the team assignments.
A bell-like tone rang out across the arena, and Midnight visibly brightened. "Ah, that means the teams have finished being assigned." She gestured to the screen behind her, and it changed to a list of ten teams of four.
Yanagi, Tokoyami, Iida, TokageMidoriya, Kaminari, Kaibara, AsuiTodoroki, Yaoyorozu, Kirishima, UrarakaHonenuki, Shinso, Hagakure, AshidoAwase, Aoyama, Jiro, HatsumeShoda, Shiozaki, Kodai, KomoriShoji, Kamakiri, Bondo, FukadashiKuroiro, Tsunotori, Tetsutetsu, KodaKendo, Ojiro, Monoma, TsuburabaShishida, Sato, Rin, Sero
Apparently each of the top ten was assigned to their own team, but beyond that the assignment looked, on first glance, to be random. The more Izuku thought about it, though, the more there appeared to be some sort of logic to the teams. Why else would three of the students with more intense mutations all be on a team with Shoji? Whatever the overarching logic was, though, Izuku couldn't quite grasp it at the moment.
"Well, your team is stacked, Green. Have fun in the finals." Kyoka elbowed him, making it clear she meant this in good fun. Izuku didn't quite agree; his team was strong, yes, but Yanagi's team, at least on paper, was easily the strongest team, especially given the scavenger hunt portion of the event. They still needed to defend their collection point far more than any other team, but Iida and Tokage would be invaluable for collecting targets on their own.
"Yeah, well, you've got Hatsume. She's a total wildcard and could change everything for you. I'm looking forward to seeing you in the final round too, Kyoka." She rolled her eyes, obviously unconvinced, but Izuku had seen Hatsume flying around the first event with hover boots and a jetpack working in unison. The gear that she had brought was terrifying, and no one knew what, if anything else, she had kept up her sleeve.
"All right! While our contestants make their way to the event grounds, we'll take a short break. Catch you on the flip side!" Present Mic signed off from announcing as one of the ground level gates out of the stadium opened up. Izuku and Kyoka reluctantly parted ways, gathering with their teams in order to plan a strategy during the short trip to Ground Omega, both focused on the competition that still remained in front of them.
---
"Well, my master, what did you think of Yurei's performance in the first round?" Kyudai had been granted the rare 'honor' of watching the U.A sports festival with All For One in person. In theory, this was purely a meeting of like minds and collaborators. In practice, it was far more likely that the man had some ulterior motive for the visit. Small talk like this would at least make the situation less dreadfully boring.
Kyudai knew that All For One was not entirely happy that the two of them had had less face-to-face time ever since he had switched his focus to the nomu project instead of healing All For One, even if it had been All For One's idea originally. There was probably some subtle mental quirk that All For One had been using on him that he was desperate to continue using.
Thankfully, Kyudai had implanted a portion of a mental defense quirk into himself several months ago just to take care of that possibility. He wasn't concerned about his own mental stability, not when his immortality quirk prevented age-related brain degeneration as well. The effects of too many quirks on mental functioning were essentially the same as dementia, and so his immortality quirk blocked it. Too many quirks would begin to show other physical effects, which was why Kyudai had not turned himself into a physical god. But then, he wasn't like All For One and did not feel the need to control the entire underworld by force.
"I think it is far more interesting how they do from this point forward, myself." A shame. Kyudai couldn't have been prouder of Yurei's actions in the first round. "What are your thoughts on the competition so far, Doctor?"
"We finally got to see some of the quirks in Class 1-A, and I see now why Tomura was pushed back at the USJ. I want to echo my earlier comments about the sentient quirk; I feel it might give a clue to help produce chimeras more reliably. Aside from that, gravity manipulation, matter creation, matter fusion, and size manipulation would all be fantastic additions to our collection." Kyudai was generally most interested in quirks that provided larger and larger breaks from 'standard' physics. Mutations and transformation quirks were all well and good, essential building blocks for a well-balanced nomu, but physics-based emitter quirks were where the real possibilities lay.
"I'm already well-informed as to the details of their quirks. You are correct that those are some of the more interesting, but certainly not the most interesting."
"How do you know about their quirks? We only had second hand information from the USJ before today." Kurogiri was a number of things, but a quirk analyst was not one of them. And while Tomura had a natural eye for how to defeat a quirk, he had no interest in them otherwise and had generally blown Kyudai off when asked about the USJ. Yurei, on the other hand, had been told to lie low for the time being to ensure their position would not be compromised.
"I have my own sources of information, Doctor. It would do you well to remember this." Of course All For One wouldn't tell him everything. They had only been working together for eighty years by now. One would think that All For One would trust Kyudai not to be working to betray him by this point. The fact that Kyudai would abandon All For One in a heartbeat if a better offer came along was neither here nor there, of course. "Now what did you think of the second place finisher? The green haired boy."
Kyudai hummed as he thought back to the first round. "His quirk seems to be a fairly standard strength enhancing emitter quirk. He appears intelligent and skilled enough to make it work well for him, but I don't see anything particularly special from a quirk point of view."
"Ah, my dear Doctor, I think your love of science has blinded you to one of the most interesting quirks in the entire competition, if not in the entire world."
"As you say, my master." No matter how he tried, Kyudai couldn't help the tone of doubt that crept into his voice.
"Hm. You don't believe me. Based on what Tomura said about this student's actions at the USJ, I think it is safe to say that he is holding a great deal back in this competition." That was reasonable. Hero school probably didn't want their students killing each other on live television. "Did you know that he was able to overwhelm the Shock Absorption quirk in your nomu in a single blow?" That got Kyudai's attention.
"That shouldn't be physically possible! We tested that quirk; not even All Might in his prime should have been able to do that!"
"Are you doubting both Tomura and Kurogiri?" If it had been just Tomura, then Kyudai wouldn't have thought twice about doubting him. Making up stories about improbably strong enemies was right in the man-child's wheelhouse. But Kurogiri was another matter entirely. "I thought not. So, I think we have a target for Tomura after all. He had been talking about wanting to kidnap a U.A student or two. And while sentient and physics-defying quirks are valuable tools, Doctor, this Izuku Midoriya has something truly special. And it will be mine."
Every once in a while, All For One displayed why he was such a feared figure in the underworld. Even if the man had been utterly quirkless, the level of intensity and tightly reined rage was enough to set Kyudai's teeth on edge. He looked back to the screen, focusing on Midoriya for part of the first round. What was it about him that had caught All For One's attention? Kyudai resolved to figure it out through the rest of the festival.