Chapter 27: Scavenger Hunt
As the remaining competitors arrived at Training Ground Omega, they were met by a number of Ectoplasm clones who guided them to their own, individual collection points. Once there, the teams were given time to plan their strategy and request clarifications on the rules from Ectoplasm.
By the time she made it to their collection point with her team, Kyoka was already frustrated. Aoyama and Hatsume had been talking past each other for the entire walk there, while Awase hadn't said a word. She knew that there was no way that Hatsume cared about how sparkling Aoyama was nor did Aoyama care at all about Hatsume's babies. On a related note, Kyoka deeply hoped that Hatsume meant her various support items and not actual, literal babies. Awase looked just as done with their two teammates as she felt, but didn't appear to be willing to take any steps to rectify the situation. It was a small comfort that the loud speakers broadcasting Present Mic's continuous (and loud) commentary were not present in the forests of Ground Omega.
Kyoka sighed. Apparently she was going to be the leader and strategist for her team by default, leading to a rising bile of anxiety in her throat. She wasn't made for tactics and planning like Izuku and Yaomomo, or even Honenuki. Kyoka felt comfortable pitching in and offering a suggestion here or there, like how to best use her quirk in a plan, but making the whole plan from scratch? That was beyond her.
Unfortunately, there wasn't anyone else here who seemed any more interested in the job. And this was, in principle, something that would likely come up in practice once she had become a licensed hero. They didn't always have the luxury of waiting for a plan to be drawn up; sometimes, even frequently, time was of the essence.
However, while Kyoka didn't have experience directly planning, she had plenty of experience watchingIzuku plan. She was actually better off than most, because she was able to hear almost all of his muttered logic behind each individual plan. It wasn't necessarily something that she could replicate, but perhaps she could take some inspiration.
Taking a deep breath to center herself, Kyoka sorted through what she knew of her teammates. Awase's quirk could be invaluable for defending their targets, assuming that was allowed. A question for Ectoplasm. While she knew Aoyama's quirk, it didn't seem immediately useful for this game, while Hatsume was a complete unknown to her. However, the support student obviously had gear that she had brought with her, and depending on what it was, they could make this work.
"Alright, we need to get a plan together." Awase and Hatsume turned to look at her, curiosity in their eyes, although Aoyama continued going on about his own 'fabulousness' (which Kyoka was pretty sure wasn't even a word) for a moment before realizing that no one else was talking. Moment of truth. Kyoka focused her gaze on Hatsume; she was the one who could give them even a shot of winning.
"Hatsume, your gear is going to be the wildcard that could get us all through to the next round. What do you have on you?" As soon as the words were off of her lips, Kyoka knew that she had made a mistake. The look of glee that Hatsume showed was nothing short of deranged. Exactly who had she been forced onto a team with?
"I have so many babies for us to use!" Kyoka again prayed to whomever might be listening that Hatsume meant support items. The girl in question reached into her bag and started pulling various items out and placing them on the ground around her, speaking faster than Izuku did during his muttering sprees. "I've got the babies that I'm wearing, my wire arrow baby, my hover sole babies, my jetpack baby, and my goggle babies." Kyoka let out a small breath that her interpretation of Hatsume's use of the word 'babies' was accurate. "But I've also got a drone baby, a taser baby, a whole bunch of explosive babies…"
Ok, explosives were going perhaps a bit too far. "We'll keep those in mind for later. Does your drone have a grappling hook of some kind?" Hatsume nodded so fast that Kyoka was afraid she would hurt her neck. "And then do you have any kind of communication gear so we can talk to each other privately?"
"Yes!" Once again Hatsume dove into her bag, throwing items this way and that in search of her gear. After a moment, she resurfaced for air beaming as she held up five small cylinders that were small enough to fit in an ear canal. "I brought five! They're on an encrypted, personal channel, have a range of 320 km, automatically filter out background noise, and are biodegradable! With a bit of work I could even use them to hack into the speaker system that the announcers are using!"
"That goes against using them for secret communications, doesn't it?" Hatsume just shrugged, insane smile still plastered on her face. "Whatever. Do you have any spare parts with you? Like a plate of metal that could sit over our collection bin?"
"No!" Kyoka let out a sigh, but Hatsume continued on. "But I could take something from one of my explosive babies that should fit the bill. Let me find the right one!"
"Couldn't that make it explode when you don't want it to?" Awase took this moment to inject a little sanity into the conversation.
Without pausing for even a second, Hatsume replied. "Yep! But what are a few explosions here and there?"
"A lethal danger?" Kyoka was impressed with Awase's deadpan delivery.
"Poppycock. They're just the price of invention!"
"...Right. Well, if you can get me a piece without exploding anything, let me know. It could make our defense so much better." Kyoka turned to Ectoplasm. "Mr. Ectoplasm, is it against the rules to use our quirks to defend our targets. Say, using Awase's quirk to weld them in place and to weld a cover on our collection point?" As their math teacher put a finger to his ear to speak with Midnight about the finer details of the rules, Kyoka realized that Aoyama had sidled up to her.
"My, my. Such magnifique planning. So reminiscent of Midoriya." Kyoka wasn't entirely sure what Aoyama was getting at, especially as he had firmly rejected much of Midoriya's offer to help train. There was an uncomfortably long moment of silence from the blonde before he continued, smiling like a cat that caught a fish. "You like him, don't you?"
"I mean, I would hope so. We are dating, after all." That was apparently not the response that Aoyama had expected, as his face morphed from a smug smirk to open-mouthed shock. To his credit, he recovered quickly.
"I, uh, I just wanted to make sure that you were ok with potentially knocking him out." Ugh, this point again. Kyoka wouldn't hold back. Izuku might, but he was getting better about going full-on against her. Kyoka's glare at Aoyama was apparently a sufficient enough answer and he let the topic drop.
Thankfully, Ectoplasm chose this moment to give her a final answer that Awase's quirk was entirely allowed in this match. Perfect. Kyoka once again found herself addressing the rest of her team.
"Ok, here's how it's going to go. Awase, you need to stay by our collection point and weld all of our targets to the basket. Once we get one, we're not going to let it go. We'll have you also weld whatever Hatsume gives you to make sure no one can even get into our basket either. You'll just have to take it off whenever we get more targets." Thankfully, Awase was generally a reasonable guy, and nodded quickly at his role in the plan. He could fight, but it wasn't the end all be all for him and he wasn't too upset about staying at the base.
"I'll coordinate everyone through our communications devices. If I'm plugged into the ground, I'll be able to hear nearly everything happening out there to at least some extent, and I can move as necessary to provide support. Aoyama, Hatsume, I'm trusting you to go out and get us as many targets as possible. Hatsume, feel free to use your drone to help out with that as well. Aoyama, use your quirk if it'll help you get a target, but don't over do it." The two named nodded as well, although slightly more hesitantly than Awase. Aoyama was the one who spoke up.
"Mademoiselle, did you not want to go after the golden target? We would sparkle like a diamond in the sun if we were able to secure that!"
"No." Aoyama seemed disappointed at the flat answer, while Hatsume and Awase took it easily in stride. "Let everyone else fight for that. We'll get through no matter what by aiming for points from the targets. We don't want to sacrifice any points for a special target that we probably won't even be able to get our hands on." While he seemed disappointed, Aoyama did not put up any further argument. Even if he had wanted to, he wouldn't have had the chance as the Ectoplasm clone turned towards them to speak.
"You have one minute before the round starts. I want to wish you all the best of luck." With that, the peg legged clone stepped off quietly through the woods. Kyoka took a deep breath. It was a good plan. It wasn't quite like what Izuku would come up with, but a good plan nonetheless. Now all they had to do was execute. Hopefully she and her teammates would be able to see it through and make it to the next round.
---
To Mezo's sensitive hearing and vision, the beginning of the scavenger hunt was a massively chaotic mess. No fewer than twelve competitors, including his teammate Fukidaishi, were already engaged in a mad scramble to steal the golden target from Yanagi's team. Although Yanagi herself had stayed back with Tokoyami to defend their collection point, they hadn't even needed to get too involved yet. The students assaulting their position needed to be just as worried about the other teams present as they were about Yanagi and Tokoyami. It looked like they were just a step or two away from descending into an uncontrolled melee.
That was why Mezo had argued to his team to not focus on the golden target, at least for now. Part of it was that he wanted to have something of a buffer on the (rather likely) chance that his team was not able to secure the automatic pass to the next round. Another part of it was that no one on his team was particularly well suited for stealing targets. Bondo was fantastic for defense and Mezo himself was nearly unmatched at scouting, but Kamakiri's quirk was not well suited for this sort of competition. Fukidashi probably could do something to snag the special target, but Mezo knew neither the fine details of his quirk, nor how to communicate with someone with a speech bubble for a head.
Was that quirkist? Mezo hoped not.
However, the main reason that Mezo had argued to not focus on the golden target was a nagging voice in his head that sounded an awful lot like Midoriya. Shoji had been willing to ignore all of his other concerns and go for the golden target if not for that voice. After all, what better way to stand out than to grab the guaranteed ticket to the next round? Actually having a shot at making it to the finals was a better plan all around. Mezo was sure of this, and was glad that he had been able to convince Kamakiri and Bondo, at least.
Unfortunately, he was beginning to doubt that he even had a chance of getting a single target. The first pair of objectives that he had closed in on were swept up in a wave of ice before he could get too close. The third target he had found had disappeared in a flash of green lightning. The sound of engines and rapid patter of solid feet had deterred him from going after the fourth at all, knowing that there was no way he could beat Iida to it.
Thankfully, none of the other heavy hitters in this event seemed to be anywhere close to the fifth and sixth targets that he had pinpointed, one sitting at the base of the tree that the other was perched in. As Mezo reached down to grab the objective on the ground, pain bloomed in his left arms as a flash of light sped by. Just past the tree stood Aoyama, focusing belt shining in the sun. For perhaps the first time that Mezo had ever seen, the over-dramatic boy was not smiling. The laser that he had fired had singed Mezo's left arms, but not done any serious damage.
"I did not have to miss, mon ami. That target is mine. You will back away slowly, and you won't get hurt, vous comprenez?" Mezo found it difficult to be intimidated by the showy boy, given that he had nearly eight inches and sixty pounds on him. There was a change to his voice though, and his eyes had become hard.
Regardless of Aoyama's odd behavior, Mezo reached out once again, this time with three hands from his right side, willing to deal with a bit of pain in order to secure the target. After all, his arms could heal. Mezo made sure, however, to retract the extra eyes that he had on the ends of his arms. No sense in getting temporarily blinded, even if he could heal.
Another laser blast slammed into one of Mezo's right hands, burning and charring the entire appendage. The other two arms, however, seemed unimpeded, right up until they slammed into what appeared to be an invisible barrier. From his right, Mezo could hear a slight hissing sound. Whirling around, he saw Monoma step out from between two trees, eyeing him warily.
"Now, I'll thank you to keep your grubby little hands off of my target, thank you very much." Mezo's eyes narrowed. His hands weren't little. He could make them any size he wanted.
"Mes mains are not grubby!" Aoyama positively screeched at Monoma, glaring at him as if he could shoot lasers from his eyes as well as his stomach. Monoma, for all his projected composure, did not seem to know exactly what to do with his friend yelling at him.
As soon as Aoyama turned to look at who exactly had insulted his hands and saw that it was Monoma, his demeanor changed in an instant. Gone was the steely eyed glare and thinned lips that had greeted Mezo. In their place was Aoyama's trademark smirk and eyes just on the edge of winking. "Ah, mon frere, Monoma. It is so good to see you here to help me with this 1-A buffoon. He has eyes on a target that is mine by right." His voice had also returned to its normal flamboyance.
"Unless I was mistaken, my dear friend, this is a free-for-all." Monoma replied with a voice of iron covered in silk. "And my team has three of our classmates as opposed to just one on yours, so this target should naturally go to us." Aoyama's eyes narrowed somewhat, losing some of their sparkle.
"Well, I was here first, so you can find more targets for your chimérique crusade elsewhere." Mezo restrained himself from interrupting the two to point out that he had actually been the first one on site. There was a faint hissing in the air as Monoma began to stride menacingly towards Aoyama, exhaling all the while.
"At least my plans benefit more than just myself and are more than just showy nonsense!" Aoyama gasped in offense, and Mezo was sure that he saw genuine hurt and anger flash through his eyes before being covered once again by his standard superiority. The French boy attempted to stride forward to match Monoma, only to immediately run into an invisible barrier. Apparently Monoma was borrowing Tsuburaba's quirk for the time being.
"Ah, bon, mon ami, but not bon enough!" Unfortunately for Monoma, solid air was still just that: air. It provided absolutely no protection from Aoyama's navel laser, and Monoma ended up diving to the side into a small copse of trees just to avoid the blast.
A handful of scales shot out from the copse of trees that Monoma had hidden in, and Mezo immediately realized two things. First, Monoma must be able to copy more than one quirk at a time, if he had both Tsuburaba's and Rin's quirks available. It was something that Midoriya had hypothesized, but Monoma had only shown a single quirk at a time while training, so it had been dismissed as a possibility for future improvement.
Second, and far more importantly, Aoyama and Monoma were now completely focused on each other, and the target in front of Mezo was completely unguarded. Slowly and quietly, so as not to draw attention, he reached out and grabbed the silver ball, placing it in one of his pockets.
Mezo glanced up to where the target in the tree above him lay, only to find a drone hovering directly above him in the process of picking the target up with an extendable grappling hook. Before he could truly process what he was seeing, the drone was already flying off, its prize secured.
It was enough to remind him that he had to keep moving. Neither Aoyama nor Monoma had seemed to yet realize that the reward they were fighting over was no longer available, and Mezo wanted to keep it that way as long as possible. He slowly slipped away and headed back towards his team's collection point. Hopefully Kamakiri was having more luck than he had been.
---
Ochako's heart was racing as she swung weightless through the trees, carrying two targets that she had liberated from Kamakiri. The mantis boy had given up on his pursuit already, but Tsu, who had jumped in early on in the chase, had proven to be a far more tenacious pursuer. Between her tongue and her powerful legs, Ochako had had to use every bit of mid-air maneuverability that she had just to stay a little bit in front of the frog girl.
Her stomach was doing backflips as she bounced from tree to tree. Normally this would have been bearable, but the rest of her body was corkscrewing in an effort to avoid Tsu's tongue from snagging her. The combination was pushing her uncomfortably close to vomiting. On top of that, Ochako barely had enough time to push off from one branch towards another before Tsu's tongue would strike just behind her.
If it hadn't been for her weeks of practice jumping from beam to beam at one of her parents' construction sites, Ochako was sure that she would have lost her bearings or missed a jump by now. The trees were far less regular than the skeletal outline of a high rise, and so there had been a few close calls. The thumps of Tsu landing on the trunks and branches behind her never got farther away, either. If anything, they were getting closer, as the frog girl honed in on her prey.
A flash of metallic sheen through the forest to her right caught Ochako's eye. Yaomomo must have finished creating her defenses for their collection point. At least, she hoped that it was their collection point, even though she had expected it to be on her left at this point. Perhaps Ochako had been a bit optimistic about not having lost her bearings.
Regardless, she angled herself in the direction of the metal, hopping from branch to trunk and back again in short, controlled jumps. Thankfully, what she had seen was, in fact, the fortifications that Yaomomo had generated over the course of the round.
As soon as Ochako entered the clearing where their collection point was located, however, she was shocked to find her teammate pointing a rifle directly at her. With a shriek, she reflexively pressed her hands together and dropped to the ground, rolling with the impact, as she heard the crack of gun fire above her. A dull thump along with a strained 'ribbit' followed the gun shot, and Ochako took the opportunity to look up to see what was going on.
Tsu had been much closer than Ochako had though, apparently nearly close enough to grapple with her. Now, though, she had retreated to the edge of the clearing, nursing her side where a beanbag round from Yaomomo's rifle had impacted her.
Yaomomo racked her rifle and aimed carefully at Tsu, ready to fire again if necessary. In a low voice, she spoke to Ochako. "There's a hole to deposit your targets on the south side of the defense. I'll cover you while you do."
When Todoroki had asked Yaomomo to create something to defend their collection point, Ochako had expected something simple, like a metallic shield covering their targets just to make things a little harder for their competition. She certainly hadn't expected something so involved and mechanical.
As Ochako dropped her targets into the hole that Yaomomo had indicated, there was a series of clanks and hums as vague things happened out of her view. Ochako remained standing there, hands at the ready in case anything exploded (she still wasn't exactly sure all of what it was doing), but the noises trailed off and two high pitched dings rang out in the clearing. Apparently the machine was done.
Tsu ribbited once more before hopping off, apparently having decided that there were easier pickings to be had elsewhere.
With the adrenaline of the chase finally over, Ochako only just now realized exactly how nauseous she was feeling. She doubled over onto her knees, clutching at her abdomen, in an attempt to keep the contents of her stomach exactly where they belonged. Without her costume and its tight collar and wrist bands, she was forced to clamp down on the pressure points in her wrists in an attempt to ward off the nausea.
After a few moments balancing on the edge of vomiting, the waves of revulsion began to lessen, and Ochako was once again able to open her eyes. In front of her stood Yaomomo, beanbag rifle at her side, holding out a medicine tablet towards her.
"It's dramamine in its standard prescription form, designed to relieve motion sickness. I bet it would take the edge off of your quirk." Ochako eyed the medicine warily. After all, no matter how much she trusted Yaomomo, creating medicine was a complicated process with no guarantee that it would work well the first time. A moment later, a renewed wave of nausea overwhelmed any of her hesitation, though, and Ochako grabbed eagerly at the proffered pill.
"I tried to make a fast-acting formulation, but it could still take a few minutes to kick in." Yaomomo continued. "I apologize, but I still need to brush up on my pharmacology." Ochako continued panting, doubled over on the ground, but the nausea did begin to recede faster than before. "Either way, you've been out there for nearly twenty minutes straight. You can take a moment for a breather."
No! Ochako had only managed to bring back four targets total. Being in the forest, they didn't have any easy way of checking how the other teams were doing, so they needed to put forth as much as possible to make sure they got to the next round. She tried to force herself to her feet, but found it much more difficult than she expected. Perhaps she had pushed herself harder than she had thought in her earlier aerial escapades. Instead of standing up, Ochako only managed to push herself over, landing inelegantly on her backside, and continuing to pant.
"Yaoyorozu is right." Todoroki's voice cut through the clearing as he slid in on a patch of ice. "Most of the targets have been taken by one team or another." He casually inserted another four spheres into Yaomomo's contraption, and Ochako tried not to be jealous that he could sweep back in with her entire total so easily. "We need to change our plans."
Idly, Ochako watched as Yaomomo created some heating packs and handed them to Todoroki, who quickly pressed them to his right side. His face didn't change as he did so, but some of the tension seemed to leak out of his posture. Once she was sure that he was warming up, Yaomomo began to speak.
"With the four you just brought we are up to seventeen in total." Ochako wondered just how many of those Todoroki had brought in versus Kirishima. This event didn't seem like it played to Kirishima's strengths, particularly, but the boy had surprised her before. "Do you know where most of the rest of them are? What is the new plan?"
It was odd to see Yaomomo, normally so composed and on top of planning, immediately defer to Todoroki on how to approach this event. Ochako hadn't said anything earlier, at the beginning of the game, mostly because Todoroki's plan was straightforward and sensible. But with Midoriya, both in the first round and during quirk training, Yaomomo had always been an equal contributor. Now, on the other hand, Todoroki simply imposed his will and she accepted it. Ochako couldn't quite place why.
"Yanagi's team has one of the larger stashes, I believe. I have seen Iida and Tokage collecting quite a few targets themselves. Aside from that, Midoriya's and Awase's teams likely have the most, but all of the teams have at least a few." All in all unsurprising given the team compositions and finish positions from the last round.
Todoroki continued. "Uraraka, once you feel better and Kirishima returns, you should see if you can manage to steal any targets from Midoriya or Awase's teams. If not, try for the other remaining teams. Yaoyorozu, stay here with Kirishima and defend what we've already collected. We will have scavengers testing our defenses soon, I expect."
"And what will you do, Todoroki?" Yaoyorozu meekly asked. There was a glint in her eyes that said she was unhappy with remaining on defense for the entire event, but she didn't say anything to that effect.
"I will go after Yanagi's team myself, and I will capture the golden target. I will correct my mistake from the previous round and defeat her myself."
---
Shoto had kept an eye on Yanagi's team throughout the first twenty minutes or so of the event, just to make sure he knew where the golden target was. Their plan, as Shoto had observed it, was well thought out. Iida and Tokage had an advantage in mobility and multi-tasking, so they were charged with collecting targets. Tokoyami and Yanagi herself, with their exceptionally powerful quirks, stayed back on defense to force other teams away from their collection point.
Even quirks as powerful as theirs, though, were susceptible to quirk exhaustion over the course of a drawn-out conflict. The fact that there were students from so many different teams all clamoring over the golden target actually seemed to be a benefit to Yanagi and Tokoyami, as their opponents had to worry at least as much about each other as they did the defenders.
At the beginning of the round, after a few moments of chaos, the attackers seemed focused just on crushing Yanagi and Tokoyami, without any particular success. However, as time dragged on and more and more contestants joined the growing melee in the clearing near the collection point, conflicts between them actually gave Yanagi and Tokoyami slightly more breathing room. Even worse, Iida and Tokage had apparently returned permanently, and were assisting with the overall defense.
As Shoto stood nearby watching, he even realized that Yanagi herself was playing a much smaller role now than she had at the beginning of the event, with barely any purple to be seen across the clearing. He had no concern about Iida or Tokage, and his experience from the earlier battle trials led him to believe that he could deal with Tokoyami under these lighting conditions. Yanagi appeared to match him in raw power, but was obviously running close to the edge of quirk exhaustion at this point, especially after her display in round one.
Therefore, there was no better time to strike than now, before she had a chance to rest too much longer.
Shoto strode out of the trees towards his goal with a single-minded purpose. The melee paused and parted in front of him, whether by chance or not unclear, but ultimately irrelevant. It was one less time that he needed to use his quirk, and that was all that mattered. Halfway to his goal, however, the students around him seemed to realize as one that they had him surrounded, and no longer parted quite so easily.
It was a large, heavily muscled student from Class 1-B, Sato, if he remembered correctly, that ultimately tried to hold him back. No words were exchanged, but as soon as his hand fell on Shoto's right shoulder, Shoto froze him on the spot.
Shrugging his way out of Sato's now icy grasp, Shoto turned to the other competitors around him. "I would advise you to stay out of my way."
The whine of engines was just enough of a warning for Shoto to duck and watch as Iida's attempt at grappling him found only air. As if this was a signal to all of the other students in the area, the others that had been surrounding him all apparently decided that he was the priority target.
Shoto sighed. No one ever seemed to take his warnings seriously.
In an instant, the eight students nearest to him, including Iida, were frozen to their spots on the ground. Shoto didn't have time for this. He needed to get to Yanagi as soon as possible so he could wear her down as needed and steal the golden target. There was no way that he could freeze all of the other students in place and deal with Yanagi at the same time, so he'd have to focus on one or the other.
Shoto continued on his trek towards the collection point, raising a wall between him and the rest of the competitors as soon as there was room. Ideally they would descend back into fighting amongst themselves once separated from the obvious threat, but there was no guarantee of that. He'd have to be quick.
A fist struck him in his right side, the impact felt somewhat less due to the cold numbing his nerves. A glance to that side showed nothing, but as soon as he looked, he was kicked solidly in his left leg, bringing him down to one knee.
So it was Tokage. He had hoped the sheer cold of the ice wall would ward her off. It was obvious that she had lizard traits, and cold-induced torpor seemed an obvious weakness to her quirk. Apparently she had trained enough to overcome the immediate effects. No matter.
Now that Shoto knew that it was Tokage working to stop him, all he had to do was find her pieces. Her fist and foot were easy to find, as they had just struck him, and each was immediately frozen in a pillar of ice. Shoto let his eyes roam, and as soon as he saw movement in the air around him, a new pillar shot up to capture yet another piece of Tokage's body.
Shivering ever so slightly, Shoto picked up the pace on his approach to the collection point. Tokage had not been entirely dealt with, but he was sure that he had frozen enough of her body to make sure that she stayed out of his way. Now it was down to just Yanagi herself. He could see her, standing just in front of the collection point, looking in his direction but not entirely at him, as if she were focused more on the fight beyond the ice wall.
Another student might be irritated at the dismissal, but Shoto only found cold determination at the sight. He would finish their rematch before she had a chance at reprisal.
His target in sight, Shoto launched an iceberg at Yanagi. It was a sizable attack, but he wanted to make sure that it was large enough to take her out of the running instantly. He would be able to deal with her in case it didn't, but it would make his acquisition of the golden target and return to the safety of his own collection point that much more difficult.
As he watched the attack approach Yanagi, however, something felt off. Even now, with the obvious wave of ice headed straight towards her, the girl still kept her eyes on the ice wall, apparently unworried by the impending strike. Before he had time for more than just a sinking feeling, however, a darkness spread out from behind their collection point, gathering between Yanagi and the ice.
A resounding crash rang out all around the clearing as the glacier that Shoto had summoned was stopped dead in its tracks. Darkness curled around the corners of the berg as claws sank deep into the ice, tearing it apart into a blizzard of ice. Dark Shadow stood, as large as Todoroki had ever seen it, roaring in pleasure at the excitement.
Somehow in all of the excitement, he had managed to forget all about Tokoyami. The bird-headed boy stood far to the rear, covered almost entirely from the daylight by foilage except for where his umbilical shadow connected him to his quirk.
" I've waited long enough, Fumi! I'll make this quick! " Obviously Tokoyami had been allowing Dark Shadow to power up in the dark. The boy's willpower must have been immense to keep it contained until the ideal moment came upon them.
Regardless, now that it was exposed to the sunlight, even in this shaded clearing, Dark Shadow could not put up much of a fight for long. Even now the quirk's eyes were shading from orange back to its normal yellow. Shoto wasn't given the chance to wait peacefully, however, as Dark Shadow struck out at him, quick as a viper.
Both of the combatants froze in shock, however, at a deafening crack from the ice wall. Glancing over his shoulder, Shoto was stunned to see the wall broken cleanly in half at its thickest point.
Framed perfectly by the shattered wall stood Izuku Midoriya, green lightning flickering across his body, eyes set in determination and slightly glowing in the shade of the remains of the wall. Shoto's task had just gotten significantly more challenging, as he was positive that Midoriya had a plan.
---
Izuku had no idea what he was doing here.
Essentially all of the one hundred standard targets had been found at this point, and Asui, no, Tsu, was doing her best to hunt down any of them that lay undefended. His team had managed to collect eighteen of the spheres at this point, most of them relatively early on. While there were, in principle, enough other targets available to keep them out of the top four of the event, in practice it was incredibly unlikely. Assuming that no one stole any of their targets at this point, they were moving on.
Which is why it made absolutely no sense for him to be here, in the center of the scramble for the golden target, expending some of his Fa Jin charge to break down Todoroki's ice barricade. Oh sure, Kaibara and Kaminari were certainly up to the task of defending their collection point, but they had a decent point about whichever team captured the golden target would have all eyes on them going into the final round.
Upon reflection, Izuku didn't really care about that for himself. If anything, he didn't want anyone other than All Might and Kyoka watching him in the finals, but knew that wasn't possible. In the heat of the moment, though, with both Kaibara and Kaminari staring at him with hope in their eyes, he'd agreed to come here to see if he could nab the golden target.
And as long as he was here, Izuku figured, he might as well give it his all.
In front of him stood Todoroki and Dark Shadow, both quickly recovering from the shock of his appearance. Todoroki recovered slightly faster, blasting Dark Shadow with an ice attack that pushed the quirk backwards towards Tokoyami himself, but Dark Shadow was quick with a riposte, clawing off two large chunks of ice and hurling them back at Todoroki.
Those two could distract each other for the time being. Izuku wouldn't mind at all.
That meant that the only thing standing between him and the golden target was Yanagi herself, calmly standing just in front of their collection point. Izuku wasn't sure exactly how much time was left in the round, but it couldn't have been too long.
With One For All pulsing in his veins at a steady five percent, Izuku threw himself forward, toward Yanagi. For a moment, he thought it would be as easy as just running in faster than she could react, but of course nothing could ever be so easy.
As soon as Izuku got even relatively close to Yanagi, his clothes began to glow with the purplish-pink light that was the hallmark of her quirk. It felt as if he were being bodily restrained by several very strong people. Even with five percent of One For All coursing through his body, Izuku was quickly brought to a halt, and even began to be pushed backwards by Yanagi's quirk.
Her attention was soon divided, however, as more of the students flooded through the gap in Todoroki's ice wall. Scales, horns, tape, and other projectiles we all turned aside with no more than a slight purple flash whenever they got too close to Yanagi or her collection point. The students themselves were still fighting amongst themselves for who would get the golden target, but those who found themselves too close to Yanagi were quickly shoved further away.
Izuku pushed One For All to seven percent and was able to stop his backwards slide. Stretching further, to nine percent, the highest he could currently draw upon without discomfort, Izuku began pushing back forward, closer to Yanagi and to the golden target behind her. His progress was slow, but Yanagi hadn't seemed to have noticed his movement yet. Izuku aimed to keep it that way.
As Yanagi's eyes slid back toward him, he froze, falling back to seven percent to not lose any progress. She wasn't looking to him, though, but towards Todoroki, who had overpowered Tokoyami. Now, he was walking slowly, but determinedly, towards the collection point, frost covering his entire right side.
Todoroki's clothes wrapped him tight, but an instant later a glacier popped up between him and Yanagi, easily ten feet tall and running between them the entire length of the way to her collection basket. It was enough to break her line of sight to Todoroki and free him. He picked his pace up to a jog as Yanagi began to use her quirk on the glacier. She was either unable or unwilling to display the same sort of power that she had at the end of the first round, struggle appearing on her face as she focused the majority of her power on breaking down the glacier.
This diversion of attention allowed Izuku to start moving again, even with just seven percent of One For All. Pushing himself to nine percent, Izuku could even move at a run, and angled himself to get behind Todoroki's glacier as soon as possible. From the corner of his vision, he saw Yanagi's attention split for just a moment, eyes widening in surprise. Then he was behind the iceberg and he was free.
Izuku stumbled at the sudden freedom of motion, but quickly caught himself and burst after Todoroki with One For All raging within him. Todoroki turned, eyes wide at Izuku's rapid approach, and something flickered. Flames danced along his left arm, shooting forward towards Izuku in places. On reflex, Izuku jumped to the side. Todoroki simply froze in place, staring at his left hand with eyes wide, in shock or fear, Izuku couldn't say.
Unwilling to wait any longer for Yanagi to get through the ice barrier to him, Izuku sped towards the collection point, ready to grab the golden target as soon as he arrived.
But the golden target wasn't there. Despite the presence of roughly twenty of the normal, silver targets, there was no golden sphere to be found in Yanagi's team's collection point.
Izuku didn't even have time to process that before Todoroki's glacier finally gave way, exploding into a storm of ice shards. Immediately he felt his clothes constrict around him once again, and this time he didn't even try to fight them.
Someone had gotten here first.
Air horns went off in the distance indicating the end of the event and the force holding him in place went slack, but Izuku could barely focus on any of it. His gaze swung to Yanagi, but she appeared just as surprised as he was at the absence of the golden target, and far more distraught. So it wasn't a trick of some sort by her team, but someone had managed to sneak the guaranteed ticket to the next round out from under their noses.
"Attention, all participants of the second round." Speakers built into the collection point crackled to life, with Midnight's voice flooding through. "The round was hard fought, but only four teams can move through to the final round. With their last minute acquisition of the golden sphere, Team Honenuki takes the automatic qualifier for the final round. This also means, of course, that Team Yanagi will not be advancing, despite otherwise having enough points to do so." Izuku realized he had seen neither hide nor hair of Honenuki for the entire round, nor any of his teammates. In principle, though, it would have been fairly straightforward for either Hagakure or Shinso to secret the golden target away.
"The remaining three teams to move through, in no particular order, are Team Todoroki, Team Midoriya, and Team Awase." Izuku let out a breath that he hadn't realized that he'd been holding. No matter how confident that he had been that his team would move through to the next round, hearing it confirmed took a weight off of his chest. Kyoka's team had also made it through, which warmed his heart as well. In fact, of his friends, only Shoji hadn't made it through to the finals. The consequences of having teams assigned for you.
"Congratulations to our finalists! Ectoplasm clones are making their way through the forest to collect you all. I'll be seeing you soon." Midnight signed off with a flirty flair to her voice that was entirely in character and entirely inappropriate for a teacher of high schoolers. Izuku didn't have time to dwell on that, however, as Todoroki stepped up to him, fire in his eyes.
"Midoriya." He sounded as if he were keeping a very short leash on his feelings, forcing a stoic facade. "We need to talk. In private. Once we get back, before lunch, follow me." Todoroki's tone didn't leave any room for argument. Chances were that he simply wanted to reiterate his challenge from before, so Izuku decided to humor the boy. Hopefully it wouldn't take too long and he could meet up with Kyoka and his friends for lunch.
---
Physical therapy was one of Hawks' least favorite things. After all, one would assume that with so many different healing quirks out there, that physical therapy just shouldn't be necessary anymore.
It turns out that breaking your spine in four different places, amongst the other assorted injuries that he'd received defending U.A, meant that you needed physical therapy no matter how many healing quirks they threw at you.
Therefore, in order to distract from the boredom of his physical therapy exercises he had turned on the U.A Sports Festival. Normally Hawks would have one of his sidekicks watch it to see if there were any interesting first years that he should keep an eye on, but given that he had been placed strictly on desk work for the extent of his recovery, he figured it was a reasonable distraction for him.
And unlike previous years, there was actual pressure from the commission to take a first year intern. Well, more than pressure, more of a demand that he take at least one of the first year finalists, with them strongly hinting at preferring more, or else he'd begin losing 'privileges'. Given that they had also referred to the medical care that had prevented him from becoming a sexiplegic (his wings were extra limbs, after all) as a privilege, he'd decided not to test them.
A little digging had shown him that the commission had made this edict to more than just him, but to roughly half of the top fifteen: Endeavor, Best Jeanist, Wash, Crust, Gang Orca, Shishida, and Yoroi Musha. All heroes that the commission considered 'very reliable'. Presumably the commission would be watching those requests to make sure each of the top 16 had at least one request from said 'very reliable' heroes.
It was notable that All Might and the two heroes that he had recently offered Might Tower to, Edgeshot and Kamui Woods, were not included in this edict, nor were Miruko nor Ryukyu. The commission always had plans in action, and Hawks would have paid a pretty penny to know what the goal of this particular one was.
Part of him was still disappointed that the ghost girl's team hadn't managed to make it to the final round. Oh sure, the invisible girl's plan of waiting until everyone was distracted and making a run for the golden target was inspired, and she made it work to perfection, but it still left him upset.
After all, it meant that he couldn't take a bird as an intern! No, he wasn't pouting, thank you very much!
Honestly, if he could, he would have taken both the ghost girl and the bird boy as interns. The girl's telekinesis quirk seemed to operate similarly to his own control over his feathers and he could teach her so much about multitasking and fine control. The boy, aside from being a bird (stupid rules keeping him out of the finals), had a fascinating quirk that was just oozing with raw potential. Both of them were obvious powerhouses, and if they played their cards right, were probably two of the few hero hopefuls out there that had the potential to keep up with him in raw speed in the air.
But alas, rules were rules. Maybe he'd send them invitations to intern with him anyway. His agency was growing. They could find room for three interns in total. Somewhere. Somehow.
As for the sixteen finalists, he paid attention to the screen once again, as Present Mic and Eraserhead were finishing their description of the final round and the teams in it.
"And there you have it folks, the four winning teams of our team scavenger hunt, and our contestants moving on to the final round! Now, you had a lot of helpful analysis for our viewers during that last round, Eraserhead. Anything you'd like to say about our finalists before we go on break?"
"Any one of them could win. Don't be fooled by flashy quirks or previous placement."
"Wise words indeed from our resident mummy. We'll leave you with the bracket for the final round, a one-on-one fighting tournament! Catch you on the flip side, folks!"
Momo Yaoyorozu vs. Denki KaminariYuga Aoyama vs. Ochako Uraraka Kyoka Jiro vs. Eijiro KirishimaHitoshi Shinso vs. Toru HagakureYosetsu Awase vs. Mei HatsumeTsuyu Asui vs. Sen Kaibara Shoto Todoroki vs. Juzo HonenukiIzuku Midoriya vs. Mina Ashido
Hawks studied the bracket carefully. Despite what Eraserhead had said, he felt comfortable predicting that at least ten of the remaining students had absolutely no chance. The bracket just didn't favor them at all. Poor quirk matchups or just an overall lack of firepower. He'd been surprised before, but not often.
Of the sixteen finalists, there were only a few that had caught his eye for potential internships so far. One was the Todoroki boy, but Endeavor was all but guaranteed to offer him an internship as well, as well as half of the heroes in the country. Even if the boy for some reason didn't go with his own father, it was almost certain that he'd go for another hero with an emitter based quirk instead of Hawks. Perhaps someone like Wash.
Tsuyu Asui and Ochako Uraraka had piqued his interest during their aerial chase in the second round. It had been mere luck that the camera drones had been in the area to observe it, but both of them were determined and maneuverable enough to fit in with his agency. Even more, Asui had a mutation type quirk, just like him, so he could offer her some helpful advice on a number of topics. He'd have to see what their combat chops were like.
The student that he most wanted as an intern, however, was Momo Yaoyorozu. A massively powerful quirk that appeared hamstrung by the girl's indecision. If there was one thing that Hawks knew that he was good at, it was planning and making decisions on the fly (pun intended). If Yaoyorozu could pick that up from him, she would be unstoppable.
It probably wasn't what the commission wanted him to teach to his interns, but it would have to do. Hopefully she would be smart enough to see through all of the things they presumably did want her to be taught. It would be a shame for her to end up like him.