Chapter 27: The Forbidden Zone.
The silence that hung over the stadium was brittle, a fragile sheet of glass waiting to be shattered. In the center of the arena, the air felt heavy, charged with the collective breath of forty-two students and the expectant gaze of thousands in the stands.
Bartholomew Kuma stood rooted to the earth, his bare feet gripping the turf. He could feel the tremors of adrenaline radiating from the teammates clinging to his frame. On his left, Uraraka's grip on his arm was tight, her knuckles white. On his right, Tokoyami was tense, the dark entity within him vibrating with anticipation. Above him, sitting on his broad shoulders, Midoriya Izuku was trembling—not from cold, but from the crushing realization that he was the prey.
The digital countdown on the massive screens ticked down. Three. Two. One.
Midnight's whip cracked against the air, a sharp sound like a pistol shot.
"START!"
The glass shattered.
Instantly, the stadium floor erupted into chaos. It wasn't a scattered melee; it was a synchronized implosion. Every single team, from Class A, Class B, and General Studies, turned inward with a singular, predatory focus. There was no hesitation, no strategy meetings—just a primal hunger for the ten million points blazing on Midoriya's forehead.
"THE TEN MILLION IS OURS!"
The roar was deafening, a physical wall of sound that hit them before the bodies did. A stampede of quirks and ambition rushed toward the center.
"They... they're all coming at once!" Midoriya screamed, his voice pitching high with terror. He looked left, right, forward, backward—there was no escape route. It was a sea of enemies closing in. "Kuma-kun! It's a total siege!"
Kuma did not flinch. He didn't even blink. He adjusted his stance, widening his legs slightly to lower his center of gravity, becoming a fortress of flesh and bone.
"Tokoyami, Uraraka. Anchor yourselves," Kuma's deep voice rumbled through his chest, vibrating against their arms. "Do not let go."
He released his grip on their legs for a fraction of a second, trusting the friction of their interlocked arms to hold the formation together. He thrust his massive open palm forward, aiming not at the students, but at the ground directly in front of the charging horde.
The air around his palm distorted, shimmering like a heat mirage.
"Pad Cannon: Shotgun."
BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM!
The sound was rhythmic and violent, like heavy artillery firing in rapid succession. Kuma didn't fire one large blast; he fired dozens of compressed air bullets into the dirt.
The earth exploded.
A curtain of soil, gravel, and dust shot upward with violent force, creating an artificial sandstorm that expanded rapidly outward. The front line of the charging students ran straight into it. The grit stung their eyes, the dust filled their lungs, and the sheer suddenness of the visual obstruction caused the 'horses' of the opposing teams to stumble.
"My eyes!"
"I can't see anything!"
"Stop! We're going to crash!"
The momentum of the charge was broken. Confusion rippled through the ranks as teams collided with each other in the blinding fog.
"Don't think a little dust will stop me, DEKU!"
A roar cut through the confusion, followed by the sharp, acrid smell of burnt sugar—nitroglycerin.
Piercing through the top of the dust cloud like a missile was Bakugo Katsuki. He had abandoned his team's formation, launching himself into the sky with explosions erupting from his palms. He flew with feral intensity, his eyes locked onto the headband, his face twisted in a snarl of pure aggression.
"Die!" Bakugo screamed, reaching out a clawed hand.
"He's coming from above!" Uraraka shouted, ducking her head instinctively.
"Dark Shadow!" Tokoyami commanded.
The shadow beast erupted from Tokoyami's chest, screeching as it swung a massive claw to intercept the aerial bomber.
BOOM!
Bakugo blasted the shadow aside with a point-blank explosion, the force of the blast illuminating the dust cloud with a flash of orange light. "Get out of my way, Bird-brain!"
He broke through the defense. He was inches away from Midoriya's face. Midoriya flinched, bracing for the impact.
Kuma didn't look up. He didn't need to. He felt the displacement of air, the heat of the explosions above his head.
With a movement that was terrifyingly fast for a man of his size, Kuma raised both hands high above his head, palms facing each other, framing the space where Bakugo was descending.
CLAP.
He brought his hands together with the force of a hydraulic press closing.
"Thunderclap."
It wasn't a physical strike. Kuma didn't touch the boy. But the sheer pressure of the air being forced out from between his massive hands created a vertical cannon of wind.
WHOOSH!
The updraft hit Bakugo directly in the stomach.
"Guh!" Bakugo gasped as the wind knocked the breath out of him. His downward momentum was instantly reversed. He was swatted out of the sky like a fly caught in a hurricane, tumbling backward through the air. He flailed, firing explosions frantically behind him to stabilize himself before crashing back down toward his team.
"DAMN YOU, BEAR!" Bakugo screamed as Kirishima scrambled to catch him.
But the reprieve was short-lived. The dust was settling, and from the clearing mist, a cold wind began to blow.
"They are distracted. Now."
Todoroki Shoto's voice was as cold as steel. His team burst through the lingering haze. They were fast, efficient, and terrifyingly coordinated. Iida was the engine, Yaoyorozu the arsenal, and Kaminari the weapon.
"Kaminari, discharge!" Todoroki ordered calmly.
"You got it!" Kaminari grinned, yellow sparks crackling wildly around his body. "Indiscriminate Shock... 1.3 Million Volts!"
The air smelled of ozone. A blinding flash of yellow lightning exploded outward, scorching the grass and forcing the other nearby teams to scramble back in terror. The arc of electricity raced toward Kuma's team like a jagged snake.
"Yaoyorozu!"
"Ready!"
In a fluid motion, Yaoyorozu Momo produced a thick, rubberized insulation sheet from her back. She threw it over herself, Todoroki, and Iida, creating a protective tent that shielded them from their own teammate's devastating attack.
"Dark Shadow is weak to light, but he is not conductive!" Tokoyami shouted, his voice strained as he forced the pained shadow entity to wrap around the team like a cocoon.
The lightning washed over them, dissipating harmlessly against the shadow and the ground, but the distraction had served its purpose.
"Now," Todoroki whispered.
In his hand, he held a metal rod that Yaoyorozu had created. He jammed it into the earth. The rod acted as a conduit, bypassing the air and sending his quirk directly into the soil.
"Freeze."
He unleashed his ice side. The frost didn't travel across the surface; it traveled through the rod and erupted directly beneath Kuma's feet.
CRACK-SNAP!
In an instant, the temperature dropped to freezing. Kuma's bare feet and ankles were encased in a thick, jagged block of ice, cementing the "Front Horse" to the earth.
"We can't move!" Uraraka cried, tugging at her leg. "It's stuck!"
Todoroki's team charged. They were seconds away. The ice glinted in the sunlight, a trap that had snapped shut.
Midoriya's heart hammered against his ribs. They were trapped. Todoroki was closing in. Bakugo was regrouping to the left. The other teams were circling like sharks smelling blood.
He looked down at Kuma's frozen legs. Then, a memory flashed in his mind. The obstacle race. The giant robot being blasted backward.
"Uraraka-san!" Midoriya shouted, his voice cracking with desperation. "Maximum Zero Gravity on all of us! Now!"
"R-Right!" Uraraka didn't hesitate. She slapped her pads against Kuma's neck and Tokoyami's shoulder. "Release!"
The sensation of weight vanished instantly. Kuma felt his stomach lurch as the gravitational pull on his massive body disappeared.
"Kuma-kun!" Midoriya yelled, gripping the giant's hair. "I saw your jump against the giant robot! You can do it again, right?!"
Kuma looked at the ice trapping his ankles. He looked at Todoroki's determined eyes closing in. He felt the weightlessness enveloping him.
"Certainly," Kuma replied. His voice was calm, a stark contrast to the panic surrounding them.
He didn't try to step out of the ice. He bent his knees deeply, the sheer torque of his muscles shattering the top layer of the frost. He placed his massive palms on his own thighs.
He channeled the pressure. He focused the air around his legs, compressing it until it screamed.
"Pad Cannon: Vertical Ascent."
WHOOOOOOSH!
It was like a rocket launch.
The ice encasing his feet didn't just break; it vaporized into a million diamond shards. A massive crater formed in the ground beneath them as Kuma repelled the earth itself.
The entire team—Midoriya, Uraraka, Tokoyami, and the massive Kuma—shot straight up into the sky.
"They flew?!" Iida slammed his heels into the ground to brake, staring upward in disbelief.
They soared twenty, thirty meters into the air. Because of Uraraka's Zero Gravity, the ascent didn't stop. They didn't arc and fall back down. They simply kept rising until the momentum faded, leaving them floating high above the stadium, suspended like a balloon fortress against the blue sky.
"We... we're safe!" Midoriya gasped, clutching the headband with trembling hands. The wind whipped his hair, and the stadium below looked like a toy set.
"DON'T YOU RUN AWAY!"
The scream came from below, getting louder.
Bakugo was in the air again. He had launched himself off Sero's tape, screaming in pure, unadulterated rage, propelling himself upward toward the floating team. Veins bulged in his forehead. He didn't care about points anymore; he only cared about the humiliation of being looked down upon.
"I'll kill you! Give me those points!"
He was closing the distance rapidly, an ascending comet of fury.
Kuma hovered in the air, stable despite the lack of gravity. He watched the explosive boy approaching. He adjusted his glasses, which had slipped slightly during the launch.
He extended his right hand.
"Persistent," Kuma noted dryly.
"Repel."
BAM.
A concise, invisible sphere of air pressure hit Bakugo square in the chest. It wasn't enough to injure him, but in the air, without leverage, physics was absolute.
Bakugo's ascent stopped dead. He hung in the air for a fraction of a second, his eyes wide with shock, before being launched downward, spinning uncontrollably.
"Katsuki!" Kirishima yelled from the ground, running to catch him. "Forget them! We need to secure points from other teams! Time is almost up!"
Bakugo crashed into his team, who barely managed to catch him, fuming and spitting curses, but realizing Kirishima was right. The fortress in the sky was untouchable.
Team Kuma floated silently in the sky, watching the chaos below as the other teams scrambled for scraps in the final desperate seconds.
"Ten seconds!" Present Mic screamed.
"Nine!"
Midoriya held onto Kuma's shoulders, tears of relief streaming down his face. "We did it... we actually did it."
"ZERO! TIME'S UP!"
The buzzer sounded, a long, harsh note that signaled the end of the war.
"Uraraka-san," Kuma said gently. "We can go down now."
"O-Okay..." Uraraka brought her fingertips together, her face pale green. "Release."
Gravity returned. They began to fall.
Kuma adjusted his boots and fired small, controlled bursts of air to slow their descent, landing softly on the grass.
As soon as they touched the ground, Uraraka collapsed to her knees. She covered her mouth, her cheeks bulging ominously.
"Too... much... floating..." she groaned, looking like she was about to be sick.
"Uraraka-san!" Midoriya panicked, rushing to her side.
Midnight cracked her whip, silencing the murmurs of the crowd. "The Cavalry Battle is over! Now, let's look at the top four teams!"
The scoreboard lit up.
1st Place: Team Kuma.
(Members: Midoriya Izuku, Bartholomew Kuma, Uraraka Ochaco, Tokoyami Fumikage)
Points: 10,000,000 +
2nd Place: Team Todoroki.
(Members: Todoroki Shoto, Iida Tenya, Yaoyorozu Momo, Kaminari Denki)
3rd Place: Team Bakugo.
(Members: Bakugo Katsuki, Kirishima Eijiro, Sero Hanta, Ashido Mina)
4th Place: Team Shinso.
(Members: Shinso Hitoshi, Ojiro Mashirao, Aoyama Yuga, etc.)
Midoriya stared at the screen, his eyes wide, trembling not from fear this time, but from shock. He looked at the number "1" next to his name.
"We... we're first?" Midoriya whispered, tears streaming down his face. He turned to Kuma. "Kuma-kun! We didn't just survive... we won! We kept the ten million!"
Uraraka cheered, throwing her hands in the air despite her nausea. "We're the top team!!"
Kuma untied the formation, rolling his shoulders to work out the stiffness. He dusted off his tracksuit and looked at his teammates with a calm nod.
"A solid defense," Kuma complimented them. "Good work, Rider."
Midoriya collapsed on the grass next to Uraraka, staring up at the sky, a massive grin breaking through his exhaustion. For the first time, he wasn't scraping by at the bottom; he was standing at the very top, carried by the strength of a tyrant.
But Kuma did not rest. He felt a gaze boring into the back of his neck. Cold. Calculating.
He turned his head slowly.
Across the field, standing in the shadows of the tunnel, was the captain of the 4th place team. A boy with messy purple hair and deep bags under his eyes. Hitoshi Shinso.
He was staring directly at Kuma, a faint, eerie smile playing on his lips.
The battle for points was over. The battle for the mind was about to begin.
.
.