Chapter Text
Around the edge of the arena was a broad, lined track. Izuku, distracted by the hilly, forested stage at the center, hadn't thought much of it before. He'd thought it was just a kind of spacer, to help protect the audience. It was, after all, much wider than any track he'd seen in middle school. It had to be, to accommodate forty kids side by side.
“Remember,” said Tokage, “we don't need to stay in this lane once we start. We want to move towards the inner lane, if at all possible.”
“That still seems risky,” said Tsuburaba, rubbing the back of his head. “Everyone else is going to do that, too, aren't they?”
Tokage waved him off. “As long as we're faster than them by enough, it doesn't matter.”
Dark Shadow jostled Izuku significantly. “Uh, um,” he said. “It kind of does? I mean, Aoyama especially is going to be dangerous to anyone in front of him, no matter how far in front of him they are, and we don't have a good counter for him.”
“I can get everyone else, though!” said Dark Shadow, waving enthusiastically. “Well, not that Honenuki guy, or the fireworks guy, or Aoyama, but everyone else.”
“We will, at least, do our best to deflect any attacks coming our way,” said Tokoyami.
“Sure,” said Tokage, shrugging. “But being in front is still important. Only the top four teams move on.” She stretched. “And I'm really looking forward to racing Todoroki again. He was fast at the recommendation exam. Not as fast as that wond kid, but still.”
“Uh huh,” said Izuku, once again letting his attention stray to the other groups. The first few teams had already gotten their leg binders and were putting them on.
Team Two had decided to order themselves as Kacchan-Shouji-Iida-Tsuyu. Izuku toyed briefly with the idea of Shouji using the webbing between his arms as some kind of wing, but there was no way to practice that in only one hour. More likely, the arrangement was to shield the more delicate members of the group from Kacchan's explosions. But that would be really painful for poor Shouji… Even if he could grow back his extra arms at will…
Izuku watched as one of Shouji's arms produced a lower leg and foot that he attached to Kacchan with visible reluctance. Huh. Izuku hadn’t even thought of that. Cool.
Todoroki and Shinsou's team, meanwhile, looked like they were having some trouble deciding who should stand where. Izuku could understand. A person on the outside could potentially be carried by the next person in, and had the greatest freedom of movement, but they were also the most vulnerable. Meanwhile, the people on the inside had to have the greatest coordination.
.
“Anyone else getting the impression that this thing is going to be less of a sprint and more of a slow, sad, shuffle?” asked Banjo, pretending to eat some of Yoichi's popcorn.
“Hey, get your own fake popcorn!”
“You get the crunch better than I do.”
Nana sighed. “I think groups with better cooperation will do better, which is probably what this is meant to advertise to potential mentors.”
“And Izuku is the best cooperater,” said Yoichi.
“Oh, gross, get those hearts out of your eyes,” said En. “How are you even doing that? Nana, did you know we could do that?”
“Uh, no. No I did not.”
“Kids these days,” said Banjo. “They get shocked by all sorts of things. Can you believe this, Hikage?”
“Yes.”
.
Izuku soon found himself wedged between Tokage and Tokoyami, examining the leg binder. He still wasn't entirely sure about the arrangement. Tsuburaba was on the other side of Tokage, and Izuku was a bit worried that they'd lose him. On the other hand, he and Tokoyami being able to essentially run a three-legged race was going to increase their overall speed a lot, and Tokage and Tsuburaba liked it this way.
“There's actually a pretty good amount of freedom of movement with this,” said Izuku. “You could probably flip it all the way around and have someone hug the person next to them. Or hang off their back.”
“Huh, yeah,” said Tokage. “We should look out for that, with outer people. I'm kind of used to these kinds of races being done with tape. And no quirks.”
The next three groups received their binders without issue, but standing up and getting into the ‘ready’ position was a bit of a production. Team Five, with Kaminari and Kouda, especially had trouble.
But then they were all ready and waiting. Danger Sense hummed, low-grade but present. Mobility quirks would be targeted first, in this event, and even if Izuku still couldn't move horizontally with Float, it was a mobility quirk. And added to Tokage's quirk…
Izuku thought they had a pretty good chance.
Ms. Kayama snapped her whip and the starting horns blared.
Team Nine went off like a rocket, and Izuku and Tokage yanked their neighbors off the ground to avoid Honenuki's opening move of liquifying the track. This was quickly counteracted by Todoroki's opening move, which was to freeze the track.
The Kirishima lookalike (Izuku still wasn't sure what his name was - it couldn't be Testutetsu Tetsutetsu, that had to be a nickname) on the white team had sunk up to his waist before Todoroki froze the ground, and had dragged his team in with him. They weren't the only ones with that problem, although theirs was the worst.
Team Nine, Todoroki's green team, Honenuki's cyan team, and Izuku's own team were the only ones that had managed to avoid getting stuck at all.
Watching Tokage come apart was very cool but kind of disturbing. She pushed Tsuburaba into Izuku, then pulled them across the liquid part of the track onto solid land. It wasn't fast, but they were moving.
Predictably, attacks started flying. An invisible force - the girl with telekinesis from 1-B? It wasn't Hagakure - pulled them back, and Sero tried to snag them with his tape, but Dark Shadow blocked him. Vine tried the same thing, but she'd tried to grab Uraraka and fallen short.
Kacchan had exploded his team out of the ice, somehow without maiming anyone, but Tsuyu didn't look great. Still she managed to cling on to Iida and even made an attempt at tripping up Kendo with her tongue as Team Four ran ahead.
Team Three, with Ojirou, Kirishima, Shoda, and Kodai got out with a fascinating application of the latter two's quirks, but had trouble coordinating once they did.
Being able to run more normally was a greater boon than Izuku had expected, and they were soon outdistancing most of the other groups based on that alone.
Bursts of laser fire - Aoyama - erupted from behind them, along with a splattering sound from either Ashido or the glue quirked student from 1-B. Aoyama probably wasn't helping in the speed department, but one of his shots hit Kaminari, who tumbled head over heels, taking out the rest of the cyan team. Honenuki managed to liquify the track again, but it was too late to get Bakugou's team, much less anyone else ahead of them, and in the meantime, the rest of his team didn't have any advantage moving through the mud.
Abruptly, a massive shoe pushed the yellow team to second place. Izuku was jostled as they passed, and that jostle suddenly became a painful, full-body shove. That was - what was his name? Mines? Nirengeki?
Either way, Tokoyami pulled him back up, just in time for a second huge shoe to bar the way.
“Going up?” asked Izuku, because that or Tsuburaba making air stairs were the only ways Izuku could think to get over the shoe. But it turned out they didn't have to, because Kacchan savaged it. And then, Tokage grabbed onto both of Kacchan's ankles with her disembodied hands and yanked.
This had the expected effect, and Izuku's group ran on past him. Tsuburaba paused and blew out a thin barrier across the track behind them, at clothesline height. Kacchan blasted through it, of course, but it did slow him down a little.
“You still good?” asked Dark Shadow.
Tsuburaba, out of breath, gave her a weak thumbs up.
Far ahead, Uraraka's team was already rounding the end of the track and starting the journey back. Not too far away, Todoroki's team was half riding on the back of the boy with the beast transformation - Gevaudan was his hero name, Izuku couldn't remember his real one - half skating and sliding. Ojirou's team was still pushing ahead, but Nirengeki and Kirishima were both obviously flagging, and they were running out of shoes to sacrifice to the enlargement quirk.
Behind them, meanwhile, Kacchan was closing fast. Ashido's magenta team wasn't too far behind, either. The boy with the welding quirk had apparently welded a bunch of the words from the speech bubble boy's quirk onto the boy with rotating limbs, and they were using him as a propeller as they slid along on Ashido's acid.
They rounded the corner themselves, and started to fend off attacks from the other side.
The main danger from that area still looked like Aoyama, surprisingly enough, although they were still second to last, with Yaoyorozu's team still wading through the mun near the starting line. Aoyama kept shooting off lasers, even though it was obviously causing him pain at this point.
.
“Is that kid even trying to hit Izuku's team?” asked Nana.
“No,” said Hikage.
“I was afraid you'd say that…”
“New game,” said Yoichi. “It’s called ‘Crush or Spy.’ It’s where we agonize over whether or not a kid’s weird behavior is because they have a crush, or because they’re secretly working for my brother.”
“I don’t think I like this game,” said Hikage.
“There will be a prize,” said Yoichi in his best ‘tempting’ voice.
“Will it be food?” asked En. “With flavor?”
“If I’d figured that out, do you think I’d be keeping it secret?”
“Then I’m not interested.”
“Are you sure?” asked Yoichi.
En sighed. “Maybe it’s both.”
“Crush,” said Nana. “It’s a crush. They’re all crushes.”
“They can’t all be crushes,” said Third. “Ninth isn’t nearly attractive enough for that.”
“They’re not necessarily all on Nin–” started Nana.
Yoichi gasped loudly. “I did not just hear that.”
.
As if to prove Izuku wrong, a barrage of horns erupted from Tsunotori. Izuku and Dark Shadow managed to dodge, but one of them caught in Tsuburaba's jacket, and he went down, hard. Meanwhile, four horns pinned Kacchan down and another knocked Kirishima over. Kendo, on Todoroki's team, managed to knock away all of the horns that came for their group.
Once they got Tsuburaba up, Honenuki's team was drawing even with Kacchan's team. Then, the ground liquified again. Izuku got them up off the ground just in time to avoid being mired, but now Tokage had to drag them back out to solid ground, and meanwhile Honenuki’s team could run past them, with him making a path.
But Izuku and Tokoyami had a bigger problem. Kacchan had caught up.
“Don't pick a fight!” scolded Iida, as Kacchan tried to get closer. “This is a race, not a brawl!”
“Screw you, four-eyes!”
Dark Shadow squealed and retreated from Kacchan's blasts, pulling them off course.
“Wait, Dark Shadow, go forward, go forward!”
Neck-in-neck, Izuku's team and Kacchan's passed Kirishima's dazed and slightly singed team. Apparently, Kaminari had shocked them. But how was the rest of Kaminari's team - Honenuki's team - faring after that discharge?
Tsunotori wobbled and fell over.
Oh. So… they weren't. Okay.
.
“That kid needs some serious help,” said Yoichi. “Something to help him not hit his teammates, at least.”
“They did have something for that, that they thought up for him to use with Yaoyorozu, didn’t they?” said Nana. “An insulating blanket, a sort of shock prod–”
“Right,” said Banjo, “but he still needs to be able to touch civilians and fight villains at the same time. Like, Blackwhip would’ve been a lot less effective if I couldn’t both crush skulls and cradle babies with it.”
“And maybe something that keeps him from frying his brain, because that's just…” Yoichi trailed off.
“Oh, what now?” asked Nana.
“New game,” said Yoichi.
“No,” said Third.
“Yes,” said Yoichi. “This one is legit quirk drawback versus damage from the quirk being forcibly implanted their body!”
The ghosts groaned.
.
The rest of the team hoisted Tsunotori up, but it was too late, they were falling behind again.
“Shield!” shouted Izuku, just in time for Tsuburaba to put up a thin defense against Kacchan. The air wall deflected enough of the blast that Tsuburaba wasn't blown off course.
“Ow!” shouted Tokage, faltering.
“Yeah, I know you still feel pain, jigsaw chick! Wonder if they'll still count you as having crossed the finish line if some of you is pounded into the mud out here?”
“I can grow it back before the finish line,” Tokage hissed in Izuku's ear. “Keep going!”
Izuku hooked his fingers around Tsuburaba's collar and hoisted them all higher into the air, away from Kacchan's blasts.
“COME BACK HERE, JIGSAW B–”
.
“Wow,” said Nana, crossing her arms, “way to keep the internationally broadcast competition rated PG.”
“Didn't you teach Eighth to swear in English?” asked En.
“No comment.”
“Doesn't he literally swear all the time?”
“No comment.”
“Forget that,” said Banjo. “Does the exploding brat still not realize it's Ninth that's lifting them? Does he think it's just the Tokage girl? Carrying three other people? Is he in denial or something?”
“I hate to be the one to say this, but should you really be calling a kid you don't know a brat?” asked En.
“Are you saying he's not one?”
“... No.”
.
Luckily, linked to the rest of his team, Kacchan really couldn't follow them that far up. And they were quite a ways up, now. Far enough that…
“H-hey, Tsuburaba, I was thinking– Could you make a slide?”
“Huh,” said Tsuburaba.
Tsuburaba wasn't able to make a slide that went all the way too the corner - and that would have been dangerous, anyway, when they needed to turn - but sliding was a lot faster than Tokage towing them, and easier on her, too. Since there was no one nearby who could break Tsuburaba's constructs, it was fairly secure, too.
Rather, there was no one nearby who could break the constructs until they got closer to Todoroki. Todoroki barely even glanced back as he cast shards of ice at their air slide, breaking it.
It was fine, really. With Float, all landings were soft landings and they were almost to the broad curve at the end, and from there, it was only a short distance to the finish line.
They were going to make it!
If Kacchan didn't catch up and kill them.
They rounded the corner, and started back. Again, they had to dodge attacks from the other side of the track, but it was fine. Danger Sense gave Izuku enough of an edge to even avoid the rubber grapeshot from Yaoyorozu’s canon.
.
“She’s got to have something better than the canon, too,” said Nana. “I know it’s simple, so it’s easy to remember, but it’s still way too big.”
“She probably just panicked,” said En. “It’s something she’s used to, and her group is losing badly. It isn’t that bad of a choice.”
“Still, if she’s going to make something that big, she could have made a scooter or roller skates or something.”
“To go through mud?”
“Eh.”
En shook his head. “You guys with mobility quirks, ignoring what the ground is like, as if it isn’t important. Tsk tsk.”
“Hey, I pay attention to the ground,” said Banjo.
“Do you, though?”
.
Nust ahead of them, Todoroki said something to Shinsou. Shinsou looked back, a strange expression on his face.
“Sorry about this, Midoriya!” he shouted, still only barely loud enough to be heard over the general bedlam.
Izuku frowned. “Sorry about–?”
.
“Oh,” said Nana.
“Yeah, that makes what happened with the electric kid make a lot more sense,” said Banjo.
“No! Izuku! Wake up!” said Yoichi, his popcorn and beanbag constructs vanishing as he stopped paying attention to them. “Noooooo! You have to wake up, or your team will lose!”
“Wow, this hallucination is a lot more detailed and vivid than Mr. Yagi described! Should I be worried about that?”
.
Tokoyami and Dark Shadow shook Izuku back and forth vigorously, and he he dropped out of the trance Shinsou's quirk had put him in– and almost dropped out of the sky. They were high up. Very high.
“Sorry,” said Tokoyami. “We didn’t know what else to do to wake you up.”
“Right,” said Izuku, feeling a little breathless. He surveyed the ground beneath them, trying to reorient himself
.
“He was here!” said Yoichi, more hysterical than before. Unlike before, however, the rest of the ghosts were reacting the same way.
Except for Second, but no one cared about him, anyway.
“He was here here,” said Nana.
“He was here and he saw us and we didn't even tell him about his evil murderous father,” said En.
“I didn't get to introduce myself to my nephew!”
.
Not only were they far above the track, not only had they left Tsuburaba far below them, but they weren’t in third place anymore. They weren't even in fourth.
“Tokage–”
“I can't tow you that fast,” said Tokage's otherwise disembodied head.
Izuku was afraid of that. And Izuku would still have to lower them– this wasn't a height he would dare drop from all at once. If he screwed up his timing, they'd die.
.
Yagi flicked the switch on the microphone. “Young Aizawa, we do have some kind of… fall prevention mechanism, over the track, yes?”
“Hng,” said Shouta, who was not white-knuckling the arms of his chair.
.
“Tokoyami, Dark Shadow, you'll have to do it.”
“But–”
“Please, you pull Tokoyami around,” said Izuku. He watched Todoroki's team slide across the finish line.
“He's right,” said Tokoyami. “Dark Shadow, we must do this.”
“I'll help,” said Tokage, “I’m pulling now and helping Tsuburaba down there, too, but I'm just not fast enough when carrying things.”
“Ohh,” said Dark Shadow.
“You can do it! You can do it! Go Dark Shadow! Fight!” said Izuku. That was how people cheered each other on, right? He'd never really cheered anyone on, except for heroes and Kacchan.
Dark Shadow trembled, then seemed to explode, and they were moving at speed.
Ahead of them, Kacchan's team crossed the finish line. Ashido's group would be next, taking the last spot, unless they could reach them.
“Faster, Dark Shadow, faster!” urged Tokoyami. “We must be as swift as the darkness itself!”
Dark Shadow let out an extremely eerie scream, and then the comic-headed boy… tripped. A detached foot floated away from him and then back towards a huffing and puffing Tsuburaba.
And Dark Shadow pulled them forward and down, to meet Tsuburaba. Tokage pulled herself back together - and, wow that was cool to see - and then the four of them were stumbling across the finish line as a team.
They stumbled off the track and sat down.
“Did we… make it?” asked Izuku.
Tokage pointed up at the nearest big screen. Their names were there, next to the number four.
“Oh,” said Izuku. “Good.” Then, he let himself fall back onto the ground.
“And that's it for the race!” said All Might, as the last group - Aoyama's - crossed the finish line. “Please give a warm round of applause to all the future heroes who participated! Regardless of what place they earned or whether they're moving on to the next event, they went PLUS ULTRA today!” He paused to let the noise die down. “In a few minutes, the third and final event will be announced, and then we will have an extended break for lunch and recreational games - and don't ignore those just because they aren't part of the main three events! They showcase a surprising number of heroic skills!”
“I wonder if they're putting rescue stuff in those,” said Izuku. “We didn't really talk about it when we were making predictions.”
“You guys made predictions?” asked Tokage, who had escaped from the leg binders via the expedient of temporarily removing her feet. Izuku and Tokoyami were too tired to figure out how to remove theirs. Dark Shadow, for her part, was two-dimensional on the ground.
“Yeah,” said Izuku. “They were wrong, though.”
“What do you think it'll be for this one?” asked Tsuburaba, fiddling with his own leg binder.
“One-on-one combat,” said Izuku. “Single elimination tournament.”
“Huh,” said Tokage. “That should be fun. Wonder how they'll sort it. Seeds? Random chance?”
“It seems to vary,” said Izuku. “At least once they had a panel of independent heroes picking seeds, but other times it’s clearly random."
“I do not recall you mentioning that in your powerpoint.” Tokoyami slicked back a few of his feathers that had been ruffled during the race.
“It wasn’t like it was anything we could do anything about, anyway. I think it might have been mentioned in Iida's research.”
“Ah, and thereby obscured by darkness, I see.”
.
“Was it in Iida’s research?” asked En.
“No idea,” said Yoichi. “Too many rules, lost interest.”
.
When they were announced, the matches looked like this:
GROUP ONE
A15 vs. Earphone Jack
Brigid vs. Celerity
Lizardy vs. Mock
Gevaudan vs. Wonder
GROUP TWO
Uravity vs. Battle Fist
Tsukuyomi vs. Froppy
Mr. Mirror vs. Tentacole
B17 vs. B12
“I think,” said Izuku, trying to puzzle out the reasoning behind the matches, “I think they must have done a little bit of seeding, but also tried to make it so that there’s no one from the same team fighting each other in the first round.”
“Yeah,” said Tokage. “Wonder why they did that.”
“Maybe to make it more fair if you had to reveal a big weakness to your team so you didn’t lose in the second round?” proposed Izuku. “Or so that you’re not going straight from cooperating with someone to fighting with them.”
“That seems a bit nice for our teachers, though, doesn’t it?” asked Tokage.
“I mean, they’re trying to, you know, show us off, so… It makes sense that they wouldn’t want us to just…” He waved his hand vaguely. “You know.”
“Yeah, maybe,” said Tokage. She stood up and stretched. “Guess I’ll be fighting you in round two, if you beat Shishida. I don’t suppose you’d mind telling me how that purple-haired kid’s quirk works? Since you seem to know him, and all.”
“Only if you don’t mind telling me how Shishida’s quirk works,” said Izuku, somewhat surprised by his own daring.
Tokage laughed. “I like you, Midoriya! But, no. Guess we'll have to rely on our own wits.”
“Yeah,” said Izuku, offering her a smile. Should he say ‘good luck?’ Shinsou was… sort of a friend, now, and he'd just met Tokage, really, so would that be dishonest? Disloyal?
He still wasn't quite sure of the– the logistics involved in so many people being friendly to him.
“Um,” he said, throwing up a shaky pair of thumbs. “Do your best?”
.
“It's too bad we can't give the kid a quirk for social skills,” said Banjo.
“Aw, it's not that bad,” said Nana. “It's kind of cute, actually.”
.
“I'm- I'm going to go clean up a bit and get lunch,” said Izuku to Tokoyami after the 1-B students had left. “Do you…?”
“It's too early for lunch,” said Tokoyami, who was now lying down next to Dark Shadow, although he couldn't match her flatness.
“Mm,” said Izuku. It wasn't quite eleven yet, but he'd probably make up the time just walking to the bathroom, because he intended to walk slowly.
Honestly, part of him was surprised it was already this late. Where had all the time gone?
He'd gotten to the prep room at about eight thirty, then they'd gone down to the entrance tunnel and marched out a little after nine… Even though it hadn't felt like it, everyone marching around the stadium and getting into their assigned rows in front of the stage had taken a while. Then he'd given his speech. The Star Seeker event had only been fifteen minutes, but the instructions and getting all of the winners to the stage had probably brought them to almost ten. Preparing for the race had been… He didn't remember. The race itself had probably only been like five or ten minutes. Then, they'd all decided to collapse here for a while.
Yes, that seemed to account for the time.
“O-okay,” said Izuku. “Good luck with your matches if I don't see you?”
“And you, as well,” said Tokoyami.
Izuku got up and walked over to the passage to the competitor's area. As soon as he went under the overhang, he was ambushed. He flailed. Shouldn't Danger Sense have warned him about this?
“We both got in!” said Uraraka, picking him up and twirling him.
Oh. Not that kind of ambush.
“Yeah, you guys are going to have to represent class 1-A,” said Hagakure, who was apparently also there. Actually, a pretty large chunk of the class was there.
“Yes,” agreed Yaoyorozu. “The way we were divided was unfortunate, and I am disappointed in my own failure to move on, but I am confident that one of you will prove victorious.”
“I- I mean, 1-B is pretty good, too,” said Izuku. “And Hatsume is just dangerous. Where's Iida, anyway?”
“He went to eat lunch with his brother, kero,” said Tsuyu.
“Speaking of which,” said Uraraka, “I should probably call my parents.”
There was a smattering of agreement, and the group dissolved, most of them taking out their cell phones and finding quiet corners. Izuku, for his part, had decided not to call his mother until after all the events were done. Otherwise, he just knew he'd start crying, too, and he didn't want to try to take on the third event while dehydrated.
… He got a little teary, just thinking about what she'd say.
He continued his journey to the bathroom. Why were they so far back?
He stopped. The hall was much more dangerous than it had been a minute ago.
What- Had a villain-?
Oh. No. It was Kacchan, down the hall, staring at him. Just… bad timing.
.
“Hikage, is this anything like a normal reaction to…” Nana trailed off. “I'm not sure how to classify this relationship, actually.”
“I don't know,” said Hikage.
“What do you mean, you don't know?” demanded Banjo. “You had that quirk your whole life.”
“I never had a relationship like this.”
“You know what, fair.”
.
Izuku could leave. The prep area was close, and he didn't think Kacchan would chase him down, this time, not after all the trouble he'd gotten in before. But the bathrooms were right there, and… and Izuku was tired of running away from Kacchan.
He was a hero student, too.
And who knew? Maybe they'd wind up fighting each other in the final match.
He squared his shoulders and walked forward.