The roar of the crowd was a distant, oceanic hum in the competitor's tunnel as the giant screen above the arena flickered to life, displaying the final rankings of the Obstacle Race.
1st: Kirigaya Hiro – 0:03:12
2nd: Kirigaya Nozomi – 0:03:12.04
3rd: Midoriya Izuku – 0:03:45
4th: Todoroki Shoto – 0:03:46
5th: Bakugo Katsuki – 0:03:47
6th: Iida Tenya – 0:03:50
7th: Tokoyami Fumikage – 0:03:55
8th: Yaoyorozu Momo – 0:03:58
9th: Kirishima Eijiro – 0:04:01
10th: Ashido Mina – 0:04:03
The list continued, showcasing the spread of Class 1-A throughout the top 20, a testament to their grueling two-week crucible in the lab. Kaminari (14th) had navigated the robots with smart, contained shocks instead of a full discharge. Shoji (16th) had used his multi-arms to swing through the canyon with brute-force agility. Most strikingly, Toru Hagakure had placed a respectable 31st. She hadn't been flashy, but her training showed; she'd moved with a new, confident awareness, using her light-bending not to disappear, but to create blinding flashes in robots' sensors at key moments, slipping past them unseen.
Midnight's whip cracked, drawing all eyes. "What a phenomenal first act! Now, for the main event of the first round… the Cavalry Battle!"
The rules scrolled across the screen. Teams of two to four students. The points assigned were based on your placement. A cold smile touched my lips as I saw the value appear next to my name.
Kirigaya Hiro: 10,000,000 Points.
A collective gasp, then a roar, erupted from the other 41 qualifiers. Every head swiveled towards me. The looks were no longer of awe or rivalry, but of naked, calculating hunger. I wasn't a person anymore; I was a walking jackpot, a glowing bullseye.
"That's right, listeners!" Present Mic screamed. "The point value is determined by your placement! First place gets a cool ten MILLION! Which makes our leader, Hiro Kirigaya, the biggest target on the field!"
Nozomi's midnight black eyes met mine across the huddle of students. Her smirk was a blade. She held up four fingers, then made a slicing motion across her throat. Message received. She would build a team not to protect me, but to hunt me.
"You have fifteen minutes to form your teams! Begin!"
Instant pandemonium.
I was surrounded instantly. "Kirigaya! Team up with me! My engines can get us out of trouble!" Iida barked, already strategizing.
"My creation quirk can build any defense!" Momo added, her voice urgent.
"Dude, with your power and my durability, we'd be unstoppable!" Kirishima pleaded.
But I was looking past them. I needed mobility, defense, and most importantly, teammates who wouldn't be intimidated by the target on my back—or by my sister.
"Tokoyami," I said, cutting through the noise. The bird-headed boy emerged from the shadow of the crowd, Dark Shadow coiling around him. "Your Dark Shadow provides unparalleled area denial and defense. Can you handle the pressure of being the most hunted team's rearguard?"
Tokoyami's eyes gleamed. "The encroaching darkness fears no hunters. I accept."
"Kaminari," I turned to the electric user, who looked shocked to be called. "I need a discrete, wide-range stun capability. No indiscriminate wheeyyy. A focused, channeled surge on my command. Can you do that?"
He swallowed, then grinned, a spark jumping between his fingers with uncharacteristic control. "After those lab drills? Yeah. I can funnel it."
"Kirishima," I said to the redhead. "You're the horse. The unbreakable foundation. Can you carry us and hold the line against everything they throw at us?"
"That's the manliest job there is!" he roared, hardening his skin with a satisfying clink. "I won't buckle!"
Team Hiro was formed: Kirishima (the foundation), with Tokoyami on his right shoulder, Kaminari on his left, and me, the 10-million-point rider, standing tall on Kirishima's hardened back.
Across the way, Nozomi's team coalesced with chilling efficiency. She didn't ask; she selected. She pointed at Iida. "You're our engine. Maximum mobility." She pointed at Momo. "You are our armory and strategist. Create what we need, when we need it." Her final choice was Shoji. "You are our sensory net and secondary bindings. No one approaches unseen."
Team Nozomi was a masterpiece of support synergy: Iida as the horse, with Momo and Shoji as the flanking riders, and Nozomi, a serene and deadly queen, perched atop.
Other teams formed rapidly. Midoriya, Todoroki, and Bakugo, as the other top scorers, became instant captains of their own desperate alliances. But the entire field's strategy was defined by two poles: capture the 10 million, or avoid the twins' war.
"BEGIN!"
The battle was chaotic from the first second. A dozen teams, led by students from Class B and General Studies, surged towards me like piranhas. "Get the ten million!"
"Kinetic Mirror!" I crossed my arms. The air around our team shimmered silver. The first wave of physical and energy-based quirks—a jet of water, a streak of acid, a kinetic punch—struck the barrier and rebounded, sending the attackers tumbling.
"Kaminari, now! Channel through me!" I ordered, extending a hand. He placed his palm against my boot, and I focused, acting as a living conductor. A controlled arc of electricity, not a wild burst, shot from my other hand, zigzagging across the floor to trip up the next wave.
"Dark Shadow!" Tokoyami commanded. The shadowy beast expanded, not as a wild monster, but as a defensive, whipping tendril that lashed out, not to attack, but to snatch headbands from riders who got too close, its movements sharp and precise from countless lab simulations.
Meanwhile, Nozomi's team was a scalpel. Iida's engines roared, and they became a golden blur. She didn't engage with me directly. Instead, they cut through the midfield like a shark. As a team led by Tetsutetsu (Class B's Kirishima) lunged at them, Nozomi didn't use Celestial Weave. She used Sonic Shatterpoint, a focused chirp that vibrated the metal boy's armor, stunning him long enough for Shoji's extended arms to pluck their headbands with ease. Momo, from her position, created compact smoke grenades and flash-bangs, controlling the battlefield with surgical precision.
The growth of our classmates was everywhere. Uraraka, acting as a rider for a team, used her Zero Gravity not just on opponents, but on her own teammates for micro-adjustments and unexpected leaps. Ojiro used his tail with new, whip-crack precision to deflect grabs. Toru, on a team with Koda and Sato, was a nightmare; opponents couldn't tell where she was, only feeling sudden, precise tugs at their headbands as her light-bending fingers, trained to a razor's edge, did their work.
But the central drama was the twins. Nozomi's team, having harvested a small fortune from the mid-tier teams, finally turned their gaze to me. Iida shot towards us.
"Incoming!" Kirishima growled, bracing.
"Tokoyami, full defensive sphere! Kaminari, prepare to overload their comms!" I commanded.
Nozomi stood on Iida's shoulders, her golden threads not aiming for my headband, but for my teammates. She was trying to dismantle my support system. Shoji's arms shot out to grab Kirishima, while Momo created a net of quick-hardening polymer to entangle Dark Shadow.
It was a perfect, coordinated assault. But we had trained for this, too.
"Gravitic Lens – Repulse!" I focused on the ground directly in front of Iida. The localized gravity inverted for a split second. Iida, moving at phenomenal speed, hit the patch and was violently shoved upward as if the floor had become a springboard. His perfect charge was disrupted, throwing off Nozomi's aim. Her golden threads went wide.
In that moment of imbalance, I struck. Not at her headband, but at Momo's. "Phase-Step!" I flickered off Kirishima's back, appearing for a nanosecond in the space between teams, my hand a blur. I snatched two headbands from around Momo's neck—one of them worth a substantial 850 points—before flickering back to my perch.
Nozomi's eyes blazed. I had outmaneuvered her, but I hadn't taken her main headband. She had hundreds of thousands of points. I still only had my 10 million and the scraps I'd just grabbed.
The final minute was a desperate free-for-all. Bakugo's team, in a furious rage, launched a suicidal charge at both of us, creating a massive explosion that scattered formations. In the smoke and chaos, as the clock ticked down, I saw Nozomi's team execute their endgame. They weren't after me anymore. They were after everyone else.
Iida moved with impossible speed, a golden thread from Nozomi lashing out like a fishing line, snagging headbands from distracted riders—from Tsuyu, from Jiro, from a panicked Class B student. She was accumulating points with ruthless, efficient greed.
The buzzer sounded.
TIME!
Panting, our teams disengaged. The scoreboard flashed, tallying the points.
1st: Team Nozomi – 11,450,000 Points
2th: Team Hiro – 10,850,000 Points
3rd: Team Todoroki – 908,000 Points
4th: Team Bakugo – 905,000 Points
5th: Team Midoriya - 887,000 points
A stunned silence, then an uproar.
I had retained my 10 million. But by the rules, my team's total was just that—my massive starting value plus the few scraps I'd grabbed. Nozomi, by ruthlessly harvesting the entire middle of the pack, had amassed a fortune. She hadn't taken the crown jewel, but she'd claimed the entire treasury around it.
She stood across the field, surrounded by her team. She held up her massive collection of headbands, a cascade of colored cloth. Then, she looked directly at me, her expression one of serene, victorious cunning. She hadn't beaten me in a direct fight. She had beaten me at the game.
Present Mic's voice broke through the noise. "UNBELIEVABLE! THE TEN MILLION POINT HEADBAND REMAINS WITH HIRO KIRIGAYA, BUT BY SHEER VOLUME OF CONQUERED HEADBANDS… THE WINNER OF THE CAVALRY BATTLE IS… TEAM NOZOMI!"
I looked at my team. Kirishima was grinning, proud we'd held the fort. Tokoyami gave a solemn nod. Kaminari looked relieved he hadn't short-circuited.
I met Nozomi's gaze. I gave her a slow, conceding nod. She had played the meta-game perfectly. She'd understood the assignment wasn't "capture Hiro," but "accumulate the most points." She'd used my giant target as a distraction while she claimed everything else.
The principal had beaten the trick.
Midnight took her place on the stage once more, her whip snapping through the air with a sharp crack that silenced the roaring stadium almost instantly. The crowd leaned in, hungry, buzzing, still processing what they had just witnessed.
"Well now~," she purred, eyes glinting with amusement as she swept her gaze across the battlefield littered with exhausted students and discarded headbands. "What a thrilling cavalry battle! Strategy, teamwork, deception, and a whole lot of guts on display!"
"THOSE TWO FOX KIDS ARE INCREDIBLE."
"THEY ARE MONSTERS!"
Cheers, gasps, and groans exploded all at once.
Midnight smiled wickedly. "But what will the next event be~?" She tapped her chin dramatically. "Well, I suppose you'll just have to wait and see after the break!"
The announcement sent the stadium into another frenzy, but my focus had already narrowed.
I exhaled slowly and stepped down from Kirishima's back, boots hitting the grass with a dull thud. My legs felt heavy now that the adrenaline was draining, the delayed ache of sustained Soul-Flux manipulation creeping into my muscles.
Kirishima cracked his neck beside me, grinning as he'd just survived the greatest workout of his life. "Man, that was INSANE! Holding the line against basically the whole festival? That was peak manliness!"
Tokoyami adjusted his stance, Dark Shadow retreating closer to his form, its presence calmer now. "Our formation held. The darkness did not yield."
"Bro," Kaminari said, hands on his knees as he panted, "I can't believe I didn't short out. Like—at all. That's gotta be a personal best."
"You did exactly what was needed," I said, giving him a nod. "All of you did."
Across the field, Nozomi's team regrouped as well. Iida stood perfectly straight despite the scorch marks on his armor, engines still humming faintly. Shoji flexed his arms, multiple eyes scanning the surroundings out of habit. Momo was already collecting discarded gear, her expression thoughtful, calculating—no doubt replaying the battle in her head.
And Nozomi…
She met my gaze effortlessly.
There was no smug grin now. No taunting. Just a quiet, confident smile that said I planned this from the start.
I walked toward her, stopping just a few steps away. The noise of the crowd faded into a dull background hum, like waves crashing far away.
"Well played," I said at last.
She tilted her head slightly. "You made yourself the perfect distraction."
"I was counting on brute inevitability," I admitted. "You went for systemic collapse."
She shrugged lightly. "Why fight the fortress when you can loot the city around it?"
I huffed a quiet laugh. "You didn't beat me."
"No," she agreed easily. "I beat the board."
That answer was pure Nozomi—and somehow, it stung more than losing outright.
Before I could respond, Bakugo stormed past us, scowling like the world had personally offended him.
"Tch. Stupid format," he snarled. "Next round, I'm blasting everyone off the stage."
Kirishima clapped an arm around his shoulders without hesitation. "Hey! You still made it through, man! That last charge was wild!"
"GET YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF ME," Bakugo snapped, sparks popping along his palms. "Unless you want an explosion up your ass!"
Kirishima didn't even flinch. "Haha! See, that's the spirit!"
Bakugo shoved him off and stalked ahead toward the waiting area, hands jammed in his pockets, shoulders tense with barely-contained rage.
Behind us, Mina practically tackled Toru from the side.
"GIRL!" Mina squealed, grabbing what appeared to be empty air before Toru's shimmering outline flickered into visibility. "That was SO COOL! You were like—whoosh—and then headbands were just GONE!"
"It was nothing special!" Toru protested, though the proud bounce in her step gave her away. "I just… did what we practiced!"
"You blinded three robots and two people at the same time!" Mina laughed. "That's special!"
Nearby, Midoriya was animatedly scribbling notes even as he walked, muttering to himself about things I didn't bother listening to. Todoroki followed quietly behind him, eyes distant, thoughtful—already shifting his focus to the next challenge.
Class 1-A wasn't celebrating like victors.
We were analyzing.
Adjusting.
Preparing.
And that realization hit me harder than any loss or win.
As we entered the waiting area, I took one last glance back at the field. The grass was torn, scorched, cratered—scarred by the sheer force of ambition that had passed over it.
The Sports Festival wasn't just a competition.
It was a proving ground.
And judging by the looks in my classmates' eyes—and the calm, unreadable resolve in my sister's—
The real battle hadn't even begun yet.
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And that is the end of the first Sports Festival chapter!
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