Chapter 21: Post Ch 20 Omake

Obstacle Race

The crowd of first year students prepared to enter the large tunnel when the countdown commenced. At the signal, I leapt towards the ceiling of the corridor, using my geists to press me against it, giving me traction to run on the ceiling, upside down. Todoroki Two-Tone created a river of ice that trapped most of the competitors in the middle of the tightly packed corridor. Several students managed to avoid the ice jam using various movement quirks.

Once I made it out of the tunnel, I threw myself in the air and started flying. It was slow going at first, but my constant acceleration bult up. In under ten seconds I was flying as fast as I could breath. I passed over the robots, then headed closer to the ground. I easily passed over the tightrope caverns, and what I later found out was a mine field. In just over two minutes I was back in the stadium, crossing het finish line. I had to fly a few laps around the field to have room to decelerate.

Midoriya, Todoroki, and Bakugo were the next in, followed by Ibara, Juzo, and Pony. It looked like I was not the only one that decided against Monoma's master plan.

The top forty finishers moved on to then next round.

Cavalry Battle -

Once the cavalry battle was explained I almost slapped my head. Did the planners not remember I was in this game. I had trouble imagining a scenario better suited to my known abilities. Deciding that once again the rules did not lend themselves to Kodai being able to showcase her quirk, I invited her, Shoda, and Bondo to join my team. I had the ten-million-point headband worn around my head and protected with a small swarm of geists. I sent out shadows to track the position of every other student in the game, noticing where their headbands were worn.

Bondo was strong enough to take almost all my weight as the front 'horse', with Shoda and Kodai protecting the flanks. Kodai had gathered a number of items during the obstacle race and had them in her jacket pocket. Caltrops and obstacles to be used to block anyone that got near. Bondo could glue them in place. Shoda was ready with a trick I had taught him in Hero Class. He could repeat and magnify any impact in his range. He didn't have to strike the initial blow. And footfalls were certainly impacts. He could down any runner in the battle.

I explained to my team that I wanted them to fight defensively, taking out any who got near us. "The biggest threats are Todoroki, Ibara, and Iida. If you can keep the opponents off their feet or stuck in glue it would look good to the audience. I want you to shine."

"But what about you?" Shoda argued.

"I have a plan. If we happen to lose our headbands, don't worry. Just keep spoiling the others' game. I have a plan, but I want to keep it secret until the end. Trust me. To many enhanced senses for me to tell you. Ok?"

"We trust you." Kodai's tone was as flat as ever.

As we were waiting to begin, I gathered a full swarm of poltergeists, then split them to go to each of the eleven other headbands. The entire floor of the stadium was in my 100-yard radius. As soon as the whistle sounded everyone charged towards me.

"Go." I set three green wisps to give all three 'horses' a common direction, allowing me to steer them easily. We moved to flank the teams on our left. Kodai and Bondo laid down landmines and glue to impede the people behind us. Shoda was double impacting the feet of the front horses on the teams in front of us, causing them to trip, spilling their 'riders'. This opened a path for us.

Todoroki through ice, but Iida tripping caused him to miss us. Instead the ice wall appeared a dozen yards ahead of us. Kodai tossed a handful of debris that each grew into sizable robot parts, each impacting the wall causing a web of cracks to race across the frozen surface. Shoda used his quirk to reapply the impacts multiplied tenfold, shattering the wall as we ran through it.

We managed to keep this up for eight of the ten minutes before Sero managed to grab my headband. I could have avoided it, but chose to let him take it. I wanted to give my team time to rest.

Suddenly everyone was after Sero, who was a horse for Bakugo. The hot head wanted to continue after me, shouting death threats, but his horses had other ideas. As my friends breathed heavily, we watched as Monoma and Bakugo battled it out. I was impressed with both of them. They had potential.

As the clocked ticked down the last ten seconds I made sure my geists were all in place. At three seconds I grabbed all the headbands simultaneously and flew them to me. A few people tried to grab them on the way but I could move them too quickly. My hand closed on them. And a second later the buzzer sounded, ending the game.

And the crowd went silent as the judges tried to figure out what to do when on team had all the headbands.

One on One Fighting Tournament

The judges decided the only way to have the third round was to push my team forward then select the top twelve scorers from the first round - Midoriya, Todoroki, Bakugo, Ibara, Juzo, Pony, Iida, Tokoyami, Kirishima, Sero, Tetsutetsu, and Ojiro.

I faced Bakugo in the first round.

Unlike the Cavalry battle, which seemed to be designed for me, this round was set up to rob me of most of my advantages. A clean flat concrete stage. I could carry nothing but my PE uniform. And the only ways to win were a knock out, immobilize, forcing him off the fifty foot wide stage, or forcing a surrender. I knew this kid was top in his class – fast, smart, skilled, and powerful.

As soon as Present Mic said start, I had fifty pound of force push Bakugo's right ankle back, tripping him. As he began to fall, I slammed both his inner elbows with fifty pounds of force simultaneous to fifty pounds on the backs of his hands, moving them to press his palms against this face. He almost blasted his own face off, but managed to abort the ignition.

Still holding his hands to his face, I lifted him a foot off the ground and flew him off the stage. Total time – four seconds.

Midnight announced me the winner, but it couldn't be heard over the crowd.

My second round was against to Pony. In outward effect, her was probably the closest power to my own in the first year. We could both control moving objects at a distance and could use them to fly. For this contest the main difference was the she had her objects with her, and I had nothing to manipulate but her and me.

She had a tendency to copy my tactics in class exercises, so I had a fair idea what to expect. She would try to engage me with her horns at a distance, while charging towards me using her enhanced running speed. Then she could just carry me out of the ring. I could either dodge her attack, relying on my newly enhanced reflexes and push her out from behind. Or I could preempt her attack and disable or immobilize her. She was petit, several inches shorter them me, if you didn't count the horns. But she was built solid and actually weighed more than I did.

I decided I wanted her to have a chance to shine. She was a classmate and kind of a friend. I respected her, but knew I could beat her. I wasn't willing to loose, but I could let her show off for potential employers.

When the bout started, she shot both horns. I gestured broadly making a show of trying to control the horns, only for them to slip my 'telekinetic' grasp. I really did try. She could produce more force with each horn than my geists could counter. I could redirect them so they couldn't hit me, but I couldn't control them.

While we dueled in the air, she charged. I let her get within a dozen feet then sent her flying straight up. She steered her horns to her side then used them to pull out of my grasp. I took to the air after her. We flew around each other, occasionally grappling or kicking at each other. My flying was not ideal for this sort of areal combat so I spent a lot of time hovering or drifting slowly, to conserve almost half my geists for offense or defense. I used my spirits to keep track of our positions relative to the edge of the stage. Slowly I drew her nearer one edge.

When I had her in place I hovered, making myself a target, She zoomed into a bull rush, trying to carry me out. I dropped below her, landing carefully on the ground and used my extra spirits to push her from behind. She crossed the threshold before she could stop herself.

Midnight called it and the crowd offered Pony almost as much applause as me.

The semi-final round pitted me against Iida Tenya. I simply picked him up and moved him back. He tried to use his leg jet to blast out of my grip, but I just let him spin on an axis of spirits in the air. He was heavy so it took several seconds, but once in the air he was helpless. The end was inevitable.

I faced the one student the worried me the most in the final round, Todoroki. His large-scale Shaker attacks were outside of my ability to affect. And Midoriya's efforts to convince him to use his fire side were more successful than anticipated. The two toned terror had been forced to use the flames again to defeat Tokoyami in the semi-final. Now I faced a powerful Blaster/Shaker who appeared to be both well trained and a tactical thinker.

I had a plan. Only time would tell if it would work.

When Present Mic called start, I caused a small swarm of wisps to flash to maximum brightness in front of his eyes, at the same time I had several geists rattle vestibular system in his inner ears. This succeeded in throwing off his initial attack. I then sent tow mini-swarms to press his jugular veins and carotid arteries closed.

Now all I had to do was stay alive for twelve seconds.

Todoroki wasn't moving, or seeing, well, but he could still create a massive funnel of ice and fire that started to cover most of the fighting stage. As I was only using a few geists on my opponent, so I was able to boost my strength and agility enough that I was able to dodge most of the damage until the A-1 ace collapsed. I immediately let up on his throat but carried him off of the stage before he could recover. I used my tenka fire spirits to absorb the flames smoldering on my uniform.

And the crowd went wild.

I still didn't see what the big deal was.