I woke up, rubbing my eyes. I looked at the clock on the wall, 7:30, still half an hour to the festival.
I got out of the bed, wearing my slippers. I looked out the window, it was a bit foggy. Very nostalgic feel to it. A rare feeling nowadays.
After quickly washing my face, I changed into my sports uniform. I went out to the kitchen and opened the fridge. Nothing special, ooh, instant noodles. Fine. Very fine. bad for my health but no one cares.
I took them out.
I grabbed a pot, filled it with water, and set it on the stove. As I waited for it to boil, I leaned against the counter, my mind drifting to the festival. I had promised Toru, that I would win. Not sure why I did but now that I'm thinking about it, I was emotionally blackmailed. Damn.
So, I had to try a little bit. I looked to the pot, they were cooked. I mean, they were finishe- no, I mean that the noodles were done cooking and now they're ready to eat.
I mean, they looked floppy enough. Good enough. If I die, at least I won't have to go to the festival.
I took a bowl and served myself. And with a moment's delay, I slurped the noodle.
Mmmmmmmm~ tastes like shit. Absolutely horrendous. I threw the bowl out the window, shattering it. I shouldn't have tried.
"Kaito, good luck for the festival." I heard.
"I don't need it," I told Hajime.
"I really don't."
I got up and walked out the door.
The moment I stepped through the gates of U.A., the air practically buzzed with energy. Not like, metaphorically. I mean literally. Some kid's Quirk was spazzing out near the tech booth and now the whole entrance smelled like ozone and regret.
The perfect atmosphere for a bunch of sadistic villains to go on a rampage, killing excited kids, god I wish I could do the same to some of th-
"Welcome to the annual U.A. Sports Festival!" I heard Present Mic boom.
"KAITO!" I heard Toru shout excitedly.
I waved at her, yawning a bit.
"What did you do the past two weeks?" She asked me.
"Nothing," I told her.
"Eh?" She responded.
"Absolutely nothing, it was a waste of time in my opinion," I told her bluntly.
"Everything's a waste of time for you," she replied.
"Hey, I'm doing this for you, don't push it," I told her.
"Yeah, yeah."
"Ungrateful bitch." I muttered.
"HEY!" She punched me. I barely winced.
"Are you crazy?!" I shouted.
She puffed out her cheeks, crossing her arms. "You deserved it!"
I rubbed my arm dramatically, like she'd just tried to assassinate me. "Assault... in broad daylight... in front of witnesses... You're going to jail, Toru. Hope you like cold floors and communal showers."
She stuck her tongue out at me. Very mature. Truly, I was surrounded by intellectual giants.
Before I could fire back with a world-ending insult, the speakers crackled again.
"All first-year students, please gather at the entrance tunnel!" Present Mic roared, probably deafening half the audience.
He couldn't be louder, can he?
"Hey, Toru, we gotta go, c'mon," I told her, resting my hands in my pockets.
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" she huffed, jogging to catch up beside me.
We walked through the crowd of students funneling into the tunnel, a colorful, chaotic mess of quirks, egos, and utter desperation to be noticed by scouts. You could smell the ambition in the air. Smelled like sweat and cheap cologne. Delicious. Oh no, that was f***ing weird.
The tunnel itself was dim, echoey, and buzzing with nervous chatter. Students were stretching, psyching themselves up, or pretending they weren't seconds from throwing up. Aizawa-sensei was standing near the entrance, looking half-asleep and 100% done with all of our existence, per usual. Honestly, mood. [I figured I'd call him Aizawa-sensei from now, it made more sense.]
"Aizawa-sensei!" I called out, he looked at me.
He stared at me with those bloodshot, sleep-deprived eyes that screamed "I've regretted my career choices since the moment I met children."
"...What?" he asked, his voice flat enough to iron a shirt on.
I gave him a lazy salute. "Just checking if you're still alive, sir. Y'know, emotionally."
He blinked once. Twice. Then sighed like I personally shortened his lifespan by another five years.
"Line up, Kaito. Before I expel you for breathing incorrectly," he said, waving me off like a particularly annoying fly.
"Nah, you wouldn't do that to your 'favourite student'. Surely, right?" I asked, a smug smile on my face.
"Shouldn't have told that to you." He grumbled.
"But you did, shit happens, you can let go now."
Aizawa muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a death threat under his breath and turned away, pulling out his capture scarf like he was this close to committing a crime of passion. Honestly, if he snapped my neck right here, it'd save me a lot of effort later, so I wasn't even mad.
"Hey, Kaito, you wanna get expelled?" Toru asked me.
"What's wrong with a little bit of banter?" I asked.
"It's with our homeroom teacher, who's notoriously grumpy." She told me.
"Anywhere, where are the brightly-coloured individuals?" I asked Toru, I hadn't seen them for two whole weeks. I don't even have their phone number.
Toru squinted around the tunnel, standing on tiptoes like a meerkat scouting for danger — or in this case, two walking highlighter stains.
"There!" she said, pointing dramatically like she just discovered the cure for stupidity. "Over there!"
Sure enough, a few meters away, I spotted the two clowns: Kirishima and Kaminari. Kirishima, looking like someone dipped a brick wall in red hair dye, was hyping himself up by shadowboxing the air. Meanwhile, Kaminari, the human equivalent of a bad power outage, was leaning casually against the wall, grinning like he just figured out how to spell "IQ."
I wasn't gonna lie, I was happy to see them.
"Hey, Kirishima. Kaminari." I called out.
"Yo, Kaito. How are you? I haven't seen you for two weeks, bro."
Kirishima jogged over with the kind of reckless energy that made me instinctively brace for impact. Kaminari followed, doing that half-skip thing idiots do when they're too lazy to walk properly but too uncool to run.
"They take too long to start these events, man. Last time, I heard it was delayed by thirty-five minutes."
"Yep," I muttered.
Kaminari threw an arm around my shoulder like we were long-lost war buddies. "But hey, more time to strategize, right?"
"Strategize?" I asked, deadpan. "I'm surprised you could do that."
Kaminari laughed like I just told him the funniest joke in existence. Poor guy. Nobody told him I was being serious.
"Don't bully him too much, man!" Kirishima said, grinning wide enough to qualify as a minor health hazard. "He's doing his best!"
"His best has the life expectancy of a housefly," I muttered, shaking Kaminari off me like a particularly clingy raccoon.
I smiled a bit, looking at Toru, who was waving at me while saying "Good luck!". I put a thumb up in the air and flashed a smirk at her.
Before we could devolve into more life-affirming banter, a loud BZZT came from the speakers, making half the students flinch like they'd just been tasered. Present Mic, in all his noisy glory, boomed out:
"FIRST-YEARS, GET READY! IT'S TIME TO SHOW THE WORLD WHAT YOU'RE MADE OF!"
I cracked my knuckles and twisted my hip, leading to a further series of cracks. *sounds of relief*
We shuffled toward the arena entrance like cattle headed to a slightly fancier slaughterhouse. The sunlight outside the tunnel was blinding — almost theatrical, if you ignored the fact that half the crowd was just parents praying their kid wouldn't embarrass themselves on national TV.
The massive stadium stretched out in front of us, packed with screaming fans, scouts, reporters, and other creatures that fed on the blood of teenage dreams.
Midnight — who somehow managed to make even a U.A. event feel like a weird fever dream — stepped forward with her whip in hand and her voice like sugar and arsenic.
"Welcome, everyone!" she purred. "Let's kick things off with the Obstacle Course! First-years, line up! Try not to die too quickly!"
Ah. Wonderful. Nothing says "child safety" like an obstacle course designed by a woman whose casual outfit is illegal in nine prefectures.
"Encouragement, very nice," I muttered.
So let's just plan things, step one: I break friction, allowing me to smoothly glide across the track, step two: since I can now break two laws, I can break their equilibrium, a nice little sabotage never hurt someone, step three: eat some fried chicken after taking home the first place.
Midnight raised her whip — seriously, that woman needed a very different kind of workplace environment — and with a crack that echoed around the stadium, she screamed:
"BEGIN!"
The crowd exploded into cheers, and the other students exploded into motion — some smart, some suicidal.
I calmly tapped my ability.
Friction: Disabled.
Instantly, my shoes stopped gripping the ground. I leaned forward, letting inertia do all the work. I shot forward like a human air-hockey puck on a Red Bull overdose, whizzing past a kid who had just started running.
I glided effortlessly across the area, dodging obstacles both on the school grounds and those created by the students.
Little bastards. I smirked as I flicked my ability, and *whoosh* someone flew into the mud, and everyone within the ten-metre radius of me as well.
I smirked, gliding effortlessly toward the finish line, knowing the only thing faster than me was the panic spreading across the competition.
"I know who's doing this, it's Kaito Arakawa, the guy from the USJ incident." Someone shouted. "If we catch him, the rest of us could have a chance."
Oh, they're teaming up? Is that allowed by the rules?
*boom* I narrowly escaped that one. I momentarily looked back, it was Bakugo, I could barely make out the words but I was sure of it, he was yelling "I'm GONNA MURDER YOU F***ING BIT-" well, we'll see that on another day.
*crystal sounds* I raised my eyebrows. I knew who it was, Todoroki. They all are really ganging up on me, aren't they?
I quickly disabled gravity as I jumped, dodging the wave of ice beneath my feet.
I could almost hear the boiling rage coming from Bakugo behind me, his voice cutting through the air like a chainsaw. "I'M GONNA BLOW YOU TO PIECES, YOU—"
His voice was drowned out by the roar of the crowd, probably because they were all too busy enjoying the spectacle of chaos and me absolutely cruising through the course while everyone else scrambled to catch up.
But there was no time to bask in glory. A strange, high-pitched whistling sound filled the air, and before I could react, a barrage of something very explosive whizzed past me, barely missing my side.
Bakugo.
For once, he managed to time his explosion perfectly.
I twisted mid-air, activating a burst of friction beneath my feet just as the shockwave hit. The impact sent me flying sideways, but the friction gave me just enough control to right myself. I barely spared a glance at Bakugo, who was now steaming like a pressure cooker ready to blow, his fists raised and glowing with explosive energy.
"Jeez," I muttered under my breath, "give it a rest, dynamite."
I flicked my hand, and friction was instantly disabled again. I shot forward, hitting full speed as I dodged another barrage of explosions. This guy really didn't know when to quit.
I could see Kaminari in the distance, keeping up with the likes of Bakugo. He improved or what? Well, he had a electricity quirk, I would assume he was fast.
Ahead, the finish line was approaching, the last stretch of track just waiting to be crossed. The course wasn't over yet, though. There was one final obstacle: a massive set of hurdles, big enough to knock out most of the competition if they didn't clear them properly. But I wasn't concerned. The laws of physics were my playground.
I disabled gravity once again and shot up like a rocket, soaring high above the hurdles with ease. The crowd gasped as I flew over the final barrier and landed gracefully on the other side.
I took a moment to look around. Where was everyone else?
Back in the distance, I saw Todoroki still skating around on his ice, trying to catch up, while Bakugo was furiously charging his next explosion. I could practically hear the vein throbbing in his forehead from here.
Well, that was cute.
I jogged toward the finish line at a leisurely pace, hands casually in my pockets as I passed over a couple of stragglers still trying to figure out how to make it past the ice and explosions.
"Eh, not bad. I'll give you a C+ for effort," I muttered to myself.
And then, with one final step, I crossed the finish line.
The crowd erupted into a mix of cheers and confused murmurs, with a few reporters whispering into their microphones as if they'd just witnessed a minor miracle. A few people were even trying to catch up to me, but I didn't care to stop for autographs or anything else. It was just a festival—just another race, and I wasn't about to let it get to my head.
Toru was waving like a lunatic at the sidelines, jumping up and down, practically screaming my name. It was a bit excessive, but I guess I was kinda used to it by now.
"One done, and a few more to go," I shouted. The crowd might think I'm talking to myself but the message reached where it was supposed to.