Seated on the benches, Ms. Joke lifted her jaw that had been hanging low for quite some time.
Next to her, even Eraser Head had his eyes almost popping out of his skull, a great shock making his heart beat faster.
Midoriya had told the school about the changes his Quirk had undergone.
It was a widely known fact that a Quirk could experience changes with time in some form or another. In all such cases, either the Quirk had never revealed itself fully to the user or the user had awakened it further under extreme circumstances. In some rare cases, a Quirk could also reveal more of itself if the user hadn't even known its true nature to begin with.
Izuku Midoriya managed to stumble his way into all of these cases.
Even All Might had confirmed that the boy's Quirk might not be as simple as a power-up-based ability.
Aizawa didn't know what kind of relationship All Might shared with Midoriya. Because, often, he had a feeling that those two had something going on. Regardless of that feeling, though, he had confirmed that Midoriya had somehow awakened his Quirk further, almost killing himself and others during the Battle Royale.
So, a month ago, when Midoriya had shared his intention of training to control his Quirk, instead of continuing to work on his Ultimate Move after Sports Festival, he had fully agreed with the decision.
Who would have thought… that this controlling of the Quirk would itself become an Ultimate Move?! Not just an Ultimate Move, but one ridiculously powerful and impossible to counter if used at the right time!
He looked to his right and found Luke and Todoroki's hardened faces, a blankness reflecting in their eyes.
In one move, Midoriya had not only closed the gap between his lagging training and Luke and Todoroki's vast abilities, but… he had surpassed them.
"The rules gave the impression that whoever attacks first would win, right?" Ms. Joke suddenly said, amazed. "But that's not the case, is it, Eraser?"
"Of course," Aizawa nodded. "The key to passing through the first stage is teamwork and cooperation. And the ability to gather information. 'The first hundred will pass' is nothing but a trap. Those who rush head-on will have the tables turned on them. Just like what happened with most of the students attacking UA…"
"Oh…" Ms. Joke frowned a bit at the blatant confidence… overconfidence. "You say that, but… now that the boy is gone, and now that things have calmed down a bit, these same students wouldn't just rush to attack the remaining UA, right? They will use their Quirks and pick your students one by one…"
A smile crept onto the faces of Luke, Todoroki, and Eraser Head simultaneously, making Ms. Joke pause.
"Pick one by one?" Aizawa said, looking at the UA students surrounded by hundreds of other students. "You are forgetting something."
"What…" she asked, confused.
"This…" Eraser Head said, "… is not the Sports Festival."
…
Yo Shindo from Ketsubutsu, spearheading the charge against UA, watched as the force of hundreds of students behind him hesitated.
Nearly half of the students who had earlier attacked blindly had already run away.
Yo couldn't blame them, though.
He looked down and found one of the three markers on his body flashing red.
He had been lucky not to be among the two random students Izuku Midoriya had picked as targets to pass this first stage.
No.
He hadn't just been lucky…
Yo believed he had been extremely lucky that Midoriya hadn't held a grudge against the students for attacking them en masse. Otherwise, in that moment of surprise, he could have kicked scores, if not hundreds, out of the first stage alone, instead of choosing to hit only one mark on their bodies.
Regardless of the generosity, Midoriya had dealt a great psychological blow to the students.
The Provisional Hero License Exam had just started.
Not even a full minute had passed when many were already down by one mark.
"Haha…" Yo laughed, stepping forward boldly toward the UA students. "I see… Well, I bet you guys can't do that two times in a row, right? Everyone! After me…"
Then, Yo crouched and put his hands on the earth.
"Just because we don't have a ridiculous Sports Festival," he said, looking up and grinning toward the UA students, "it doesn't mean we don't have Ultimate Moves, too, you know?"
Suddenly, a tremor coursed through the ground.
Then, with Yo's one thought, the tremor's intensity shot up to the extreme as he pushed his Quirk — Vibrate — to the limits.
Ultimate Move —
The entire stadium—the battlefield and the audience's seating area, likewise—shook.
In the very next moment, the massive, open ground exploded as if a titan had punched it from the inside.
Earth collapsed.
Chunks of it flew in all directions.
Dust and stones drowned the UA students.
In the distance, the two mountains that had been standing taller than buildings… came crashing down, a RUMBLE deafening their ears.
— Tremoring Earth!
"It's not enough to take them down!" Yo shouted, looking over his shoulder as the students behind him gawked at the destruction in amazement. "Let's pick them off one by one…"
All the students, who had remained to attack the UA students, had just reacted to Yo's words, preparing their Quirks, when a figure shot out of the clouds of dust.
It didn't come toward the students, though.
Denki Kaminari shot up like a missile, possessing such great momentum that he reached the stadium's ceiling in only a few seconds. Before he could crash, though, he lost a great chunk of his speed as if someone had pressed a switch. The momentum carried him a touch further, and he grabbed one of the railings on the ceiling, dangling like a broken piece of equipment.
"#$D$#ED#$#$^^@…"
The students looked at each other, not understanding what Denki was shouting from up there.
"He is saying…" Momo said, walking out from a pit, others' figures appearing all around her with hard eyes, but smiling faces. "This is not UA's Sports Festival. Then, why would we… not work together?"
Bolts of lightning snaked out from Kaminari with the loudest CRACK, instantly making most of the lighting equipment explode.
Over half the stadium plunged into darkness, the clouds of dust dimming the visions even further.
And then, in that dark, dusty environment, two bloody eyes lit up…
… a low, beastly growl rumbling, taking the form of a humongous, shadowy monster!