Chapter 40: Control
"Half-and-Half, I was ready for that move!" Katsuki Bakugo hadn't been frozen. He set off a series of explosions behind him, using the recoil to launch himself through the air toward Todoroki.
"That was too naive, Todoroki-san!" Momo Yaoyorozu created an iron pole from her palm, using it to vault over the frozen ground.
As he ran, Todoroki glanced back. He had thought he could trap the majority of the students, but more people had escaped his ice than he had imagined. It wasn't just students from the Hero Course; several from General Studies and the Support Course had also broken free and were now cautiously making their way across the ice.
At that moment, Yoshikage Kira was running along the wall, passing over the heads of several cursing students without a change in his expression.
Before Todoroki had even unleashed his ice, Kira had felt the sudden drop in temperature. Just before the ice spread, he had planted a foot on the wall, narrowly avoiding the blast that would have frozen his feet.
Hamon was a versatile energy, similar to chakra. Kira coated his shoes in it, allowing him to stick to the wall. He then began to run along it, leaping from the wall at the tunnel's exit and clearing the frozen area entirely.
Kira looked back. Behind him, several students had thick layers of ice on their legs and were struggling to break it off. The ice was covered in cracks; it looked like they were about to succeed.
I was planning to run on the wall anyway, but I didn't expect Todoroki's move to launch me from the back of the pack to the second wave in an instant. The first wave with Bakugo and Todoroki is already approaching the first obstacle. Still, I'm not going to thank you.
"Waaah, Class Rep, get out of the way!" Just as Kira started running, he heard Mina Ashido's voice from behind him. He instinctively turned his head and saw her hurtling toward him, flailing her arms as she struggled to keep her balance while sliding on the ice.
Mina had managed to slide to the end of the ice, but the concrete ground was now directly in front of her. Seeing Kira take a step to the left, she pitched forward and was about to fall. She instinctively covered her face with her hands, bracing for impact.
...Strange. Why doesn't it hurt? Mina didn't feel the expected pain. Instead, she felt an upward force on the collar of her gym uniform. She opened her eyes in confusion and saw that she was suspended at a forty-five-degree angle to the ground.
Once she was safe, Mina ran alongside Kira, laughing. "Hehe, thanks, Class Rep! I knew you'd be the only one to help me in a situation like this."
"Anyone would have done the same, wouldn't they?" Kira replied nonchalantly.
In his view, Mina had just made a simple mistake. If anyone else had been nearby, they would have helped her. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
That's not true, Mina thought to herself. This is something only you would do. And this is the second time...
Suddenly, Kira stopped. Not paying attention, Mina ran right into his back. She rubbed her nose and walked up beside him, grumbling, "Why'd you stop all of a sudden?"
Kira didn't answer her, his gaze fixed intently on what was ahead.
Mina followed his line of sight and gasped, shouting, "Aren't those the zero-point faux villains from our entrance exam!?"
"Ah, yes."
In front of them, several other students had also stopped, including Todoroki and Bakugo. And blocking their path were four or five massive, building-sized zero-point robots.
The robots' eyes glowed red. A cold, robotic voice emanated from their heads: "Targets... numerous."
"WHOA, FOLKS! OUR LITTLE HEROES HAVE RUN INTO THEIR FIRST OBSTACLE RIGHT OUT OF THE GATE!" Using the drones that were following the students, Present Mic provided a live broadcast to the audience. "AS YOU CAN SEE, THESE ARE SUPER-SIZED ROBOTS! BY THE WAY, THESE ARE THE SAME THINGS OUR HERO COURSE STUDENTS HAD TO FACE IN THEIR ENTRANCE EXAM!"
"You've got to be kidding me... There's no way we can beat something like that..."
That same thought appeared in the minds of both the spectators in the stadium and the students on the field. A student from the General Course looked at the overwhelmingly powerful robot, took two steps back in fear, and fell to the ground. "No way..." he muttered. "This is what the Hero Course has to deal with? Only monsters like those guys with the red-and-white hair could possibly take these things on..."
"That's right! Only a monster can fight a monster! A normal student like me should just quit...!" As he said this, he scrambled to his feet and started to run back toward the stadium. "I don't care if it's embarrassing! I don't want to die!" The thought of the liability waiver they had to sign yesterday, which was basically a death waiver, made him run even faster.
As he was passing by another person, that person spoke, his voice laced with disgust. "Hey, you coward. Don't you have any self-respect?"
"I'm not a coward! Is this an enemy we can even fight!? This is a strategic... retreat!" the boy retorted reflexively. Although he believed in his heart that he was a coward, he couldn't admit defeat.
However, after he had replied to the person, he gradually found himself unable to run. His ability to think slowly faded, and he came to a stop a few meters away, completely still.
"Follow me," the person said. And surprisingly, the student who had been trying to flee showed no intention of running away, instead obediently falling into step behind him.
"Ah! That's Shinso! He's controlled another person!" a girl from the General Course shouted, having witnessed the scene.
"Don't talk! Do you want to be controlled too!? This is a competition where we can use our Quirks freely! That guy will do anything!" another girl said, clamping a hand over her friend's mouth and shooting a fearful look at Shinso.
Hitoshi Shinso glanced at them, then walked straight ahead, his new puppet following obediently behind him.
The girl let out a sigh of relief and removed her hand. The other girl looked at Shinso's retreating back with disgust. "Why would the school let someone with a Quirk that can threaten people enroll? Why don't they just lock him up in prison? I don't want to die for no reason!"
Shinso walked to the back of the crowd that had been stopped by the faux villains. He paused and looked at Todoroki, Bakugo, and the others at the very front.
"I'm so envious of you all, with your powerful Quirks," Shinso muttered to himself, his eyes narrowed. "But what I hate even more... are the cowards who have the power to fight, but choose to run away."
"If you don't want to compete, then... lend me that power."
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