『Hakari Kotaro』
I couldn't help but feel frozen as my victory was announced and tens of thousands of eyes fell on me. All staring at me, with their own expectations, with their own thoughts, all evaluating me, all judging me, all watching my every move. Like a creature in a cage.
...Hmm, it has come to my attention that I may or may not have stage fright.
I think I'm gonna puke soon.
Feeling the need to sit down, I took down the blood wings and solidified them into a chair instead and sat down before pulling out a towel from my bag and wiping my forehead but that only made the cheers even lauder, making my eyes dart around before I swapped to Seek Guidance for guidance.
'Aura, therefore, farm.'
'Victory!'
'Closer to Amazing Chest.'
'Ticket so use.'
Nonsense as always. But it did remind me of the fact that I could distract myself with my ticket.
Opening the interface, I rolled the Gold Advantage Ability ticket for my incredible victory.
C'mon, I need all I can get, give me something good!
Rolling Gold Ability Gacha with advantage...
[Enflame]
|Rare Ability|
Allows you to coat any object you are holding or your own body in flames, these flames mimic the properties of and reinforce the object they are coating. If they coat fists they increase blunt force and if they coat flames they enhance cutting ability alongside their flames.
or
[Wind Barrier]
|Uncommon Ability|
Allows you to conjure a barrier made of violent air streams, by default it is a barrier around the user that excels in deflecting projectiles and elements but not so much physical force.
I couldn't help but furrow my brows at the selection, it was a bit below average and not that standout for sure. Nothing that immediately spoke to me in terms of power, but then, a thought came to my mind.
...My Blood would totally count as 'my own body' right?
Burning Blood sounds hard as hell.
Wind Barrier does not even need to be pulled into the discussion. I already had much better defensive options.
[Enflame] has been chosen.
Just as I got done contemplating my tickets and confirming my choice, the second and third place arrived in order.
""Shoto Todoroki makes it to second place with Katsuki Bakugou close behind in third place! Just neck and neck! Almost a photo-finish!!!""
Shoto and Bakugou both gave me a glare of their own, Shoto giving me a look that one would reserve for a dead possum that fell on their car overnight while Bakugou looked about ready to lunge at me.
"You cheating bastard! How'd you pull those wings out of your ass, huh!?"
I looked around at the audience. Was that really allowed to be said? Weren't there cameras rolling and stuff? Could they even hear us right now?
"Uh, you too."
Bakugou went silent and raised an eyebrow.
"...What?"
I gave him a thumbs up.
"Good chat."
And then I walked away. I really hope that everyone else could arrive already and the next round could start so that I could distract myself from all the eyes surrounding me.
A few more people arrived a bit later. Surprisingly, Deku had managed to snag 8th place thanks to Full Cowl being an overall good amplifier and his creativity. Toga had managed to come in 6th due to her insane agility and combat senses. Another surprise was Ochako who managed to score 11th place somehow. There were tons of more people, but I'd say only about 10% of the original participants managed to make it in before the gates closed. And once the time was up and the next phase finally started.
"Are you okay Hakari-kun?"
I felt a hand land on my back and rub it soothingly. I turned to see Toga looking at me with a concerned expression. She managed to spot my vast discomfort immediately, despite me not looking any worse for wear. Or at least I hoped I was. I was not aware of how I looked right now, but no one else seemed to notice.
She always had an eerie level of awareness when it came to me.
"...Yeah, I'll be fine."
She nodded but did not retract her hand as she stuck close to me as Midnight cracked her leather whip to announce the next round.
"Congratulations everyone for making it this far! The next stage of the Sports Festival is...!"
The screen behind her spun and I relaxed, I already knew it was cavalry battle, and with my Leadership skill and my somewhat friendships, I was confident in being able to assemble a fairly good team.
"Battle Royale!!! A game that punishes the strong and gives the sneaky a chance to advance! Everyone will be given headbands with point values corresponding to the rank they earned in the race, everyone needs at least 50 points to advance! Here are the rankings! Everyone, come and take your points!"
The screen lit up again and showed the rankings. And I felt a cold sweat run down my back.
1st Place - Hakari Kotaro - 10,000,000 Points
2nd Place - Shoto Todoroki - 300 Points
3rd Place - Katsuki Bakugou - 250 Points
.
.
.
Immediately, I felt everyone's eyes on me, but far, far more intense, and unlike before, it was explicit targeting and even hostility which... felt somewhat better for me.
Don't get me wrong, I was almost certainly fucked. Almost everyone from the top 10 was basically a guaranteed pass, but the prestige of the 10 million points? Everyone wants that. Everyone not a part of the Top 10 only had headbands worth 10 points each, and the latter half only 5.
I was going to be public enemy number 1, as if I wasn't already.
Even if I managed to survive with the number 1 headband, I was going to be bruised and broken to fuck. It was going to be a game of preserving my strength and still making sure I pass.
Everyone went forward and got their headbands and tied them either around their forehead or around their arms and such I chose my forehead. Further rules were announced such as being unable to leave the ring and such and after everyone was ready, we all took our positions. Toga stood far away from me while Bakugou stood as close to me as he could get. I could tell that man wanted a piece of my ass, and not in the way Mina hoped.
Abilities
-Greater Hemokinesis
-Enflame
-Assign
Was I ready? I had no idea. But I had the simple idea in mind.
"And... start!"
With that, Midnight cracked her whip and the horn blared, signifying the start of the second round.
And I immediately went with the coward strategy of pulling out my Blood Wings and taking to the skies. No one here was a proper flier, they couldn't touch me easily if I was skyward.
Was it scummy? Kinda, but I needed the ticket of finishing with 10 million points, nothing personal.
"Oh no you don't!"
Of course, my plans of camping out in the sky were dashed by multiple different parties instantly, the moment the word go was given, Todoroki froze the ground and sent an ice spike towards me, Bakugou jumped and started accelerating himself towards me. But those two were not all, it was like everyone in existence just saw blood when it came to me and me only.
"Shit!"
I had to hurriedly kick to the side to avoid a hail of razor-sharp scales, only to have to dodge a beam from Glitter Boy, and the worst of all was the living bombardment who managed to reach me as I was preoccupied with not getting shot down.
"DIE!!!"
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Bakugou maneuvered himself midair before landing an explosive dropkick to my guts by accelerating himself with his explosions. He would have driven the air from my guts if I had not used Iron Skin to shield myself, but it still hurt. And not only that, Bakugou used that moment to aim for something else.
My wings.
Boom!
"Let's fall together!"
""What an explosive start! Hakari's idea of flying off to the stars was brought down to the ground by the explosive boy Katsuki Bakugou!""
His blasts broke the cohesion of my wings, and we both started plummeting down towards the ground. It was not a large distance, but still one that I did not want to meet the ground from. Seeing as Bakugou was so keen to grab onto me, I pushed his chest and assigned him a + polarity.
"No thanks, you can go by yourself!"
I assigned a + to myself too, and we both started repelling each other, and being unable to use his explosions to keep us together, Bakugou was pushed off me, allowing me to rebalance myself and fall down to the ground with only a minor hit to my legs. But the ground was far more dangerous than the air was.
Crash!
Without even a moment to register the impact, I had to jump back to avoid the Iceberg that spawned beneath my legs. And then vines that erupted from around me, trying to ensnare me while I ripped them apart with a quick application of Slicing Exorcism.
'Flowing Red Scale!'
My blood thrummed in my veins as the overwhelming assault intensified. I didn't have any breathing room, even Dark Shadow tried to cop a hit at me. Due to the high rankers targeting me too, I became an easy target everyone was trying their luck with, like vultures circling overhead, looking for an opportunity to dive and rip into my carcass.
This won't do.
""What a brutal teamup! This is almost like a lynching! Will Wonder Boy be able to make it out this time!?""
I let go of Assign and instead slotted in a different ability, Candy Paramecia. A plan already formed in my mind.
"Want some!? GET SOME! NAPALM!"
Using Candy Paramecia, I let Candy Flow off of me in cascades, only it wasn't candy. No, using Enflame, I mixed it with the Candy Paramecia and created what was essentially fancy Napalam. Immediately, the assault on me paused as everyone tried to take a wide berth of the lake of heat and promised death that had pooled around me. The sheer heat radiating off of it hit people like a wall.
Of course, I was less phased by this, as long as I had Enflame active, I was more resistant to Flames, in order to not burn myself to a crisp while using it. People rapidly re-evaluated their options in order to not fight the living Napalm maker. But this was obviously a temporary measure as-
Fssshh!!!
The small lake of napalm quickly froze over due to Todoroki's interference. Fucking bullshit massive AOE ice and fire with exhaustion preventing mechanics. But it did its job of stopping people from ganging up on me.
"You all want this? Go get it!"
I grabbed the headband and balled it up before chucking it away from me as everyone's eyes went wide with shock and disbelief. All of their eyes were glued to the 10,000,000 point headband.
Yeah, I was not going to be carrying that hot potato the entire game, I would much rather just hunt other people and get their headbands than get my teeth knocked out due to the virtue of me being me. Immediately, most of the attention that was previously on my shoulder turned into a free-for-all brawl for the headband, but some folk were not satisfied with just that. Especially Bakugou who still had eyes on me, but decided to prioritize the headband for now.
But now, without my own headband, I'd have to join in on the brawl proactively.
Let's just hope this won't be too grueling.
A/N: Hakari has issues beyond the physical ones, growing up with the life he has lived is making this part of heroism really hard on him. For someone who has always associated with attention with bad things happening, he is experiencing vast discomfort. Hakari is not always the cool cucumber or unphased stoic badass. He has his own weaknesses too. What did you guys think about this aspect of his character? I'd love to know.
A Free For All! I never liked the Cavalry Battle, so I decided to do away with it altogether, replacing it with something that will allow Hakari to show off properly. And uh, yeah, this is brutal on him, they do not have mercy on my poor Yakuza boy. This free for all won't last long as I, and I imagine most of you want to get onto the Tournament already. But it is a good alternative I feel like.
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