Chapter 27: The Culling and the Current
The roar of the starting buzzer was a physical blow, a shockwave of sound that sent a jolt of pure adrenaline through the veins of every student. The massive gate groaned open, revealing a narrow, tunnel-like passage—the first, cruel, unspoken obstacle.
Chaos erupted.
Hundreds of ambitious teenagers surged forward, a desperate, churning mass of bodies all trying to squeeze through a space meant for a fraction of their number.
"AND THEY'RE OFF!" Present Mic's voice screamed from the stadium's speakers, a sound of pure, unadulterated hype. "BUT HOLD ON! IT'S A CLASSIC U.A. BOTTLENECK AT THE GATE! A TIGHT SQUEEZE FOR OUR EAGER FIRST-YEARS, FORCING THEM TO BATTLE EACH OTHER BEFORE THEY EVEN SEE THE FIRST OBSTACLE!"
Gaara, who had held back by instinct, watched from the rear of the pack. He saw the desperation in the eyes of the students from the General Studies and Support courses. For his own classmates, this festival was a chance to shine. For these students, it was their only chance to be noticed at all, their one opportunity to claw their way into the Hero Course. They pushed, they shoved, their Quirks flaring uselessly in the claustrophobic crush of bodies. It was a raw, unfiltered display of ambition, and for a moment, Gaara felt a flicker of something akin to understanding. He, too, was here to prove he had a right to exist in this place.
He was so focused on the struggle ahead that he almost missed the change behind him.
It was the sound that he registered first—a sharp, crackling hiss that was instantly followed by a precipitous drop in temperature. The air grew cold, and the moisture in the tunnel began to crystallize into a fine, glittering mist. Gaara turned his head, his body already tensing.
Shoto Todoroki stood at the very back of the surging crowd, his right foot planted firmly on the ground. A wave of brilliant white frost was spreading from it in all directions, racing across the floor with terrifying speed. He looked upon the struggling mass of his competitors not with malice, but with the cold, detached gaze of a predator thinning a herd.
"Apologies," he said, his voice a low, cold whisper that was swallowed by the chaos. "But this means… the culling begins early."
He unleashed his power. A colossal, jagged wave of ice erupted from the floor, a glacier born in an instant. It shot through the entire length of the tunnel, a beautiful and ruthless attack designed to incapacitate the entire competition in a single move.
From the outside, the crowd saw a massive plume of frigid mist billow out from the tunnel's exit. For a few seconds, there was only silence. Then, a single figure emerged, surfing smoothly on a slick of ice, his expression calm and focused. It was Todoroki.
"AND THERE'S OUR FIRST RUNNER, FOLKS!" Present Mic roared, as the stadium erupted in cheers. "SHOTO TODOROKI FROM CLASS 1-A TAKES A MASSIVE, DECISIVE LEAD! AN ICY, ELEGANT, AND UTTERLY OVERPOWERING START! JUST WHAT YOU'D EXPECT FROM THE SON OF THE NUMBER TWO HERO, ENDEAVOR!"
Inside the tunnel, the scene was one of frozen chaos. Dozens of students were trapped, their feet and legs completely encased in the thick, solid ice.
But not everyone was caught.
"YOU'RE NOT THE ONLY ONE IN THIS CLASS, YOU ICY BASTARD!" Katsuki Bakugo's voice roared. He propelled himself through the air with controlled explosions from his palms, flying over the top of the ice field. Close behind him, Yaoyorozu Momo vaulted over the ice with a long, metal pole she had created, while Ojiro's tail gave him the leverage to leap from the walls, and Asui used her long tongue to pull herself along the ceiling. They had anticipated Todoroki's move. They had been ready.
Todoroki glanced back as he ran, seeing his classmates emerge from the mist. A flicker of something—annoyance, perhaps, or respect—crossed his face. More of them escaped than I anticipated, he thought, his gaze hardening. Class 1-A… they are not to be underestimated.
He turned his focus forward, lengthening his stride.
Back in the tunnel, Gaara stood among the frozen mob. The ice had stopped just short of him, but the students all around were trapped, their shouts of ambition now turned to cries of frustration and complaint. He looked at their trapped forms, at the determined figures of his classmates already disappearing into the distance. He remembered Aizawa's words, cold and sharp as the ice at his feet.
This is your test. Prove you belong here.
To be left behind, a helpless victim in the first ten seconds of the race, was an immediate and unacceptable failure.
He placed a hand over his own heart, the steady beat a quiet rhythm against his palm. He bowed his head slightly, and a single, determined whisper escaped his lips.
"No… I must not be complacent."
It was a promise. To All Might. To himself.
A few grains of sand stirred at his feet, melting the ice they touched. Then more. The air around him began to shimmer as a fine, gritty haze rose from the gourd on his back. A low, grinding sound began to emanate from him, and the trapped students nearby fell silent, their eyes turning towards him with a new, dawning sense of confusion and fear. The ground began to vibrate.
In the stadium, a moment of quiet had settled as the audience watched the front-runners. Then came the sound. It was a deep, resonant BOOM that echoed from the tunnel, a sound not of an explosion, but of something immense and powerful, like a tsunami crashing against a stone cliff.
The eyes of the crowd, the announcers, and the distant front-runners all snapped back towards the gate.
What emerged was not a single student. It was a wave.
A massive, controlled surge of sand poured from the tunnel's exit. It was not a chaotic, destructive tsunami like the one at the USJ. This was a contained, purposeful current, and riding upon it, or rather within it, were the dozens of students who had been trapped in the ice. They were carried forward, lifted off their feet and propelled out into the stadium, their expressions a mixture of terror and utter bewilderment.
"W-WHAT IS THIS?!" Present Mic screamed, his voice cracking with shock. "A SECOND WAVE, THIS TIME MADE OF SAND! IT'S UN-CAGING THE TRAPPED STUDENTS AND THROWING THEM BACK INTO THE RACE!"
The wave of sand deposited them, not ungently, in a wide, soft dune just past the entrance, and then instantly collapsed, the sand flowing back towards the tunnel. The students, sputtering and covered in grit, pulled their heads free, looking around in a state of dazed confusion.
"What just happened?" one of them coughed.
And then, Gaara emerged. He ran out of the tunnel at a steady, unhurried pace, the last one to leave the passage. He ran past the students he had just freed, his face a mask of emotionless focus.
The stadium cameras zoomed in on him. "COULD HE BE THE CAUSE?!" Present Mic roared, finding his rhythm again. "YES, IT'S HIM! GAARA, THE MYSTERIOUS TWENTY-FIRST STUDENT OF CLASS 1-A! AFTER A STINT OF PERSONAL LEAVE, HE MAKES A TRULY BREATHTAKING AND UNORTHODOX ENTRANCE TO THE SPORTS FESTIVAL!"
The students in the sand pit watched him run past.
"I don't know what that was," a girl from Class 1-B yelled, shaking sand from her hair, "but this is our chance! Let's go! Don't let 1-A get all the glory!" A chorus of determined shouts answered her, and they began scrambling out of the sand, rejoining the race.
Far ahead, Todoroki glanced over his shoulder. He saw the sea of sand, the newly-freed competitors, and the solitary, red-haired boy who was now running, having not only overcome his trap but completely nullified its strategic advantage. A look of cold annoyance crossed his face.
"It would have been simpler," he muttered to himself, a plume of cold air escaping his lips, "if you hadn't interfered."
He turned forward and picked up his pace, the race now truly, and unpredictably, underway.