Momo POV – After the obstacle race
She ran over the finish line of the first event. By her own count, she was the sixth fastest runner to make it there, with only Shoto, the representative of Class B, the Masaki brothers, and someone else from Class B arriving faster.
She wasn't surprised by those who got there before her, as she had expected there to be some faster students. Though she did feel that Iida got a bit unlucky in the minefield when he was blasted backward by the Class B student who came in before her.
Walking over to the rest of the finished contestants, she looked at the finish line and the counter screen above it displaying 6/40. If they were lucky, the second round would only consist of Hero Course students.
Turning her head, her gaze drifted to Shoto, finding him in a lighthearted conversation with Class B's representative. Deciding there was enough time until the end of the first round to get acquainted, she stepped toward them, intending to join the conversation.
However, something felt off. ‚Why do I have this strange feeling whenever that guy looks in my direction?' she thought, referring to the white-haired young man.
As she got closer, she started hearing their conversation.
"Yeah, those were the times, right? Just me, you, and Hitoshi climbing that mountain of a mission," the strange man said.
To her surprise, Shoto had a nostalgic smile on his face. "True, that is. Though I haven't heard from him in a while. Do you know what he's up to these days?"
He was about to reply when he spotted the girl approaching. "It would seem we have a little listener," he said, both of them now looking directly at her. "Is something wrong, Momo?" Shoto asked with innocent concern.
"It's nothing, Shoto. I just thought I should get acquainted with the Class B representative while we wait. You two seem to know each other quite well," she stated, now finally standing beside them.
Both guys looked at each other with mild surprise and chuckled.
"In that case, let me introduce you two. Momo Yaoyorozu, this is Satoru. We were both students under Bakugo and Midoriya long before they started teaching here at UA," the ice user explained, gesturing to the white-haired student beside him.
"It's a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, Miss Yaoyorozu. Shoto has told me such lovely stories about you," Satoru said respectfully while bowing.
Getting a bit flustered at the statement, the girl's cheeks flushed slightly red as she averted her gaze to hide it. "Oh, has he really? I hope only good ones."
"Why, of course, only the best. And I do hope he's not too much of a handful to deal with."
"Well, he can be a bit stubborn sometimes, but he's very han—ah, responsible, I mean… he's very responsible. Aha… ha…" she stuttered, fidgeting with her fingers and unable to look at Shoto, missing the faint blush on his face.
"How lovely. Then I'll leave him in your care," the white-haired man said before whispering something into Shoto's ear that was inaudible to Momo, causing the fire user to lightly hit his shoulder.
"Knock it off, dude. It's not like that."
"I bet it isn't," the other man retorted with a smug grin.
‚Not like what? What did he say?' the creation user panicked inwardly.
As this continued, a sudden beeping sound echoed through the stadium.
When they looked around, the three students realized that all 40 contestants for the second round had finally arrived.
"WOW, WOW, WOW, DEAR AUDIENCE, WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT! I DON'T THINK I'VE EVER WITNESSED SOMETHING LIKE THIS… EVER! ALL FORTY CONTESTANTS ARE HERO COURSE STUDENTS!" Present Mic announced to the entire arena.
"THIS JUST GOES TO SHOW HOW EFFECTIVE THE EXTRA COMBAT LESSONS WE INTRODUCED THIS YEAR ARE! YOU HEARD THAT RIGHT, FOLKS, ALL OF OUR ESTEEMED HERO COURSE STUDENTS NOT ONLY GET PRO HERO TRAINING, BUT STARTING THIS YEAR, THEY ALSO RECEIVE EXTRA LESSONS PURELY FOR PHYSICAL FITNESS AND COMBAT!" he continued with far too much gusto.
"AND NOW, WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, THE SECOND ROUND OF TODAY'S SPORTS FESTIVAL—THE BELL TEST!!!!!!!"
As he finished, a green portal suddenly opened on the podium where Midnight had been standing, and out came eight of UA's teachers: Katsuki Bakugo (Dynamite), Izuku Midoriya (Joker), Eraserhead, Midnight, Vlad King, Power Loader, Ectoplasm, and Cementoss.
They all stood there on the podium next to each other in their hero outfits. However, they all had one thing in common.
The two silver bells hanging somewhere on their bodies and costumes.
___
Battle POV
"NOW WHAT DO THESE BELLS MEAN, YOU MIGHT ASK? Well, fellow observers, let me explain: there are 16 bells in total, two for each teacher you see here!" Present Mic announced to the stadium.
"And each of those bells is a ticket to the final round. The challenge is simply to steal them from the teachers. This round will also only end once every single bell is in the possession of a student, meaning after you've taken a bell, you need to protect it from the others. Which means this is an EPIC battle royale where less than half of the contestants make it to the next round!" he yelled into his microphone with gusto, while the stadium started to cheer.
In the VIP lounge, Theodore and Nedzu were in a conversation. "Interesting, an artifact retrieval simulation. You've outdone yourself with this year's second test, Nedzu."
With the students on the field, "Ugh, this will be such a pain," Shoto complained. "What, you just wanna go get an easy bell?" Satoru teased, looking at him with a grin. "Nah, we're the only ones who could possibly get the bells from Bakugo. Midoriya's responsible enough to give them to someone worthy," the ice user countered.
The teachers, now the known targets of this theoretically infinite test, spread out in a circle around the students in the field. And before long, "BEGINNNNNNNNN" was heard through the speakers from Present Mic. And the chaos followed soon after.
When the students realized the test had begun, most of them rushed off to the nearest teacher they could find, banding together in smaller groups to make it substantially easier. And for the most part, the teachers were going pretty easy on them and giving them a good chance at getting the bells—however, not too easy as to make it predictable.
There was one exception, though…
BOOOOOOM!
On one side of the stadium, Class A's Denki Kaminari, aka the portable phone charger, was brutally outplayed by Bakugo in hand-to-hand combat before getting a chance to use his quirk. This was followed shortly after by an explosion to the back, sending him crashing into the outer wall, and subsequently out of the festival.
"Hey, Izuku! Is this pipsqueak the best your class can do?" he yelled across the arena in a disappointed tone. Currently dodging combination attacks from the two Masaki brothers, the space user in question was close to his friend for a brief moment. "Won't you at least try to be a fair opponent, Kaachan?"
"Why the hell would I ever do that? None of my other students needed coddling, so why start now?" the time user countered before Izuku blocked a One For All-enhanced punch from Ayato and then got knocked away by a wind blast Haruki made.
"Well, so much for stealing his opponents. Bummer," Katsuki muttered to himself, watching them run off to chase their teacher. Then a cold shiver ran down his spine, and for a moment, every battle in the arena briefly paused.
"You ready, bro?" a certain white-haired class representative asked his friend, holding out a fist coated in white energy for Shoto to bump. Standing before their sensei, both had strangely excited expressions. "The students come crawling to their sensei? How amusing," the explosion user murmured.
Finally answering Satoru's question with the acceptance of his fist bump, he stated, "Never more." Suddenly, the white energy spread across Shoto's body, and he breathed in a frigid breath.
"Zero."
And without warning, from below his feet, ice spread like wildfire, pushing out students and teachers alike from a designated semicircular area they now claimed as their 2 vs. 1 battlefield. At the edges, ice walls reaching heights of up to 40 meters rose out of the ground. With the three problem children now in their own arena, the other fights continued, and immense explosions and flashes of light could be heard and seen from within the ice arena.
Elsewhere, Momo Yaoyorozu was sent flying through the air by a redirected air blast from Inasa, who she was currently fighting alongside against a giant Ectoplasm clone. In the sky, she decided it best to now activate her rune to make sure she didn't lose track of the important goal of getting a bell.
'Let's see, where could I get my hands on a bell?' She used the opportunity in the air to scan the battlefield with her enhanced perception speed and found something promising. 'There!' she thought to herself, before creating an air glider to get to her goal.
Having reached it, she let go of the fabric and dropped into a circular cage made out of… well, arms, where a familiar red-haired student was facing a certain dry-eyed teacher in hand-to-hand combat.
Landing smoothly, she quickly used her quirk to create a new spear before Aizawa had a chance to deactivate it. "Kirishima! I'll draw his attention while you get your blades out. Shoji, keep up the cage and try to distract him every so often," she commanded with solid clarity right before engaging in close quarters with Eraser, attempting to tangle his capture weapon.
Momentarily stunned at the abundantly clear and instantaneous instructions their "strategist" had given them, both answered, "You got it."
Kirishima, now finally able to activate his quirk, did what he was asked. "Stone Forge: Arm Blades," he called out as his forearms hardened and then thinned into razor-sharp rock blades. Now, even if Aizawa looked at him again, the change would still remain.
"Good. Now stay opposite of me at all times. Try to shave away at the scarf as best as you can," Momo instructed.
"Right!" the rock man answered as he engaged again, and the fight continued on with Aizawa even reluctantly praising their teamwork.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE FIRST BELLS HAVE BEEN STOLEN! YOU HEARD THAT RIGHT, FOLKS—BELLS, AS IN PLURAL! CLASS B'S SUMIRE TANAKA HAS SIZED BOTH OF CEMENTOSS' BELLS! NOW THE QUESTION IS: CAN SHE HOLD ONTO THEM?" Mic announced over the speakers.
"What, already?" Kirishima wondered out loud.
With the first bell snatcher were two other Class B students and one Class A student. The dark-skinned one with white dreads looked at her as if she'd committed a sin. "WHAT THE HECK, TANAKA?! WHY'D YOU DO THAT? IT WAS JUST GETTIN FUN FIGHTIN CEMENTOSS!" he yelled.
"Gee, Isaiah, it's not that deep. How's it my fault if they make iron bells for us to get?" she said stoically, practically unbothered by his rant. "You want one?"
"Get that piece a garbage away from me. I'll get my own. I don't need your damn charity. If you wanna give it away that badly, you can toss it to your sister," he mumbled angrily as he stomped off searching for another teacher to fight. "Come on, Nokori, we're gettin outta here," he commanded the other black-haired Class B student.
Not really understanding the concept of pride that Isaiah had, Sumire looked back at her sister Reina, who was listening to music on her headphones. "You want it?" she offered the mostly purple-haired girl her other bell.
Thinking much like her sister, she simply took it without hesitation or comment, and they moved on together to protect their tickets to the last round.