Welp. Now all I gotta do is wait for the next update of YUTS! This'll be fun :')

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A few seemingly short weeks passed by before the UA Sports Festival was right in front of them. Class 1-A was in their prep room, getting ready for the festival. Izuku was still a bit nervous. So many people would be watching. In the arena and on television, too.

Iida burst into the room. "Get ready, everyone! We're about to start!"

Everyone was pumped up and excited, Izuku could feel it in the air. He took in a deep breath to calm himself.

"Midoriya."

At the mention of his name, Izuku jumped a bit and turned around. His gaze met with Todoroki's cold one.

He tilted his head slightly, a questioning look crossing his face. Todoroki's expression didn't change.

"Objectively speaking, I'm stronger and more capable than you," He said bluntly.

Izuku almost gaped openly then. Of course he knew that. Todoroki had been training so much longer than he had. He had more practice with his quirk and in the hero field in general. Izuku himself had only gotten a quirk a few months ago. He always took notes on heroes and their work, but he had always been on the sidelines watching. He never had experience.

But still, for Todoroki to come out and announce something like that— what was he trying to do, make Izuku loose his nerve?

"The way I see things, All Might's got his eye on you, doesn't he," Todoroki continued. "I won't pry into why that is, but I will beat you."

Izuku's jaw practically snapped open and dropped to the floor.

"Woah! A declaration of war already?" Kaminari shouted from a table nearby.

Kirishima set a hand on Todoroki's shoulder. "Hey man, don't pick a fight right now! We're about to go on!"

His hand was roughly shoved back. "I don't exactly care," Todoroki said coolly. "I'm not going to play nice and pretend to be anyone's friend." He shot a short, cold glare at Kirishima, as if saying not to interrupt, and the redhead flinched slightly. He turned his heterochromatic gaze back to Izuku who was still very confused about the whole situation.

"I'll beat you and make it to the top."

Izuku bit the inside of his lip nervously. He didn't understand what this was about but...

'Me too,' Izuku finger spelled carefully. 'I'll reach the top with everything I've got!'

He watches Todoroki read over the signs before nodding and walking away. Just a few moments later, they were called out onto the field.

———————————————

Izuku watched Bakugou come down from the podium and into the crowd of still angry students. He sighed deeply, of course his childhood friend would declare war right from the get-go. But then again, he noticed, the old Bakugou would've smirked as he said that.

"He's getting serious," Izuku thought warily.

Midnight grinned into the microphone. "Alright! Let's get the first event started!" She turned to a screen behind her. "And that first event is... this!" The words 'Obstacle Course Race' popped on screen.

"It's a race between every student of every course! The run is a four kilometer lap around the stadium itself, but watch out for the obstacles along the way! Our school is known for it's freedom in teaching and all other things, so as long as you don't go off the course, anything's fair game! With that being said, everyone, to your positions!"

Students lined up in front of the giant metal doors leading to the obstacle course. Izuku let out a puff of breath and prepared to run.

""I need you to tell the world "I AM HERE!""

Izuku swallowed his nerves and the lights at  the top of the large doors blinked green until it beeped loudly and the doors flew open.

The crowd of competing students rushed forward and into the starting gate. It wasn't until then that Izuku noticed how narrow the gate was, squishing everyone shoulder-to-shoulder. Izuku started to feel queasy and desperate. He didn't like crowded areas— not at all.

Izuku started moving quicker, pushing past others and grabbing shoulders to propel himself further. If he didn't want to get out so quickly, he would've felt bad about pulling at people, but everyone around him seemed to be distracted with moving forward, too. Besides, his mind currently wasn't the best place to be so he couldn't focus on little things like that.

"Gotta get out, gotta get out, gotta get out—"

After what felt like hours, Izuku finally broke through the narrow walls and the claustrophobic crowd. He stopped in the middle of the running students, bending on his knees and breathing hard. Other participants ran around him or shoved past, but Izuku stayed in place. He gripped at his uniform over his heart, hitting the area a few times as if testing to see if it'd stop his heart from beating so quickly.

Izuku glanced up as his breathing slowly calmed, seeing the ice Todoroki left behind to propel himself forward. He could see explosions in the distance from Bakugou's quirk. He noticed how large the group of students was ahead of him and how many people were coming out from behind him now.

He was behind now.

Izuku grit his teeth and launched forward. He was already sweating when he barely did anything. He panicked in a tight place. How pathetic was that? He was training to be a hero. He was going to have to work in narrow, cramped areas some time and he shouldn't be afraid of something like that. He shouldn't even be scared of the dark. How could he be a hero when he was claustrophobic and nyctophobic?

"It wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for that incident..."

The scene flashed in his mind and Izuku's breath hitched. He shut his eyes tight for a quick second before remembering where he was. He pushed the thoughts into a far corner of his mind and focused on the task at hand.

Izuku ran quickly and managed to pass some of the other students. He was far behind, so he couldn't stop just yet. His throat burned but he kept pushing, determined to catch up. His whole class was far ahead of him.

He ran around the frozen and broken parts of the zero point robots from the entrance exam, the first obstacle of the course he missed due to his delay. On the way past them, Izuku picked up a plate of the robots' steel armor, feeling the need for it in the future but not entirely sure what for.

Just by looking at the second obstacle, Izuku's heart dropped into his stomach. Long pieces of rope were strung from platform to platform over a deep gorge and students were supposed to use them to get across to the other side— it was like dangerous tightrope walking. Izuku never had much confidence in his balance, considering how clumsy he could be at times, and it was at times like these that he wished he could have a quirk that could take him to the other side quickly like Bakugou's.

(One for All could technically take him across, but he'd have to sacrifice two legs to do so.)

Izuku gulped and tried his best to think of a plan that could get him across the gorge in the least amount of time. Almost a minute had gone by before he thought up a plan. It really wasn't his best plan. It was more risky than what he'd usually try to make up, with less chances of injury and/or death, but Izuku was stressed and still shaken up from his earlier flashback and what he came up with was all he could think up.

———————————————

Toshinori was worried about his successor. Right after he exited the starting gate, Izuku stopped for a long while as others took the lead. By the time he snapped out of it, he was far behind everyone else. Toshinori bit his lip.

He watched the boy run faster than he had ever seen him before. In a matter of a few minutes, he reached the second stage— the Fall. Izuku didn't move for a while after that and Toshinori tapped his foot in unease.

Was he nervous? To the point that he couldn't move?

Was he afraid of the obstacle course?

They were small, quick thoughts that passed through his mind before easily being disregarded. Toshinori knew his successor better than that. He was determined and would give it his all, even if he was afraid.

Toshinori stared harder at the screen before noticing the twitching of Izuku's hands. He sighed in relief. He was probably so deep in thought that his hands were twitching to sign out his thoughts.

"He must have a good plan," He thought, grinning outwardly.

So imagine his surprise when Izuku hopped onto the rope (like a rabbit, a part of Toshinori's mind added) and cut it with the chunk of steel from the zero pointer, inevitably falling into the dark gorge.

I'm gonna start changing the way everyone addresses each other when they aren't speaking now. That sounds confusing, even to me lol, but I mean like, for example, during All Might/Toshinori's POV when he addresses Izuku as 'Izuku' now instead of 'Midoriya'  like how I'd usually put it when they weren't speaking. (I'm still confused by this lol)

Ok look- this:

Would've been like this:

But I changed it to this:

So it isn't like this anymore:

That was probably just useless information that you probably didn't care about but whatever. Thanks for 26k btw!

(I made another one ^^ The manga's from Fukumenkei Noise/Anonymous Noise)