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The green lights shut off one-by-one, and a horn sounded the start. Over 200 students dashed through the gate and into the tunnel as Present Mic's commentary began.

"Okay, here's the play-by-play! Are you ready to do the commentary, Mummy Man?"

"You're the one who dragged me here."

"So, Mummy Man, what should we pay attention to in the early stages?"

"This part right now."

I could hardly hear Present-Mic and Aizawa's back-and-forth banter as I plunged into the narrow tunnel. I was immediately nudged and sandwiched between the absurd number of students all trying to cram inside at once. Closing my eyes, I let myself be pushed along with the crowd, as I focused on channeling my energy through the ground. Snapping my eyes open, I encased all of the students near me in rock. I slipped easily to the tunnel wall and wrapped my feet in the concrete material, dragging myself out above the heads of the bustling students below.

Ice flashed through the tunnel right as I burst out into the sun. Todoroki surfed out on the frozen wave as I rode my own wave of earth down the path.

At least forty students always made it through the first round – the infographics from previous years proved that. For the sake of future events, it would be ideal if I remained in the back of the crowd and avoided revealing as much as I could about my Quirk and habits.

But the Chairwoman's orders rang persistently in my head. I had to make them root for me as early as possible.

Don't dominate the field. People like an underdog. But after that speech, don't become a background character. Make sure you look like you're trying, too.

I let Todoroki pull ahead of me and resorted to simply running down the path. Three massive robots suddenly surged ahead of us – the word "robot" being a loose term. They were more like the giant cursed fucking offspring of Godzilla and Optimus Prime.

My neck craned as I looked up at them. So these were from the general entrance exam... The robots pulled back their fists and weapons, readying attacks. I ran closer, closer, closer...

I yanked myself underground. The tremors the robots were making was immense. It was easy to pinpoint them – though the constant rumbling made my head hurt a little.

I pushed myself out of the ground on the other side of the robots, sputtering for breath. These past few weeks, I'd managed to hold my breath for up to four minutes. While moving myself underground, I could hardly last 60 seconds.

Todoroki sent a wave of ice at my feet. I threw him a look as I dodged. With a wave of my hand, the concrete responded, slicing his way. Hardly bothered, he jumped nimbly over it, continuing to surf.

"Damned twinkle toes..." I muttered.

Soon, we were done with the first obstacle and onto the next. A massive chasm spread out before me, huge columns dotting the empty space. Spanning each column was a thread-like wire, stable enough to support a person, but not necessarily an easy bridge. "When they'd get time to build this..."

Todoroki sailed farther ahead, using his ice to propel himself across the line. I simply tapped my foot, built a bridge across the columns, and retracted it once I crossed.

I threw a glance over my shoulder to see the crowd starting to gather at the beginning of the chasm, hesitating at the gap. My lead seemed to be widening rather than shortening.

Damn. At this rate, the finalists will remain the same this whole time. It won't be interesting at all...

The crashing sound of explosions boomed overhead as Bakugo blasted himself over the chasm without touching the ground once.

Took him long enough – what is he, a slow starter?

—Ah, it probably has to do with sweat production. The more he moves, the more he sweats, the stronger his explosion gets. In that case, it'd be best to subdue him as early as possible via knockout — but with his reflexes, managing that from a long distance would be near impossible.

Instead, wait until he and his Quirk are physically exhausted, and go right for knockout with a pressure point—

I wonder how much water he drinks to keep up that amount of sweat? It's gotta be a lot. Or maybe he's always parched.

I groaned internally. Cut it out, Akiharu. You're supposed to be focused on winning, not going over tactics to use against Bakugou.

Soon, Todoroki and I approached a new zone – An empty plot of dirt, except brightly painted signs announced the warning, "Danger, Mines!"

"Don't worry listeners, these landmines are for games, so they're not that powerful," Present Mic said. "However, they're loud and flashy enough to make you wet your pants!"

"That depends on the person," Aizawa scoffed.

Upon a closer look, I could see the little danger spots marking the mine placements underground. I grumbled as I nimbly stepped around them. This obstacle was designed to inconvenience those at the front the most. The later you were, the less mines would remain. Those at the head were inclined to move as carefully as possible to avoid slowing down due to an explosion, and to make sure to impede those at the back.

"This doesn't affect me!" Bakugo blew past me with a blast, a devilish grin painting his features. "Icyhot bastard, don't declare war on the wrong person!" He whipped a hand to release an explosion, which Todoroki swung narrowly around.

Letting Todoroki and Bakugo fight, I dropped back. An idea started to brew in my mind. It would give an advantage to those behind me, but I could use the chance to get ahead of Todoroki and Bakugo in a flashy way. I weaved my energy underground, sensing the spots where the gaps of earth were and the mines remained. Then I waited for the perfect moment – a moment where the two ahead would be distracted enough to make this work.

A massive explosion boomed at the back of the pack, sending tremors surging through the ground. Pink smoke climbed high into the air, and I saw Midoriya sail out of the cloud, grasping onto a piece of green armour from one of the robots. I laughed at the sight, chest bubbling with admiration. Damn, he's amazing!

I raised my hand before me. Landmines bundled together beneath Todoroki and Bakugo's feet, tumbling and setting each-other off. The look on their faces was priceless moments before they were incased in pink smoke.

"What's this! Simultaneously, there's been a massive explosion at the front and the back? What's going on? Wait, look! Could it have been the work of Akiharu, who's pulling ahead?"

"Suck it!" I yelled at Bakugo as he exploded through the smoke, now several metres behind me.

"FUCK!"

"Was it on accident, or did he do it on purpose? Class A's Midoriya is in hot pursuit with that blast – Actually, he's taken taken the lead!"

I blew past Midoriya as he started to fall from the air. Swinging his armour plate onto Bakugou and Todoroki's shoulders, he flung ahead again, stumbling into a run.

"What the hell, Erasure! Your class is amazing! What are you teaching them!"

"I didn't do anything. They went and fired each-other up on their own."

I dashed into the tunnel leading toward the stadium. Bakugo and Todoroki were fighting behind me, as Midoriya ran ahead of me. I tapped a hand to the wall, and saw him stumble. There was determination in the way he forged forward, and desperation in his ragged breaths.

With a small smile, I lowered my hand, and watched him emerge out of the tunnel and into the light.

"U.A. festival, first year stage! Who could've predicted the developments at the beginning, or this conclusion? Right now, the person back in the stadium is that boy... Izuku Midoriya's made a huge splash!"

The roaring of the crowd assaulted my ears as I pushed out of the tunnel. Midoriya was scanning over the crowd cheering his name. Tears sprouted in his eyes. He wiped them hastily with his hand.

I slapped him on the back, a wide grin on my face. "You showed 'em! Without even using that Quirk!"

I'd been seeing it for some time now – his fresh-faced intellectual ability was scary. It easily rivalled that built up on experience, like that of Todoroki and myself, or that of Bakugo's animalistic instincts.

"What's amazing is my luck," Midoriya murmured, squinting his watery eyes. "But now... It'll take more than that. My actual abilities will be tested."

I mean, I guess that armour piece just happened to be there, but... LUCK?

"Midoriya," I murmured, "You're kind-of scary."

"Eh? Scary! S-Sorry! I'll try to stop mumbling..."

"No, not that!" I said. "I mean, how long have you been looking at things analytically? Breaking down information about your classmates and pro-heroes? You put it all in your notebook, right?"

Midoriya's gaze lowered as his face flushed bright red. "W-Well... I was born weak. So... I thought... It's embarrassing, but I thought that by studying strong people, I could learn how to be like that, too. If I study hard enough, I can get closer my dream... To be a hero, even if I'm weak."

I propped my hands on my hips. "I thought so. That's why you're able to come up with things like that on the fly, huh?" At his flustered expression, I sighed.

"Midoriya, that's not something to be embarrassed about. I do the same thing," I said, giving my temple a tap, "I just don't write it down. It's been trained into me so much it's compulsive – sometimes, I can't get the analysis to stop."

Midoriya laughed shyly. "I think I get what you mean there..."

"Yeah," I said, "But you've learned to think that way on your own. You should be proud." I gestured to the surrounding crowd, the roaring heroes and hero fanatics who had risen from their seats. "Look where you are now! Nothing you did went to waste."

Midoriya's eyes brimmed with tears. He buried his face in his elbow. "Thank-you, Akiharu. That means a lot to me."

I noticed a cameraman focusing in on Midoriya and I. Straight-faced, I raised a peace-sign, looked to the crying Midoriya, looked back to the camera, and gave Midoriya bunny ears.

Yeah, putting my sleep-deprived ass on live television was a mistake. The Chairwoman would probably be realizing that soon.

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