Chapter Text
Rushing past the repurposed zero-pointers was pretty simple after holding his breath and climbing over the tight pack of students squeezing through the entrance tunnel, many of them frozen in place by Todoroki’s ice field. The indignant shouts from the people he tried to gently clamber over were only drown out by the yet even more indignant shouts from the people Bakugou was practically jumping off of. Izuku only wondered for a second why the other boy wasn’t using his quirk to get through before realizing that, in a space as tightly packed as this one, it would likely leave a few light burns on at least a few other students. Izuku hadn’t known his classmate to care but about stuff like that before, but it was of little importance now.
Izuku apologized repeatedly as he moved from shoulder to shoulder, occasionally having to dodge a stray slap or bite from the trapped competitors. He watched as Bakugou broke away from the crowd, his progress not hampered by trying to avoid breaking people's noses as Izuku and a few other classmates were. The minute he was a small distant away from the other students, he started up the booming explosions from his palms that jettisoned him far ahead of the crowd.
As Izuku lowered himself from his final perch, apologizing for getting dirt from his shoes on her shoulder, he found himself immediately grateful for his mother's help in his planning. She was correct in suggesting that UA would just reuse aspects of the entrance exam since their attention had been... otherwise occupied recently. It meant that his timing was perfect as he slid under one monstrously large metallic limb and moved to scoop up some debris left behind by Bakugou and Todoroki's destructive departures.
He had been almost confused when he witnessed Todoroki immediately freeze the robots in a precariously balanced trap, and even more so when Bakugou didn’t use his quirk to shoot off until he was well and away from the crowd. It was almost like the two had switched priorities, with Todoroki’s usual careful consideration making Bakugou hesitate, and Bakugou’s drive to prove himself blinding Todoroki to the other participants.
Izuku could hear them yelling and cursing at each other, to different degrees, as they widened the gap further and further, and he felt his desperation to catch up to them grow stronger. He could feel, curling excitedly in his chest, the willingness of One for All to help him reach his goal. He could feel the ever-increasing struggle that it took to hold himself back to running at a regular speed. As Tsuyu and Mina passed him, his muscles twitched and ached to be pushed to their limits.
He wasn’t going to give in. He had made a plan, and made a promise, and wouldn’t disappoint. But the doubt at his abilities began to push their way into his heart, making his vision narrow on the first-place spot Bakugou and Todoroki were chasing.
That is, until he caught a flash of glittering light in the corner of his eye, and he heard Yaoyorozu screaming angrily.
He only planned to glance at first, but he when he caught sight of Mineta with his quick sticking himself to Yaoyorozu, he found his vision un-narrowed once again as he swerved to his right.
“Get off of me, you cheating pervert! This is not the spirit of the festival!” Yaoyoruzu yelled at the boy stuck to her back. She had partially unbuttoned her school uniform to reveal a sprots bra underneath, likely to ease the use of her quirk, but when Mineta had taken the opportunity of her distraction to stick himself to her, one hand on her shoulder and the other around her waist, he had ripped the rest of the buttons open. She was using one hand to hold her shirt shut, and the other to create what looked like a crowbar.
“It’s not cheating, it’s strategic!” Replied Mineta from behind her, his voice lecherously content. “If I get a bonus squeeze from it, who cares?”
“Yaoyorozu, are you okay?” Izuku shouted as he ran to her side, neither of them stopping in their haste to keep in the front of the pack.
“I mean, I guess I can finish the race still, but it’ll be harder with him limiting my quirk use like this! And I- I can’t focus like- We're on live T.V and people will see me getting- I can’t-” She couldn’t seem to find the words she needed, but Izuku understood. Yaoyorozu had always looked with a little bit of fear at Midnight whenever she was teaching their class. She knew what people thought of quirks like hers, which required skin to be exposed. She didn’t want that, and now Mineta was drawing attention to it.
“Midoriya!” Shouted Jirou, suddenly coming up behind them, slowed by what looked like her own metal sheet, “Don’t just stand there! Use your sheet to block her off so she can toss this fucker away without breaking some decency laws!”
The second that Jirou’s plan clicked in Izuku’s head, he held up his sheet to create a small corner with Jirou. He only glanced at Yaoyorozu’s grateful face for a second before he watched Mineta drop to the ground behind her and white light emit from inside his and Jirou’s shield. The three of them rushed in tandem, leaving a shocked Mineta on the ground behind them, stuck to Yaoyorozu’s discarded top.
When Izuku heard two knocks come from the other side of Jirou’s sheet, he lowered his own to reveal Yaoyorozu smiling at the two them in a freshly created gym top with a mesh bottom.
“Thank you both, but don’t think this means I’ll go easy on either of you.” She said calmly, a soft smile on her face. Izuku didn’t know how she could look so collected while running at full speed, but figured a lifetime of media training had probably helped.
“N-No problem,” Jirou blushed at the statement and tossed her metal sheet aside, “This was a onetime kindness because I hate Mineta, this is still a competition!”
“You’re welcome!” Added Izuku, “no time to talk though! Good luck! O-or not because I want to win!” With that awkward goodbye, he ran off again, and watched Jirou do the same. Yaoyorozu didn’t create anything else, likely saving her reserves for when the next obstacle revealed itself. It was only a moment before it came into view.
A giant canyon with speckling's of tall pillar-like platforms spread distantly through it, all only connected by single lines of sturdy looking rope. The delay in dealing with Mineta meant that when Izuku reached the edge, there were already multiple students crossing. When he looked to his side, he saw Yaoyorozu create a belt and what looked like a wind machine to propel herself forward and began ziplining across a horizontal rope. He watched Jirou reach another one and simply start climbing across, using her earphone jacks as extra grip and to occasionally pluck the rope and unbalance other students trying to climb on.
Izuku found a rope that no one else was using and set to work, hanging upside down by his arms and legs, using his over-shirt to tie his scrap metal to his torso, and shimmying his way across the canyon. It took longer than he would've been happy with, but he couldn’t change that now.
When he reached the other side, it was time to simply run again. He had lost sight of the two girls, but could see Hagakure and Aoyama just off beside him. They were both fairly fit hero students, but he could still outpace them quite easily even when sticking to a human level of strength, so he used them to try and gauge his distance from the front and back of the racers. Most likely, if they were here then he was in the front third of the runners, but he couldn’t rely on that to mean much.
He only caught up to a few more people that he didn’t recognize as he approached the third obstacle. He couldn’t tell what it was immediately, his vision obscured by tall plumes of pink smoke, before some it cleared and revealed a sign that read CAUTION: LANDMINES.
He stopped before taking a step onto the field, running through plans R through W before reworking plan T into something he could use. He pulled the hunk of metal off of his back with a hum and got to work digging up the still functional mines from the ground around him. He ignored the strange looks other competitors were giving him as they ran past and inevitably either slowed down or got blown to the back to the beginning of the obstacle.
He placed his mines together carefully in a pile, telling himself that too many was better than not enough and comforting himself with the knowledge that, since no one else seemed injured by the explosions, he wouldn’t even be utilizing his ghoulish healing or robustness. When he had a pile of suitable size, he stood in front of it and held his metal sheet against his chest, saying a quick mental apology to his mom for the heart attack he was about to give her.
With one more deep, steadying breath, he leaned forward and fell onto the mines.
The explosion was honestly bigger than expected, but Izuku wouldn’t complain. He adjusted himself best he could in midair and tried to stop the spinning as he flew over the heads of the other racers. As his trajectory steadied and his vision cleared, he saw he was coming close to Todoroki and Bakugou in the front of the pack. The two of them were still exchanging blows and cold insults, but quieted and seethed the second they noticed Izuku above them.
He was coming down from the sky fast, and Izuku knew that from this height, if he wanted to get out without injury, he would likely have to soften his fall somehow. The easiest way to do that without risking his newly gained ground would be to...
“Sorry!” Izuku shouted as he landed on the shoulders of Bakugou and Todoroki before slamming the metal sheet into the ground in front them, activating the mines and blowing the three of them in three different directions.
He thought he heard Bakugou swearing up a storm in his direction, but it could’ve been the wind rushing past his ears as he cleared the obstacle. He landed with a messy but functional roll and quickly got up to continue running through the second tunnel that he found himself in. It was quieter on the inside of it, with the roar of the audience muffled by the thick layer of cement, and no surrounding competitors to listen to the heavy panting breathes of.
Izuku was in first place. He would remain in first place. No matter the next obstacle.
Apparently, that was a useless thought, as the second he emerged from the tunnel he heard the roar of the crowd return and double in size, and soon noticed that the path in front of him came to an end. He kept running for a moment before looking around and seeing Midnight waving at him from the stage that the event started at. The race was over. He had won.
He had won!
His excitement was almost immediately tarnished slightly by the arrival of a panicked Todoroki, followed by an angrily yelling Bakugou. The both of them seemed in shock for a moment when they realized the race was over, and only had cold glares to spare for him when they're respective second and third placements were announced by Present Mic. Izuku tried to slink away from them as best he could, but could really only awkwardly stall and hope they were too angry to approach him.
As the rest of the finishing competitor's rushed passed the finish line, trickling in slowly but surely, Izuku let the pride of victory wash over him. He felt the tears of happiness running down his face, but didn’t start really bawling until Uraraka ran up to him excitedly.
“Deku! You came first, oh, wow!” She was bouncing with joy, and didn’t even stop when Izuku dropped to his knees a sob. “Ha! You’re lucky I’m getting used to your gushing, you big baby! Congratulations anyways, first place!”
He tried to form a thank you, but it didn’t really sound like much of anything. He was pretty sure she knew what he meant. She sat with him on the ground while he slowly calmed down, Iida joining them soon and restarting the waterworks. Eventually, Midnight announced the 40th finisher had crossed the line, and that the race was over.
As the crowd clambered and shouted excitedly, Iida turned to Izuku.
“By the way Midoriya, I noticed you didn’t use your quirk to get through the first obstacle, even though it would have been beneficial to you. Why is that?”
“Oh, I, uh, actually didn’t use it all. For the whole race.” Izuku answered awkwardly. He wanted to come off as confident in his decision as he felt, but he was suddenly hit with the potential for his friends to react poorly to his explanation. His mother had always taught him that it was best to conform to expectations in order to avoid detection, and he had just gone against that teaching pretty harshly. Now that he was faced with possible social consequence, he wasn’t really sure what to do.
“Really?!” Asked Uraraka in shock, “Why? It would’ve been totally useful a whole bunch of time!”
“I actually, um,” Izuku sturdied himself, “It was kind of a personal thing? I was a really late bloomer, and people told me all the time that I could never be a hero without a quirk. So, um, even though I have a quirk now, I wanted to prove that it's not my genetics that makes me a hero, its me.”
He smiled by the end of his statement, reinvigorated by the audible reminder of what he was representing. Iida was looking at him confusedly, but Uraraka was bouncing up and down in excitement again.
“That. Is. So. Cool!” She cheered, “You totally have, like, something to stand for! Anyone who ever could’ve looked at you and seen anything less than a hero had to have been stupid!”
Izuku was about to wave her off sheepishly when Iida chimed in, comprehension coming over his face as well.
“I understand Midoriya, and I find that very honourable. I agree with Uraraka, heroism seems to come naturally to you.”
Izuku beamed at his friends, happy that they understood and supported him. He saw Tsuyu chatting with Jirou and Ojiro a short distance away from them and waved, happy to see she had also passed the first round. His friends were good people.
He couldn’t wait to kick their butts once the next round was announced.