LIke a legend once said.... GATORADE!!!!!!!! Enjoy..
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A ray of supercharged light tore through the battlefield.
The railgun's projectile, which was a tungsten slug the size of a fist, accelerated by dual electrical currents and magnetic coils, crossed the distance between Momo and Akira in less than a tenth of a second. It moved so fast that the air around it ignited, leaving a white-hot trail of plasma in its wake. The sonic boom followed a heartbeat later, cracking across the clearing like a thunderclap.
The crowd didn't even have time to react. One moment the railgun fired. Next, the world turned white.
Because Akira had already moved.
The instant the railgun clicked, something shifted inside the phoenix construct. The blue flames that made up the bird's body flickered, rippled, and then changed colour. Blue became orange. Orange became red. Red deepened to a shade of crimson so intense that it looked like liquid fire, burning with a heat that warped the air around it.
The phoenix opened its mouth.
And from its throat came something that wasn't fire.
It was light.
A beam of concentrated flames erupted from the phoenix's jaws, meeting the railgun slug head-on. The two forces collided twenty metres in front of Akira. A supercharged tungsten against compressed starfire, then for a fraction of a second, the world paused.
White........
Everything went white. The screens in the stadium. The camera drones nearest to the impact. The crowd covered their eyes, some screaming, some frozen, all of them blinded by the flash.
Then, the shockwave followed.
It expanded outward from the point of collision like a wall of compressed air, carrying with it a heat so intense that the moisture in the air vaporised on contact. Trees at the edge of the clearing bent backward and snapped like matchsticks. The remaining ice formations from Todoroki's earlier attacks evaporated, turning from solid ice to steam in an instant.
And the students were right in the middle of it.
Todoroki moved before anyone else could think.
He didn't have time to plan. His body moved on instinct as he slammed both palms on the ground and pushed everything he had left into one final creation. Ice erupted from his position, creating a shield. A massive curved barrier of layered ice that arced over the students like a dome, three layers thick, each one denser than the last, shielding them from the shockwave and the heat and the debris that followed.
The wave hit the ice dome. The outer layer melted instantly. The second layer cracked; fortunately, the third held.
Barely, but just enough.
Inside the dome, twenty-three students were pressed against each other, breathing hard, covered in ash and sweat. The ground shook beneath them. The ice cracked as melted ice dripped from the ceiling.
Bakugo was on one knee, his arms still smoking from his earlier blast. He looked up at the ice dome above him.
"Tch. Not bad, Half-Half."
Todoroki was on his knees, both hands still pressed to the ground, frost burns covering both arms. He was freezing, as his body temperature dropped hard.
"Don't... mention it," he managed to say.
Izuku was cradling his broken finger, One For All still crackling faintly across his skin. Uraraka was beside him, dizzy from quirk overuse, fighting not to throw up. Tokoyami had Dark Shadow wrapped around three students like a living shield. Kendo was holding Monoma; he had passed out from quirk exhaustion, a satisfied grin still on his annoying face. Kaminari was on the ground, drooling, giving everyone a thumbs-up like an idiot. Shinso stood in the corner, Kirishima and Tetsutetsu still with him.
Hatsume was checking her broken jetpack, muttering about the need for recalibration. Mineta was hiding behind Shoji. Ibara had her hands clasped in prayer, vines retracted, whispering thanks to the gods.
CRACK
The ice dome cracked down the centre and fell apart in chunks, revealing the sky above.
Smoke, ash, and dust everywhere. A crater where the two attacks had collided, five metres deep and twenty metres wide.
And in the air all of it, hovering were wings of dimming red flame.
The phoenix construct was gone. The massive bird form had dissolved, burned away by the force of his own attack. What remained was Akira himself, hovering on two smaller wings, his uniform burned away across his chest and arms, his skin marked with scorch lines from the railgun's near-impact.
He was breathing a bit heavily. For the first time in the entire battle royale, Akira Shuzenji was breathing hard. Soon, his blue flames kicked in and began to heal his wounds.. and he was good as new.
He looked down at the students. At the crater, the broken ice dome, and Momo's railgun, which had been reduced to a twisted heap of melted metal by the shockwave.
He looked at Momo.
She was standing behind the destroyed weapon, her visor cracked, as her suit ran out of power, but still on her feet. Still standing and looking up at him through the broken visor.
Their eyes met.
Akira smiled at her.
That actually hurt.
Momo smiled back.
Good.
In the stadium, the screens flickered back online. The camera drones rebooted. The feeds stabilised, and the crowd saw the aftermath.
Silence. For three seconds, a hundred thousand people said nothing.
Then they lost their minds.
The roar that erupted from the stadium was unlike anything that had come before.
"THAT WAS THE GREATEST SHIT I'VE EVER SEEN!!"
"THE RAILGUN!! DID YOU SEE THE RAILGUN?!"
"HE COUNTERED IT WITH HIS MOUTH BEAM!! HE SHOT A LASER FROM HIS MOUTH!!"
"THAT YAOYOROZU KID MADE THAT BROKEN ASS WEAPON IN THE MIDDLE OF A FOREST!!"
"I'M SWITCHING MY MAJOR TO HERO STUDIES!!"
Present Mic was standing on his desk, with tears streaming down his face.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!! I HAVE BEEN COMMENTATING SPORTS FESTIVALS FOR YEARS AND I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE WHAT JUST HAPPENED!! MOMO YAOYOROZU FIRED A RAILGUN POWERED BY TWO STUDENTS AT A GIANT PHOENIX MADE OF FIRE AND THE PHOENIX SHOT BACK WITH A BEAM OF PURE LIGHT!! THIS ISN'T A SCHOOL TOURNAMENT!! THIS IS A PEAK CINEMA!!"
Aizawa was quiet for a long moment. Then he leaned into his mic.
"Every single student in that field gave everything they had. The non-hero students charged a monster and didn't run. The hero students executed a plan to buy time for Yaoyorozu. And Yaoyorozu built and deployed a railgun in combat conditions while coordinating sixty-seven people." He paused. "I've seen pro heroes who can't do what these kids just did."
In the VIP box, Honoka and Reika were crying and smiling at the same time.
"She built a railgun," Reika whispered. "My daughter built a railgun."
"Still did not beat my son." Honoka replied.
They looked at each other and started laughing through their tears.
Mei Lin was leaning back in her seat, arms crossed, nodding slowly. "The Yaoyorozu girl forced him to switch from blue to red." She looked at Jian. "That girl is something else."
Jian nodded. "Ming would recruit her on the spot."
Yu was already on her tablet, typing furiously. "I'm drafting an internship offer for both of them, Before anyone else gets to them."
Kiyomasa Yaoyorozu stood at the window, arms crossed, watching the screen. His daughter was standing in a destroyed clearing, surrounded by the wreckage of her own weapon, covered in ash, visor cracked, suit damaged.
She was smiling.
He smiled too.
Nia was bouncing so hard that Wei had to hold her with both arms.
"DADDY AND MOMMY ARE SO COOL!! THEY'RE THE COOLEST!! I WANT TO DO THAT WHEN I GROW UP!!"
"Please don't," Honoka said.
BEEP.
The final beep.
Midnight's voice echoed across the battlefield for the last time.
"TIME'S UP!! THE BATTLE ROYALE IS OVER!!"
Drones swarmed the clearing. Medical bots deployed from the stadium, racing across the campus toward the jungle. The remaining students collapsed where they stood.
Akira landed softly as his wings dissolved. He touched down on the scorched earth and stood there for a moment, looking around at the destruction.
Then he walked toward Momo.
She watched him come. He was healed, that was good, though his uniform was in shreds. Which she did not mind looking at.
He stopped in front of her.
"A railgun?" he said.
"A railgun," she confirmed.
"Powered by two electric quirk users."
"Dual-source electromagnetic acceleration. The coil design maximises-"
"You shot me with a railgun."
"Yes."
"On live television."
"In front of the whole country."
He stared at her. She stared back. Neither of them blinked.
"You know," Akira said, "most girlfriends send texts. Maybe bake cookies. You shot me with military-grade hardware."
"You're welcome."
Then Akira laughed, soon Momo started laughing too, and before either of them could stop it, half the remaining students were laughing with them — exhausted, battered, covered in ash, sitting in a crater, laughing like idiots because they had just survived something that none of them would ever forget.
Back in the stadium, the screens shifted to the final results.
Midnight appeared on the main stage, microphone in hand, grinning wider than she had all day.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!! THE BATTLE ROYALE IS OFFICIALLY OVER!! AND NOW... THE MOMENT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR!!"
She cracked her whip.
"THE TOP SIXTEEN STUDENTS WHO WILL ADVANCE TO THE ONE-VERSUS-ONE TOURNAMENT!!"
The main screen lit up as names appeared one by one, each accompanied by a point total and a roar from the crowd.
1st:: Akira Shuzenji: 1,140 pts
Present Mic didn't even try to be professional. "ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY POINTS!! THAT'S NOT A SCORE, THAT'S A PHONE NUMBER!!"
2nd:: Bakugo Katsuki: 85 pts
Bakugo scoffed from the clearing. He hated second place. But he was already looking at the tournament bracket in his head, mapping his path to Akira.
3rd ::Todoroki Shoto: 82 pts
4th:: Yaoyorozu Momo: 78 pts
The crowd cheered for each name, but the cheers for Momo were something different. It was much louder. She had earned something today that points couldn't measure.
5th:: Shinso Hitoshi: 62 pts
A General Studies student in the top five. The crowd's reaction was split between admiration and discomfort, which was due to his quirk. Shinso didn't care about either.
6th:: Tokoyami Fumikage: 48 pts
7th:: Kendo Itsuka: 44 pts
8th:: Iida Tenya: 40 pts
9th:: Midoriya Izuku: 38 pts
10th:: Shiozaki Ibara: 35 pts
11th:: Jurota: 32 pts
12th:: Kaminari: 30 pts
13th:: Honenuki Juzo: 26 pts
14th:: Hatsume Mei: 22 pts
The crowd cheered for the Support class student in the top sixteen.
15th:: Monoma Neito: 20 pts
"THAT'S RIGHT!!" Monoma yelled from the clearing, still half-conscious, fist raised. "CLASS 1-B SUPERIORITY!!"
"You literally passed out during the fight," Kendo said.
"THAT WAS PART OF THE PLAN!!"
16th:: Shoji Mezo: 18 pts
Midnight let the crowd process the list, then raised her microphone one final time.
"THERE YOU HAVE IT!! YOUR TOP SIXTEEN!!!"
She pointed at the sky.
"THE ONE-VERSUS-ONE TOURNAMENT BEGINS AFTER A THIRTY-MINUTE BREAK!! GET YOUR SNACKS, HIT THE BATHROOMS, AND GET READY, BECAUSE IF THE BATTLE ROYALE WAS THE APPETISER..."
She cracked her whip.
"THE MAIN COURSE IS ABOUT TO BE SERVED!!"
The stadium erupted one final time.
In the clearing, Akira sat down on a rock with Momo beside him. She leaned her head on his shoulder.
"My girlfriend shot me with a railgun." He said again.
"And I'd do it again," she murmured.
He put his arm around her.
"I know you will. Guess my craziness is rubbing off on you."
They looked at each other and started giggling.
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Welp........ guess our boy is alive... The story continues.
How was the round 1? Let me know.
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