"Stretching, stretching, stretching so I win!" Sen hummed at the back of the group, his voice a low, tuneless drone as he performed a series of exaggerated lunges. His movements were fluid, almost lazy, but there was a new undercurrent of purpose to them. The performance was over. The stadium was waiting.
Most of the class was a ball of nervous energy, psyching themselves up or trying to calm their racing hearts. Bakugo cracked his neck, tiny explosions popping in his palms. Iida chopped the air, muttering about proper warm-up procedures. Izuku was mumbling a mile a minute, running through a hundred different scenarios.
"Will you cut that out?" Jiro snapped, one of her earjacks twitching irritably in his direction. "You're throwing off my focus with that creepy humming."
"Focus is internal, Jiro," Sen said without stopping his stretch, reaching for his toes. "If my off-key rendition of a victorious future is enough to break your concentration, the first obstacle will eat you alive."
"Or," she retorted, "you could just be quiet."
"But then how would I share my pearls of wisdom?" He straightened up, a grin playing on his lips. "It's a public service, really."
The sound of the whip crack was the trigger.
Chaos erupted.
Students surged forward as one, a roaring, shoving, quirk-activated tidal wave of bodies. Just as Sen predicted, the tunnel entrance became a violent choke point. Students tripped, shoved, and were immediately swallowed by the crowd.
The bottleneck was a mess of flailing limbs and panicked shouts, exactly as he'd predicted. A wall of bodies—all desperate to be first, all ensuring they'd be last.
The air temperature plummeted. A wave of crystalline blue ice erupted from Todoroki's right foot, thundering through the tunnel mouth with the force of a glacier. It wasn't a precise attack; it was a statement. A wave of cold so intense it stole the breath from everyone's lungs, followed by the deafening crackle of flash-frozen moisture.
In an instant, the chaotic, surging tide of students was frozen solid—a macabre sculpture of panicked expressions and mid-stride poses. The frantic noise of the charge was replaced by an eerie, hollow silence, broken only by the groaning of stressed ice and the distant, confused roar of the crowd.
Only a handful had been fast or lucky enough to escape.
A flicker of silver, a crackle of ozone. Sen didn't run on the ice—he flowed over it. His feet, sheathed in crackling arcs of electricity, didn't slip. "Nice try, Fake-ass Zuko! A solid eight out of ten for presentation!" he called out, his tone that of a mildly impressed critic. "But my lightning chakra mode clears—no diff!"
He was a phantom, a blur of motion skirting the edge of the glacial wave Todoroki had unleashed.
He didn't even look at the frozen students as he zipped past the ice-skating Todoroki. His voice, laced with amusement and carrying easily over the groaning ice, was a casual dart aimed with pinpoint precision.
The first obstacle loomed: the Zero-Pointer robots from the entrance exam, a hulking line of metallic doom blocking the path.
Sen didn't even break stride. He didn't summon the Kirin. That was overkill.
He leaped over a swipe from the Zero-Pointer's hand, running up its arm, still sparking with lightning chakra. "Don't make me laugh—you can't touch lightning!"
Sen sped up. He didn't attack; he didn't have to. He used his chakra-enhanced body and shot through the head of the Zero-Pointer. "Look out below!"
A shower of molten metal and shattered circuitry erupted from the back of the robot's head as Sen blasted clean through it, a human-shaped bullet wrapped in a corona of blinding white lightning. He landed in a skid, tearing a furrow in the ground, the electricity around his feet grounding out with a deafening CRACK that echoed across the arena.
He didn't look back at the decapitated giant as it teetered, its systems fried, before crashing to the earth with a world-shaking BOOM that sent a tremor through the stadium. The crowd's roar was instantaneous, a deafening wave of pure shock and awe.
Behind him, the other front-runners dealt with their own robots. Todoroki simply flash-froze another Zero-Pointer's legs solid, sending it toppling. Bakugo used his explosions to violently propel himself through a robot's eye socket, obliterating its head from the inside out. Iida revved his engines and carved a path through a smaller bot with a Recipro Burst-enhanced kick.
He could hear Present Mic screaming his commentary. "WHOAAAA! DID YOU SEE THAT, FOLKS?! SEN YONORI JUST WENT THROUGH THE ZERO-POINTER LIKE IT WAS MADE OF WET TOILET PAPER! WHAT KIND OF POWER IS THAT?! HE'S NOT JUST STRONG, HE'S A HUMAN RAILGUN!"
"SEN YONORI FROM CLASS 1-A! HE ACHIEVED THE HIGHEST SCORE IN U.A. ENTRANCE EXAM HISTORY! HIS QUIRK? A UNIQUE FORM OF ENERGY MANIPULATION CALLED CHAKRA. HE ALSO HAS THIS WEIRD THING ABOUT BEING A NINJA!"
"Mic-sensei, you wound me," a Sen clone said, adjusting its tie with a smirk identical to the original's. "It's not a 'weird thing.' It's a proud and ancient tradition. The art of the shinobi is one of patience, precision, and devastating power."
Up in the commentary booth, the real Present Mic jumped a foot in the air, shrieking as the clone materialized right beside him. "WHAA?! WHEN DID YOU—"
"Approximately three seconds ago," the clone said smoothly, patting Mic on the shoulder.
"What are you doing up here, Yonori?" Aizawa deadpanned, not even bothering to turn his head. His bloodshot eyes remained fixed on the race below, though one twitched in irritation. "You're supposed to be in the race."
"Correction: I am in the race," the clone said, gesturing with a thumb toward the track where the original was already pulling ahead. "I am a multitasking marvel. Don't worry about me using the clone to cheat. I can't see what the clone sees until it goes away. Besides, I'm here to explain the parts of my quirk you two wouldn't know about, so any questions, ask away."
The clone's offer hung in the air for a second—a bizarre moment of fourth-wall-breaking exposition in the middle of the chaotic race. Down on the track, the real Sen was already a blur of lightning, leaving the frozen tunnel and the wrecked robots in his dust.
Aizawa didn't even blink. He just sighed, the long-suffering sigh of a man who had long since accepted that his problem child operated on a completely different wavelength. "Fine. The lightning. Explain."
"Right!" The clone said, clapping its hands together as if starting a particularly exciting lecture. "So, my quirk, Chakra, isn't just raw energy. It's a life force that can be molded and transformed. The lightning you see is the Lightning Release nature transformation. It enhances my speed and allows for piercing attacks. The big dragon thing from the USJ? That's a high-level technique that combines that transformation with a massive shape manipulation. It's... taxing."
Present Mic, having recovered from his shock, leaned in, his commentator instincts overriding his confusion. "SO IT'S LIKE YOU'RE A WALKING, TALKING POWER PLANT WITH EXTRA STEPS? AND THE CLONES?"
"Shadow Clones," the clone corrected. "A jutsu that divides my chakra evenly to create tangible, physical copies. They can interact with the world, feel pain, and disperse, returning their memories and experiences to me. Hence why I'm up here explaining while he," it jabbed a thumb at the speeding original, "is focusing on not eating dirt. It's the ultimate multitasking tool."
"INCREDIBLE! SO YOU'RE BASICALLY YOUR OWN SPY NETWORK AND DISTRACTION CREW!" Mic yelled, utterly fascinated.
"Precisely. Knowledge is power, and I am a very knowledgeable boy." The clone smirked.
Down below, Sen reached the second obstacle, a chasm filled with pillars and tightropes.
Sen didn't slow. He reached the precipice and leaped.
"SEN YONORI DOESN'T STOP! IS HE GONNA TRY TO JUMP IT?!" Mic's voice was a screech of disbelief.
But Sen wasn't jumping the whole way. As he arced through the air, he focused chakra into the soles of his feet. He landed sideways on the first stone pillar, and instead of stopping, he pushed off, using the chakra to adhere for a microsecond before launching himself to the next one. He wasn't running; he was ricocheting—a pinball of pure momentum zipping from pillar to rope to platform without ever losing speed.
He was a blur, a phantom dancer on a deadly tightrope. He didn't even look at his feet; his eyes were fixed on the end of the chasm.
The crowd roared, a mix of awe and confusion. Present Mic's voice screeched through the stadium. "WHAT IS THIS MADNESS?! HE'S NOT USING THE ROPES! HE'S BOUNCING OFF THE WALLS! LITERALLY! IS THAT EVEN ALLOWED?!"
From the commentator's booth, the Sen clone adjusted its tie with an infuriatingly calm smirk. "There were no rules stating one must use the provided pathways. The objective is to cross the chasm. My method is simply more efficient. It's a basic application of chakra adhesion—molding energy to my feet to create a temporary bond with any surface or propel off the surface. It even lets me walk on walls or water."
With one final, thunderous kick off the last pillar, Sen shot out of the chasm like a cannonball, landing in a skid that tore a furrow in the earth. He was now significantly ahead of the pack, a lone figure sprinting across the open field toward the final obstacle.
"AND HERE IT IS, FOLKS! THE GRAND FINALE! A MINEFIELD!" Present Mic's voice boomed. "ONE WRONG STEP AND KABOOM! THESE BABIES WON'T KILL YA, BUT THEY'LL SEND YOU FLYING AND PUT A REAL DAMPER ON YOUR FINISHING TIME!"
A collective gasp rippled through the stadium. A minefield. A test of caution, precision, and luck.
Sen didn't break stride. He didn't even slow down.
From a deliberate, overwhelming trigger, a chain reaction of explosions blossomed in a perfect, widening arc ahead of him, detonating every mine in a massive radius. The field became a hellscape of fire, smoke, and concussive blasts, the sound a continuous, deafening roar.
Sen didn't flinch. He sprinted directly into the inferno.
"HE'S TRIGGERING THEM ALL!" Mic screamed, half-standing from his chair. "HE'S USING THE BLAST WAVE AS COVER AND A PROPULSION TOOL! THE ABSOLUTE MADMAN!"
Through the smoke and fire, a figure could be seen riding the concussive waves, his body coated in a protective layer of crackling lightning chakra. Each explosion that went off at his feet didn't stop him—it launched him forward faster, like a surfer catching a perfect, explosive wave. He was harnessing the chaos, using the very obstacle designed to slow him down as his own personal accelerator.
Todoroki and Bakugo skidded to a halt at the edge of the still-detonating field, forced to watch as their rival turned the minefield into his own personal firework display and highway to victory. The sheer, audacious insanity of it left them momentarily stunned.
The crowd was on its feet, a deafening, unanimous roar of disbelief and awe.
Sen shot out of the far side of the smoke cloud wreathed in tendrils of fire and soot, his lightning aura flickering but undimmed. The path to the finish line was clear—a straight shot of untouched grass.
He didn't even look back. He just poured on the speed, the lightning around his feet flaring brighter.
He crossed the finish line.
A moment of stunned silence was broken by the blare of the air horn and Present Mic's voice, which cracked with sheer, unadulterated excitement.
"AND WE HAVE OUR WINNER OF THE FIRST EVENT! IN A DISPLAY OF POWER AND TACTICAL INSANITY THE LIKES OF WHICH WE HAVE NEVER SEEN... SEN YONORI OF CLASS 1-A!"
The next fifteen minutes were a parade of exhaustion and determination. Izuku crashed into second using mines to propel himself. Todoroki, using his ice to create a shielded path, crossed third, his face a mask of cold fury. Bakugo, using precisely timed, smaller explosions to launch himself over the remaining mines, took fourth, screaming obscenities the entire way.
As the last of the forty-two qualifiers stumbled across the line, Midnight took the stage again, her expression one of rapturous delight. She looked directly at Sen, licking her lips.
"Well! That was certainly an... explosive start to our festival! Our top forty-two have been decided! But before we move on to the next, delightfully brutal event..." She paused for dramatic effect, cracking her whip.
The screen behind her lit up, spinning through a series of games and contests before landing on...
"CAVALRY BATTLE!" Midnight announced.
A murmur of confusion ran through the top forty-two.
"The points system will be based on your placement in the race!" Midnight continued. "The higher you placed, the more points your headband is worth! And the point value for first place is..."
The number appeared on the screen behind her with a dramatic flash.
10,000,000
The stadium fell silent for a split second before erupting into chaos. Every single pair of eyes in the top forty-two, and thousands in the stands, swiveled to lock onto Sen. His lazy smile didn't falter. If anything, it grew wider, sharper.
He was no longer just a competitor.
He was the grand prize.
Midnight's laugh was a wicked, joyful thing. "That's right! Sen Yonori isn't just in first place... he is the first place! Everyone will be gunning for you, little hero! Let's see if you can keep that target on your back!" She blew him a kiss. "Don't disappoint me!"
A slow, lazy smirk spread across Sen's face, a stark contrast to the waves of palpable hunger and aggression now radiating from the other forty-one students. The air crackled with intent. He wasn't just a person anymore; he was an object—the ultimate prize.
"Ten million, huh?" he mused, his voice carrying a dark amusement. "I'm a little offended. I'm at least worth a billion. I'll do you one better: anyone who gets my headband, I'll surrender. I'll completely drop out of the festival."
The silence that followed his declaration was even deeper, more profound than the one after his finish-line explosion. It was a vacuum of sound, sucking the very air from the stadium.
Then, the dam broke.
"YOU IDIOT!" The scream was a unified chorus from Class 1-A. Iida looked like he was about to short-circuit, his arms chopping the air in a frantic, malfunctioning blur. Uraraka had her hands clamped over her mouth, her face pale. Kirishima's jaw was on the floor.
Bakugo's reaction was the most violent. An explosion detonated in his palm with the force of a grenade. "YOU FUCKING BASTARD! DON'T YOU DARE THROW THIS! I'M GONNA BEAT YOU MYSELF! YOU HEAR ME?!"
Todoroki's icy composure finally shattered. His head snapped toward Sen, his heterochromatic eyes wide with something beyond cold calculation—pure, unadulterated shock. This wasn't a strategy; it was madness.
From the commentator's booth, the Sen clone simply shrugged. "What? I'm just incentivizing them. A ten-million-point headband is a tempting target. The promise of my complete and utter forfeit? That's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Now they'll really bring their best. It's more data for me. A true shinobi learns from every battle, even the ones he orchestrates against himself."
"You've orchestrated your own lynching," Aizawa deadpanned, his voice flat with exhaustion. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Problem Child doesn't even begin to cover it."
Present Mic, however, was having the time of his life. "UN-BE-LIEVABLE! YONORI HAS JUST RAISED THE STAKES TO ASTRONOMICAL LEVELS! NOT ONLY IS HIS HEADBAND WORTH AN INSANE TEN MILLION POINTS, BUT HE'S PROMISED TO DROP OUT OF THE FESTIVAL ENTIRELY IF ANYONE CAN TAKE IT! THE ENTIRE TOURNAMENT HANGS ON A SINGLE HEADBAND!"
The looks aimed at Sen were no longer just hungry. They were ravenous. Predatory. He had ceased to be a person and had become a monument that every other competitor was now legally sanctioned to tear down.
Sen's smirk never wavered. He met the gaze of every potential rival, one by one, his silver eyes glinting with a challenge that was both an invitation and a threat. "Oh, and just because I'm Mr. 10-Million doesn't mean I'm gonna run away. Like I said, I'm worth more than just 10,000,000."
>>>>>>>
"Should've figured the points and declaration would've driven away any potential partners. But that gives me an idea."
Sen stepped closer to the stage. "Ms. Midnight. Can I work alone? With my clones, I mean. I can create multiple to keep myself off the ground, and I would have the required amount of partners."
The silence that followed Sen's question was somehow even heavier than the one after his forfeit declaration. Every eye, on the field and in the stands, was fixed on him and the R-Rated Hero on stage. The sheer audacity of the request—to rewrite the fundamental rules of a team event on the fly—was staggering.
Midnight's painted lips curved into a wide, intrigued smile. She tapped her chin with the handle of her whip, a theatrical gesture that amplified the tension.
"My, my, Yonori-kun," she purred into the microphone, her voice dripping with playful consideration. "Bending the rules to your will already? I do love a student who thinks outside the box... or in your case, seems to want to create his own box entirely."
Aizawa's voice, gruff and amplified from the commentator's booth, cut through the tension. "The rules state that a team must consist of two to four students. It does not specify that those students must be separate individuals. If his clones possess physical substance and are a product of his quirk, then technically, a team comprised solely of him and his manifestations is within the regulations."
A slow grin spread across Midnight's face. "Well! There you have it! The rule of law has spoken! Your request is granted, Sen Yonori! Let's see if one can truly be an army!" She cracked her whip with a sound that made everyone jump. "You may proceed... alone!"
The stadium erupted. It was a cacophony of cheers, boos, and shouts of disbelief.
"ABSOLUTELY NOT! THAT IS A BLATANT VIOLATION OF THE SPIRIT OF THE EVENT!" Iida's voice screeched, his arms chopping so fast they were a blur. "THE CAVALRY BATTLE IS DESIGNED TO TEST TEAMWORK AND COOPERATION!"
"Seems like teamwork with himself to me, ribbit," Tsuyu commented, ever the voice of simple logic.
"HE'S GONNA GET MOBBED!" Kaminari yelled, a spark flying from his hair. "HE MIGHT AS WELL HAVE A SIGN THAT SAYS 'KICK ME'!"
"That's the point, you dunce," Bakugo snarled, though he was watching Sen with a grudging, furious respect. "The bastard's not running. He's making a fucking point."
On the field, the other participants' expressions had shifted from ravenous hunger to a new kind of calculating intensity. Attacking a team of four was one thing. Attacking a lone individual, even one as powerful as Sen, was a much more direct and tempting prospect. The chance to claim that ten-million-point prize and force his forfeit suddenly seemed vastly more achievable.
Poof. Poof. Poof.
Three perfect copies of Sen materialized in a triangle around the original. They were identical down to the lazy, challenging smirk on their faces.
"Alright, boys," the original said, cracking his neck. "You know the drill. Maximum chaos, maximum efficiency. Let's give them a show they'll never forget."
"Thought you'd never ask," one clone said, stretching its arms.
"Ten million points on the line and our glorious leader's pride," another quipped. "No pressure."
"The things I do for character development," the third sighed dramatically.
The original Sen reached up and tied the white headband, emblazoned with a massive '10,000,000', around his forehead. It might as well have been a beacon.
"Form up," he commanded.
The clones moved with seamless, practiced precision. Two of them interlocked their arms, creating a stable platform. The third climbed onto their shoulders, and the original Sen leaped up, settling on the top clone's shoulders with the ease of a gymnast. In seconds, they had formed a perfect, four-person cavalry team... comprised of one person.
They stood there, a single entity, surrounded by a sea of rival teams who were now looking at them not just with hunger, but with a newfound, calculating dread. He wasn't just a target. He was a fortress.
Present Mic's voice shattered the stunned silence, screeching with hysterical excitement. "I DON'T BELIEVE IT! HE'S DONE IT! LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN U.A. HISTORY, WE HAVE A ONE-MAN CAVALRY! TEAM YONORI IS... JUST YONORI! AND HE LOOKS READY FOR WAR!"
In perfect, unnerving unison, the eyes of all four Sen's—the original and his three shadow clones—swirled and shifted. Their silver irises were consumed by a blood-red hue, each now featuring two black tomoe that spun slowly, taking in the entire battlefield with predatory focus.
"WHAT IN THE— HIS EYES! THEY CHANGED!" Present Mic's scream was pure, unfiltered shock. "DID YOU SEE THAT, LISTENERS? SOME NEW HORROR FROM THE PROBLEM CHILD?"
In the commentary booth, the Sen clone that had been explaining his quirk gave a casual shrug. "The Sharingan. A visual prowess that grants predictive capabilities, allowing the user to perceive and anticipate movement with incredible clarity. It's why I'm not worried about being surrounded. I can see all of you coming."
Aizawa let out a groan so deep it seemed to come from his soul. He sunk deeper into his capture weapon. "Visual prowess… predictive… he can see the future now. Of course he can."
The other teams, who had been moments from launching a coordinated assault, faltered. The change was too sudden, too alien. The four sets of glowing red eyes scanning them with an intelligence that felt invasive was deeply unsettling.
"If you won't come to me, we'll come to you!" the original Sen announced to his team.
The four Sen's moved as one. There was no discussion, no shouted command. The three clones forming the base began to run, their steps perfectly synchronized, a three-legged sprint that was unnervingly smooth. The original, perched atop them, was a statue of focused intensity, the 10,000,000-point headband a blazing white flag above his glowing red eyes.
He wasn't running away. He was charging directly into the largest cluster of teams.
"HE'S NOT EVEN TRYING TO DEFEND! TEAM YONORI IS ON THE OFFENSIVE!" Present Mic's commentary was a shriek of disbelief.
The nearest team, a quartet from Class 1-B led by Itsuka Kendo, braced for impact. "He's coming right for us! Tokage, Yanagi, get ready to—"
Her orders were cut short.
The three base-clones didn't slow. Instead, they poofed to dust in perfect unison, launching Sen into a spinning, horizontal cartwheel over Kendo's team. As he flipped, his arm shot down, moving with the fluid, impossible precision of the Sharingan. His fingers didn't fumble or grab; he simply plucked the headband from Kendo's forehead as he passed over them, moving so fast it was barely a blur.
He landed onto another trio of clones that happened to poof into existence before he hit the ground. "Perfect landing!"
Kendo could only stare, her hands flying to her now-bare head in stunned shock. "H-he... how?"
"HE TOOK IT! HE TOOK KENDO'S HEADBAND WITHOUT EVEN BREAKING STRIDE! IT WAS OVER BEFORE IT BEGAN!" Mic screamed.
The battlefield dissolved into pandemonium. Sen's one-man cavalry team wasn't a static target; it was a whirlwind of misdirection, precision, and overwhelming psychological warfare. The three base clones would poof away only to be instantly replaced by two more, forming a different configuration—a pyramid, a tower, a charging wedge—allowing the original to move in impossible, unpredictable vectors.
A team from General Studies, emboldened by numbers, charged from the front while another from the Support Course tried to ensnare him from behind with a net-launcher.
The Sharingan saw it all.
The clones forming the base didn't even turn. They simply dropped, causing the original to fall backwards. As he fell, two new clones poofed into existence beneath him, catching his shoulders and using the momentum to launch him into a perfect, upside-down arc over the net. While inverted, his hand, guided by the predictive spin of the tomoe, snatched the headband from the General Studies team leader. He landed, not on clones, but directly on the shoulders of the Support Course team. His weight and sudden appearance caused them to shriek and collapse in a tangled heap before he kicked off, landing gracefully as another set of clones formed beneath his feet.
"HE'S USING THEM AS SPRINGBOARDS! HE'S TURNING HIS ENEMIES INTO HIS OWN STEPPING STONES!" Present Mic's voice was hoarse from screaming.
In the commentator's booth, the exposition clone was having a field day. "The Sharingan doesn't just predict movement; it analyzes it. I can see the minute tensing of a muscle before a quirk is activated, the shift in balance before a charge. Their tells are like neon signs to me. It's less of a fight and more of a very aggressive, very loud dance, and I know all the steps."
The original Sen, perched atop his living throne, was a phantom. His hands moved in a blur, a whirlwind of precise, Sharingan-guided theft. He wasn't fighting; he was harvesting.
Snatch. A headband from a General Studies student who tried to use a speed quirk.
Pluck. A headband from a Support Course student whose mechanical arms were too slow by half.
Grab. A headband from a 1-B student who yelped as Sen jumped off his shoulder, changing his trajectory.
Headbands of every point value were now tied around the arms and neck of the original Sen, fluttering like victory flags. He was amassing a fortune, a hoard of points that dwarfed every other team's combined total. The 10,000,000-point band remained secure around his forehead, a pristine, untouched bullseye.
"He's not just defending it... he's collecting everyone else's!" Present Mic's voice was a sustained note of hysterical amazement. "IT'S A FULL-ON ROBBERY! A HEIST IN BROAD DAYLIGHT! TEAM YONORI IS STRIPPING THE COMPETITION BARE!"
On the field, the desperation was indeed mounting. Teams began to turn on each other, seeing easier points in their weakened neighbors than in the unstoppable force that was Sen. The battlefield devolved into a free-for-all around the edges, while the center remained a clear ring of space dominated by the one-man army.
This was the opening the real players had been waiting for.
A blast of searing heat and light erupted from the side. A massive, concentrated explosion—not aimed at Sen, but at the ground directly in front of his charging clones. The force of the blast cratered the earth and sent a shockwave of debris and concussive force outward.
The three base clones, their Sharingan aware of the blast but with no physical way to avoid its area-of-effect in time, were blown backwards. They didn't poof, but their formation shattered, stumbling to maintain their footing.
Sen atop them wobbled dangerously, his collection of headbands whipping around him.
"FINALLY, YOU EXTRAS GOT OUT OF MY WAY!" Bakugo Katsuki roared. His team—Sero, Ashido, and Kirishima—rode on a platform of ice courtesy of a begrudging, temporary alliance. They shot forward on a path Sero had created with his tape, propelled by Bakugo's explosions. "THAT HEADBAND IS MINE, YOU CHEAP CON ARTIST!"
Simultaneously, from the other flank, the temperature plummeted. A glacier of ice shot across the ground, not to attack Sen, but to create a sheer, slick wall, cutting off his retreat and forcing his stumbling clones toward Bakugo's charge. Todoroki's team—Yaoyorozu, Iida, and Kaminari—moved with cold precision.
They were coordinating. Not together, but using each other's attacks to box him in.
The crowd roared, sensing the first real challenge to Sen's dominance.
The original Sen's smirk finally widened into a full, manic grin. The red of his Sharingan seemed to glow brighter. "Took you two long enough! I was getting bored!"
His clones regained their footing, not as a stable platform, but as a launching pad. As Bakugo's team closed in, Bakugo himself lunging from his team's shoulders with a scream of fury and an explosive-propelled fist, the three base clones did something insane.
Bakugo's eyes widened mid-air, his punch meeting nothing but the space where Sen's chest had been a split second before. "WHAT THE—?!"
Sen, now crouched behind Bakugo, stood on Sero's shoulders. "Hey, don't mind me. I was just leaving."
The air crackled, thick with the smell of ozone and Bakugo's incandescent rage. For a single, suspended second, Sen stood perched on the shoulders of a stunned Sero, the 205-point headband now dangling from his fingers like a trophy.
Bakugo's scream was a raw, primal thing, punctuated by a chain of explosions that blasted him back toward his own team, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated fury. He flailed in the air, a comet of anger and nitroglycerin sweat.
"Whoa, easy there, Kacchan," Sen said, his voice laced with a mock-concern that was more insulting than any taunt. He casually tied Bakugo's headband around his bicep, adding to his growing collection. "'Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.' Seneca. You're gonna give yourself an aneurysm."
He leaped off Sero's shoulders, landing lightly on Koda's shoulder. Koda was part of Team Hagakure with some General Studies kid and Jiro. "Hey Jiro, wanna come check out some stalls with me after the game?"
Jiro's earjack twitched violently, her face flushing a deep crimson that had nothing to do with the exertion of the battle. On her shoulders, an invisible Hagakure squealed, "Ooooh, Sen! So bold!"
"NOT THE TIME, YOU IDIOT!" Jiro shrieked, her voice cracking with a mixture of fury and utter disbelief. One of her jacks instinctively shot out, not to attack, but to swat at him like an irritating fly.
Sen effortlessly sidestepped the jack, his Sharingan tracking its path with casual ease. "That's not a no, but it's not a yes either. So, which is it?"
Before Jiro could formulate a response that was mostly expletives, a wave of ice shot across the ground, forcing Sen's newly formed clone-base to leap back. Todoroki's team, a glacier of cold efficiency, closed in from the other side.
"It's over, Yonori," Todoroki stated, his voice as frigid as his quirk. "Your mobility is your greatest asset and your greatest weakness. Without a stable team, you're vulnerable the instant you land."
"You'd think that, wouldn't you?" Sen's grin was sharp enough to cut glass. "But you're thinking in terms of teams. I'm thinking in terms of me."
"Now!" Todoroki commanded, unfazed. Iida's engines roared, and they shot forward on a path of fresh ice Todoroki created—a spear of precision aiming for the heart of the distraction.
"Got you!" Bakugo roared from below, having been re-caught by his team. He unleashed a massive, howling AP Shot, the concentrated explosion screaming toward the airborne Sen's.
The explosion connected, enveloping all four figures in a blast of fire and smoke.
The crowd gasped.
The smoke cleared.
Four puffs of white smoke dissipated, revealing nothing but air.
They were all clones.
The real Sen landed lightly on the now-dry shoulders of his original three-clone formation, which had quietly reformed several yards away, untouched. The 10,000,000-point headband was still perfectly secure on his forehead. "Don't you idiots know that being a ninja is all about misdirection?"
The air horn blared, signaling the end of the event.
Midnight cracked her whip, her face flushed with excitement. "TIME'S UP! AND WHAT A SPECTACULAR, CHAOTIC, AND UTTERLY UNPRECEDENTED DISPLAY THAT WAS!"
The scoreboard lit up, displaying the results. Team Todoroki was in second place. Team Bakugo, despite losing a headband, had scavenged enough to clutch third.
And in first place, by a margin so astronomical it was laughable, was Team Yonori. His point total wasn't just 10,000,000. It was 10,000,000 plus every other headband he'd stolen, putting him in a league of his own.
"AND THERE YOU HAVE IT, FOLKS!" Present Mic's voice shattered the quiet, screeching with hysterical excitement. "THE RESULTS ARE IN! IN FIRST PLACE, WITH A POINT TOTAL SO OBSCENE IT SHOULD BE ILLEGAL... TEAM YONORI! WHICH IS JUST YONORI! I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE IT!"
Aizawa's deadpan groan was barely picked up by the microphone. "Believe it. And start budgeting for the migraine medication. The festival isn't even halfway over."
"IN SECOND, TEAM TODOROKI! AND CLUTCHING THIRD BY THE SKIN OF THEIR EXPLOSIVE TEETH, TEAM BAKUGO!"
The reactions were immediate and violent.
"YOU CHEATING BASTARD!" Bakugo's scream was raw, his palms sparking with detonations that were barely contained by Kirishima's hardening. "THOSE WEREN'T REAL TEAMMATES! YOU CAN'T DO THAT! I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"
Sen turned his head slowly, the Sharingan's crimson glow having faded back to his usual silver. "Yeah yeah, you'll kill me so hard I'll die. Jiro~ You got an answer yet?"
She stomped up to him, her cheeks still faintly pink, and poked him hard in the chest. "You don't just ask a girl out in the middle of a battlefield, you idiot! It's weird and high-pressure and... and stupid!"
Sen looked down at her finger, then back up at her face, a faint, genuine smile playing on his lips. "Ah. My apologies. The ambiance was suboptimal. The roaring crowd, the smell of sweat and desperation... not romantic in the slightest. You're right." He leaned in slightly, his voice dropping. "So, how about after I win this whole thing? Better ambiance."
Midnight's whip cracked, slicing through the noise and demanding attention. "What a display! Our top teens are set! But before we break for lunch and let you all recover from that heart-pounding spectacle, let's see the bracket for the one-on-one tournament finals!"
The screen behind her shifted, names rapidly shuffling and locking into place on a tournament bracket. A hush fell over the stadium, every competitor's eyes glued to the screen, tracing their potential path to victory.
Sen's name landed in the top left quadrant. His first opponent: Denki Kaminari.
"AND THERE YOU HAVE IT!" Present Mic's voice boomed. "THE ROAD TO THE TOP IS SET! WE'LL RETURN AFTER A SHORT INTERMISSION FOR THE MAIN EVENT!"
He made a beeline for where Jiro was trying to subtly slip away toward the exit tunnel. He fell into step beside her.
"So," he began, his tone conversational. "About that stall thing. I'm thinking taiyaki. My treat. Consider it an apology for the suboptimal, high-pressure, non-romantic ambiance of my previous query."
Jiro kept walking, her eyes fixed straight ahead, though a faint blush was creeping up her neck. "You're impossible."
"Frequently. Is that a yes?"
"It's a 'maybe if you stop being an insufferable show-off for five minutes,'" she muttered, finally glancing at him. "And if you beat Kaminari. I'm not going to any stalls with a loser."
Sen placed a hand over his heart, his expression one of mock solemnity. "A chance. It's more than I deserve. I shall endeavor to be worthy of your non-avoidance, Kyoka Jiro."
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