Check out my new fanfic: Jujutsu Kaisen: What is Life?
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The arena was packed to the brim.
Every seat was filled. The U.A. Sports Festival stadium held over a hundred thousand people, and today, it felt like it was holding twice that.
Massive screens hung from every corner, displaying the U.A. crest and a countdown timer. Vendors pushed through the crowds selling drinks and merchandise. Camera drones hovered above the field, making sure to record everything.
The sun was high, the sky was clear, and the stage was set.
In the VIP section, the gang had settled in.
The box was spacious, glass-fronted, air-conditioned, with plush seating and a private bar. The kind of seating that came with connections or money.
The people in there had both.
Two banners were hung on the railing of the box, facing the arena. One read "GO AKIRA" in bold red letters. The other read "GO MOMO" in elegant black script. Honoka had made the first one. Reika had made the second. They had argued for twenty minutes about whose banner should be bigger.
They were the same size, but neither woman acknowledged this.
Reika leaned forward in her seat, hands clasped together.
"I can't wait to see the kids!"
Honoka, who was sitting beside her with her arms crossed, looked less excited and more worried.
"I just hope Akira doesn't do something... Akira-like."
Mei, who was lounging in the seat behind them with her boots up on the armrest, laughed.
"You bet he will. I'm putting my money on him doing something absolutely insane within the first ten minutes."
"That's not reassuring, Mei."
"It wasn't supposed to be."
Jian, sitting next to Kiyomasa — who was still ignoring him — leaned forward and looked at Mei.
"By the way," Jian said, "how was Akira's training? Was it fun?"
Mei's grin faded.
"That kid is scary."
The box went quiet.
Everyone looked at her. Honoka. Reika. Jian. The twins. Yu. Even Kiyomasa turned his head.
"How?" Honoka asked.
Mei leaned back and crossed her arms.
"Both ways. Learning and mentality."
She paused, choosing her words.
"He absorbed almost everything I had to offer in a week. A single week. Techniques that took me months to develop, fighting principles that most swordsmen spend years refining, he just took them in, adapted them, and started using them like he'd known them his whole life."
She shook her head.
"I've trained a lot of fighters over the years. Underground, military, corporate security. None of them learned that fast. Not even close."
Jian leaned forward, eyes wide. "Wait..... does that mean he could beat you?"
Mei stared at him.
"Hell no."
A pause.
"Well... not yet."
The silence that followed was heavy. Every person in that box understood what those words meant. Mei Lin, AKA the Blood Dancer, the woman who had dominated underground fighting rings since she was a teenager, whose Warblade quirk made her a walking armoury, was saying that a fifteen-year-old student might one day surpass her.
Mei looked out at the arena.
"I can't fully explain it. Call it a gut feeling. But I think there's more to his quirk than what he's shown. More than even he knows."
She glanced at Honoka.
"There is a bigger piece missing of something bigger. Something he hasn't unlocked yet."
The room was quiet.
Then Honoka smiled proudly.
"Hehe. I knew it," she said softly. "After all, he is my son."
Mei laughed. "Hell yeah, he is."
Just then, Yu Yan cleared her throat. She was sitting at the end of the row.
"I would like to send an internship invitation from Celestial Axis to Akira."
Honoka blinked. "But you haven't even seen him fight yet."
Yu looked at her.
"Please," she said flatly. "If Mei says something like this about a hero, I would give that hero a blank cheque and tell them to write the number they need."
She adjusted her glasses.
"In the recruitment business, you don't wait for proof. You read the signs. And every sign I've seen points in one direction."
Mei grinned. "She's not wrong."
Before Honoka could respond, every screen in the arena lit up.
A man appeared on every display.
Blonde hair spiked upward like an explosion, with a leather jacket.
Present Mic.
"HEY!!!!"
The entire arena answered.
"HEY!!!!!!!!"
A hundred thousand voices, unified into a single roar that shook the stadium.
Present Mic cupped his hand to his ear.
"I SAID... HEY!!!!!!!!"
"HEEEEEEEEY!!!!!!!!!!!"
The roar doubled.
Present Mic grinned.
"PAY ATTENTION, AUDIENCE!!"
The screens behind him shifted, displaying the U.A. Sports Festival logo.
"THIS YEAR'S HIGH SCHOOL RODEO OF ADOLESCENCE THAT YOU ALL LOVE, THE U.A. SPORTS FESTIVAL!! IS ABOUT TO BEGIN!!!!!"
Fireworks erupted from the edges of the stadium.
"ARE YOU ALL READY?!!"
"YEAAAAAH!!!!" the crowd roared.
"THEN LET'S WELCOME OUR STUDENTS!!!"
The gates at the base of the stadium began to open. Sunlight poured into the tunnel.
"HERE THEY ARE! OUR FIRST YEARS!!!!!"
The students walked out.
Class 1-A emerged first, led by Akira.
He walked at the front with his hands in his pockets. Momo was beside him. Behind them, the rest of Class 1-A spread out in a loose formation.
The arena erupted.
From the VIP box, the gang went wild.
"AKIRA!!! MOMO!!!" Reika screamed, waving both banners at once.
Honoka was on her feet, hands cupped around her mouth. "THAT'S MY SON! THAT'S MY SON RIGHT THERE!"
Wei held Nia up to the glass. "LOOK, NIA! THERE'S YOUR DADDY AND MOMMY!"
Nia pressed her face against the window. "GO DADDY!! GO MOMMY!! BEAT EVERYONE UP!!"
Kiyomasa watched his daughter walk onto the field. He said nothing, just a proud smile on his face.
Present Mic's voice thundered across the stadium.
"THE U.A. FESTIVAL!! THE HUGE BATTLE WHERE FLEDGLING HEROES SHARPEN THEIR SWORDS ONCE A YEAR!! AND HERE ARE OUR FUTURE HEROES!!!!"
The crowd cheered even harder. More fireworks. The screens displayed each class as they entered.
"COMING UP FIRST. THE CLASS THAT OVERCAME THE ADVERSITY OF REAL VILLAINS!! GIVE IT UP FOR CLASS 1-A!!"
Massive cheers.
"FOLLOWED BY CLASS 1-B!!"
More cheers.
"THEN THE GENERAL STUDIES CLASSES C, D, AND E!!"
"THE SUPPORT CLASSES F, G, AND H!!"
Cheers.
"AND FINALLY, THE BUSINESS CLASSES I, J, AND K!!"
The final wave of cheers rolled through the stadium as all the first-year students gathered on the field.
"AND THESE ARE ALL THE U.A. FIRST YEARS!!"
The arena gave one last roar. Then it began to settle as the students lined up in their class formations.
On the stage at the front of the field, a figure stepped forward.
She cracked her whip.
"TIME FOR THE PLAYER PLEDGE!" Midnight announced.
From the Class 1-B side, a loud voice yelled: "HELL YEAH!! THIS IS THE U.A. I'M TALKING ABOUT!!"
Momo frowned. She looked toward the source of the shout and saw a short, purple-ball-haired boy standing in the Class 1-B area, giving a thumbs-up in the general direction of the stage. His eyes weren't on the stage, though. They were on Momo.
He noticed her looking back, blushed and grinned.
She too looked away.
"Disgusting."
Midnight slashed her whip again.
"NOW!! REPRESENTING CLASS 1-A! THE STUDENT LEADING THE PLEDGE IS... AKIRA SHUZENJI!!"
The name echoed through the stadium.
And the cheers died.
Then a hundred thousand people went from roaring to whispering in the span of two seconds.
"Isn't that the kid who got away with criminal charges because he's the son of Emberheart?"
"Yeah. I heard he had Nezu's backing too. It's all connections."
"I mean, he looks cool, but looks can be deceiving."
"Bet he wouldn't even be here if his family wasn't loaded."
The whispers spread like wildfire. Through the stands, the field, and the other classes, who stared at the red-haired boy walking toward the stage with suspicion.
In the VIP box, Honoka's hands gripped the railing.
She was about to jump.
Reika grabbed her just in time.
"Relax, Honoka," Reika said firmly. "You know you'll make things worse by acting. Let him handle it."
Honoka's jaw clenched with anger.
Beside them, something unexpected happened.
Jian started laughing.
Not a small giggle. A full, head-thrown-back, tears-in-his-eyes laugh, which was followed by the rest of the Li family.
Mei joined him. Then Na. Then Wei. Even Yu let out a quiet chuckle behind her tablet.
Honoka, Nia, and the Yaoyorozus stared at them.
"What's so funny?!" Honoka yelled.
Mei wiped her eyes. "Oh my god! I can't believe how similar all the governments are!"
Na was laughing wildly, slapping the armrest. "These bastards are the same everywhere! Every single country! They all have the same fucking playbook!"
Honoka looked between them. "What are you talking about?"
Jian settled down and looked at Honoka.
"You've met President Ming, right?"
She nodded. "Of course."
"And you know his strength?"
"Obviously. He's the strongest in Asia. The only ones near his level in asia are All Might and the India's joint Number Ones."
Jian nodded. "You see, years ago, the Chinese government tried to pull something similar on old man Ming."
He leaned forward.
"They wanted to control him. Regulate him, and put him on a leash. They ran a media campaign to discredit him. Planted stories about misconduct, and tried to strip his authority. Sound familiar?"
Honoka's eyes narrowed. It did sound familiar. Exactly like what the HPSC was doing to Akira.
"Then what did he do?" she asked.
Yu spoke this time.
"What else?" Yu said. "The old man laughed. The way he always does."
She paused for effect.
"His had a hearing years ago, and what he did was hilarious. After the speaker was done, the old man stood up and with a flick of his hand, he took control of every government official in that courtroom. All of them. Senators, ministers, military generals. He lifted them into the air, a hundred feet above the court building, and held them there."
The VIP box was dead silent.
"Then he declared, on live national television, that he was forming his own independent organisation. The Asian Hero Support Association. Answerable to no government. Beholden to no political party. Operating by its own rules, for the benefit of heroes and normal people across the continent."
She adjusted her glasses.
"On paper, it's a support organisation. Equipment approvals, international licensing, logistics. But in reality, they work from the shadows independently. They answer to no one but Ming himself."
The Japanese just stared blankly.
"How come no one knows about this?" Reika asked.
"Because the Chinese government buried it," Yu said simply. "They scrubbed it from the records. Censored the broadcasts. Threatened every journalist who covered it. But everyone in China who matters knows the truth: the government doesn't control Old Man Ming. He tolerates the government."
She pointed at the arena, where Akira was climbing the steps to the stage. His hands were still in his pockets, and his posture completely relaxed. A hundred thousand people were whispering about him, and he walked like he couldn't hear a single one of them.
"And now I'm watching the Japanese government try to do the same thing. The HPSC spinning narratives. Media whispers. Painting a fifteen-year-old boy as a criminal because he saved his class, and they couldn't control how he did it."
She smiled.
"I'm very excited to see what he'll do."
The VIP box fell quiet. All eyes turned to the arena.
The whispers continued. The doubt hung in the air like smoke.
But Akira kept walking like the fucking chad he was.
--<<>>--
Ignore the last part... I got to excited writing this😅
Update I now got like +13 chapter!!! So if you want to support me, you can join my P@teron. (Just search up Joe_Mama p@treon on google.)