Ahem.............
I
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AM
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HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After...... a while......
Now, now... Before you guys flame me... hear me out.
Some messed up thing happened in my life... and it took quite a while to recover from it.
But worry not, everything is settled and I will be uploading on a daily basis.
Hope you could forgive Joe.
ANYWAY.. Enjoy the chapter!!
***
BEEP!!!
The second beep echoed across the battlefield, followed by Midnight's voice booming from the drone speakers.
"THAT'S THE SECOND BEEP!!!!!! ONLY TWO MORE BEEPS TO GO!! KEEP IT UP, STUDENTS!!!!!"
The ring of drones began to move as the safe zone was shrinking.
Eastern sector:
Tenya Iida was running through the forest.
His Engine quirk roared in his calves as he reached higher speeds.
He had been tracking the boundary shrink. He knew the timing and the direction as he had mapped the optimal route to the new safe zone in his head before the beep had even finished sounding.
Because that was what Iida always did. Overplan things.
As he burst through a clearing at full speed, three General Studies students were crossing the open ground, jogging toward the safe zone. They saw him coming. One of them threw up a barrier made of glass, which was most likely his quirk.
Iida, however, didn't slow down.
He shifted his weight, dropped his centre of gravity, and juked left. The glass wall missed him by a hand's width.
A second student lunged at him from the side, trying to trip him.
Iida planted his right foot and pivoted. His body spun as his left leg whipped around in an arc. The exhaust pipes in his calf flared blue as the kick connected with the girl's arm, deflecting it away. The shockwave from the engine-boosted kick sent her stumbling backward.
He didn't stop. He was already past her.
The third student opened his mouth to yell.
Must be a sound-based quirk like Present Mic's!
Even before the student used it, Iida had the intel.
Iida accelerated and appeared behind him before the sound left his throat.
A single chop to the back of the neck, and the boy fell unconscious.
The other two students watched Iida's fade from where he had been standing a second ago. He was already fifty metres away, disappearing into the treeline.
"How unheroic," Iida muttered as he ran, adjusting his glasses mid-sprint without breaking stride. "Attacking someone from behind during an evacuation.... But still I should have been more restrained."
He was being hard on himself as always.
Behind him, the two remaining students lay on the ground, staring at the canopy above.
The girl with the extendable arms groaned.
"No wonder they're worth ten points each," she said. "They're all monsters."
The glass barrier boy beside her was flat on his back, catching his breath. The boundary drones were closing in. They had maybe thirty seconds before the zone shrank past them.
He sighed. "Yeah, I'm done too."
He turned his head to look at her. She turned hers as she looked at him.
"You wanna go on a date?" she asked.
The boy coughed violently. "Wh-?"
"Yes or no?" she pressed, completely deadpan.
He nodded, blushing furiously.
Two drones descended as the harnesses attached. They were both lifted into the air, side by side, the boy still red-faced, the girl smiling faintly as they rose above the canopy together.
In the stadium, the crowd caught the moment on one of the secondary screens.
A collective "Awwww" rolled through the stands.
Present Mic wiped a tear. "YOUNG LOVE ON THE BATTLEFIELD!! YOU CAN'T SCRIPT THIS, PEOPLE!!"
Aizawa sighed. "Can we get back to the fights?"
The main screen updated, yet again.
STUDENTS REMAINING: 134
Nearly a hundred students had been eliminated across two zone shrinks and forty minutes of fighting. The jungle was shrieking. The encounters were getting more frequent. The hiding spots were disappearing.
And all across the battlefield, the hero course students were making their mark.
Southern edge:
A shadow moved through the bushes. Low to the ground, silent and careful.
You wouldn't see him unless you knew what to look for. He was small, and he used that to his advantage. He crawled under roots that others would have to climb over. He squeezed through gaps that most students couldn't fit a backpack through.
Minoru Mineta. Class 1-B's most unlikely survivor.
He wasn't fighting, nor was he hunting. He was doing something far more practical.
He was collecting points by ambush.
His quirk, sticky purple balls that grew from his head, were scattered across the jungle floor behind him like a minefield. Students who wandered through his territory found their feet stuck to the ground. Then their hands when they tried to pull free. Then their knees. Then everything.
And while they struggled, a drone would come down and eliminate them.
Mineta didn't even have to be there for the elimination. But technically, he got the points.
Yes, it was cowardly. Yes, it was pathetic. But it worked.
He was currently at twelve points, and he hadn't fought a single person face-to-face.
He peeked out from behind a bush, checked the area, and scurried to the next hiding spot.
"Imagine all the girls that will come after me after I win this, heheheheheh."
***
CRASH.
Sato slammed his fist into a General Studies student's hastily constructed earth wall. The wall exploded as Sato ran through it. The three students behind it stumbled backward.
Sato stood over them. His muscles were bulging, as his quirk, Sugar Rush, was in full effect. In one hand, he held a half-eaten mango. In the other, a banana peel.
He had found a fruit tree twenty minutes ago. It was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
"Sorry about this!" Sato said, genuinely apologetic, as he grabbed two students by their collars and bonked their heads together.
The third student tried to run, but Sato grabbed her by the back of her gym uniform and set her down gently on the ground.
"You fought well!" he said, giving her a thumbs up.
She stared at him. "You literally just knocked out my teammates."
"Yeah, but in a respectful way!"
Three drones descended and did their job as Sato took another bite of his mango and jogged onward, humming to himself.
***
North-eastern zone:
Ibara Shiozaki of Class 1-B stood in the centre of a small clearing, her eyes closed, her hands joined in a prayer position.
Her hair spread outward from her head like the roots. They covered the ground around her in every direction, creating a dome of living plant matter.
And sadly, Koji was caught in the vines.
He had tried to call the animals of the jungle for help. Birds, insects, and small mammals, but Shiozaki's vines had closed around him before his animal allies could arrive.
The vines wrapped his arms and tightened with each breath, not enough to hurt, but enough to make it clear that struggling was pointless.
"Please surrender," Shiozaki said softly, her eyes still closed. "I do not wish to cause you pain."
Koji looked at the vines, then sighed.
He looked at her and nodded.
The vines loosened gently. Koji was eliminated.
"God bless you," she whispered.
Then she closed her eyes again and waited for the next soul to wander into her garden.
And so the battlefield continued to stir.
Fights erupted and ended across every zone. Teams were dismantled. Solo fighters clashed. Alliances formed and broke within minutes. The drone cameras caught everything and broadcast it live to the stadium, where the crowd devoured every second.
The leaderboard shifted constantly.
1st: Todoroki Shoto: 45
2nd: Bakugo Katsuki: 40
3rd; Shinso Hitoshi: 30
4th; Yaoyorozu Momo: 28
5th: Tokoyami Fumikage: 22
Twenty more minutes passed, and the battlefield shrank for one final time.
STUDENTS REMAINING: 68
And then it happened.
BEEP.
The third beep. Louder than the others, this was the final one before the time ended.
Midnight's voice exploded across the battlefield.
"THE FINAL TWENTY MINUTES BEGIN!!!!!! THIS IS THE LAST STRETCH, STUDENTS!! GIVE IT EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOT!!!!!"
In the stadium, the crowd jumped to their feet. A hundred thousand people, standing, screaming, because they all knew what the third beep meant.
This was it.
The third beep. The one Akira Shuzenji had promised in letters of fire across the sky. He was about to start hunting.
Every student on the battlefield had the same thought. Every single one of them stopped what they were doing, looked toward the centre of the jungle, and felt the same thing settle in their chest.
It's time.
In the stadium, the screens all shifted to a single feed.
The tallest tree in the jungle, a figure sitting on the highest branch.
In the VIP box, Honoka gripped the railing, excited to see what he would do.
On the battlefield, the remaining sixty-eight students felt it. It was time.
Shoto stretched his hands. Bakugo stopped mid-explosion and turned his head with a widened grin.
Shinso, followed by his two brainwashed soldiers, paused. He stared at the sky.
Momo, who was in the sky in her suit, looked toward the tallest tree.
You better watch out. she thought.
On the tallest tree in the jungle, Akira sat on the highest branch.
He had been sitting there for sixty minutes, quietly meditating as Mei had thought him.
He hadn't moved since the battle began.
After an hour, Akira finally opened his eyes and smiled.
"Here we go."
++++++++
Welp.. shit is about to go down... And again, sorry for the wait
Plus if you want to support me, you can join my P@teron and read up to +15 advanced chapters and support me you can alway join my P@treaon. (Just search up Joe_Mama p@treon on google.)