Jet Stream (Kirishima x OC)

Chapter 12: Sports Festival Part 2, Cavalry

Midnight gathered the top 42 students from the first task. She explained the rules of the next task, which will be a cavalry battle. I've never done one of those before, but I've watched my old classmates do them in middle school, so I know the rules of them well enough. We were all shocked when Midnight announced that first place was worth ten million points, where as my second place was worth only 205 points. The gap was huge in value, and totally just planted a target on Midoriya's back.

For the second time today, I'm glad I'm in second place. It really doesn't always pay to be first.

"Team?" I choke out to Mashirao as he joined my side after we were sent to make teams.

"Yeah. Quirk overuse? Or is it...?" Mashirao asks, then points to my chest to ask the unasked question. I nod so that he understands it's my lungs more so than my quirk. "How long until you can talk?" He asks and I hold up eight fingers since it's been a couple minutes already. "Alright, I'll get us more teammates, you stay quiet." I nod again, this time with a smile of thanks.

We get approached first by Midoriya, but we both promptly walked away from him. That's not a problem we need to face right now, he's too much of a target. Next we were approached by the sleepy guy from the General Studies course, the same one who did the declaration of war. Mashirao said he would take over the talking, so I spaced out and looked to see where my other friends were. I spotted Bakugo surrounded by a bunch of them, and was happy to see Kirishima was there too. Those two would work together great since Kiri's hardening wouldn't be affected by Bakugo's blasts.

"So?" I hear a deep voice say a little loudly to my left so I turned to look and see the sleepy guy talking to me. "Want to be a team together?" I glance at Mashirao and see him idly looking at the purple guy, maybe leaving the final decision to me. I nod in confirmation, I'm curious what this guy's got. He made it through the first task, so he must either be strong or have a useful quirk. "Can't you answer?" He asks again, this time with a furrowed brow and slight annoyance. I frown and point to my throat and then hold up 5 fingers and point to my non-existent watch. He sighs out and seems to debate something for a moment. "Fine, we'll be a team. I'm Hitoshi Shinso." I wave at him, then glance back at Mashirao and wonder why he's being so quiet.

"Mademoiselle, Monsieur's, please let me join your team." Aoyama comes over to us, slightly shaking and holding his stomach, likely still in pain from quirk overuse from the first task. I shrug, not feeling up to making the call for this and glance at Shinso.

"Sure, what's your quirk?" Shinso asks him with narrowed eyes. I see Aoyama whimper with probably a tummy ache, so I point to his stomach and then make laser sounds before coughing. "Ugh, that's fine. As for formation, you can be in the back with tail guy. Block our sides and back." He says to the blonde who nods and stands by Mashirao. "Your quirk is wind... which would make you a good rider..."

I shake my head in objection and make a triangle with my fingers and then lift one hand to point to the tip of the triangle, indicating I want to be the front horse. I then create a small spearhead shaped wind shield to show my defensive capabilities to him.

"You want to be the front horse?" Shinso asks to clarify as I nod repetitively. I then point to him and tilt my head questioningly, asking with my eye what his quirk is. He understands and sighs, seeming like he's debating on answering. "My quirk is brainwashing. I can make the other teams give me their headbands."

"Cool!" I choke out and then cough, but ignore the pain. That's such a cool quirk, I can't believe he's not already in the hero course. He looks at me curiously at my response, but before he can ask more questions Midnight announces the time limit ended.

As we take our positions and Shinso gets on top of our horse, my mind is still wandering with the possibilities of his quirk. It was wandering so much, I didn't even realize I had started to mutter under my breath.