My Dilemma: Shoto, Aizawa or Me?

21.

We broke out to the student rooms, waiting as they got the arena ready.

I looked at Momo and Shoto, trying to breathe again after my shock.

#8

I was right there in the top 10, so close to my goal. I couldn't stop thinking about it until my breath hitched again when Aizawa walked in.

"You've all done well so far, and I hope to see it continued on the next round," he said, walking past us and heading to Uruaka, who had a gash on her leg.

It was weird, this odd jealous moment I had when I stared at him place his hand on her leg, turning it softly as he spoke to her about the injury. She was fine, nothing Recovery Girl couldn't fix in a moment, but it bothered me how tender he was acting.

I saw him stand up and place his hands in his pocket as Recovery Girl walked in, fixing Uruaka's leg right there as everyone just kept chatting, and Aizawa glanced at me.

I almost missed it, but the small smirk he threw at me after seeing my frown let me know he had done it on purpose. What an ass.

I rolled my eyes, focusing back on Momo who was talking about the next challenge, Dodgeball.

After I had seen my ranking on the big screen, I focused on Allmight as he explained the next challenge. After being placed in an arena similar to Ground Beta, they would put us in teams chosen by random, and each player had a different score based on their ranking.

The top 4 teams would pass to the final challenge, one on one battles.

It was terrifying as I acknowledged who I could end up against, and it was also exciting to see how far I was getting.

"Who do you think you'll get?" asked Mina, sitting down next to me.

"The way I see it, everyone will have 1-A in their team, right? So at least there's that." Said Kiri, who sat down across from me, putting a leg up on the table.

"NO. NO. RESPECT THE TABLE" Ida said as he dashed over and waved his arms around as Kiri grumbled but threw them back down.

I chuckled and stayed quiet.

"Hey newbie, you didn't suck," I heard Bakugo say from his spot on the couch, glancing over his shoulder at me.

I threw him a smirk, "what was it you said? A gift before you beat my ass?" I laughed as he grumbled at me, throwing a small explosion at the table where I was sitting.

"I'm still going to beat your ass, but that doesn't mean you didn't suck." He said, his red eyes glaring at me now.

'CHALLENGE 2 WILL BEGIN SHORTLY, ALL COMPETITORS PLEASE RETURN TO THE ARENA.'

Everyone looked around, realizing it was time for challenge two we got up and filed out to the arena, Ida keeping us together.

Arriving at the arena, we looked up to the boards to see 12 teams on the screen.

Standing in front of the stage we waited as everyone piled in for Allmight to begin.

"Now students, you will be set aside in your team in a moment. Once you've seen your team come here to receive your equipment."

We turned and followed as the screens changed, and all our names were up there. I sighed in relief. Bakugo and Kendo were on my team.

I ran over to the stage and grabbed my Dodgeballs and my vest that would glow when I was hit. My teammates were next to me, Monoma introducing himself as he grabbed his stuff.

Bakugo, Kendo, Monoma, and I grouped to decide which terrain would be the best for our quirks.

We all decided to stay in the city area since only Bakugo had a large explosion quirk. Bakugo said he had enough control to deal with being stuck in the city for the round.

"Who has the best aim?" I asked as the game began and we started racing to a safe spot.

"I'm gonna say Bakugo!," Kendo yelled as she jumped up to avoid an underhand ball from Todoroki's team.

I heard Bakugo yell next to me as he jumped and turned mid-air, blasting the dodgeball into Shoto and throwing him back into a teammate.

Bakugo was quick to roll on the ground and keep running as we turned left into the area filled with pipes.

Jumping up and down between pipes, I noticed Monoma had touched Bakugo and was exploding small holes into the pipes to let out steam behind us. Creating a smoke haze, if anyone was chasing us they'd have a hard time seeing and breathing.

We turned right, heading to the back of the buildings when I felt a ball coming and moved back as it passed in front of my nose. I turned my head slightly to see Shiozaki smiling softly at me as she went to throw another ball my way with her vine catapult.

I laughed, jumping up and using my energy quirk to create power webs as I swung through the pipes, narrowly missing all 3 of her dodgeballs.

"I'm afraid I can't let you hit me, darling!" I yelled, passing past Monoma who laughed like an idiot as he blasted Shiozaki's catapult and pushed us towards her.

I saw her frown as she went to build another, but I tied her with my energy web and sent a small electric surge before lightly tapping her with a dodgeball.

"You're out," I said, smiling before jumping up and running as I heard footsteps approaching.

"Amazing! You class 1-A jerks aren't so bad!" I heard Monoma yell manically as we caught up to the others.

We continued the game, effectively getting out 18 people in total. It was down to me and Bakugo now, our teammates having been hit.

"Who's left?" I said ball in hand as we crouched low behind a building.

"There's one team left, but I don't know if that means people or just one person." He replied.

"What –" he shushed me, nodding his head to a building where I heard someone gasping for breath.

My eyes widened as we crawled near, and looked through the window to see Shoto and Tsunotori, where she was hunched over.

"Oh this is too fucking easy," I heard Bakugo mumble.

We looked at each other, nodded, and jumped through the windows dodgeballs at the ready when suddenly, oomph.

We landed on the ground grunting and looked up to see both of them were perfectly fine and facing us. No longer hunched over, Tsunotori was smiling and two balls were in our lap.

"This is bullshit," Bakugo mumbled.

----------------------------------------

We were back in the arena now, and while we didn't win, our team still placed in the top 4 so we were all off to the final challenges.

Back in the student viewing area for class 1-A, we're discussing who we would be fighting. With 8 of class 1-A's students in the final challenges, the spotlight was once again back on us.

I looked around at my classmates and took a moment to think about who I could beat. So many of them had handled real villains and battled against big foes. But this was a school event, and what seemed like a warm-up to them, was the biggest battle I've done.

"Who will you be up against first?" Asked Momo, sitting down next to me and creating little Russian doll bombs.

"Jiro," I replied, already feeling bad about my plan to win.

"Well, good luck, you'll do great," she said tapping my leg while she leaned onto the chair and closed her eyes.

We relaxed until the announcement came.

"FINAL CHALLENGES WILL BEGIN SHORTLY, ALL COMPETITORS PLEASE RETURN TO THE ARENA"