TWISTED JOYS

Chapter 27

Izuku's POV

I dash into the large building before me on the track. The fourth obstacle course is a maze. I should be able to solve the maze in about a minute for the other students. It can take anywhere from 3-7 minutes to solve this maze so I've lost all worries for any student passing me.

I slow to a walk as I enter the maze. The walls of the maze go all the way up to the ceiling to prevent any students from flying over.

There are several paths branching from the beginning entrance path. I'm not sure if any of the other students have any experience with mazes but as a kid, growing up in the orphanage that was enough of a maze itself that I have a good navigation sense.

The simplest way to solve a maze is the right hand tactic. It's the idea that while a maze has many different paths one thing they share in common is a wall. The basic idea is that this wall is connected everywhere no matter what and as long as you put one hand on the wall and consistently feel the wall, you'll be able to clear the maze in the most efficient and least mind bending way possible.

Since the walls goes everywhere throughout the maze, the wall you're feeling will also take you everywhere. Including the exit.

I see Monoma wandering around through the paths and backtracking like crazy. Iida knows of the tactic as expected as does Tsuyu, Momo Shoto.

I follow behind slowly, Shinso has raced off to do his own thing along with Bakugo and Fukidashi.

Ochako is nowhere in sight and the others slowly disappear from my sight as they continue to run. I walk and mentally mark the passages I've walked through to make sure that I don't get turned around.

Normally walls are painted over with some sort of paint or have another layer of some sort of building material but these are built by Cementoss and I've trained myself enough that I am able to memorize little cracks, indents, or crevices in the walls to distinguish them.

They're all little details that no one pays attention to but as someone with a trained enhanced memorization (almost photographic) skills, I'm able to easily keep track.

I arrive at the path near the exit soon and I know that there are still 4 other kids since Tsuyu, Iida, Momo, Shoto, and I all took this path.

I can also hear 4 pairs of feet scuffling around the maze inside. The hollow and still air along with the long cavernous ceilings and paths help funnel/echo sound towards my ears and my enhanced hearing is able to pick these things up. I sigh.

I sigh as I turn around and pretend to be lost as I backtrack a little more and then take a break and place my head in my hands as if I've lost all hope or am going mad. The noises of the people around me slowly decrease as Bakugo finally blasts his way through the last couple of walls followed by Monoma.

Shinso has also made it out along with Ochako. That leaves Fukidashi along with the rest of the students coming in from the entrance, I can only faintly hear their footsteps.

That makes me 9th place still. I stand up and continue wandering and then magically make my way to the entrance.

"AND HERE COMES OUR 9th STUDENT TO EXIT THE LAST OBSTACLE!!" Present Mic announces enthusiastically. "CONGRATULATIONS!"

I run the last stretch of the track before I pass the final line. All the other students are drinking large amounts of water and to appear as if I was also tired I drink some water and then in a little corner when no one is looking I splash some onto my face.

"Congratulations Akita-kun!" Iida says and my classmates all crowd around me.

"Yayyyyy!!" The girls cheer, "Our cinnamon roll has made it through!"

I drink some more water, I'd thrown up earlier a bit and it's important to drink water after you throw up. I'm also feeling nauseous because of the amount of socializing I have to do.

"Thanks everyone, but I'm feeling tired right now. I don't know how you guys managed to do the obstacle race so fast!" I say with a big smile on my face, "You guys are so strong! I have to train harder so I don't fall behind."

I move to the benches and sit down to take a break. It takes another 10 minutes before about half of the first year students are able to clear the obstacle race.

"ALRIGHT ABOUT A QUARTER OF THE FIRST YEARS HAVE FINISHED THE OBSTACLE RACE SO IT IS OFFICIALLY OVER NOW!" Present Mic announces.

"We will now be going into a quick break for the students and the crowd. Please enjoy the five minute intermission."

"Why did they stop the obstacle when only a quarter of the students made it through?" I hear someone ask.

"There's only three competitions so the school has to figure out the most efficient way to slowly get rid of the students." Someone else explains to the confused student.

"Ohhhh."

I continue sitting down feeling a bit shaky still from that experience with the fire obstacle. The 5 minutes ends quickly and the remaining half of the students all line up again in the middle of the arena before the podium.

"My adorable cuties, you've all made it through the first round!" Midnight says with a big smile, "For the next competition it will be a capture the flag team competition! The team captains will be the top four of the obstacle race. Iida, Momo, Bakugo, and Tsuyu you guys will be the four team captains. There were 200 students at the beginning of the first round and there are now only 40 students remaining. Each capture the flag team will have 10 students."

"How will we decide which team we're on?" A student shouts out from the crowd.

"Ectoplasm will give you a paper with your name and your team captain's name on it." Midnight says. "The way the winner will be decided is by the number of the flags they have. You also get added points if you still have your own flag! Now good luck my cuties!"

Ectoplasm's clones walks through the lines of students and hand each of the student's their paper.

It says my name and under the team captain section it says Bakugo. I groan mentally.

I see my luck is as horrendous as usual. Most of my team is from other classes and the only people I know is Kaminari, Kirishima, and Jiro.

"Do you have a plan for us Bakubro?" Kaminari asks.

"Shut it dunce face, I'm thinking. And I told you to not me that in front of other people." Bakugo says as he furrows his eyebrows.

Capture the flag is taking place in the maze, similar to the one during the obstacle race but larger to fit all one hundred students.

There are several plans that I can think of but I keep my mouth shut. All I have to do is protect our flag so that I will be able to at least continue to the third competition round.

"OH!" Midnight says, "CUTIES! I forgot to say that only two teams so half of you will be making it through to the last round!"

That means that there will be 20 students total by the end of this capture the flag round. I sigh and I want to make it to the top 9 or 10 of that 20 students.

As much as I hate Bakugo for the sake of my next villain attack plan, I'll have to try a little bit to protect the flag. I'm not going to do anything like grabbing the other teams flags since the whole entire competition is about protecting your own flag more than anything.

It might seem like the most important thing is to grab other people's flags but there is also the incredibly important fact that you get extra points if you still have your own flag.

Teams will lose their flag which means they won't have points and even if they get another team's flag they will still have less points than a team who was able to keep their own flag.

I'm certain that Bakugo will get another team's flag which means that it is vital for our team to keep our own flag for an absolute win. 

(1410 words)

sorry for the short chapter :(