Chapter 39 - The First Event (1/2)

Obstacle Course.

The more traditional first event of any sports festival, though for most high schools it was considerably far less important. For U.A., only the 42 people who finished most quickly would be allowed to even try and take part in the events that came after the first event. It was a tournament of elimination, where ones running speed, balance abilities, and their abilities to analyze and take care of threats were all compared to one another. All of the classes started together, and their purpose was to run all around the stadium, starting inside of it in front of the small gates, before they ran around it and came back through the gates.

'The first obstacle is the gates, with so many people running through them at the same time, there will be crowding... I just have to be faster than everyone else.' Naruto leaned down and placed his hands on the ground. No, even as he said that, Naruto wasn't starting at the front of the pack. He was starting near the back, so even with his speed, it would be hard for him to cover so much extra ground without hurting the other students.

”Hey, Uzumaki.”

Naruto ignored the male student voice that called out to him, since he didn't recognize who the voice belonged to. Cracking his neck by tilting his head, Naruto looked around for any advantage. He could use his Quirk, and running all the way around the stadium would be easy it would bȧrėly take more than a minute, if even that. That wouldn't be a challenge though, and right now, he wanted to challenge himself to see how far he could get without his Quirk. To push himself to his limits, and go beyond them once more. If he allowed himself to take the easy way out in the competition, then that would just show how weak his resolve was.

”Good luck Naruto.” Kirishima started.

”GO!”

The crowd rushed towards the gates instantly, and Naruto trailed behind them as everyone got stuck. Jumping over the heads of the crowd, Naruto's feet touched the wall, before he jumped off the wall and landed on the other side of the crowd. Completely avoiding the crowd, after looking at the surrounding area, almost instantly placed Naruto in first as he cleared a considerable distance between himself as the competition. His longer, stronger, legs made his strides longer, and his bursts of speed more intense.

”And we already have our first two break away!”

Todoroki was following a distance behind him, freezing the ground around him and sticking a good number of students in place. Almost the entire Business, Support, and General Studies were all frozen in place, with only Class A and Class B using their Quirks and other abilities to get away from the ice and make any progress.

'He's fast... His Quirk is strong, so I forget that even without using it, he's strong too...' Todoroki looked at Naruto's back as the distance between them grew and grew. His Quirk didn't make him faster or stronger, despite him having a stronger body than average thanks to his own father's training. Of course, even if Naruto didn't care about his declaration, he was still going to try his hardest to beat Naruto. 'What does he even know about father issues? He doesn't have...' Todoroki stopped that line of thought, before he thought something he would feel shame for thinking.

It wasn't Naruto's fault he had no parents, and holding that against Naruto was wrong, period.

Still, Naruto's comment pissed him off.

'Tenya isn't caught up with me... I'm surprised, I expected more competition from him than anyone else here.' Naruto was a little surprised he was in first place so far, and that Tenya, who had Engines for legs wasn't. Actually, Naruto was more surprised when he saw Izuku covering the distance by glancing back. The boy was actually using his Quirk well, and increasing his speed to be able to cover a lot of distance in a short amount of time.

Izuku felt his body creaking.

'... Using 9% is killing me... it hurts... but I'm not breaking. I can maybe keep this up for 4 or 5 minutes before I hurt myself.' Izuku looked at Naruto's back as he started to close the distance between them. He passed Todoroki, who looked at him with surprise for passing him, before he focused on Naruto.

With how much Izuku could use of One for All, it didn't make sense for him to be catching up, which could only mean he was going slower than he should be.

...

”Oh, I forgot to remove these... they must have been weighing me down.” Naruto spoke out loud as he looked at the dense weights hanging from his arms, adding a lot of extra weight to his body. Running with them, just as Izuku got within 15 feet of him, Naruto took them off and tossed them to the ground. ”Better.” Naruto started to up his speed far more than before, going almost twice as fast as before. Naruto sighed in relief at the loss of the extra weight, and when he glanced behind him, he saw Izuku looking surprised.

The boy smiled though... weird.

'... If I can catch up to Naruto... then I'll be worthy of this Quirk... I'm sure of it... Ever since I started school, I've bȧrėly grown at all... but he hasn't stopped getting stronger... I can take more pain!' Izuku pushed his Quirk even further than before. Going from 9% all the way to 11%, and suddenly, the pain increased even more than before. He felt the creaking get worse, and it felt like his bones could break at any moment. Izuku grinned as wide as he could though, and even as Naruto continued to still get further away from him (though not as quickly as before), he saw Naruto glance back at him.

Naruto grinned at him, a twinkle in his eye almost.

”Well damn! Here I thought my only competition was Tenya, but look at you Deku! Where was this you during training!?” Naruto asked loudly as he waved back at the younger teen. If he had seen this side of the boy when he was training, then he would have stuck around a lot longer than he did. He was curious about what changed, but that could wait. Naruto saw as giant robots blocked their path towards the next part of the race, and Naruto looked at them with a raised eyebrow. Not only them, but also the smaller robots on the ground as well.

Giant, slow moving, robots? Easy.

He ran right around them, and going between their legs, as he cleared the robot portion of the race with incredible ease. When a robot stood in his way, he punched it and knocked it out of his way, denting the hard steel. His training with Kirishima paying off, giving his fists enough power to easily smash the robots, without hurting his fists in the process. One of the giant robots was frozen solid, no doubt Todoroki, but Naruto paid it no mind as he looked towards the giant pits with pieces of land sticking out of them. Ropes running from land to land, which would force people to slow down and crawl along the ropes or use their Quirks in creative ways.

Was this suppose to be a challenge? Didn't seem like it.