Running Solo

Chapter 20 - Shio And Ako

~Izuku's Perspective~

As soon as Present Mic called 'go', I was heading to the farthest part of the fake city. Assuming it was robots like everyone online said, they had probably just been released and the majority of them would be near the back. As soon as I found an alleyway along the street, only a block from the gate, I made my into it and paused briefly to analyse it.

It was fairly narrow. You could maybe fit four people shoulder to shoulder, although the trash cans and garbage gabs, which, from the lack of smell, were clearly empty or filled with something less gross, cut it down to barely fitting two people. The alley was a dead end with a very tall building, made of metal and thick glass, acting as the back wall. On either side of the alley, the walls were simple red brick that, unsurprisingly, had no wear on it. Not very realistic, but it would make it harder to climb up. And since there were no fire escapes on any of the walls, I would have to do some scaling. The walls were close enough that I could probably could back and forth between the two to make it up. That's decided then.

It only took me thirty seconds to analyse the alley before I was leaping onto one wall and pushing off onto the one on the other side. I made my way up quickly, pushing off of one to the next and then propelling myself to a higher position on the other side. It took me another minute to make it to the top of the three story buildings. It's a good thing Stain and the League will never see that. That took me way too long.  I thought with an internal wince, though my face remained impassive. I couldn't afford to let my face show anything to the examiners watching, but I was used to that.

"You can't show anything or the heroes will use that against you!" he shouted as he twisted the knife deeper into my thigh. Blood pooled around my thigh to join the blood from other parts of my body.

"I'm sorry! It won't happen again! Stop! Please! Please, it hurts!" I screamed, the tears flowing unbidden to the floor below me as I pulled harshly at the restraints. There was a girl giggling not far from where I was sure the blood was pooling. She was probably enjoying this-

CREAK!!!

The sound of metal scraping against metal pulled me from the flashback before I could send myself into a panic attack. I stopped at the edge of the building I was on and looked down to see four three-pointers and three two-pointers rolling towards the middle of the city. I looked around and found that I was only, at most, ten blocks from the back wall. Good. At least I knew that I could still function when a flashback consumed me. I checked my watch and found that it had only taken a minute and a half to get this far. Time to use it.  I thought as I crouched and prepared to jump down. I pulled out two knives, one for each hand, as I cut myself off from the lingering aches and pains in my body.

I had to get the timing just right if I wanted to get the robot's access panel first try, and I needed to be able to move if the robots in front of the I was on managed to turn around and attack me before I could attack them. Three... Two... One... NOW!   I thought and dropped onto the back of a three-pointer, the one at the back of the group. I put all of my weight and momentum into the knife in my right hand as I jammed it into the robot's access panel. It only took a deep twist of the knife and three seconds for the robot to stop moving and me to start moving. I quickly used my knife to pull myself up and over the head of the three pointer and towards the back of the closest two-pointer. Thankfully I'd been quiet enough that the two-pointers hadn't noticed me, so I would get a clean shot at the access panel on its back.

It took me a minute and a half to take out the one remaining three-pointer and three two-pointers, start running, and find the next group of robots. There was six three-pointers, two two-pointers, and one one-pointer. It took another two and a half minutes to dispose of all of the robots. I took out four of them with my knives and the staff I had brought with me. The last three robots were taken out by each other when they were trying to hit me. I checked my watch. Three minutes left and only forty-five points.