The Origin of something new (mha ff)

Chapter 7

Looking back, the sports festival actually came rather suddenly. Kaede had the feeling that yesterday she had been sitting in the stands and today she was standing here herself, among all the other students in a huge arena with thousands of spectators. "Are you excited?" Kaede turned to Mina and Denki. "Really!" Mina answered Denki's question. Presumably everyone was excited. Izuku looked back and forth, a mixture of cornered and ready to prove himself. When Katsuki was to give the speech, a shiver ran down the spine of the entire Class 1A. Kaede reconsidered that maybe not everyone was excited. Bakugo seemed pretty confident, but maybe that was just a facade again. Both Aizawa and Keigo had not wished her luck. They had simply told her that she would make it. Actually, they were right, after all Kaede was strong, but so were the others.

The starting signal sounded and Kaede held her breath as she ran. She didn't notice because she was concentrating on avoiding Shoto's ice. She also saw others of her classmates who were not wasting time. Katsuki let out violent explosions to free himself from the ice, causing the ice to crumble on some of the others as well. Now they all ran along the track until they came face to face with dozens of giant robots. She had seen them before in the trials, but paid no attention to them and simply ran through their feet. Kaede looked around questioningly when the robots did nothing against her. The other students behind her had stopped and the robots were threatening to trample them. Then she noticed that she was holding her breath. Automatically, she took another breath and looked around. Now some robots had her in their sights. She held her breath again and kept running. When she held her breath and at the same time merged with her surroundings, she did not become invisible, but she was easily overlooked if nobody specifically looked for her. When she had made it very far away from the robots, she gasped for air. The presenters, Aizawa and Yamada, were still commenting on Shoto as the first-place winner, so apparently they hadn't noticed Kaede sneaking to the front. She had no time to lose now. In front of her was a precipice with several ropes and rocks in between that she could use to move forward. When she heard explosions behind her, she took a few steps back. She concentrated more on herself and her legs than on her surroundings. She took a running start. She sensed that it would not be enough. Her steps were too unsteady to carry her very far.

"Katsuki Bakugo is giving all the explosions he has to catch up with Shoto Todoroki who.... But... what is SHE doing there?"

That was a big help. She imagined Katsuki's determination, pictured it in her mind, and took the final step before jumping off. Like a whip, a golden shockwave buzzed from her foot and she was thrown forward with tremendous force.

"I have no idea when or how, but Kaede Miharu from 1A always seems to have been one step ahead the whole time."

She smiled as she flew, but that quickly faded as she realised she was flying straight into nothing. With the last of her strength, she grabbed a wire rope as she fell. Her palms burned from holding on and she tried in vain to pull herself up. She hung there helplessly until she decided to swing one arm in front of the other until she reached the next rock. Her fingers clawed at the stone and with the last of her strength she pulled herself up and crawled to the other side. It was only a stone's throw. Confidently, she stood up and stepped back to take a running start. Her leg only buckled a millimetre, but she eyed it critically. The explosions were getting closer, so she acted without hesitation. Again, a shock wave went off at her foot, catapulting her upwards. Unfortunately, another flying object was on its way. She wasn't sure if it was an accident or if she had also taken her orientation from Katsuki's determination and crashed into him, but it didn't matter any more, because when she crashed into him, her eyes went black for a short moment. The shock stopped Katsuki's explosions and they fell together to the other side of the abyss. "What the hell was that all about? Are you stupid, you brought me out because of you I'm losing!" "If instead of shouting like that, you kept running, you wouldn't lose." He stared at her in disbelief until, without a word, he continued to run and regained his momentum with explosions. "Shit!" exclaimed Kaede. Her head still hurt as she watched Katsuki run away from her. She wanted to be better than him and now she let him get away with it. She stood up and waited for now. She wouldn't catch up with the ones in front, but she still had time before the ones behind caught up with her.

She wasn't here just to be better than Katsuki, that was just a practical side effect. She needed a hero's licence as soon as possible to be able to act openly as a hero. Once she had the licence, she could also pursue her parents' case, which both the police and Hawk's agency had dropped due to lack of evidence. She had to show what she was capable of, that she had everything under control. Kaede Miharu didn't often think about her dead parents, she always got emotional and that's what she always tried to suppress. But she could use this feeling she had, use it to become stronger, use it to bring justice. She didn't even necessarily want justice, she just wanted to know and she wanted the murderer to regret the crime. That would be enough for her for now. When she opened her eyes, she knew what she had to do. She ran. Then she saw the next obstacle. A minefield. She saw Shoto further ahead and also Katsuki who came close to him but had to pause again and again. She concentrated on the ground where Shoto was standing and applied pressure so that some mines went off directly in front of him. Several explosions threw him back, taking Katsuki with him. She exploded all the mines in her path only a few moments before she would step on them, so that she moved quite fast, faster than Shoto, who was avoiding the mines. Behind her, more and more others arrived and she was now on a par with Shoto and Katsuki. They were fighting with each other in the middle of the field and to avoid being in their sights too, she held her breath and suppressed everything else. This meant she could no longer exert pressure, but she was now faster than them anyway. That was the moment when a huge explosion kicked up dust in the back rows and everyone turned around. Izuku flew over the minefield on a piece of metal. Also over the three in front. Shoto and Katsuki started to move directly, while Kaede looked around, then ran after Shoto on his ice path. She couldn't run as fast as the others and fell further and further behind. Izuku had landed in the meantime, throwing Shoto and Katsuki off balance. Kaede saw the metal piece and an idea took shape in her head. She positioned the metal piece on the ice track, sat on it and pushed herself off the ground, whipping. Building up more and more pressure from behind, she picked up more and more speed. "Get out of the way!" She had thought Shoto would jump out of the way, at least she had hoped he would, but he didn't clear the path for her, he built it up behind him so that she threatened to crash into the block of ice. But she didn't give up, especially now that she was so close. She accelerated even more and crashed completely into the ice block. With a jerk, she was thrown forward, flipped over and would have been impaled by an ice spike if she hadn't rolled away in flight. She landed on both feet, even a few metres in front of Shoto, and kept running. Izuku was in front, Katsuki was still trying to catch him and Kaede was neck and neck with Shoto until they all reached the finish line one after the other.