The Emperor's Dragon

We're Not Do'n That

For some reason, lost to time, the UA Sport's Festival was held on a Thursday, and then there was a traditional recess until the following Monday. For the Heroics Course Students it was a chance to rest up. For the rest of UA it was a chance to reflect. Cynically, the first year General Studies students were meant to realise how out classed they were and set their aspirations lower. UA actually offered quite a bit of help here, with finding normal, non heroic work experience opportunities. If they were like Hitoshi, and had actually gotten somewhere in the Festival then it was a chance for them to reflect and hope and pray. He might be given a more heroic type work experience option but it wouldn't be the same as the Heroic's students. Hitoshi might get the chance to work at an Agency, but not actually do anything to do with actual heroics. He'd be with marketing or merchandise or something like that.

The Heroics Course Students were meant to reflect on how they'd done, pray they'd performed well enough to remain in the course, which most years was a definite yes, and then think of how they could solicit work experience invitations.

The Support Course Students were meant to reflect on how and where support equipment may have made a difference to the results, or gear that would have been useful, and then start designing it.

The Management Students were meant to assess and deliberate on what they had seen of the Heroics Course Students, and then decide how best to market them. Izuku knew that some of his classmates would have been agonising over that all weekend. Especially the winner. His performance on the podium just said trouble and potential scandal. And which of the UA staff had thought it was a good look to chain him there? Thankfully, that was not going to be his problem.

Izuku had instead spent the weekend quietly. He'd done his shopping on the Friday when the stores were slightly quieter and then had watched the parts of the Sport's Festival he'd missed. He wanted to talk to his Dad but... he already knew what his father would say. The decision about the future was his and he did not want to unduly influence it.

Even with that in mind it had been hard to watch the Festival. He could see how technically, Endeavor's son had pushed Hitoshi out of bounds. When his friend was in the ice, he was outside the ring, but he hadn't touched the ground yet. He might have fallen there when the ice melted but... He still thought Midnight had called the battle too early. She should have let it play out without preempting events. In that case, Izuku thought Hitoshi would have ordered Todoroki out of the ring and the two toned haired boy would have complied. Then... his friend would have been stuck in the ice and it would have been boring waiting for it to melt. He might have made it back into the ring or he might have fallen out himself but ... technically once Todoroki was out of the ring, properly out of the ring, then the match was over.

It should have been a draw... which Hitoshi would probably have lost the rematch, since Izuku had seen how another match had been decided, but his friend would have had the public recognition of fighting Endeavor's son to a draw! That would have turned heads.

The heroes didn't make it easy to see things from their point of view when they made dubious calls like that on national television.

And then there were Ochaco's matches. The first one mostly showed off how the green haired girl hadn't thought ahead. She'd obviously believed that just trapping Ochaco would be enough, when in truth it had played to her strengths. And then there was the second match...

While his friend had definitely lost that one, it certainly didn't make Izuku feel any more sympathetic for the teen who had eventually won the First Year Festival. The blond boy was strong. He knew how to use his quirk but he was arrogant. He had nothing to recommend him as a hero. His entire attitude was to be the strongest and that... that didn't sit well with him. A hero was meant to help people. Ostensibly even those heroes who were more combat oriented were helping the general public by removing the more dangerous villains but... The blond seemed to want to fight only for the sake of the fight and to prove he was stronger.