When the UA Sentai came together to discuss the festival, we’d looked at every possible event we could be facing. Obstacle course was one, but it didn’t help as much as you’d think. The course was different every year. Somethings it was underground, through water, stretching upwards on platforms right out of a video game. The enemies were still robots, but the actual course was a crapshoot.

Long way of explaining that none of us knew what we were in for. So when I eventually had to stop for the next obstacle, I was only kind of surprised by it.

“Goddamn. Our school really has no chill when it comes to construction.” I noted, eyeing the massive fucking pit in front of us.

It was about, what, two soccer fields across? I wasn’t great with distances. But it was huge, with dozens of pillars standing within it. Ropes connected all the pillars, each one tight.

“Ha!” Mineta hopped off my shoulders and started removing his grape balls off his head. Once he had a pile, he removed his shoes and placed them around his neck, wiggling his bare toes. “Finally a challenge made for me!”

“Confident, are ya?” I asked my short pervy friend.

“Of course! You might be the fighter, but I’m the tactician!” Mineta aimed himself at one of the ropes. Then he tossed his grapes at it. As he did, he hopped from ball to ball, bouncing like Bugs Bunny across the taught rope with ease.

“Haaaaaa!” Ida and Ochaco flew across the pit, her floating them as he rocketed across with his legs.

“Excuse me, Bowser-kun!” Izuku yelled as he rushed past me on my left. He didn’t hesitate to jump, landing on one pillar. He jumped again, this time grabbing onto one of the ropes. He moved along it quickly, his experience with doing parkour across the pipes giving him a leg up on the other students.

Everyone else was doing the same, finding unique ways to get across.

I had to follow. I twisted around and ran away from the pillar. Then I spun around and rushed the other direction, ignoring the kids screaming as I ran past them.

As I hit the pit, I jumped, every bit of my energy going into the leap. I managed to barely land on the edge of a pillar.

The stone shattered under my weight. Of course it did.

Before I could fall into the pit below, I slammed my claws into the side of the pillar, digging in hard with a grown.

“Not… freaking… happening!”

Sliding to a stop, I looked back up. Dozens of kids rushing across the ropes, flying over the pit, or jumping from pillar to pillar.

Couldn’t let them show me up. I twisted my head around to survey the landscape.

Closest pillar was… Okay.

“Here goes!” I clenched all my muscles together and pushed away from the pillar I was holding to, leaping to one towards my strength. I slammed into it. There was a crack.

And the whole pillar began to tip over. I clenched my claws into the pillar, ignoring the screams above. Keep moving.

I jumped to the next one, smashing into the side and clawing in while the previous one tipped. This one was sturdier. The next, not so much. From pillar to pillar I jumped, getting higher and further. Maybe I should’ve regretted the sight of some of the kids behind me falling.

But as of right now, they were competition. Besides, I could see below me now. A soft pink foam surface lay beneath, the math teacher ringing the edges of that pit with his clones to help the falling students.

So I pushed on until I reached the wall of the pit. There, I started climbing upwards as the cacophony of pillars falling behind me continued.

By the time I got high enough to climb over the edge, I could hear the crowd booing. Wonder what they were mad about?

Ignoring them, I moved towards the next obstacle. Which was…

“This school is insane.” I mumbled.

Kids in blue jumpsuits. Carefully stepping across a field. Full of mines.

MINES.

Most of the students in front of me were part of UA Sentai, but the rest were absolute madmen from the general classes. I looked at the field.

Then I felt someone attach to my back. When I looked back, Mineta sighed.

“Yeah. I know. But I need to cross. So… do your thing.”

Poor guy looked resigned to hell.

Pony dropped down onto my other shoulder. When I looked at her, she grinned. “Whirly-Dirly?”

“Whirly-Dirly.” I confirmed to my favorite cowgirl.

“Whirly…” Mineta was confused. Then his eyes widened, sweat pouring off his face. “Dirly. Oh no!”

He tried to pull away, but he’d attached to my shell. Pony clutched tightly to me. I entered my shell.

And started spinning. Faster and faster, Pony laughing while Mineta screamed in horror. On some internal instinct I didn’t understand, I knew which way was ‘forward’. I propelled myself.

A mine exploded under me. I bounced from the impact, hitting another mine, then another.

Bouncing across the field like a pinball, smashing into mines, kids screamed while dodging us.

“OH MY GOD NOOOOOO!” Mineta screeched. “I WANT TO GET OFF! I DON’T WANT TO DIE! I WANT TO LIVE!”

“Woohoo!” Pony shouted alongside him, laughing. I grinned inside my shield, enjoying the show.

We passed by Izuku. As we got in front of him, I heard him do something.

And a nuke exploded behind us. I felt my shell flip through the air. Pony started screaming, her horns flying out to slam into my shell and readjust me in mid-air, my belly bouncing into the ground again. The nuke (Or whatever that explosion had been) had sent us flying forward, where Bakugo and Shoto had been at the front. I felt something else land on my shell just as another explosion sent me flying forward.

“Izuku!?” Mineta squealed.

“YAAAAAAAH!” Izuku’s voice echoed through my shell.

Pony, Mineta, and Izuku screamed as one as we rocketed forward, slamming into the edges of a tunnel.

Later, I’d see the video. While we were sliding around, me spinning at high-speed and my classmates clutching to my back, Izuku’s eyes narrowed. He crouched to my shell, holding on. The camera’s slow-motion caught him clenching his teeth. At the arc of a spin, he kicked off of me. He went flying forward, his kick and my spinning giving him enough momentum to send him rocketing forward.

Izuku entered the stadium front-flipping through the air, landing in a roll and coming to a sliding stop, his shoes leaving a streak of brown in the grass as the crowd cheered. The crowd went wild.

Pony, Mineta, and I came in next, sliding up behind him. Bakugo and Shoto came rushing in right after, Shoto chuckling while Bakugo looked apocalyptic ‘apoplectic?’.

Ida and Ochaco rocketed in next, both looking beat up and tired but determined, Momo right on their tails, followed by Ibara. Mina came skating in on her acid, Setsuna floating in as her pieces to reform in front of us.

Things slowed down significantly. When I asked why, Momo gave me a look like I’d killed her dog.

“Bowser… you destroyed most of The Fall.”

“I did?” I asked, genuinely confused.

“Well, some of it,” Momo admitted, though she still looked annoyed. “A lot of the students had to figure out ways to get across without pillars.”

“Hey, you can’t blame me for that,” I grumbled. “I’m a growing boy. Besides, this is a test to become a hero. Heroes should be able to cross a pit like that.”

It explained all the booing though. Meh. I didn’t really care what some random crowd in a stadium thought. It was kind of funny actually.

When the camera landed on me and I saw my face on the screen, I gave a cheerful finger wave. As a new round of booing exploded, I chuckled. Now that shit was funny.

Momo shook her head when I looked back at her, though she had a bit of a smile on her face. “They don’t like you.”

“Hey, you like me right?” I said with a toothy grin. “I don’t need everyone to like me, just my friends.”

Pony walked up to us, looking at the tunnel. “Everyone else is coming.”

I nodded slowly, watching as the kids came in. One by one, they streamed in. I felt a bit of pride when I saw every single member of UA Sentai stream in. 40 plus students, one by one.

Aoyoma, Usagi, and Tsutsutaka were last in the pack, the three grinning widely despite Aoyoma clutching his stomach. Usagi walked over to join the business course kids who… had gotten there before us?

Oh, they hadn’t even raced, had they? Just immediately went to the stadium to be ready to see who would show up first and how to market them.

I could respect the grind.

Once all the students who could come into the stadium were in, Midnight spoke up.

“The first game of the first-year stage is over!” A crack of the whip accompanied that statement, the hot pro-hero grinning out at us. “Now take a look at the results!”

I watched the screen light up. Izuku was first. Protagonist power in action, he was probably gonna win this whole thing.

Mineta’s jaw dropped when he saw he was placed for second, only to sweat heavily when Shoto and Bakugo turned various kinds of glares at him.

“Yay!” Pony cheered at her third place spot.

“Fourth, really?” I grumbled at my own position. “I literally carried you guys. Now I know how a car feels when the racer gets the trophy.”

From there, it was Shoto, Bakugo, and so on and so forth. Aoyoma, Usagi, and Tsutsutaka were 43rd to 45th, respectively.

“Yes!” I pumped my fist. “UA Sentai are top, baby!”

Every single one of our people had made the top! I grinned at Tsutsutaka, who grinned back at me-

“The top 42 made it to the next round!” Midnight said.

My grin froze. Tsutsutaka’s face fell. I looked at Aoyoma and Usagi.

The three of them were out.

“...Dude,” I mumbled, horrified.

Aoyoma looked like he wanted to cry, Mina moving over to pat him on the back alongside Toru’s own invisible hands.

Shinso, who made it to 41st, and Chikuchi, who had made it to 22nd, went up to Usagi and Tsutsutaka, who both congratulated her. I moved over to them.

“-it’s okay,” Tsutsutaka said with a hesitant smile as I joined them. “I made it farther than I thought I would. And you two can represent us.”

“It’s not fair,” Chikuchi said sadly. “You both trained so hard!”

“But not as long as you guys did,” Tsutsutaka said, his large chin wobbling. “Look. We did our best, and we’ll become heroes later, right?”

Usagi glanced at the business course students, but refocused on Shinso and Chikuchi. All four looked up when I joined them.

“...I’m fucking proud of you,” I said grimly. “I don’t know if I deserve to say it. But I am. The UA Sentai, every single one of us, took a top spot. You guys proved our club is worth a damn.”

I bowed down as low as I could. “Thank you guys. Seriously.”

It was unfair that they couldn’t join us. But they’d done well.

Now was the next stage. Whatever was coming next, we’d be ready.

“Aoyoma!” I called out to him as I rose up, ignoring the looks on Tsutsutaka and Usagi as best as I could. I couldn’t deal with that.

He came over with the same look on his face that Usagi had, while Tsutsutake tried to tough it out. I patted his shoulders.

“Okay. You guys didn’t make it through. But there’s still other games to play.”

Tsutsutaka blinked, then let out an ‘ah!’ of realization.

“The recreational games!” Usagi said, clapping both her normal and cat paws.

After the cavalry battle, there would be some games like a scavenger hunt and ball race. Low key, simple stuff, meant to entertain… Unless…

“So here’s the gig,” I grinned at them. “You three, figure out what those games will be. Then figure out how to dominate those games. You still have a chance to show off to the pro-heroes and agencies. And when the next event is over, gather everyone who didn’t move on, and figure out how to make a show of it!”

I smashed my fist into my palm with a grin. “Plus Ultra, baby. Don’t settle for less in any respect. They want to try knocking out a Sentai? We keep moving forward. Impress these fuckers!”

“Yeah!” Tsutsutaka smashed his fist into his own chin with a grin.

“Okay,” Aoyoma flashed a thumbs up even as he clutched his stomach. “You’re right, Bowser-kun! I can still shine on!”

“This will be good practice for management,” Usagi mumbled to herself.

I turned and walked away, grinning. As I did, Chikuchi walked along with me, at my right elbow. I looked down at her.

“...Thank you,” she mumbled without looking at me.

“No need,” I said informally. “We’re the Sentai. We’ll stick together. Right.”

“...Right,” Shinso said as he joined me.

Now. The next event was going to begin.

“Cavalry Battle?” Mineta mumbled, staring up at the screen. “With points?”

“Huh,” I blinked up at the board. “Kinda makes sense. Forces us to make sure the wins from the last event were justified. You earned the points, now you gotta keep them.”

“Oh no!” Mineta began sweating. “I was second place! Oh man-”

“Calm down,” I chuckled. “The point values can’t be that-”

“TEN MILLION POINTS!”

“...eh?” Izuku said weakly.

“Whut?” I added in English.

Mineta looked at Izuku, then sighed in relief.

“Oh thank god.”

UA man. This fucking school had absolutely no chill. Plus Ultra my ass.