Birds of a Feather

Wait- how are you-

          Karasu took a deep breath and turned away from Todoroki to look at the gathering crowd, smoothing back pieces of her now dry hair that had fallen loose during the race as she looked around. How many will they let continue on? she wondered. Most of the first years had chosen to compete so there were well over a hundred entrants. Half was a possibility, or less. This was UA. They all still had no idea what the next challenge would be, either.

"We now have the top 42 students who have made it through!" Midnight announced as the list of students appearing on the screen above her. Everyone from Class 1-A had made it through, unfortunately including Mineta.

Less than half, Karasu thought.

"Guessing they won't give us a breather between events." Karasu commented as she turned back towards Midnight on the stage.

"The next event shall be- a cavalry battle! Points have been assigned to each student based on where they came in in the race. The 42nd student has been awarded 5 points, and the value increases by 5 points all the way up to the number two spot. So the 41st student is worth 10 points, The 40th is worth 15 and so on- the first place student is worth 10,000,000 points."

Everyone turned to look at Midoriya, and they could see realisation set in on him as he stood there with a look of horror on his face.

So I was right, Karasu thought to herself, picking at her nails. Being first got him noticed- which can also be a bad thing. The price of being on top. Her point worth wouldn't exactly be low either, so she figured she'd be good as long as she could retain her score.

"You can form teams of two to four, and you'll have fifteen minutes to form your teams!" Midnight said. Behind her, the screen immediately showed a countdown timer.

"Karasu," Todoroki turned towards her immediately, "I have- the beginning of a plan. If I'm the rider, will you be one of my horses?"

"I'll say yes tentatively." she said, nodding slowly. "I'll need to hear about this plan before I can really commit."

"Let's get the other two I want, and I'll explain it to all of you." he agreed, motioning for her to follow him.

Karasu looked around- some people were clearly just going with friends, which wasn't necessarily a bad tactic. People you know and trust would be necessary in an event like this.

A boy with messy purple hair walked up to her. "Hey," he said, glancing between her and Todoroki. He had Ojiro and Aoyama following him- they seemed almost dazed in a way, it was odd.

"Hey," she responded as she looked up at him. "On the screen- your name was... Hitoshi Shinso, yeah? General studies?"

"You should join my team." Shinso said, his hands in his pockets.

Karasu raised an eyebrow. That was a bold way to ask her to join his team. "Um, my classmate kind of has a plan. He's actually pretty good at coming up with those so I think I'm going to hedge my bets with him."

Shinso looked shocked as she turned away. "Wait - how are you-" He reached out and grasped her arm.

I don't have time for this. "Thanks for thinking I'd be useful in your team, though!" Karasu flashed him an annoyed smile as she pulled her arm from his grip and walked away after Todoroki.

"Kaminari!" Todoroki called to him once he spotted him. "Iida!" The other two walked up to them. "I have a plan I'm formulating for the four of us."

"I'm all ears!" Iida said, standing up almost at attention.