MHA: A Cat's Way

Ch 80 The Second Event

(Midorinya)

After getting our meat from the person handing it out -cooked, thankfully- I sigh and look at my team with a serious expression on my face, my eyes meeting those of Shinso and Tokoyami. "By my calculations, our points should put us in first, so thanks for joining, Tokoyami." I give a short bow.

"The darkness protects those who lie in its embrace, but the Sports Festival is a time to stand in the light." He nods...a you're welcome? I'm pretty sure that's what he said.

Judging by the look Shinso's giving him, it seems he doesn't get it. Which makes sense. Unless you have a friend with unusual speech patterns it's a bit hard to decipher. Most aren't aware, but as much as half of all animal-based quirk mutations cause their vocal patterns to change. Though I'm fairly sure that's not the case with Tokoyami.

He's just an edge-lord.

"Now, I'm pretty sure I know what, or rather who will be hunting us in the maze."

Shinso raises an eyebrow, giving me an appraising look. It's not that he doubts me, probably, since he's seen how good my analysis skills are when I did his quirk. But I guess he thought they only applied to quirks. Which is fair since it took Catia repeatedly hitting me with one of my notebooks during a long lecture for me to realize that I could apply those skills to other things, such as heroing. Nezu has only helped my skills further develop.

"Did the two of you notice anyone missing from the students who passed?" I start off leadingly, curious if Nezu's lessons on positive reinforcement and leading people to your own conclusions are really as effective as he said.

"Chainkeo?" Shinso offers up immediately with an air of confusion. We were both there when it was decided that she wouldn't be continuing, after all. Before answering I look at Tokoyami, who seems to be thinking more deeply about it.

"...I do not recall Akihiro's threatening aura among those gathered." Threatening aura? At my look of confusion he explains, a shudder running through him. "I am fairly certain she wishes to eat me. Whenever she consumes poultry dishes she maintains eye-contact with me"

"Ah." I nod and put an understanding hand on his shoulder. "She probably does, and since she got first place Nezu is having her hunt everyone else."

Tokoyami gives me a deadpan stare, accompanied by Dark Shadow coming out and flipping himself in my direction. Shinso gives a brief bark of laughter before questioning me. He probably thinks I'm joking. "Hah! Putting cannibalism aside, why would he do that? How would that even work for getting her into the next round?"

"The last round of the tournament has always been one-on-one tournaments, so her conditions for passing to the next round are most likely to reduce the number of participants to an acceptable number for the event. Too many people would cause the audience to lose interest, after all. As for why..."

I think on it for a moment before shrugging. "Daylight heroes are always chasing a higher spot on the ranking boards, and the higher you get the harder it is to keep your spot. Just yesterday Mirko lost her place as number five and got dropped back down to eight."

"What? How? Isn't the event not for another few months?" My companions are obviously surprised, and it really reinforces both Catia and Nezu's lessons about how ignorant the general public are of what goes on in the lives of heroes. Most people just see them fighting villains and rescuing people from disasters, but they rarely see the in-between stages of those. Nor the things that would make them lose faith.

Not that the HPSC hides everything, that would never work long-term. But I've discovered that the higher on the rankings you place, the more likely they are to try and make sure the public sees you as a good and dependable hero. Thankfully most of the top ten are genuinely good people as well as heroes, I don't know what I might do if they were all corrupt. Nezu did show me some plans that I'd help out with if it ended up being the case though...