This time I will protect them I won't be a coward

28

Soon Class 1-A stepped out onto the freshmen stage ground and was joined by other course students as well. Then, Midnight Sensei calls out Bakugou Katsuki who was chosen to come up on the stage to give a bit of a motivational speech  before  the tournament commences.

Denki hears other course students whispering about his class and saying,

"Hmph look at their attitude".

"They just want to show off themselves since they have defeated the villains".

"They are full of arrogance and ego".

Soon their anger intensifies, when Bakugou Katsuki declares that he is going to be the winner and steps down from the stage while Iida Tenya reprimands him for his behaviour and the rest of Class 1-A sweatdrops at his speech.

Denki suddenly feels a chill running down his spine as he feels someone is  staring at him.

He turns around to look at the students. Denki's eyes fall on Shinsou Hitoshi, who was staring at him.

Denki waves at him cutely but Shinsou immediately turns to look the other way.

Now Denki feels like he has done something wrong and from the corner of his eye catches Torodoki Shoto staring at him as well.

But soon Denki's attention is diverted back to Midnight sensei who announces the first stage of the race was going to be - THE OBSTACLE COURSE

Soon they were asked to stand at the start gate, which was the  starting line, the passage was so narrow that Denki could feel the paranoia hitting him with all the students crowded around him.

Denki stares ahead among the sea of students, trying to dispel his anxiety and there is a beep sound and Present Mic's voice is  heard over the speakers, "Hey there Listeners! the Sports event has begunnnn". With that students start rushing out of the gate.

At that moment, Denki feels a cold sting on his nose and cold air flowing beneath his feet and he immediately grins knowing that it was Torodoki Shoto's quirk and luckily he had on his wing boots so he had no fear of slipping.

He starts skating through the students who were facing difficulty while walking on the ice or he could hear them throw curse words at his classmates. While he skirts through the students.

He passes through Uraraka Ochako and Izuku Midoriya who both stare at him skating gracefully on the icy path.

Denki also brings down the big robots by zapping at them while humming happily and moving forward on the ice path.

Denki soon enters the obstacle race's second stage called - The Fall, a canyon that must be trekked by walking ropes. He sees Torodoki Shoto who was leading the race had already finished trekking across the fall and now has entered the final stage of the obstacle race.

Denki contemplates on how he can use his quirk to travel across the rope but he was immediately pulled away from his thoughts. When he was immediately grabbed by the pink haired girl Aka Hatsume Mei who dragged him along with her across - The Fall.

Denki could hear both Izuku Midoriya and Uraraka Ochako screaming his name.

Within a blink of an eye, Denki was standing on the other side of the rope while Hatsume Mei winked at him and said, "See you at the finish line cutie". She uses her support item - the hover boots to speed herself away to the land mine field.

Denki stares at her flabbergasted at the sudden change in the timeline but he does not have the time to think about  it and pushes the thought at the back of his mind and hurries to the Land mine field to catch up with his already leading friends.

Denki propels himself forward over the mine field keeping a careful distance from the scuffling duo which were both Bakugou Katsuki and Torodoki Shoto who were fighting for the first place in front of him.

Denki could feel the ground shaking and looks up in the sky to Izuku Midoriya flying on the robot shield  across the mine field and uses the robot shield  to hit on the mines in between Bakugou Katsuki and Torodoki Shoto and there is a huge blast of pink smoke and Izuku Midoriya goes propelling forward while running on the ground and not stopping and crosses the finish line followed by Torodoki Shoto and Bakugou Katsuki.

Seeing this stunt by Izuku Midoriya makes Denki grin from ear to ear and he thinks to himself, 'That happens when you let your impulsive thoughts win kids. Izuku Midoriya was really a beacon of inspiration and how he came up with those little tricks and strategies made Denki always feel jealous of him'.

Luckily Denki manages to come fourth place in the obstacle race.

The crowd cheers and becomes more  thunderous as 42 students have advanced to the second event of the race.

Midnight Sensei then announces the second event is The Calvary Battle and explains the rules to the students and tells them to pair up and they are given 15 minutes to do so.

Denki stares at Midoriya as the poor boy was facing some difficulty in forming a team and feels sympathetic for the boy. That's when Denki feels a cold hand being placed on his shoulder.

Due to his muscle memory, Denki slaps away the hand and turns to see whose hand it was.

It was none other than Torodoki Shoto staring at him mildly in concern and says, "I want you to join my team. You can be the rider of the team".

Denki looks confused at Torodoki and tilts his head while saying, "Rider?. Why don't you be the rider and I will be at the rear back?".

Torodoki lowers his gaze and looks down at Denki's body.

Denki  follows Torodoki's line of gaze and realises that he was staring at his bandaged left wrist peeking out from the cardigan and stammers, "I- I am totally fine being at the rear end!". To which Torodoki replies with a raised eyebrow, "Fine".

On the other hand.

Izuku Midoriya manages to form a team with Uraraka Ochako and Tokoyami Fukimage, now he needs another person to join his team. That's when Hatsume Mei decided to join his team and said, "I want to show off my babies to the world and I want to see Emerald's spark in action as well!".

Izuku Midoriya stammers in confusion, "Emerald's spark??".

Izuku notes that Hatsume was staring at someone intently and he too looks in the direction where she was staring and his eyes fall on Kaminari Denki who was speaking happily with Torodoki Shoto, Yaoyorozu Momo and Iida Tenya.

Izuku mutters in disbelief, "Kaminari- kun?". Hearing Kaminari's name being mentioned Hatsume Mei nods her head and says, "He is wearing those boots designed by Emerald. I want to see why Emerald chose him".

Izuku's eyebrows go up into his hairline and he starts stammering, "Wait! Y-you mean the famous EMERALD!?". Seeing Midoriya's reaction, Hatsume hums in response.

Soon the buzzer sound is heard and they have five minutes left to plan their strategy.

Izuku Midoriya tells his team his plan and strategy for catching the number of headbands but he warns  his team to watch out for one person and that was Kaminari Denki as he was very unpredictable when he was using his quirk and the very same thing Bakugou Katsuki's mentions too about Kaminari Denki to his team before the Calvary Battle begins.

Both Izuku Midoriya and Bakugou Katsuki stare at a smiling Denki animatedly talking to Iida Tenya and think to themselves, 'I should have asked him to join our team in the first place'.

Denki sneezes and rubs his nose and wonders who is talking about him.