Pain (a vigilante turned hero Deku story)

Chapter twenty-five

A maze, that was the second challenge.

"The second round of the sports festival is a maze where only the first 16 to finish move on to the last round! The racers have to overcome many challenges in the maze as well. Booby traps! Villains (fake villains) and the like!" Midnight announced. "Now, BEGIN!"

The contenders looked around confused, as there wasn't anywhere to start the maze at.

"Um, Midnight sensei?" Asked Kaminari. "Where is the maze?"

Midnight grinned. "I was waiting for someone to ask that! Cementoss! Do it!"

Suddenly the ground opened up in a part of the arena, as it folded out words, welcoming the participants to enter. A winding staircase appeared.

All of the forty participants were awestruck, and Izuku walked forward first.

"Well this is new."

That shook everyone else out of their daze, and they all went running after him.

"Dammit Izuku! I'm gonna get number one!" Katsuki shouted.

"No, it will be me." Todoroki descended the staircase after the other two.

The crowd cheered on them as they descended. And they cheered more as multiple screens appeared in front of them showing what was happening through multiple cameras in the maze. Although it was confusing at first since the cameras were set to night vision, the crowd quickly got used to it as they could see clearly who was who.

In the maze

"Man it's dark in here." Ojiro could barely see in the darkness. It wasn't dark dark, as there was multiple candles here and there, but everywhere there isn't candles it was almost pitch black.

"You can say that again." Asui mumbled.

The maze was rather big, the people who defended the staircase had easily interpreted they were in the middle of the maze. Everybody had split up, attempting to find the end. Some worked in teams, others alone.

AN: In terms of the maze's structure, think of the maze from the maze runner. Just not as big and a specific way to get to the exit (which I will not yet disclose)

Shinsou looked around the maze, trying to find something that will help him win. Something strange is at the end of the maze there was a large wall, along the mall were sixteen different safes. He knew it was for the people who won this round.

'But what for?'

He looked around some more and started noticing numbers engraved in locations close to each of the safes. They also all range from the numbers one to sixteen.

Shinsou concluded that this was in fact not a maze, but rather a riddle. Now he just has to complete the riddle.

Izuku looked at everyone surrounding him. He knew this was going to happen everntually, and getting first in the race was just going to put a target on his back. He sighed before yawning slightly.

"Let's get this over with."

"Eh? Is that allowed?" Present mic asked form the commentor booth as he witnessed some of the students fighting.

With a crack of her whip Midnight announced that she would allow it, and the crowd looked back at the screens displayed.

AN: sorry you guys must be sick of this but imma just explain that the screens are basically the same as the guild tournament arc in fairy tail.

Izuku ducked under one kids kick. His hands in his pockets as he flipped backwards over another student who attempted to punch him. One kid seemed to have a normal strength enhancer quirk while another looked like a lizardman. The last one is hitting Izuku with (what he thinks) are blasts of air, but it's not exactly affecting him considering his quirk.