"Night?" "What the-?!" "What's happening?!" "Is this a part of the first event?" "U.A. really is something else, huh?" I heard the voices of my classmates around me.
But they're wrong.
This isn't part of the event. And the sky is dark but not night.
If they looked closer, they would see faint stitch marks woven across the darkness. In the gaps between the barely perceptible threads, the unmistakable touch of divinity can be felt, as even divine specks hold unique metaphorical weight.
The patchwork sky is an artificial phenomenon, one that wasn't made by a quirk.
"(・–・;)ゞDude..." Manga whispered nervously.
"I know..." This is a bad situation.
"Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please!" The childish voice sounded out once again. Spotlight illuminated the figure on stage, and other spherical brightness lit up the rest of the area like fireflies in a forest.
And the situation went from bad to worse. As it turned out, while everyone's attention was directed at the sky, the perpetrators incapacitated Midnight and took her spot on stage. The heroine is currently laying on stage, her exact state unknown.
"Thank you." A child. One literal smiling child, no more than age ten in appearance. She wears a white assemble of a marching band's uniform, complete with aiguillettes, a shook cap and a marching snare stick. The surreal situation made everyone stop and process what's happening. "Toda-"
The little girl, struck out her stick, the snare snapping something out of the air and hitting someone in the crowd. Audible gasp were heard as a hero was knocked back, a shiny ball struck at the target motif on his forehead as both himself and his slingshot slid down.
'There goes that method too...'
Tensions rippled higher As the girl continued her speech. Not once did her smile waver. "As I was saying, Today's festival shall be different from previous years. The first event is simple, survive for as long as you possibly can! But don't worry, deaths are not allowed so even if you get fatally wounded, you won't die! The first event only ends when there is exactly forty participants left on the field." Everyone is nervous now. I suppose the part about not dying is enforced by whatever divine the patchwork sky came from. "Oh! and before I forget, Everyone is to participate. So not just the hero students or pro's but also civilians both young and old! Don't complain now, even I'm in it! And I'm only twelve!"
One moment she was alone, the next, she became a crowd. Her other selves are holding long spears on one hand and a small buckler on the other. Few exceptions to this are the flag bearers, the crest woven onto them was an image of a green Torii gate dripping it's colour across a stark white background.
"I am Momose Amane, the Naishoten(High Priestess) of Lord Kinnu!" She declared proudly. "And aiding me today are fellow Daiguji(Senior chief priest) of the Neo-Shintoists! And today is the day when the grace of the Kami will bless the common man! Rejoice! For you all are the first to fall under the influence of Lord Kinnu!"
'Great. A fanatic...' I hear squirming and grinding sounds behind me and risked glancing back before swiftly acting like I didn't do anything. 'Even better, the class fanatic herself is offended. We might have a religious battle today...'
"And for those that are in hiding here... You'll convert soon enough." She was looking at Manga just then, wasn't she? He isn't exactly hiding his divinity...
She's confident enough to target another Kami, that means she has some cards up her sleeve. Which means this would be an even more troublesome affair.
"Everyone ready?" And now there are more clones of her everywhere. They all just appeared spontaneously. "Let's begin!"
At once, there was chaos.
Perhaps there was a third of the people in the stadium who went and fought back against the adversary, while the rest ran and panicked like headless chickens. Most of the heroes in the stands couldn't gather enough authority or charisma to take command and were also hindered by having to force their way through the crowds to get to their opponents.
Midnight is incapacitated, Present Mic hasn't said a single word since the girl took thee stage, and none of the teachers are arriving. Worse still, is that the camera's were never shut down, meaning that everything currently happening here is being aired for all to see.
This event is dragging everyone through the mud, and I couldn't stop it without exposing my true self.
Well played, Naishoten.
Well played.
~~~
"BOOST!" Guh. Punching a little girl in the face isn't good for my image but- "Heh, too easy!" Watching the little maniac fly away was satisfying. "You guys good?!"
"No!" "Yes!"
"Nice one, Sparky! And stop hiding behind Shoji and start throwing some balls, Grape!"
"I ALREADY DID! THEY JUST TORE THEM AWAY!"
What?
I hurriedly glanced at him to see the smaller pervert continuously throwing the balls from his head despite his scalp already bleeding. The brats couldn't get that balls off of themselves so they simply tore off the whatever they were stuck on, leaving numerous potholes on the ground. Shoji was actually carrying the pipsqueak to give him a better vantage point while also avoiding any thrown spears.
"BOOST!" Start throwing the little murder brats around, but none of them seemed concerned. Some Even mocked me! ME! Even when I threw multiple bodies at the brat on stage, she just had other bodies pierce the one I throw and dump them aside like they were simply a nuisance.
Wait a minute...
They weren't pierced, they were just deflected.
A cold weight settle in the pit of my stomach as I watch the brat I threw at them stand up like nothing happened and went back into the fray.
Not even a scratch on her.
"BOOST!" No. C'mon! That isn't fair! "Take this! Emperor's Strike!" I hit a bunch of them without holding back. My fears were confirmed as I watch the bunch that should've have died, stand back up and immediately began to rush to the frontlines with their initial frevor. "Heya, Vice Prez?! We have a problem!"
"I know! Just keep going!" Turns out that she stole one of the brat's spears. And despite using it expertly, all her strikes simply glanced off the clothed that she had to resort to wide sweeping attacks, something that is quick to drain stamina. "We have no choice but to keep going! The injured are behind us!" Though, What's with that expression? The others have it too... Don't tell me, are they actually feeling sorry for these brats?! They're villains! Antagonists! You shouldn't show mercy at a time like this!
"Tsk!" Not everyone has good reflexes. Most of the Gen-Ed kids were brought down pretty quickly as soon as everything began.
Truth is though, I didn't want to become like them. Even if what the brat said about not dying was the truth, what those guys experienced is gonna haunt them for the rest of their lives. For a kid so small, I didn't expect for her to be strong enough to rip someone's limb off.
The business guys probably got off the luckiest, most of their class are outside the stadium when the dome appeared. As for the ones that were already here? Not so much.
The support nerds are at least able to pull their own weight. It's a relief that they're the second most reliable people here right now.
As for the most reliable, that honour definitely belongs to the hero class, right. The salary leeches that came to spectate can barely even do anything for the rest of the crowd, those guys should just retire already. Even someone like that twisty guy from 1B is more useful than those trash.
Heh, even if my advantage over the plot went down the gutter, I can still show these chumps the strength of a true isekai protagonist!
~~~
"There he goes again with his delusion." Kuroko is really annoyed of that guy, huh? "Honestly, we're in the middle of this mess and he has the gall to stand still to daydream? He needs more discipline."
Explosions sounded out, disrupting her though process and calculations which made her frown. They've been getting louder and louder, probably because the terrorist-wannabe figured out that the Naishoten was more durable than she looks, then proceeded to get angrier than he usually is when he saw that his attacks were literally doing zero damage.
From an outside perspective, it looked like a textbook example of a short fuse rampaging but if you follow closely, you'd notice that Bakugou is actually using the force of his explosions to throw as much of them together.
Kuroko sighed as she took one of the dropped spears. "No good. I can't apport their weapons." It might be muscle memory, it might even be instinct, but we gravitated towards each other when a situation like this breaks out.
"Is that so?"
She nodded. "If felt as if they were covered in a field of sorts. Also..." She began fighting with the spear in hand as we continued our conversation. "There! I was right! The field was also the source of their invulnerability!" The spear she stabbed forwards into the chest of the Naishoten was smoothly slid off to the side, leaving the girl unharmed. "And look at this too!" Kuroko did a wide sweep of her spear, successfully hitting a few clones. The little girls gave out small arcs of electricity where they were hit before being pushed back by the momentum.
Immediately, more of them appeared as if cockroaches during a storm. They never lost their numbers, they only gained more over time.
"Doesn't make it any less troublesome..." I sighed as my heads blasted more bodies away while I kept up my smoke for the less seriously injured. "She mentioned Daiguji but we haven't seen anyone else but her. You reckon they're hiding somewhere?" I stealthily sent out a few heads to look around. Not all of them would last long, especially since we're literally surrounded from all sides but that's fine.
"Most likely somewhere in the halls or one of the waiting rooms. Perhaps even the announcer booth? Present Mic-sensei has been quiet for a while now..." She struck down one the girls that were thrown away by someone else's attack. "I doubt they'd manage to hide for long if they were out in the open with us."
"Fair." Ibara has been in a personal crusade for a while now. Individual vines were too weak to hold them back and they simply tore them away in pieces. The Christian girl long since abandoned direct control and resorted to blunt force trauma to corral her religious enemy like a paladin welding a mace.
Of course, she isn't the only one doing large attacks. There are plenty other like Kodai who made boulders out of pebbles or Bakugou who blasted them away and the like.
The problem is that we are not the only ones here.
There are also civilians, and now also the injured and incapacitated. Midnight is still knocked out on the stage, surrounded by the girl and her clones? bodies? Echoes? The specifics doesn't matter, point is that whenever someone attempted to get close to her, she takes the challenge head on, proving that she is just as strong and invulnerable as her other selves.
"You guys sure are taking this lightly..." Said Tokage. She's been sent to the injured right behind us after she lost an eye. Well, most of her anyway. She's using parts of her to cover the Naishoten's eyes for a while now.
"Nothing comes from panicking."
"We have prior experience dealing with pressing matters like this." Kuroko grunted. "Although, this is the most I've had to push my calculations to the limit since that time..."
A screaming Kuroiro brought back dismembered Kinoko. Unfortunately, he only managed to get two of her limbs so she has to go without arms for a while. Regenerating a whole arm or vital organs take significantly more focus after all. How was she taken out already? Did the electricity neutralise her spores?
I sighed thinking about how many people would be left in class. There are people who drop out of school for less trauma than what was inflicted here today.
Just then, I managed to catch Cementoss manage to reach some sort of secret compartment on the stadium wall and brought out a hose. He flipped a switch and put came cement.
For a moment, I felt the hopes rise in the students faces as they saw the Naishoten get engulfed in cement that hardened instantly under the work of the literature teacher's quirk.
"Is it over?" I don't know who said that, but I hate you now.
Only for that same hope to be dashed away as the girl showed a tenancy that rivals the undead, with her literally bursting out of their cement prison like zombies rising from the grave.
"Ow! What was that for?!" "For being an idiot."
That sounded like Jiro, so the one who jinx us is Kaminari? Noted.
I'll deal with petty revenge when all of this over.