Chapter Text
“Can I talk to you?” Midoriya heard, turning to look over his shoulder, just having finished putting his stuff away when he’d heard the voice. It had been a week since he’d heard the voice, so he was surprised at how much of a relief it was simply to hear it.
“Of course, TodoShoto. On the way back to the dorms, or would you rather find somewhere quiet to hide here?” Midoriya asked, zipping his bag before he stood, though Todoroki shook his head, looking down.
“No, I don’t know how long this would take, hopefully a long while, so I’d rather it happen in my room? Or yours, if you’re more comfortable there.” Todoroki sighed, and Midoriya nodded, sliding his bag onto his back.
“Let’s go back to your room, then. Just give me a chance to drop this in my room first?” He shrugged, and Todoroki shook his head.
“Then let’s just talk in your room? I’m… eager.” Todoroki admitted, and Midoriya nodded.
“I’m hoping you’re wanting to make up. You’ve been my best friend for the last two years. It’s only been a week, but not having you to talk to has been hard.” Midoriya admitted, looking over, not at all surprised when a moment later he felt arms wrap around him, holding him tight against Todoroki’s chest.
“For me too. You’re the one who saved me, you know. You gave me back my family, you gave me the freedom to use my fire, I owe you everything, and I ran like a dog with my tail between my legs! I’m so sorry!” he apologized, squeezing Midoriya a little tighter, and Midoriya relaxed, hugging him back.
“I didn’t do all of that, you know.” Midoriya leaned back, looking Todoroki in the eyes. “I just spoke up. You’re the one who did all of the work. I just told you what I thought.” Midoriya gave him a smile, and Todoroki let out a shuddered sigh, relief showing across his face.
“I don’t know about all of that, but I’m just so happy you’re talking to me again.” Todoroki sighed, raising a palm to his forehead, looking down. “I know I’m the one who left, who said I needed time, but not having you there has been horrible.” Todoroki sighed, laying his head on Midoriya’s shoulder.
“Well, come on to my room and you can tell me about the last week, alright?” Midoriya chuckled, patting him on the back of the head, and Todoroki pulled away, a grin breaking across his face as he nodded.
“It’s been boring. There’s not much to say. We’ve been out working in the swamps, and in real life, I’ve kind of just been keeping to myself. Nothing really has been going on.” Todoroki shrugged. “My mother made me soup when I told her what was going on. I’m still not used to having her around, and having her trying to help when I’m in situations is still weird, but I think if it hadn’t been for her, I’d have been completely alone all week, except when Iida and Uraraka came by to ask me what was wrong. Uraraka tried quite a bit, at first, to stick around, but I didn’t want her there. I didn’t realize how lonely it would be.” Todoroki admitted, and Midoriya chuckled, shaking his head.
“You really are too closed off sometimes. You should spend more time with others. Even if you’re upset, sometimes having others around helps. They helped me out a lot over the last week, too.” Midoriya admitted, waiting for Todoroki as he rushed back to his own seat to grab his bag, hurrying back to Midoriya’s side.
It wasn’t long before they were hanging out in Midoriya’s room, and with the weather in real life still cold, Midoriya broke out an electric kettle to make tea for the two of them and they sat around, talking about their teams’ antics for a bit before Todoroki finally broke, explaining himself a little.
“You know,” He whispered, looking over, “When I heard a couple on your team got married… the only two I could think of were you and him. I couldn’t breathe.” Todoroki swallowed nervously.
“I’m not WITH anyone. I still don’t know what I’m doing, and I doubt I’m going to know what’s going on anytime soon. I’m so confused.” Midoriya sighed. “It’s hard, you know. And with everything in my head already jumbled up, it’s like being spun like a top. I’ll find my way soon enough, but I’m just hoping you’ll both have the patience to deal with me until then.” Midoriya looked over, seeing Todoroki giving an understanding smile.
“I’ll give you all the time you need. I’m sorry I’ve put so much pressure on you. It’s never what I intended.” Todoroki moved a little closer, giving him a hug. “I’m just glad you forgive me for it, at least for now.”
“Of course I do. I’m the one who can’t make up his mind, after all.” Midoriya sighed.
The two spent the rest of the day chatting, though after about an hour Iida and Uraraka joined them, turning their time into a study session. By the time Midoriya laid down to sleep that night, placing the helmet on his head, he couldn’t break the grin from his face, both glad the day had gone the way it had, seeing all of his friends’ smiling faces, as well as excitement for what was to come.
“Welcome to the Star City Competition! For those who are going to enter, you have an hour and a forty three minutes to make your way to the amphitheater, a new addition to town, on the north side! There are travel points to make travel around the city easier, if you look at your maps! They’ll be on the cardinal corners of the city itself, as well as one in the center, and travel can go between any of the points, so feel free to use any spare time getting final preparations together!” Princess heard in her ear the instant she logged in, though as soon as she lifted her map, she heard Belladonna in her ear.
“Hey! Me, Charron and Persephone are at the same restaurant we were at yesterday! Figured we should rest a bit before we head into combat! I know Auric and Firefly should be on in a minute! Come on over, and we’ll go over strategies while we wait!” She cheered into the PM, and Princess chuckled, a grin spreading across her face.
“I’ll be right there, I’m just across the street!” She called back as she turned, rushing over, quickly finding the group, though the room was nearly full. It wasn’t more than five minutes before the group was together, and Persephone called to order the first problem they faced.
“Hey, so I just looked into it, and they’re calling groups out by name. We have to have a group name on the registry before we can enter into combat. They didn’t ask them at the time, but we have to have one on our own party’s registry before we enter the arena.” She looked around, seeing Charron staring in surprise.
“They didn’t tell us this before hand?!” He groaned out, and Firefly sighed, shaking his head.
“They tried, but we were kind of excited, trying to get out of town to level a little more.” He shrugged. “I didn’t listen either.” He watched as Auric chuckled.
“Princess’ squad!” He offered, earning a roll of the eyes of half of the group, Princess included.
“No.” Charron shook his head. “Maybe something with mythology, since we do have two people named from it.” He thought out loud, and Princess sighed, shaking her head.
“We’re all fucking insane. Maybe we should be the Insane team, or something like that.” She grinned, looking over to Firefly, who thought about it for a moment.
“Odd Squad.” He offered. “It sounds better, but let’s face it. We have a fucking blood elf, our masochistic demon bard, our adorable little necromancer, Charron, and the one person who looks normal, but managed to fall in love with the giant cat. No one in this team is normal.” He sighed, and everyone nodded, though no one looked disappointed at the thought.
“Alright, then. Odd squad!” Princess stood, holding out a mug of hot oolong, and everyone else stood, joining in, though Firefly, Persephone, Charron and Belladonna’s mugs were definitely full of beer, something Firefly later would say was to ‘calm nerves’.
They made their way to the arena about half an hour before needed, but they felt it was important to make sure they were there on time, and they didn’t know if they needed to sign in, or if they needed to find seats, though they were happy to discover there were seats assigned for those who were competing, and all check ins were done as they entered the entryway. They sat around, eagerness growing to nervousness, and suddenly Princess understood the need for alcohol the adults shared before she snuck a beer from one of the NPC vendors, glad that since it wasn’t really alcohol, she didn’t need carded, ignoring the glare Auric gave as she chugged it down, hearing Firefly start to cheer when he realized what was going on. “Fuck off!” She gasped, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “I’m nervous as hell! Look at all of these people!”
“It’ll help, don’t worry.” Firefly chuckled, turning as a group of people made their way back to the center of the arena, talking to each other before calling out to the group.
“Hello everyone, and welcome to the Star City Competition!” A woman in the center called out, earning a cheer from the whole arena, the feeling of the group electrifying for Princess, who was sat close to the center, getting to hear everyone in unison. “For every group participating, you’ve been assigned a number based on when you signed up for your competition! It’s now showing next to your team name! Take a look and see where you are!” She called out, and Princess looked, seeing the number easily showing in red beside the ‘ODD SQUAD’ title.
444
“Oh, that’s not ominous at all!” She nearly gawked, looking over to Auric, who just laughed.
“We couldn’t get something normal, that wouldn’t be us.” Auric admitted.
Before they could continue, though, the woman continued. “We’ll be randomly drawing numbers for competitions! These are no holds barred, anything goes, so be prepared! There will be two teams fighting against each other at a time until we’re down by half! After that, competitions will be announced! For starters, we’ll start with, the first and last teams, number 001 and 472!” She called out, and two teams made their way down, though she ended out nearly choking when she saw that team 472 was Flyte, Miyabi, Roc, Scratch, and two men she hadn’t seen yet, though once she looked a little closer, she realized one was Sero at their side.
“Oh my god.” She whispered, blinking away surprise before realizing the other was actually Shoji, both he and Sero dressed in similar armor, apparently having both decided to become samurai, though that left their team terribly uneven.
They were all fighters.
What she wasn’t expecting was, right off the bat, for Sero to start casting spells through his sword, using it similarly to Belldonna’s sword/staff, and Shiro/Shoji to start blaring out spells, pointing his own sword out similarly to Sero as he cast AoE spells, protecting their team before the other team rushed in.
Princess’ best guess was that the team was mostly magic based, seeing as spells from Sero, Shiro and Miyabi were the starters, though Miyabi’s spells were unknown until the other team got closer, when Roc threw a punch, knocking two of the men clear from the arena, sending them flying into the stands, landing in the other teams readying for their turns, and Flyte readied his bow, sending shots to two of the others, headshots sending both to the rebirth points at the same time.
The last man still in the arena stood still, staring in shock for a moment before he decided to at least not give up like a coward and rushed in, the battle cry still on his lips as a punch from Roc ruptured the air current, blowing the man into the back wall, killing him instantly, the pillar of light flying away leaving everyone quiet for a moment before they all cheered.
Princess stared, swallowing nervously before she turned, looking over to Auric, who was just as speechless. “So, Flyte’s gotten better since we fought. Shooting two arrows at the same time. I hope we don’t have to fight them anytime.”
“It wasn’t him.” Auric sighed, shaking the fog from his head. “The white haired guy,” He nodded towards Shiro, “His magic gave his arrows magical attributes. Like my magic missles. He couldn’t miss, and he probably could have done more damage if he would have hit a single target. He probably could have hit the whole team for half hit points.” Auric looked over, his face pale. “This competition is going to be harder than I was hoping for.”
“We better hope we don’t go against them.” Charron mumbled, leaning forward, looking closely. “The white haired guy, his name is Hikaru Shiro. He’s from my old team, before I met Princess and Firefly. He’s just as strong physically as he is magically, and he’s a good strategist.” Charron looked over, his expression grim. “I’m hoping we’re just seeing the best first.”
“Me too.” Princess sighed. “Otherwise, this could be a really fast contest for us.”
“Or really good, if we end up with a team as well prepared as their opposing team was.” Firefly pointed out, a grin sliding over his face. “You have to remember, we spend most of our time fighting, but a lot of teams spend a lot of their time in towns, trying to network more than leveling up. From what I’ve been seeing, we’re higher level than most of the teams here. We may luck out in this.” Firefly glanced over to Charron, who nodded, letting out an approving hum.
“Well, I wouldn’t have come along so easily if I thought we were going to lose.” Princess chuckled. “Of course we have a good chance.”
“You always have the best of chances, My Princess.” Auric looked over, reaching to take her hand, giving a soft squeeze before the next two teams were called up, neither of the ten unknown people seeing the beaming bright red of the girl’s cheeks.