Chapter 28: The Infernal Rock Party and the Dragon Radar
"START!"
Midnight's command didn't just signal the beginning of a game; it signaled the start of a hunt.
In an instant, the stadium erupted into chaos. The ground shook as forty-two students, formed into desperate clumps of horses and riders, surged toward a single point. They moved like a wave of hungry wolves, their eyes locked on the golden headband fluttering on Kyoka Jiro's forehead.
"They're all coming at once!" Jiro shrieked, her voice pitching up an octave. She looked left, right, and center. There was no escape route. "Tetsutetsu from the left! Kendo from the right! We're surrounded!"
"This is awesome!" Natsu laughed, cracking his knuckles. "Come on!"
"Don't just stand there, you idiot! Move!"
In her panic, Jiro reacted on instinct. She grabbed two handfuls of Natsu's spiky pink hair and yanked hard to the left.
"Ouch!" Natsu yelped, stumbling as his head was jerked sideways. "Hey! Those are attached to my head! I'm not a joystick!"
"Less talking, more dodging!" Jiro yelled, pulling his hair again, this time to the right to avoid a stretching vine from the Support Course. "Sharp right! Now back!"
"Stop steering me like a horse!" Natsu complained, but his body reacted with terrifying speed.
He planted his foot and spun.
"Fire Dragon's... WING ATTACK!"
Two streams of fire erupted from his arms as he rotated, creating a spinning vortex of flame. It wasn't an attack designed to burn the students, but a barrier of pure heat and force that knocked the first wave of attackers backward.
"Too hot!" Tetsutetsu yelled, his steel skin glowing red as he retreated.
"Don't let up!" Jiro shouted. She extended her earphone jacks. They elongated like whips, pulsating with a low hum. Snap! Snap! She slapped away a hand reaching through the smoke, then another. "I'll handle the close range! You keep them back!"
"You got it, partner!" Natsu grinned, the fire reflecting in his wild eyes.
The chaos intensified. But amidst the shouting and the explosions, a silent threat approached.
From the blind spot behind them, the team led by Mezo Shoji was moving. Or rather, Shoji was moving alone. The rider on his back was invisible—Toru Hagakure. She reached out her unseen hand, her fingers inches away from the ten-million-point headband.
"I've got it..." Hagakure whispered, holding her breath.
But she had made a mistake. She was trying to sneak up on two living radars.
Jiro's ear twitched. Under the roar of the crowd, she picked up a rhythm. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. A heart beating fast, terrified and excited, floating in the empty air behind them.
"Six o'clock!" Jiro shouted, squeezing her eyes shut to focus. "Invisible enemy! High!"
At the same second, Natsu's nose twitched. He inhaled deeply, filtering out the smoke and sweat.
"Sniff, sniff..." Natsu frowned. "I smell... vanilla? And cheap shampoo?"
He didn't need to see. He trusted his nose, and he trusted Jiro.
Without turning his head, Natsu unleashed a sharp, high donkey kick into the empty air behind him.
THWACK.
"Ooooff!"
A girl's voice gasped in pain. Hagakure materialized for a split second as the impact sent her flying backward, knocking her off Shoji's back and disqualifying their formation.
"Nice kick!" Jiro cheered, a savage grin appearing on her face. "Our senses are perfect!"
"I told you!" Natsu laughed. "Nobody sneaks up on a Dragon!"
"DIE!!"
The celebration was cut short by a scream from the sky.
Katsuki Bakugo had abandoned his team. Propelling himself with explosions, he flew over the heads of the other students, diving straight toward Natsu like a heat-seeking missile. His right hand crackled with a massive buildup of nitroglycerin.
"I'm taking those points, Salamander!" Bakugo roared.
"He's airborne!" Jiro yelled. "Natsu, blast him!"
Natsu planted his feet, his chest expanding as he inhaled a massive amount of oxygen. Fire swirled in his throat.
"I've been waiting for you, Explosion Boy!"
"Wait!" Jiro had an idea. She plugged her earphone jacks into the specialized speakers on her boots—no, that was against the rules. She realized she didn't have her gear. She had to improvise. She extended her jacks straight forward, right in front of Natsu's mouth.
"Channel it!" Jiro screamed. "Amplifier Jack!"
Natsu roared.
"ROAR OF THE FIRE DRAGON!"
A massive torrent of fire erupted from his mouth. At the same instant, Jiro unleashed a high-frequency sound wave from her jacks. The sound didn't just travel; it merged with the fire. The flames began to vibrate, turning into a spiraling drill of sonic heat.
BOOOM!
The attack hit Bakugo mid-air. It wasn't just hot; the sonic vibrations rattled his bones and threw off his equilibrium.
"DAMN IT!" Bakugo shouted as the blast blew him backward, flipping him over three times before Sero caught him with tape to prevent him from hitting the ground. "My ears are ringing!"
"Yeah!" Natsu pumped his fist. "We're a rock band now!"
"Don't get cocky!" Jiro warned, though she was smiling. "Look out!"
The ground beneath them suddenly turned white.
Todoroki Shoto had made his move. While everyone else was distracted by the aerial battle, he had encased the perimeter in a massive prison of ice. A glacier rose up, walling Natsu and Jiro off from the rest of the stadium, trapping them in a frozen box.
"I'm taking the ten million," Todoroki said coldly from the other side of the ice wall. He touched the ground, and the ice surged forward to freeze Natsu's legs.
"We're trapped!" Jiro gasped as the temperature plummeted. "He's going to freeze us!"
"No," Natsu said, his voice strangely calm. "He's just giving us a steam bath."
Jiro felt a sudden shift. The air around her shoulders remained cool, comfortable. But beneath her, she felt a radiating warmth rising from Natsu like a furnace.
She looked down.
The ice gripping Natsu's boots was melting. No, it wasn't just melting; it was evaporating instantly. Steam hissed violently around his legs.
He's controlling his body temperature... Jiro realized, her eyes widening in shock. He's keeping his shoulders and upper back at a normal temperature so he doesn't burn me, but his lower half is hot enough to melt solid ice in seconds. That's... that's terrifying control.
"It's getting humid in here!" Jiro complained, wiping sweat from her forehead as the steam filled their ice prison, creating a thick fog. "You're turning us into soup!"
"Better than being a popsicle!" Natsu grinned through the mist. "Hold on, Jiro! We're busting out!"
Natsu charged forward, using the steam as a smokescreen. He smashed through the weakened, melting ice wall with a shoulder bash, bursting back into the main arena just as the timer began to tick down.
"ONE MINUTE REMAINING!" Present Mic shouted.
The battlefield was a mess. Midoriya had secured a headband from another team. Todoroki was stuck fighting off other students. Bakugo was raging.
Natsu stood in the center, the ten million points still secure.
He looked at Midoriya, who was keeping his distance.
"Hey, Deku!" Natsu yelled, stomping his foot. "Stop running away! Come here and fight me!"
Midoriya looked at Natsu, then at the timer. He shook his head and retreated.
"Coward!" Natsu huffed. "And you, Icy-Hot! Come back here!"
"Natsu!" Jiro slapped the top of his head. "Stop provoking them! We have the points! We just need to survive for thirty seconds!"
"But I want to fight them all!" Natsu whined, smoke puffing from his nostrils. "This is boring if they don't attack!"
"It's called winning, you idiot! Stay still!"
"TEN! NINE! EIGHT!" the crowd chanted.
Natsu stood his ground, vibrating with the urge to launch one last attack, while Jiro clung to his head, praying for the clock to run out.
"THREE! TWO! ONE! TIME'S UP!"
The buzzer sounded.
Natsu stopped. The fire around his fists vanished.
"Awww," Natsu slumped. "It's over already?"
"We did it..." Jiro slumped forward onto his messy pink hair, exhausted. "We actually did it."
"And the winners are..." Present Mic screamed.
"FIRST PLACE: TEAM NATSU!"
The crowd roared. Jiro raised a shaky fist in the air, a wide smile breaking across her face.
"SECOND PLACE: TEAM TODOROKI!"
"THIRD PLACE: TEAM MIDORIYA!"
"FOURTH PLACE: TEAM BAKUGO!"
The stadium was deafening. But in the shadow of the celebration, near the edge of the field, a purple-haired boy stood motionless.
Hitoshi Shinso stared at the electronic scoreboard. His eyes were wide, hollow.
He looked at his points. Then he looked at Bakugo's team score.
The difference was minuscule. Just a single point.
"Just... one... point..." Shinso whispered, his voice cracking.
Behind him, his teammates—Ojiro and Aoyama—whom he had brainwashed into carrying him, suddenly slumped to the ground as his control broke. They fainted from exhaustion, oblivious to their leader's crushing defeat.
Shinso clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. The cheers of the crowd sounded like mocking laughter in his ears. He had been so close to the light, only to be dragged back into the shadows.
.
.