I watched as the TV screens surrounding the arena displayed the rankings of the students. It seemed as if only the first 42 people were moving on to the next round. I noticed that all of my friends had made it through to the second round and smiled to myself in relief. "As you can see, the top 42 students have qualified for the second round. But don't be disheartened if you couldn't get through, we've got plenty more activities for you to show off in!" Midnight cheered, clapping her hands together. "Now the tournament really begins. Do your best because the press is going to be jumping out of their seats to get a look at you fine specimens" Auntie Nemuri looked down at us in a way which made me shiver in discomfort. Nemuri is a very kind and smart woman, and in no way does she overstep people's boundaries, but her 'vibe' can be pretty scary sometimes. "The second event is..." the screen behind her buzzed before dinging and displaying in big, bold letter, "A cavalry battle!".

Murmurs ran through the crowd of assembled students, only to be silenced by Nemuri seconds after they began to talk. "The rules are simple. You must be in teams of 3-4 people. One person in your team is the rider and the others are the'horses'. The rider is not allowed to touch the ground at any point otherwise they can be disqualified." Auntie Nemuri began to explain the rules and objective of the cavalry battle. "Now the objective of the battle is to gather as many of these headbands as possible," she paused to hold up a white strip of cloth, "There are values on each headband depending on where you placed in the race. The values ascend by 5 points for each place. For example, the 42nd person has 5 points whilst the person in second place has a headband worth 205 points. I can see you're all about to ask about first place, well, that's special." Auntie Nemuri paused before she got a sadistic gleam in her eyes which I didn't like at all. I knew something was about to go wrong for me, and sure enough, it did. "The person who came first in the race will have a headband worth 10 million points!". My stomach dropped at her words. I had unintentionally painted a target on my back by coming first in the race. I wanted to regret my position, but I couldn't. I was going to keep my headband, no matter what. I could feel everybody's eyes turning to me, but I stood strong and ignored them in favour of staring resolutely at the stage. 

"The match will last 20 minutes and each team's total points are determined by the worth of its members. The rider will wear the headband. If your headband is stolen there is no need to worry because you are still in the game. It's not over until the buzzer goes off." Nemuri cheered, seemingly oblivious to the stares and glares aimed directly at my back. I tried my best not to shiver at all the attention I was receiving. I didn't like the way my hair stood up at the back of my neck. I felt like anyone of the eyes on me could belong to someone who had the intention of harming me. I could feel my heartbeat speed up and tried my hardest to stay calm. I didn't like all the attention which was being directed at me. "Now, go and team up! You have 10 minutes to make your teams!" Kayama squealed happily before bounding off the stage. I could tell just from the way people were moving away from me that I was going to have trouble finding a team. 

Everywhere I looked people quickly averted their gazes so that they wouldn't be stuck with me. Nobody wanted to risk being in a team with me. I was close to giving up when Ochako and Kyoka ran up to me. "We've been looking for you, Izuku. Do you want to be in a team with us? It's probably hard for you to find a team, right?" Ochako laughed lightly. I could feel gratitude swelling in my heart. I pulled Ochako into a tight hug, disguising the fact that tears were brimming in my eyes. "Thank you!" I sobbed slightly, "I thought nobody was going to go with me.". Ochako seemed surprised by the sudden hug but she quickly squeezed me back. "It's nothing, Izu. We saw you walking around, looking all lost, and thought we should team up with you. We have a lot of confidence in you." Kyoka assured me before I yanked her into the hug. We stood there, hugging, for a minute before I finally let go of the two girls and calmed myself down. I needed to think rationally and strategically if I was going to get my team through to the next round. "Ok, we have 3 people but we need a 4th. I have an idea, but he might already be in  a team." I looked around, desperately looking for a certain bird-headed boy.

"You want me to be part of your team?" Tokoyami asked confused. Tokoyami and I weren't as close as I was to Ochako or Kyoka, but I'd like to think we were still friends. I'd made a conscious effort to befriend every person in my class and I was successful, bar Todoroki of course. "Yeah, your quirk is really strong and you being on our team would really help." I enthused, bouncing on the balls of my feet as I waited eagerly for his answer. He was silent for a second as he thought over his answer. The anticipation was killing me and I must have been vibrating in my spot because Kyoka placed a gentle hand on my shoulder to calm me down. "I don't see any reason to decline your offer. I will join you." Tokoyami deadpanned in his monotone voice. It hit me that I knew a lot of people who didn't really express emotions. Kyoka, Dad, Todoroki and Tokoyami. I guess Kacchan as well, the only emotion he ever expressed was anger. And they all seemed like the brooding, emo type. Well, you learn something new every day. "Yay!" I cheered excitedly. Ochako cheered alongside me whilst Kyoka's lips tilted ever so slightly. 

"Are you ready? Once the match begins, we're going to be attacked a lot." I said as I tied my headband onto my head. The red number painted across it was 10,000,435. All three of my teammates hummed in acknowledgement. I felt kind of guilty. My friends were risking winning the entire tournament to help me. "Hey, Izu. Don't look so down. If we didn't want to be in a team with you, then we wouldn't be." Kyoka said bluntly, she didn't skip around the point. "Yeah! We trust you wholeheartedly, Izuku!" Ochako reassured me. Tokoyami didn't really say anything but Dark Shadow did. "Don't you worry about it, Midoriya, we all trust you." he said in his gravelly voice. I smiled and clenched my fists resolutely. I was going to guide my friends to victory and keep the headband on my head, no matter what it took. Before I could say anything in return, Papa's voice echoed around the stadium. "START!".

Not even a second after the word echoed around the stadium, several teams were already heading straight for us. I transformed into Kyoka, making some people around us gasp in surprise. "Go Kyoka!" I shouted. Kyoka nodded and we both stuck our earphone jacks in the ground, as we had planned. I heard the pounding of feet as people ran across the ground, but I ignored this and instead let my pounding heartbeat flow into the ground. As Kyoka did the same as me, the floor began to vibrate, throwing everyone but my team off balance. Unfortunately, nobody toppled over but they were all disoriented, which meant that we had enough time to run out of the circle of opposing teams. "I'm going to transform back into myself now. Be prepared for a bit of extra weight." I warned my team before I transformed back into myself.

We managed to evade people fairly easily for the first half of the cavalry battle. I had to transform into flying animals or insects a few times in order to escape people's hands. One time I transformed into a dragonfly and Tsuyu's tongue nearly caught me. It was a very traumatic experience. When I landed back on my friends' shoulders and transformed, I was very visibly shaken. The second half of the battle was more intense than the first half, mainly because Todoroki decided to come after us.

"That was a close one." Ochako sighed in relief. We had just managed to escape from a team made up of students from 1B. We had managed to hold them back with the help of Dark Shadow and Kyoka's quirk. Dark Shadow swatted the team away after Kyoka disorientated the front horse. I looked around the battlefield and saw that quite a few teams didn't appear to have their headbands. One of these teams was Kacchan's team. Even from the other side of the field, I could feel the anger radiating off of Kacchan in waves as he pursued another team. "Izuku! Todroki is heading this way!" Ochako muttered, her voice quivered in fear. My gaze snapped in the direction that Ochako was pointing. Todoroki was staring directly at me. The look in his eyes, frankly, scared me. "What should we do, he's really powerful!" Kyoka hissed, I could hear the annoyance in her voice. "Prepare to carry a bit of extra weight." I warned them. I waited until I saw all of them nod before transforming into Todoroki. 

Upon seeing me transform into him, Todoroki's eyes narrowed and I saw him urge his teammates to go faster. "Duck." I told Tokoyami before sending a whirlwind of flames in the direction of Todoroki. I didn't waste even a second before sending an ice wall towards the oncoming team. I patted Tokoyami's head, it was a signal that we had established at the start. If I tapped Tokoyami on the head, it meant that we would turn around and make a tactical retreat. So that's what we did. We moved as fast as possible in an attempt to put as much distance between us and Todorki's team as possible. "He's going to come after us until the timer goes off." I shouted over the sounds of the other fights going on, "We have 5 minutes left, we just need to prevail until the buzzer goes off!". My team nodded and sped up ever so slightly. I thought we had escaped from Todoroki's grasps, but I was unfortunately wrong. 

One second we're running away from Todoroki with nothing in our path, then the next second a huge ice wall appeared before us. "WALL! WALL! WALL!" I screamed. Luckily we were able to stop just before we crashed straight into the wall which made me cold just being in front of it. We were going to go turn around and go a different direction, but Todoroki had boxed us in. Our two teams stood on the opposite side of the icebox, staring at each other, appraising each other's conditions and forming a plan. "I have an idea, and I think it's allowed. When I transform could you please catch me please Ochako. Just press the trigger after aiming me at Todoroki's team. More specifically Iida." I quickly explained, I didn't have time to explain my plan, I just had to rely on my team's trust in me. Ochako nodded hesitantly, I could see the uncertainty in her eyes, I smiled at her to ease her fears before I transformed and landed in her hands.

I couldn't technically see when I was an object seeing as I didn't have eyes, but I still had a clear picture of what was happening. I could 'see' the look of fear on Ochako's face as she held me. I could sense the uncertainty which she felt. I was wondering if I should have asked Kyoka to do what I was planning when I was raised to Ochako's shoulder height. "I really hope this isn't real Izuku, otherwise we might be in a lot of trouble." Ochako whispered against the cold metal of my 'body'. Ochako let out a slow breath, before aiming me at Iida and firing. As soon as I realised that the projectile would hit him, I transformed into a woodpecker and flew up onto Tokoyami's shoulder where I transformed back into my self. I watched, a bit guiltily, as the electric disk hit Iida in the arm and he began to jerk around. He somehow managed to keep a hold of Todoroki which meant that my plan of getting them disqualified wasn't going to work, but it didn't look like Iida would be running properly for a while. "Jeez! Izuku you really scared me! You can't just transform into a gun and expect me to fire it!" Ochako chastised, "I only fired because I trust you but I was seriously considering just not doing it.". I sighed deeply as I ruffled Ochako's hair in a friendly way. "Sorry about that. There just wasn't time for me to explain." I mumbled. I looked up at the count down on the wall. We had 60 seconds left. We could guard our headband for a minute.

It didn't seem as though Iida would recover in time to get Todoroki's team moving again. There were only 30 seconds left and Iida's legs were still jerking around slightly, he was in no condition to charge us. Whilst I was still on high alert, I explained to my team what had just happened. "It was just a split-second decision. Long-distance electrical impulse guns are used by the police to subdue people. I saw one once but I can't remember where. I transformed into a very weak version of one. A full-power one would probably have knocked Iida out, I just wanted to get him to jerk about a bit, and it seems as though I was successful." I explained to my team, mostly to put Ochako's mind at ease and reassure her that Iida wasn't in any danger. He would stop jerking about after a couple of minutes. Ochako looked extremely relieved upon hearing this. There were 10 seconds left. It was a guaranteed win for my team. I didn't even worry when Kacchan's team burst through the wall and Kacchan began to make his way over to us, using his explosions to propel himself through the air. He wasn't going to make it in 5 seconds. 4...3...2...1! The buzzer blared, ending the cavalry battle. Kacchan slammed to the floor,  2 metres in front of me, and screamed in anger like a fucking gremlin. His competitive spirit was honestly scary. 

"And that's the end of this event!" Papa's voice yelled I could hear Dad's disgruntled voice tell him to be quieter through the speaker system. "In first place, we have Midoriya's team! In second place Todoroki's team! In third place is Bakugo's team! And in fourth is TetsuTetsu's team! These 16 you'd individuals have all made it through to the third and final event of today!". I felt like collapsing to my knees and bawling my eyes out in relief, but I didn't really want to make a fool out of myself. "We'll proceed to this afternoon's event after a 1-hour lunch break!" Papa announced before there was some feedback from the microphone. "Well done on getting 3rd place Kacchan." I said as I walked over to him and patted him on the back. I knew what I was doing, I was subtly rubbing it in his face that I had beat him, not only once, but twice. Kaccahn growled lowly in the back of his throat. It should have been threatening, but I just laughed at him. I pulled him up by his arm and started dragging him to lunch with me before we were stopped by none other but Todoroki. "Can I talk to you alone, Midoriya." he asked, his tone serious and vaguely threatening. 

I think I'll keep this story as Tododeku. I might just write a separate Todobakudeku book. It seems like people like 'big brother Bakugo' so we'll keep that aesthetic. I've updated twice again today because I'm bored (again). Anyway, thank you for reading chapter 32 of Occurrence and I hope you have a wonderful day wherever you are.