Chapter 128. Exams Begin
We all changed into our costumes. I was the first to change, so I waited outside the rooms for everyone else. I was thinking of the best place to hunt. ‘I think the buildings strike a good balance of cover and openness. I just need to get a good hit with my pistol, stun them, and hit them with the balls. I might even get away with just throwing the balls. I think my accuracy is good enough.’ I was pondering until I had a feeling of being stared at. I looked around to see the girl from Shiketsu Highschool looking at me with a calming smile.
I was confused why she was taking an interest in me, as she walked over. “You’re Denki Kaminari, right?” I nodded at her question. “Yea that’s me.” She nodded as she looked me up and down. “Hi I’m Camie. I never saw you in your costume on TV. So this is what it looks like.” I was still confused why she cared about me. “Hey, why do you have so many gadgets? You are totes already #1. I've seen how strong your quirk already is.” I looked at her as she was just staring at everything under my coat. I closed my coat to deter her from looking any further. She pouted as she looked up at me. “I can’t tell any competition of what I do.”
She stared at me for a bit before smiling and nodding. “I totes get that. What if I promised to not go against you in the exams?” I scoffed at her proposal. “Half the people in my own class don’t know about all of my things. I’m not telling you.” She pouted again as most of the class was done with changing. I looked at the girls with a smile of seeing them in their costumes, but they didn’t look too pleased. I was then dragged off by Kyoka, and Mina. The boys followed closely behind and some were giving me the side eye. Like asking, ‘What did you do this time?’. I sighed as Deku came close to help me.
“Deku, I have something important to tell everyone.” He gave me a look of surprise that I had something to say to everyone in the situation I was in, but ushered me to go on regardless. “I got some information about the exam.” Hearing me say this the girls let me go and looked at me with interest. I smiled as I had everyone's attention. “I don’t know much, but I do know that it will technically be a ‘free for all’. Schools will most likely be teaming with each other, so we need to stick together and find a place not out in the open.” They nodded at my idea and we made our way through the large hallway. 'Thank goodness. Maybe I shouldn't have told them that, but I really didn't want to have to go through the whole accusations like with my last girlfriend.' I sighed just remembering some of my last girlfriend.
We were near the back of the giant room they had everyone waiting in. The announcer seemed to have never slept a day in his life. I felt bad just looking at him. He eventually got to the point of the first part of the exam. He explained only the first 100 would pass the exam. Everybody around was gasping and talking with others in shock at the small amount that could pass. The announcer waited for things to quiet down a bit before continuing on.
“You will each receive 3 of these.” He held up a target pad to show to the examinees. He then took a ball from behind the desk and held that up as well. “You get to decide where these three targets will be placed on your body. Just make it accessible to be attacked. No armpits please. The targets only light up when hit by these special balls. Once all three of your targets have been hit, you are considered defeated. To pass, you must defeat two other participants. That is all.”
The announcer decided to say a bit more. “We will be passing out targets and balls to everyone once this place opens up. The exam will begin one minute after this place opens up. Shoto looked around in confusion. “Open’s up?” He spoke as he looked up to see the ceiling opening up. We all followed suit and looked around at the massive scale we would be fighting at. After a bit of gawking I remembered that this time was important. I went over to most of the class.
“We all have to stay together. This will be difficult, but we can pull through together.” I looked at everyone and they nodded in affirmation. ‘I think I need to change my mind about going to the… Wait, I think I have a solution.’ “Here is what I’m thinking. We use the minute grace period to get to the urban environment, but just on the outskirts. If my guess is right, most others will be attacking us at the beginning. We can use the buildings as cover, rush out to the open area when we want to attack, and can recuperate with more of our teammates back at the buildings.”
I looked at everyone to see what they thought about my plan. They all nodded in agreement with my idea. Except the ones that ran away at the beginning of the exam. Specifically Bakugo, Shoto, and Kirishima. We all got our targets and balls. I had a belt satchel to keep a handful of the balls in, and as we were running to the cityscape on our left, I was determining where to put the targets. I just sighed as I put one on my left part of my chest, one on the back of my jacket, and one on my right thigh. Everyone else was done with their targets as well, and we made it to an office building.
“Spread out, make sure we don’t have any stowaways. After that grab furniture to block all entrances but the main door. Sero, use your tape. Mineta, place down traps by the windows after we’re done. Momo, I need things to barricade windows. Kyoka, listen for others on the ground. And Jin!” Everyone stopped to look at what I wanted Jin to do. “Make a copy of me.” I smiled evilly at that last request. So much so everyone froze to stare at me for a second before I put my mask and goggles on. The grace period only had 30 seconds left so we were all rushing around to check we were clear, and barricaded. Himiko came over to me with puppy dog eyes.
“Sorry Himiko, I don’t think you can use your quirk, you'll cover your targets, but don’t worry. I can just drag a couple of other examinees for you to take.” She smiled largely and tackled me. It was then I saw another me walk up to us. Himiko let go to just stare at the both of us. We gave each other a fist bump before he went out the front door in ‘2nd Gear’. Others asked what Jin had made the clone do, but he just shook his head fervently. “I have no control over the doubles. They only have the memories of what the other person does with me, but Kaminari’s doubles are extra human. I don’t know what he did.”
Everyone then looked at me with astonishment at this new development, but the girls were more conflicted. I chuckled at what the other me was already up to. I knew him, because he was part of me. Everyone was just staring at me, almost begging for me to explain. I just stared at the door as the game began. As soon as the game began, we all heard chaos outside. Screaming, explosions, it almost made me think villains attacked again. After a minute the chaos was reduced, but only sounded further away. It was at that point the door banged open. We all got ready for a fight.