Ahead of Minoru, Yaoyorozu had paused at the edge of a crevasse which was dotted with what appeared to be stone columns joined together by tight ropes. He pulled alongside her panting. "Yao…yo…ro…zu!" he growled.

  There was the sound of her quirk, and lengths of what appeared to be nylon cord started pooling on the ground nearby. "Take this," she said to him, stepping behind him and quickly securing the end of the cord around his waist even as more extruded from her stomach. "I've identified the optimal path. You see that central column? Anchor this on the left side for me, please. Remember, left side!"

  "What? How am I—" but she gave him no time to finish his sentence, because she squatted, created something he couldn't see, grabbed his upper arms, hoisted him up and swung him so his feet connected to her bare stomach holy crap, and then Minoru found himself flying through the air as something emerged from her belly at speed and launched him.

  "UBLAGH!" he screamed incomprehensibly as he plummeted toward the pillar she had identified. Crap, she must have over-estimated his weight because he was going to go sliding right off into the abyss at this rate. He snatched a pair of grapeshot off his head, and as his face approached the flat top of the column, he slammed one hand down, pressed his feet against the column to desperately try to reduce his speed, and as he went whipping around the pivot point of the first grapeshot he used the second to fully arrest his momentum, leaving him glaring at Yaoyorozu across the gap.

  She looked faintly impressed, but there was also a horde of students approach behind her and here he was stuck where he couldn't help. If only she'd—but no, that ship had sailed, so Minoru scrambled to get the cord off his waist and used a few grapeshot to secure it to the outer left edge of the column.

  As soon as he'd finished that, Yaoyorozu went and Tarzanned right into the abyss, swinging away on the cord right as the horde skidded to a stop behind her.

  He didn't think she was going to make it across, but he hadn't accounted for the fact that there was a tightrope that ran at an angle across the empty space between the column she'd thrown him to and where she was swinging, and the cord stretched across it and caused her swing to head upwards at a steeper angle sooner than he'd expected.

  As she reached the crest of the swing, she let go of the rope entirely, arcing through the air before she grabbed a tightrope further on, spinning around it into a crouch and then launching herself once more into the air over a gap to land on the far side.

  "What the hell?" muttered Minoru. How was she so damn cool? It just wasn't fair.

  He moved at a steady jog across the pair of tightropes that stretched between his central column, a smaller column to the right, and the edge of the abyss.

  As he rejoined Yaoyorozu, she gave him a nod. "Let's go!" And left him in the dust again.

  Minoru sighed about a year's worth of sighs and forced himself to sprint after her.

  Now, if memory served, he just had a literal minefield to traverse.

  Just ahead of them, about twenty students had already entered the minefield, and Minoru could see Todoroki and Bakugo leading the pack as they jockeyed for position. Nearby, Midoriya was frantically digging mines out of the dirt and piling them up with what appeared to be a piece of robot, of all things.

  Oh, he was totally going to use those to blow himself past Todoroki and Bakugo, wasn't he?

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  Yaoyorozu must have had the same thought, because she veered away from Midoriya toward the edge of the minefield where few people had gone, so far. There she paused for a moment, surveying the field ahead and allowing Minoru the chance to finally catch up with her.

  "Think you're light enough to get across the mines without triggering them?" she asked as he panted up beside her.

  Minoru just gave her a look, and she shot him a slight rueful smile back. "Right, that would be asking a bit too much. Any ideas?"

  "Not for the whole way, but maybe I can give us a little boost to start. Can you create stuff from your feet?"

  Yaoyorozu stripped off her shoes rather than answer, and Minoru decided she probably got the idea and started lobbing grapeshot ahead of them, trying to stagger them.

  "You'll have to go first, huh," said Yaoyorozu, and created a much less long length of cord. "Here, stick this to the back of your uniform and I'll reel you in if you get exploded in an awkward direction."

  Minoru didn't bother to argue, just slapped another grapeshot to the end of the cord, affixed it to his back as best he could reach, and then jumped for the first grapeshot he'd lobbed ahead of them.

  This was another technique he'd remembered from his first time around that he'd been working to achieve again and had been the main reason he'd worked on balance skills the last two weeks. As his foot landed on the grapeshot, it depressed under him and then sprang back into shape, giving some extra momentum to his jump and shooting him toward the next. Behind him, he heard the sound of Yaoyorozu's Quirk as she likely manifested a thin sheet of material between the grapeshot and her naked foot, allowing her to mimic using them as springy stepping stones.

  He was frantically tossing out more grapeshot as he flew towards the next one, thinking that this just might take them all the way across the minefield, since the mines were not as closely clustered here near the edges, when he heard the first click.

  "WABLAGHEL!" screamed Minoru as he flew through the air, only for a sharp jerk at the back of his uniform to yank him back downward as Yaoyorozu flew past him and drew him along in her wake.

  He hit the ground uncomfortably on his butt and heard a click. "Crap."

  The explosion sent him flying up over Yaoyorozu as the cord connecting him to her acted as a pivot. As he arced over her head, he tossed a few more grapeshot out ahead, because hell, may as well give her something to jump off while he was getting pinballed around.

  The sudden weight threw off her balance and she stumbled onto bare dirt for a moment, but fortunately didn't hit a mine, and by the time Minoru had arced over her head and bounced off one of his own grapeshot, she was following right behind.

  Ahead and to their left there was a massive explosion as Midoriya blew past Todoroki and Bakugo in dramatic fashion, but Minoru was too busy pinballing between his own smaller explosions to care.

  An interminable few seconds later, Yaoyorozu crossed the finish line, literally dragging Minoru behind her. They'd successfully re-routed onto the ice that Todoroki had created after crossing the midway point of the minefield, which allowed them to get to the exit a little faster, but Minoru had still eaten a few more explosions along the way. He was pretty sure he'd be decorating the barbed wire fence around the minefield and hoping Recovery Girl was good with puncture wounds if not for Yaoyorozu's anchor…leash…thing.

  Ahead of them, Ida was having an existential crisis. "To lose a race, of all things, with my Quirk…!"

  Yaoyorozu looked down at Minoru where he lay supine. "Good work, Mineta."

  "…That was the absolute worst," he responded bitterly. "But thanks for dragging me across the finish line, I guess. Maybe next time don't literally drag me."

  Yaoyorozu chuckled lightly, tossing the cord she'd been using aside. "You kept up," she said simply, and turned to watch the rest of the competitors make their way back into the stadium.

  Well. He wasn't sure if it was worth it, but he also couldn't say he didn't feel a warm glow over Yaoyorozu's approval. Minoru dragged himself upright, groaned as he tripped over the cord, and wound it up as best he could to keep other people from stepping on his impromptu tail. He thought they'd done a little better than last time, but admittedly last time he'd been affixed to Yaoyorozu's butt, overcome with euphoria that his plan had actually worked, and hadn't been paying attention to much else.

  At last, Midnight revealed the results: Yaoyorozu came in tenth, with Minoru falling just behind her in eleventh. Not too shabby.

  Now for the only portion of this accursed sports festival that he felt confident about: the cavalry battle.