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Bakugou Katsuki was in chains at the podium.
It had been a wild sports festival this year, full of upsets, dark horses, and immense power displays. From the General education student that made it all the way to the battle tournament only to be beaten by the odd green haired kid that kept injuring himself, to the Support Course student Hatsume making her own one-on-one battle into a promotional stunt for her inventions, to the over-the-top displays of raw overwhelming power on display by the student Todoroki from the Heroics Course.
To begin with normally she wouldn’t have bothered to buy the tickets for the UA first year students festival, however this year the third-year tickets had sold out too fast for her to grab one, and well if she was going to choose between the second- and first-year students, why not the first? They had already been in the media after the USJ debacle, so some of the students had already been exposed to life as a hero. They were likely to either have given up entirely or knuckled down, training harder than previously after what had likely been a reality check.
Choosing the tickets for the first-year festival had ended up being the right choice. These kids were really putting their all into this! … yet something kept on niggling at her, putting a slight damper on her excitement. Something wasn’t quite right. Many of the kids were too self-destructive, too desperate, too committed for lack of a better term.
These kids were only fifteen years old, but it felt as if many of them thought that they were fighting for their futures. As if this festival would make or break their future carers. They were only first-years. They hadn’t even had a full year of schooling yet, still more than two and a half to go, in fact! Not only that, the entirety of one of the Heroics classes had been through a traumatic incident just a couple of weeks prior, had no one had a talk with the students? A teacher, councillor, or the like to reassure the students that this wasn’t the end of the line? Going beyond, plus ultra and so on was fine and all, but something just felt off about the entire festival…
The final had been impressive, though not nearly as hard fought as the semi final between Todoroki and the self-destructive kid. It almost seemed like Todoroki had been shaken by his last fight and had had trouble getting back into the right headspace for the fight against the explosive kid, Bakugou.
While Todoroki’s first move had been an impressive attempt at ending it as quick as possible, freezing almost the entire arena, it had been unsuccessful. After that he was stuck reacting to Bakugou’s attacks rather than going on the offensive again, and in the end, he seemed to hesitate in retaliating against Bakugou’s final attack. By the time the dust had settled, it was clear that Bakugou was the victor as Todoroki lay passed out in the rubble of his fractured manmade glacier. Bakugou had not reacted well. He seemed angry and disappointed with the result of the fight. It was difficult to see clearly from the spectator stands, but how else was she supposed to interpret Bakugou running up to the other boy and grabbing him by the collar, all while shouting, presumably at him? And then Midnight had knocked him out with her quirk before calling the match, declaring Bakugou the victor. And while the crowd around her went nuts, her own enthusiasm was strained. What had just happened? Instead of calming him down, Midnight had knocked him out with her quirk? What kind of conflict resolution was that? And she is supposed to be a teacher? Something had to be wrong, right? This couldn’t be normal for first-year festivals, right?
And yet… and yet here they were.
Bakugou Katsuki was in chains at the podium.
Initially she had tried to brush of the incident as nothing more than an effort to quickly get the two boys out of view of the cameras and spectators, to resolve everything behind the backstage while checking them over for injuries. It had been easy to become excited again for the award ceremony. All the other courses had been brought out to see the ceremony, and Present Mic was busy hyping everyone up from the commentator’s booth before giving the mic over to Midnight. She reintroduced the individual courses, before having those that made the podium raised up amid smoke and fireworks. And it was as the smoke dissipated that her discomfort with the entire affair returned in full force, making her nauseous.
There restrained, chained and gaged upon the victor’s podium was Bakugou Katsuki fighting his restrains. It was clear that his fellow students and victors were uncomfortable with the situation, but Midnight bulldozed passed the issue by introducing All Might as the one to hand out the medals. She hoped that All Might might raise the issue of Bakugou’s restrainment, but he carried on with the ceremony undaunted. Only when he got to Bakugou did he remove the gag and attempt to make the boy accept his medal. Why was he only removing the gag? Surely this couldn’t be right? That’s a fifteen-year-old boy chained to a podium in front on millions of viewers. That can’t be legal? What is going on? The boy clearly doesn’t want to be there, doesn’t want to receive the medal. You can’t force someone to receive a medal. Why is nobody doing anything? Oh god did All Might just put it in the boy’s mouth!?
She couldn’t focus on his speech. She had to get out of here. Had to check if what she had just seen had actually happened. Had to check if anyone, anyone had brought up what had just happened as an issue online. This… this wasn’t right! Surely the media would raise a stink about this? Or his parents?
Yet as she followed the news closely the next couple of weeks, none of them made an issue of what had happened. UA hadn’t made a statement and the only thing about the entire debacle that the media had any issue with was Bakugou himself. From how he had fought his female classmate Uraraka to how ungrateful he apparently was for resisting receiving his medal, calling him unheroic. What in the world was going on? She had even taken to posting online about the issue herself and found only a few others that shared her opinion that Bakugou’s treatment was wrong, but most people seemed to have no problem with it. How could this be?
Her nausea kept mounting. She had been a bystander to his treatment. She hadn’t done anything too. Oh god.
Her thoughts kept running in circles. This wasn’t right. How could nobody else see this? What is wrong with everyone?
This wasn’t right!