Chapter 31: MemorableSummary:
The cavalry battle begins!
Notes:
Art!
Kain wants Abeels blood
Panda's just here
Let bees hibernate
The pancake dream
Memes!
X X X
Chapter Text
Uraraka watched nervously as Hitoshi tied the headband across his forehead, "And you're sure that modifying the headband isn't going to get us disqualified?"
"Eighty-two percent sure, yeah." Mei responded, tightening the hoverboots onto Uraraka's feet
"Nowhere in the rules does it say we're not allowed to mess with the headbands." Izuku said confidently. "And honestly, considering the set-up of the sports festival, we're actively encouraged to use quirks and support items on them, so as long as we keep it visible in accordance with what Midnight said, we should be fine!"
Hitoshi put a sympathetic hand on Uraraka's shoulder. It was going to take some time for her to get used to the way his kidnappers did things, but she was doing remarkably well so far, considering the circumstances.
"Just go along with it." He shrugged. "My kidnappers are hardly ever wrong, and if something happens, well...Midoriya is Nedzu's favorite, so he'll let him get away with anything."
"That's not…" Midoriya blushed bright red and tried to hide his face. "He doesn't like me that much! And he's the principal, so he has to be unbiased. And for the last time, we didn't kidnap you Shinso!!!"
"Sounds fake, but ok." Hitshosi smirked and elbowed Uraraka until she started giggling.
"Well," Uraraka shook her head in disbelief, "even if this goes horribly wrong, it'll definitely be interesting!"
"That's the spirit, Floaty Girl!" Mei grinned and stood. "The true goal of the sports festival is marketing, so even more than winning, our goal is to be memorable!"
"Oh, they're definitely going to remember us." Hitoshi said dryly. "It's just a question of whether or not that's a good thing."
Uraraka was about to say something else, but they were interrupted by Midnight taking the stage again, "Riders! Mount your Horses!"
Hitoshi watched as Mei's crazed smile got slightly more wild and both Midoirya and Uraraka got scarily determined looks on their faces. He still wasn't quite sure how he'd ended up with friends like these, but he couldn't help but be grateful he was on their side. As much as Midoriya might try to deny it, they really were impossible to stop once they set their minds on something.
It was weird being the rider as the tallest member of the group. He understood where Midoriya was coming from with the more consistent heights being better for the horses, and Uraraka's quirk made it so that his weight wasn't an issue, but still...Hitoshi carefully put on a bored expression and leaned back slightly so that it looked like he was a king lunging on his throne. He could feel Midoriya chuckling beneath him and couldn't resist smirking.
This was gonna be fun.
"Is everybody ready?!?!?!" Mic yelled.
The crowd screamed in response and Hitoshi felt his team shift underneath him as the other teams prepared to charge them.
Midnight cracked her whip and everyone lept into action, "Begin!"
Hitoshi's team immediately lunged forward, which caused a few teams to stumble back in shock, considering that, if one didn't have Midoriya as a strategist on their team, the most logical move would usually be to run away. Instead, Hitoshi's team ran straight for Bakugo's.
In one fluid movement, Hitoshi whipped the headband off his head and threw it at Bakugo, whose eyes widened as the fabric started floating up and away without any gravity to hold it, "Have fun, Kacchan!"
"Is…" Mic's confused voice echoed through the stadium. "Is that allowed?"
"Technically." Eraserhead sounded almost amused, which Hitoshi hadn't really thought was possible. "Though it remains to be seen whether it's an intelligent move. On the one hand, getting rid of the ten million points immediately means they are no longer the main target, but on the other hand, it means they now have zero points. Having Uraraka remove the headband's gravity was a nice touch though."
"It'll definitely add another dimension to this fight!" Mic yelled, hyping up the crowd. "Team Bakugo is gonna have their work cut out for them trying to keep those points from floating away!!!"
"Stupid purple bastard!" Bakugo looked practically ready to explode, even as that tape guy from 1A, Sero, used his quirk to grab the headband out of the air before another team could. "Deku!!"
"Drop it, Bakugo." The rock dude, Kirishima yelled. "We got the points now, so like Mic-sensei said, we gotta focus on keeping them!"
Hitoshi almost thought Bakugo was going to go after them anyway, but he just tched and turned away to combat that ice and fire guy who was going after the ten million point headband, "Only Deku would be useless enough to throw away points like that."
"Why I outta…" Mei growled.
"Mei-chan, that's the plan, remember?" Midoriya interrupted. "We want Katsuki to underestimate us. We want everyone to underestimate us. Our job for the rest of the game is to disappear into the background!"
"Well, that and mess with everyone to get as many points as possible." Hitoshi added. "Speaking of which...Hey monkey boy! Do you even have any points?"
"Shinso!" Midoriya squealed. "Don't be rude!"
Hitoshi just shrugged as Ojiro, if he was remembering Midoriya's analyses correctly, turned toward him with a scowl, "More than you. Our team isn't stupid enough to just give up our points."
"We'll see about that."
Hitoshi couldn't hold back a smirk, but didn't take control of Ojiro just yet. Holding off on taking control was still difficult, but Midoirya had been right, it was getting much easier with practice. Plus, it was easier if he had fun with it. Hitoshi stared at Ojiro for a few seconds before raising his hands slowly, widening his smile slightly for maximum creep factor
The other team was starting to get visibly nervous. One of the other members, a short boy that Hitoshi thought was in 1B tugged on Ojrio's sleeve, "Come on, let's just go and get some other points, these guys don't have anything."
"Oh really?" Hitoshi shifted his foot to signal to the rest of his team to get ready to move, then suddenly closed his fists on thin air and yanked, using the jetpack that Mei had given him to close the distance between their teams as he finally let himself take full control of Ojiro, "Hand over your points."
The rest of the team was still off balance from the little show he'd put on, so no one was fast enough to stop a dead-eyed Ojiro from handing over his headband. Hitoshi released his control almost immediately and their team simply used their momentum to carry on down the field, leaving a very confused group of hero students to wonder how exactly they had just lost all their points.
"Shinso…" Midoriya said shakily, "Remind me never to come across you in a dark alley."
Hitoshi couldn't help laughing. From anyone else, a comment like that would rub him the wrong way. It was those kinds of comments he got all the time from his classmates or foster siblings, but from Izuku, it just didn't seem as mean-spirited. "You're one to talk. How are your murder notebooks coming along?"
"They're not murder notebooks!" Izuku squawked. "Uraraka, don't let Shinso scare you. My notebooks are just analyses of a couple people's quirks…"
"Along with their strengths, weaknesses, and what babies we could use to destroy them!" Mei finished gleefully. "They're amazing!"
Uraraka's eyes were wide and she looked slightly overwhelmed, which Hitoshi found extremely amusing. He almost felt bad, but then he remembered his first day of being kidnapped by the chaos duo and figured he'd earned the right to laugh, "Alright, enough scaring the one hero course student willing to team up with us. Who are we going after next?"
Their group looked around the field. Bakugo still had the ten million point headband, but Todoroki's team was giving him a run for his money, considering that a good half of the field was now covered in ice. Several teams had gotten caught up in the crossfire and were currently frozen to the ground, which Hitoshi planned on taking full advantage of.
Izuku's face lit up as he came to the same conclusion, "So Shinso...how do you feel about a captive audience?"
"I think I can give it a try…"Hitoshi smirked. "Our best best is to go after the lowest point values first, right? Quantity over quality?"
"Right!" Izuku smiled. "That way, we stay under the radar and don't risk catching the attention of the frontrunners."
"That seems kinda sneaky…" Uraraka said nervously.
"Oh, it is." Izuku agreed. "But heroes like Edgshot have gotten to the top of the ranks by being sneaky. Sometimes what decides a fight isn't someone's strength, but what weaknesses their opponent is willing to take advantage of."
"Hence why we're taking advantage of everyone's hyperfocus on the ten million points, especially during this first part of our plan." Hatsume said. "Ooh! Who's first?"
"What about that team from 1B?" Hitoshi suggested. "Midoriya, quirks?"
"Limb separation, glue, and quite literally speaking words into existence." Midoriya responded. "Good choice! Just make sure you don't only focus on the rider, because while she could steal the headband back by detaching a hand or something, in this case the horses are objectively the biggest threat to our mobility."
Hitoshi nodded and they made their way over to their next target, "Hey, uh, do you need help?"
"Uh…" The girl looked at her teammates hesitantly, probably nervous about their kindness being a trap. It was, of course, but she obviously didn't know that she'd already fallen into it.
"It's no big deal!" Hitoshi said kindly. "I mean, we're not hero students, so we aren't really planning on getting that far in the festival, you know?"
The kid in the front, the one with the glue quirk if Hitoshi was right, visibly relaxed, "Ok, cool. Yeah, we could really use the help if you're not gonna steal our headband or anything."
"Don't worry!" Mei piped up happily. "We're not gonna steal it!"
Uraraka elbowed her and shot her a warning look, but Hitoshi was already deciding what red herring to use this time. He leaned over and grabbed the other rider's shoulder, "Sorry, I just need to steady myself so I don't fall. Um, Mei's got this new flamethrower she wants to try out…" He turned to the last member of the other team, "You're not afraid of fire are you?"
"No," the guy didn't really have a head in the traditional sense, but he seemed like he was shaking the emoji currently floating above his shoulders, "just be careful!"
"Of course!" HItoshi grinned and leaned down to grab both of the horses shoulders. "Oh, and thanks by the way!"
He took control of all three of them, letting out a sigh of relief as the pressure in his skull decreased, "Give us your headband. Oh and Mei, can you melt them out. We did promise, after all!"
Mei laughed and used a surprisingly tame stream of fire to melt the ice around their feet as Hitoshi tied the headband around his head and turned back to the team, "You won't notice your headband is gone until at least one minute has passed."
He wasn't 100% sure that order would do anything, but if he could modify memories, then modifying attention should be theoretically possible as well, right? They'd have to see.
Once they were melted out, he let his quirk go and held his breath as they blinked back to life, looking slightly disoriented as the rider skimmed her eyes over Hitoshi's forehead, her own headband clearly visible on it. Hitoshi held his breath.
She smiled, "Thanks for the help!"
The corners of Hitoshi's mouth twitched, "No problem!"
He could feel his teammates shaking in silent laughter underneath them as they walked away and broke, "I cannot believe that actually worked!"
"I was thinking why is he releasing his control so quickly?!" Izuku gasped in laugher. "That was awesome!"
"I seriously thought we were dead!" Uraraka giggled. "Oh my goodness! That was a rush!"
"Next victim!" Mei yelled in excitement. "Onward!"
Izuku couldn't keep the smile off his face as they wandered around and started freeing teams that had been encased in Todoroki's ice. Shinso was doing really well at changing up the fake activation requirements for his quirk with every headband they took and beside him, Uraraka was gradually getting more and more confused. They had decided against telling her about the verbal response requirement both so that she wouldn't have an unfair advantage if she and Shinso fought in the next round and so that they would be able to tell if Shinso's redirection was actually working.
Judging by the almost constipated expression on her face as Shinso literally serenaded one of the teams, it was working exactly as well as they'd hoped.
"So," Izuku said happily. "Have you figured out how Shinso activates his quirk yet?"
"Uh…" Uraraka looked at the team that was currently handing over their headbands. "Maybe eye contact?"
"Hmm…I don't know..." Izuku grinned mischievously and turned to look at her, which is how he almost missed the dark figure lunging at them.
"Oh shit!" Shinso immediately activated the jet pack and Uraraka kicked on her hover boots so they could get out of range, but that didn't stop the shadow from ripping off two of their headbands.
The team they were currently facing had two 1B students and a 1A student, but all three of them had animal-type mutations, which is probably what formed the common ground for them to have the confidence to team up. There was a girl with a horse-like mutation and a guy with a mantis mutation, but their biggest problem currently was the 1A student with a bird mutation.
"Note to self." Izuku muttered. "Dark Shadow is apparently fully sentient."
"Yeah, Izu-kun, I think we figured that out." Mei griped.
"What did you do to Fumikage?!" Dark Shadow yelled and swiped at them again, forcing them to take to the air to dodge, not that that would work for long.
"Um, ok, weak to light!" Izuku's brain raced and he started mumbling as Mei whipped out her flamethrower to keep Dark Shadow at bay. "So, apparently he has his own consciousness? Or maybe his own area in Tokoyami's brain? That's probably most likely, but there's obviously some kind of separation between the two…"
"Don't care about the quirk theory right now, Izuku!" Shinso yelled. "Can I brainwash it? Because with the way it's thrashing, Tokoyami's gonna wake up any minute!"
Izuku jumped, "Yes! That's a great idea!"
Shinso shook his head and huffed in frustration, "Wonderful. Great help. Thanks. Hey bird brain! Your other half must be pretty weak if he fell to a wimp like me, huh?"
Dark Shadow almost doubled in size as he lunged at them, "Don't you talk about Fumikage that way!!!"
They all flinched as Dark Shadow swiped at them, only to stop short inches from Hitoshi's face, eyes wide as he fell fully under Hitoshi's control. They all exchanged glances and started giggling uncontrollably.
"Oh my gosh…" Uraraka gasped. "That was way too close…"
"Agreed." Mei laughed. "I almost thought he was gonna break my babies!!!"
"Ok…" Hitoshi shook his head. "Crisis averted...for now…Wow, that is some quirk, I almost wish we had it on our team…"
"I mean, you kinda do at this point right?" Uraraka asked. "Or does your quirk not work that long."
Izuku looked between Uraraka and Shinso, then smiled and shrugged, "I mean...why not?"
"That's rude, Midoriya." Shinso grumbled. "I'm not just gonna take control of a whole other team!"
"As long as we leave them enough points to pass, they'll be fine." Mei dismissed. "And you can give them back control for the last few minutes anyway!"
There was a moment of tense silence before Shinso sighed, "Get as many headbands as you can safely."
The mutant team rushed to obey Shinso's orders and he shook his head, "If this bites us in the ass, I'm blaming the hero."
Uraraka squaked indignantly, "Hey!"
"Go ahead." Izuku smiled. "You'd just be blaming yourself too, or are you forgetting that you're going to be a hero by the end of this?"
Shinso blushed slightly and looked out over the teams that still had points, "Um...What about that guy from 1A? The one with the arms? Wait...did somebody already take his headband? And is he allowed to be on his own team like that?"
"No." Izuku said firmly. "My guess is that there's at least one other student hiding inside that tent he's making with his arms and based on size and the assumption it's a 1A student, my best guess is Mineta."
To their surprise, that got a groan from Uraraka, "Do we have to? Mineta's such a pervert, I don't even want to go near him…"
"Oh come on, Uraraka, I'm sure he's not that bad…" Izuku said.
Uraraka huffed, "Whatever, let's just get this over with…"
They made their way toward the compact team and Izuku could vaguely see Mineta leaning to peak out between Shoji's arms, "Oh my goodness, Shoji, look! They've got two of the curviest girls in here! Who knew support babes had such bangin' bodies?!"
Izuku almost froze in shock. Sure, Mineta was theoretically whispering, but they could still hear him!
Uraraka groaned, "See why no girls wanted to team up with him?"
"Hey, Shoji, right?" Shinso called out. "You seem like a nice guy, why pair up with an incel like that?"
Shoji muttered something that Izuku couldn't hear, but it was obviously enough for Hitoshi if his slight smirk was any indication.
"Ooh, they've got headbands!" Mineta yelled. "Get 'em!"
Izuku's team shuffled backwards as a tongue emerged from the space inside Shoji's arms.
"Tsu?!" Uraraka sounded betrayed. "You're seriously teaming up with the grape?!?!"
"Shoji's got good defense." A voice croaked out.
Tsu sent out her tongue again and Izuku panicked for a moment as he realized they weren't going to be able to dodge again. To his surprise, however, Mei lunged forward and grabbed the tongue as it was reaching for their points, wrapping it around her arm like it was a stubborn piece of rope, "I got her! Hurry Shinso!"
"Whoa!" Mineta poked his head out and was practically salivating. "I'm not usually into muscular girls but damn! Do you think she could crush me between her thighs?"
Izuku's whole body tensed and he suddenly wanted nothing more than to steal this guy's points and make him regret ever looking at a woman. How dare he talk about Mei like that! She'd worked hard for those muscles! And besides, she was right there! It was like he didn't even care about the girls hearing him talking about them like that!
"You better be careful Mineta!" Uraraka's yell cut through the odd haze of rage and other unidentifiable emotions blurring Izuku's brain. "You don't know what Shinso's quirk is and for all you know, it activates by punching you in the face!!!"
Izuku and Hitoshi both froze and looked at each other, before Hitoshi got a wicked look on his face. As long as he was punched before Hitoshi officially took control, the pain theoretically shouldn't break their connection and if it did...well, at least they'd have punched a pervert in the face, right?
"Hey grape boy." Hitoshi called out. "Do you want me to give you her number? I heard she really likes making babies!"
"Extra-Credit-Kun!" Mei yelled.
"Yes!" Mineta almost unseated himself in his eagerness as their team hovered off the ground and flew at him with all the speed that Shinso's jetpack could manage. His eyes widened as he realized too late that he wasn't going to be getting Mei's number.
Hitoshi shook out his hand as he took control of both Mineta and Shoji, "That was weirdly satisfying, Now give us your points."
Tsu tried to prevent Mineta from handing them over, but Mei simply yanked on her tongue and threw her off balance for long enough for them to get the points and get away. They rushed to put some distance between them as Tsu got her tongue back and smacked Mineta, loosening Hitoshi's control. It probably wouldn't be too long until Shoji broke through as well, especially since Hitoshi was starting to get tired.
Izuku checked in with the other teams. Todoroki had at some point gotten the 10 million point headband from Bakugo's team, but the two were currently fighting to try and reverse that, not that it would matter much in a few minutes. Bakugo's original headband was gone and Izuku noticed that one of the 1B teams was pursuing a similar strategy and working on building up the small points. The mutant team that Hitoshi was controlling had gained a good number of headbands and was currently eyeing Todoroki's headband, which wouldn't be good since the resulting fight would knock them out of HItoshi's control.
He looked at the clock and grinned. Almost two minutes left, which meant it was time to move onto the next phase of their strategy. "Shinso, call back Dark Shadow's team."
Hitoshi nodded and yelled the order and the team he was controlling immediately turned around and made their way toward them, "Alright, how many points do we want to keep?"
"For this to work, I'd say we need half the points on the board, not counting the 10 million." Izuku said. "Which headbands do they have?"
Tokoyami robotically spread out the headbands they'd collected and Hitoshi did the same with his. Mei quickly grabbed the ones they needed and shoved them into Hitoshi's hands, letting Dark Shadow keep the rest.
"Alright, are we ready?" Mei asked.
"Ready as we'll ever be." Uraraka said. "I still think this strategy is insane."
"Oh, definitely." Izuku responded. "But remember, the goal isn't just to win…"
Hitoshi released his control on everyone he was still controlling and Mei laughed madly as she took out a small remote and detonated the tiny explosives they'd planted on the ten million point headband at the beginning of the game. The headband had been floating in the air halfway in between the two frontrunners, while both Yaoyorozu and sero tried to use a whip and tape, respectively, to grab it and keep it from floating away to the atmosphere. The instant Mei pressed the button, flames rushed over it, leaving nothing more than pieces of ash and fabric floating down as a loud silence filled the stadium.
Izuku smiled, "The goal is to be memorable."
Chapter 32: ScrambleSummary:
Fasten your seatbelts and enjoy the ride!
Notes:
Art!
Hatzui
KatChicken
Cryoud
Memes!
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
Ah, I love my meme gremlins...More memes at the end!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
"And with that looks like the ten million point headband is out of the game!!! " Hizashi's voice echoed over the silent stadium, which immediately exploded into an uproar. "Again, are they even allowed to do that?!"
"Once again, there is no rule against it." Shouta sighed in exhaustion. "Though that will most likely change in future years after this little performance. I had wondered if there was something else fishy going on with that headband when Uraraka didn't deactivate her quirk after Team Shinso gave up the headband. Like most quirks that affect an object, Uraraka's quirk isn't indefinite, so there must have been some reason she chose to keep it active on that particular headband throughout the fight. In this case, the weightlessness of the headband prevented the other teams from realizing that it had been tampered with. In any normal situation, the other teams would have noticed the extra weight from the planted explosives, but apparently Team Shinso is anything but normal."
Midoriya, the problem child, looked up at the announcer booth and gave him a small thumbs up that made Shouta roll his eyes. Of course the kid had known exactly what he was doing by having Uraraka use her quirk on the headband. Shouta didn't even know why he was surprised, considering how often Powerloader complained about Hatsume's propensity for explosions, but for some reason Shouta had assumed that getting the target off their backs and going after the small point values had been the extent of those crazy kids' plan. Apparently he still needed to learn his lesson about not underestimating the support course.
Or maybe just not underestimating Nedzu's protege.
Hizashi grinned widely and shook his head in disbelief as both of them turned their attention to the teams still on the field. "For those of you still catching up, that insane powerplay has put team Shinso in the lead with almost half the remaining points. Teams Monoma and Tokoyami are next up, followed by team Todoroki. Everybody else has got practically zilch! So much for Team Shinso's plan to not be a target! With almost two minutes left on the clock, how are they going to survive!?!"
They weren't.
Honestly, if Deku had to resort to dirty tricks like blowing up points to win, he at least should have been smart enough to do it at the last minute so no one had time to recover. But as it was, Deku was an idiot and had the most points on the board, which meant it was time for him to die.
"Come on, extras." Katsuki growled to his team, which immediately started charging toward Deku along with what looked like every other team on the field, not that that mattered. Deku was his. "I'm gonna kill you Deku!"
Except for the fact that Deku was gone.
"What's this?!" Mic's voice screamed above the noise of the crowd, who seemed to be eating up the last minute upset. "Team Shinso has taken to the air!!! Are they…"
"Yes, they are allowed to do that." Aizawa sighed. "Honestly, it's probably their only viable strategy, now that everyone is being forced to scramble for last minute points."
Viable strategy?! Yeah right, like he'd let a little thing like gravity keep him from beating Deku to the ground. Katsuki didn't hesitate for a second before blasting off and rocketing toward the damn nerd's team to teach him a lesson about daring to humiliate him!
"Hitoshi!" Deku smirked at him, smirked, as he yelled to that useless gen-ed extra on his team. "Now!"
Suddenly there was a snap and Bakugo was wrapped in metal-like ribbons or something and before he knew it, he was being flung back to earth.
"And that, folks, is why it pays to have a good relationship with the support course!" Mic yelled. "That's one rockin' support item! Kinda reminds me of yours, Eraser!"
"Bakubro!" Shitty Hair yelled, "Come on Sero! Catch him!"
He was wrapped up for the second time that minute, this time in tape, and pulled back to his team, "That's it. Deku definitely has to die."
"What's going on?" Pony screamed, her voice wavering in barely concealed panic.
Tokoyami shook his head and his eyes widened as he realized there were two different teams charging straight toward them, "What a mad banquet of darkness…"
"Being edgy isn't helping, dude!" Kamakiri shouted, blades already popping from his skin as he prepared to fight. "What the hell just happened?!"
The last thing that he remembered clearly, they had been engaged in some sort of psychological warfare with Uraraka's team, but then everything went hazy. He had been vaguely aware of a sense of panic when he had lost control of an enraged Dark Shadow, and then seemed to remember going after other teams?
Pony haphazardly shot her horns at the approaching teams, forcing them to dodge and lose valuable time, "How many points do we have?"
"Uh…" Kamakiri glanced up at the board, "I think we're in third place right now? No wonder everyone's coming after us!"
"The purple one brainwashed us!" Dark Shadow yelled, swiping at some vines with his claws. "I'm sorry Fumikage! I tried to save you!"
"All is well, Dark Shadow. The agents of chaos have deigned to leave us enough points to stay in the running." Tokoyami stared down their new opponents. "Our challenge now is to keep them."
"Idiots, all of them." Monoma said haughtily. "We don't even need any more points at this point, unlike those 1A frontrunners."
"Well, yeah…" Tsuburaba said, slightly out of breath. "But now we're the prey, not the hunters."
Kuroiro nodded in agreement, "We can no longer stay in the shadows."
"Well, then…" Monoma smiled and reached out to copy a quirk from one of the 1A students trying to attack them . "I suppose we'll just have to shine, then."
Testsutestsu hardened his body again, his skin glinting in the sunlight as he looked down at him his team, "Everyone good on the plan?"
"God be willing, this will grant us success" Shiozaki nodded soberly.
"What she said." Awase agreed. "But if this doesn't work, we're screwed."
"Alright!" Tetstutetsu grinned. "Charge!"
They lunged forward and Shiozaki used all her vines to restrain Dark Shadow while Honenuki softened the ground underneath Team Tokoyami into a quicksand-like consistency. Their team quickly began sinking and Tetstutetsu did his best to block as many horns and blades as he could with his hardened skin so that Awase could get close enough to Pony to meld her horns to her head.
"No!" Pony yelled and tried to slap them away, but Tetsutetsu was already reaching toward Tokoyami's headbands.
"Don't you dare steal Fumikage's points!" Dark Shadow roared and broke through the layer of vines that had been holding him back.
Tetsutetsu's eyes widened and he was about to retreat and call the whole thing a loss when a laser suddenly shot past them, reflecting blindingly off his hardened skin. Dark Shadow whimpered, shrinking in on himself almost instinctively. It wasn't much of an opening, but that split second was enough for Tetsutetsu to grab some points and run away.
"Seriously, dude?" Tsuburaba sounded distinctly unimpressed. "You really need to work on your aim. That laser didn't even go near the teams we're actually fighting!"
Monoma cradled his stomach and swallowed a mouthful of bile, "Yeah, well, I'd like to see you try to aim a laser from your stomach when it feels like you're about to explode."
"Oui!" The stupid 1A french wannabee winked at them. "My quirk is tres difficult, non? That's why I need this stylish belt!"
"Not the time, Aoyama!" The monkey boy glared at Monoma and tried to grab at his points, but Monoma simply copied Tsuburaba's quirk and made himself a shield of solid air, trapping monkey boy's hand in it for long enough that they could retreat.
He glanced up at the board as the pain in his stomach finally started to subside. Still in the top three. Not bad for 1B.
Hitoshi panted as he had to use his weapon to rebuff Bakugo again, "Wow, this guy really doesn't know when to give up, does he?"
"That's Bakugo for you." Uraraka looked like she was starting to get nauseous, but she'd assured them at the beginning that while keeping them airborne for that long would be challenging, she'd be able to do it.
"Yeah, Katsuki's always been like that." Izuku rolled his eyes. "Even though it'd be smarter to go after some of the other teams, he sees my very existence as a personal challenge to his superiority."
"Well, you were making more direct challenges earlier." Mei pointed out. "So, I mean, you can't really say you're surprised."
"Heh…" Izuku chuckled, "I guess that's true, isn't it? Oh, looks like he's getting ready to try again"
"I, uh, I appreciate the whole teamwork aspect, Bakugo, but, uh…" Sero looked at him skeptically. "Are you really sure this is gonna work? Seems kinda crazy..."
"Come on!" Katsuki flexed his hands as Sero loaded the tape balls into them. "I'd like to see Deku resist boiling acid to the face! And with shark-face up there with me to take the brunt of eye-bag's weapon attack, there's nothing those extras will be able to do!"
"I dunno, man…" Kirishima said slowly. "Seems kinda violent."
"I think it's a great plan!" Mina cheered. "And we've got, like, less than a minute, so, uh...blast off you two!"
"I'm sorry, Fumikage." Dark Shadow purred contritely after he finally managed to pry their team from the mud. "We don't have enough points anymore…"
"It's not too late!" Kamakiri pointed out. "What about that one team from your class, the ice one? Think we can take them?"
"Uh…" Fumikage looked at Dark Shadow, who gave him a thumbs up. "They are as powerful as demons, but when one has nothing to lose, they must deal with devils."
Pony looked a little lost, "...is that a yes?"
"Looks like dear old Kacchan is switching things up and bringing a friend." Hitoshi said. "What's the other guy's quirk?"
"Rocks." Izuku answered. "I didn't expect Katsuki to actually work with his teammates, unless of course he just took off without warning and Kirishima just didn't have a chance to let go…"
"No time to second guess things, Izu-kun!" Mei grinned and adjusted her flamethrower. "We've got incoming!"
Hitoshi shot his capture weapon toward Bakugo, but at the last minute, Kirishima let go of Bakugo's ankles and latched onto the capture weapon. He hardened and swung on the ribbon like Tarzan and the sudden unexpected weight made their whole team suddenly lurch toward the ground. By the time that Hitoshi and Uraraka were able to get them back on balance, Katsuki was already in their faces, throwing balls of...was that Sero's tape?
"Mei! Flamethrower!"
"Let us charge into battle!" Fumikage cried.
The team didn't move, "Um…"
"Go!!!" Dark Shadow shouted.
They rushed toward Todoroki's team, who had been using a combination of ice and Iida's engine quirk to stay out of range and keep the points they had collected. Dark Shadow stretched behind them and started wrapping around to force Todoroki's team into a close range battle and keep them from running away.
"Kaminari!" Todoroki ordered cooly, pulling some sort of sheet over himself. "Attack!"
Sero wrapped a length of tape around Kirishima's waist and pulled him back to the team, "Good work dude."
"Thanks." Kirishima gave a sharp toothed grin. "How's plan B going?"
Mina held out a couple of headbands, "It won't be enough, but I managed to burn a bunch of those crazy vines and Sero used his tape to grab some of the headbands from that metal guy's team while you were gone. Do you think Bakugo'll actually be able to pull this plan off?"
Kirishima shrugged and turned back toward the aerial battle, "Well, I wouldn't underestimate either of them."
Mei blasted the flamethrower at the tape balls right as Katsuki set off an explosion. Some of them vaporized entirely, while the rest splashed a suspicious pink liquid over everyone.
"Owww!" Uraraka rubbed at her arms frantically. "You filled Sero's tape with Ashido's acid? Really Bakugo?!"
"Fuck that hurts…" Hitoshi grimaced and was busy wiping acid from his face when a hand suddenly emerged from the smoke and snatched away most of their headbands. "Hey!!! Izuku! Bakugo got our points!"
"Shit!" Izuku rushed to tally the points in his head. "How many did he get?"
"More than half!" Hitoshi answered. "Hey Blasty! What do you think you're doing!"
"No time!" Mei messed with something on her tool belt and launched it at Bakugo. "Take this!!!"
Bakugo's eyes widened as he was tangled in one of Mei's capture nets and started to fall. A line of tape reached to grab him and Izuku tugged at Uraraka's sleeve, "We need to remove his gravity! If he gets back to his team with all our points, we won't move on!"
"Extra-Credit-Kun!" Mei yelled. "Full blast on the jetpack! Everyone hold on tight!"
"Ugh!" Hitoshi groaned but had a smile on his face as he adjusted the jetpack controls. "I hate this family!"
"Kamakiri!" Tokoyami cried. "The time is now!"
Kamakiri grinned as he threw a chain of his blades at Kaminari. He wouldn't have normally thought of using his uniform shirt to tie them together, but when Tokoyami said they would need a way to counteract Kaminari's electricity, his first instinct was to create a lightning rod with his blades. Thankfully his aim was true enough that he managed to stab Kaminari in the arm seconds into his attack and the otherwise disabling attack was channelled into his blades and flowed harmlessly into the ground as their team kept advancing.
"Onward!" Pony yelled. "For loss!"
Dark Shadow reached for the headbands on Todoroki's neck, flinching back slightly when there was a brief splutter of fire, but pushing forward when it died after only half a second, "I think you mean for victory!"
"Oh, right. For victory!!!"
Uraraka swallowed down the vomit that was threatening to come up as she pushed herself and her quirk to the limit. She grimaced as she grabbed onto the capture net with all five fingers. It would have been better to make Bakugo weightless, but with seconds left on the clock, she'd take what she could get. Bakugo tried to force her way with explosions and she could feel the net jerking away from her as Sero pulled at his tape, but with the angle he was trapped at Bakugo couldn't use his quirk to propel himself, which put their team at an advantage.
"Thanks, Kacchan." Midoriya reached past her and yanked away as many headbands as he could. "Have a nice fall!"
Hizashi waited with baited breath as the last few seconds ticked away, "And that's time!!! Wowza! In all my years I really don't think I've seen a more intense final few minutes, have you Eraser? I thought the free for all was normally at the beginning of the match!!!"
"Well normally, more than half the points aren't obliterated with two minutes to go." Shouta said dryly.
He looked out over the stadium. The crowds were eating up the twists and turns to the battle, which had to be good for their ratings and, by extension, good for UA's publicity. Sero had just barely managed to reel Bakugo in without him touching the ground, and Shinso's team was shielding Uraraka from the cameras as she finally released her quirk and the contents of her stomach. Tokoyami was doing well at interclass bonding, it seemed, as he and his teammates patted each other on the back and counted up the points they'd stolen at the last minute and the team from 1B looked smug that they were the only team that had actually managed to keep all the points they'd stolen by the time the 10 million point headband was taken out of play.
"What's this?!?!" Hizashi yelled, hyping up the crowd as the scoreboard readjusted itself to reflect the final totals. "It looks like a good mix of students will be moving on! In first place, we have team Monoma from class 1B! Then Team Shinso with students from support, gen-ed, and class 1A. Next place is team Bakugo from class 1A, with their impressive teamwork! Finally, in fourth Place is...Team Tokoyami with some points stolen at the very end!!! Oh, and because Team Tokoyami only has three members, one person from Team Tetsutetsu will be moving on as well! I guess you could say that this year is the year of the underdogs!!!"
Shouta looked down at the field again. The teams that had moved on were laughing, crying, and celebrating, but he was paying more attention to Todoroki, who was looking down at his hands and appeared to be in shock. Shouta knew he was imagining it, but he could almost feel the heat from Endeavor in the stands as he realized that his son wouldn't be moving onto the final found. To Shouta's memory it wasn't the first time that the strongest student had failed to make it to the one-on-one battles, but it was rare enough to be notable and he couldn't help but feel that his husband's observation, however dramatic, was correct.
This was the year of the underdogs.
Notes:
More Memes!
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Chapter 33: ConnectionsSummary:
The break between the second and third rounds.
Notes:
Art!
qubril X X
Fandomkitty8
Rain
Banilla Void
I'm totally a bee
Bees Playing Kazoos X
loserland
Bee BoyX
Also, may I just say that I adore when fandoms just go off on their own? Cheat Code is support and therefore does not have a hero costume, but a bunch of creative people on my discord decided to design him one anyway.
Theojack16 X
Rain
Memes!
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More memes at the end!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Shoto felt numb. Not that he ever let himself feel much to begin with, but everything just seemed so out of focus and the crowds were quieter than they should have been. How had he lost?
"Um, Todoroki?" Momo put a hand on his shoulder and it was all that Shoto could do not to flinch. "Are you ok?"
"I'll be fine." Shoto said firmly. He had to be fine. If he were to show anything but the utmost composure on television, Endeavor's punishment would probably be even worse. Not that he was looking forward to the increased training that would undoubtedly follow his failure, but...he'd endured this much. He could handle a little more if it meant rising to the top without his power. "I apologize for losing our points."
"It's not…" Momo hesitated. "I mean, yes, that's very unfortunate and I'm not happy about losing either, but that's not what I was asking. Um, do you need to see Recovery Girl?"
Shouto turned to her, slightly raising an eyebrow, "Why would I need to see Recovery Girl?"
"Um…" Momo hesitated. "The burns?"
Shouto's eyes widened slightly in shock. He'd only activated his fire for a split second out of instinct before he'd realized what he was doing and snuffed them out, but that shouldn't have been nearly enough to burn him especially
"It's just that with what Bakugo pulled with Ashido's acid, a lot of us have chemical burns, so we're all going together!" Momo explained. "Those tape grenades kinda exploded everywhere, you know? We're just lucky that Ashido didn't make the acid strong enough to do any real damage."
"Oh." Shouto looked down at himself, noticing for the first time that there were holes burned into his uniform from where Ashido's acid had splattered over the field as it fell. Sure enough, there were a few small burns trailing along his arms, but the pain wasn't anything more than what he was used to from his normal training. "I hadn't noticed."
"Understandable!" Iida joined the conversation, arms already swinging as he spoke. "The adrenaline in our systems was more than enough to keep us from noticing until the game was over as well! However, I believe that it is best to get these wounds, however minor they may be, taken care of quickly so we can focus on learning from the next rounds!"
Shouto thought about that for a moment. On the one hand, his father would consider going to the nurse for something so minor as a sign of weakness, but on the other...even if Endeavor managed to shove his way back into the student areas, he wouldn't do anything to cause a scene if there were other people around. If only he'd used his fire…
Shouto stomped down on that thought the moment it popped into his head. No. He wouldn't become like that bastard by using his power. In fact...Shouto forced himself to take a breath and almost smiled as a thought occurred to him. His father had failed too. He'd failed to become number one. Losing here just meant that he was better at failing than his father could ever be.
He hoped the bastard enjoyed what he'd created.
Izuku grinned at Mei and Shinso as Midnight cracked her whip to draw their attention to the screen where the brackets were laid out. They all had bandages covering various parts of their arms and faces from the cavalry battle, since Recovery Girl had insisted on only healing the worst of the damage so they wouldn't be too exhausted to do well in the rest of the festival. Izuku had even managed to get her autograph, even though Mei and Hitoshi hadn't stopped teasing him about geeking out over the school nurse. It was so weird having a friendship that included teasing that wasn't intended to hurt like the bullying he'd grown up with.
Izuku still couldn't believe they had actually done it! They'd gotten Shinso into the one on one rounds, which meant that they were one step closer to getting him into the hero course. All the training they'd done was paying off and they were now in the perfect situation for Hitoshi to really show the teachers that he deserved that spot!
Everyone was silent for a moment as they looked at the lineup.
"I'm fighting Pony Tsunatori…" Hitoshi muttered quietly… "She was on the team we took control of, right?"
"Yep!" Izuku said happily. "That'll be an interesting match. She's an exchange student, so the language barrier might make using your quirk more interesting. We haven't experimented with other languages yet, have we?"
"Nope!" Mei piped up. "But if worse comes to worst, he can always use my babies!"
"Wonderful." Hitoshi grumbled. "Who have you got, Midoriya?"
Midoriya started as he suddenly realized that he was going onto the one on one fights as well. Somehow, he'd been so focused on getting Hitoshi into the third round that he'd completely forgotten that being on the same team meant that he'd made it as well. He frantically searched the screen for his name, crossing his fingers that he wouldn't have to face Katsuki right off the bat.
"Umm, where…? Mina Ashido! Acid quirk" Izuku grimaced. "At least it won't be boiling this time…"
"Yeah, that sucked!" Mei said, tugging at one of the bandages on her arm. "Izu-kun! What's Monoma's quirk again?"
"Oh, his is a lot of fun!" Izuku grinned. "He has a copy quirk. I think he can copy up to three people's quirks at the same time? There's really no way to know who's quirks he's copied until you fight him though."
"Perfect!" Mei's eyes narrowed in on Monoma from across the crowd. "He'll be the perfect demonstration of how adaptable my babies are!!!"
"I don't know whether to pity him or just laugh." Hitoshi said, amused. "Oof, Uraraka's strong, right?"
"Yeah, she really is!" Izuku answered. "Why?"
"Because you better hope she wins her fight." Hitoshi pointed at the brackets. "Otherwise you're going to be up against Bakugo in the next round."
Izuku gulped and glanced over to where Katsuki was surrounded by his team from the cavalry battle. Kirishima was patting him on the back, but Izuku could feel his anger from all the way across the field. Katsuki had always been the best, ever since Izuku could remember, so it must be eating at him that he hadn't gotten first in either of the first two rounds and it must hurt even worse that he was beaten by Izuku of all people. He wanted to feel guilty about that. Years of standing in Katsuki's shadow had primed him to believe that if he wasn't helping his best friend, being a stepping stone on his way to greatness, then he was nothing. If he wasn't helping Katsuki be the best, then he really was the useless deku that everyone told him that he was.
But things had changed since middle school. For one, Izuku had found a new dream that didn't have anything to do with Katsuki and for another he knew what real friendship was like now. Friendship was comparing notebooks to figure out why Mei's latest experiment kept exploding. It was ganging up on Hitoshi to make him laugh when he hadn't gotten enough sleep the night before. It was curling up under a fluffy blanket after a villain attack.
It was winning the first two rounds of the sports festival when he didn't have to, just to make sure his friend made it to the third round.
"Don't worry." Izuku assured his friends. "Katsuki may be strong, but we're not friends anymore. He's lost the right to hurt me."
"So...uh...did you ever figure out how that gen-ed's kid quirk worked?" Ojiro asked Tokoyami. "You might have to fight him again, you know."
"I am aware." Tokoyami answered. "But first I will have to beat a fellow agent of darkness."
"...ok?" Ojiro looked at him strangely, but Tokoyami was more focused on his next fight and on ignoring Todoroki, who was brooding in one of the upper rows of their section of the stands. If he was being completely honest, he hadn't expected his team's last minute strategy to come to anything. He and his teammates had been fully prepared to embrace the dark void of empty failure when the buzzer rang, but somehow they had managed to pull through. Tokoyami couldn't stop wondering, however, why Todoroki had refused to use his fire. It had been obvious in that moment that Dark Shadow was weak to his left side and yet Todoroki had let him win. There must be some dark reason for his refusal, but Tokoyami wasn't one to reveal others' inner darknesses to the world.
But perhaps revealing it to a certain analyst who seemed determined to help their class wouldn't be the end of the world. Perhaps he should talk to Aizawa about peering through the shadows to implore the assistance of the mysterious Cheat Code?
"It is of no importance." Tokoyami said finally. "Dark Shadow and I will be victorious."
"I just hope the purple kid doesn't start singing again." Dark Shadow shuddered. "I think that was creepier than being brainwashed."
"Singing?" Aoyama looked at them curiously. "Why would the monsieur sing in the middle of a fight? He doesn't seem nearly gorgeous enough to pull it off!"
"I think it had something to do with his quirk activation." Kamakiri leaned over the wall dividing 1A and 1B. "Sorry to eavesdrop, but it's a tournament, so I might have to fight him again too. It was only after he started singing that he took control of us."
"But he didn't sing to me!" Dark Shadow complained.
"You did hear him sing, though." Tokoyami said. "Perhaps the best strategy would be to cover one's ears to prevent themselves from being pulled under by the siren's song."
"What the heck are you guys talking about?" Mineta yelled. He had an ugly purple black eye that Recover Girl had apparently refused to heal. "That purple guy doesn't sing! And covering your ears won't do shit! He takes control of you though punching you!"
"He only punched you because you were being rude, Mineta." Tsu pointed out bluntly. "He takes control of you through physical contact. He never made contact with me, so my head was clear the whole time, but I'm pretty sure he touched Shoji when he was going after you."
Everyone turned to look at Shoji, who gave a dignified nod. Tokoyami was starting to get more confused the more people spoke up, "But...I never touched him, at least not before he and his agents of chaos possessed my team."
"You're all idiots." Monoma said. "It's obviously eye contact."
"You didn't even fight him, Monoma, so pipe down!" Kendo slapped him over the head and shrunk her hand as she appeared over the wall.
"I think he's got kinda a sphinx quirk or something." She suggested. "He got us by giving us riddles. When we couldn't figure out the answer quickly enough, he took control."
"I hope it is not that." Pony jumped up and landed on the wall. "I have difficulty with riddles in my first language, I won't have no hope in my second!"
"Is his quirk truly that difficult to parse out?" Yaoyorozu piped up. Most of the class had joined the conversation by this point, understandably. "Surely the activation requirements must be obvious by now if he's fought so many of you."
Tokoyami sighed. "He is a mystery wrapped within an enigma."
"He's a weirdo, that's what he is." Dark Shadow grumbled. "Come on Fumikage, I want french fries."
Notes:
More Memes!
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Chapter 34: Round OneSummary:
The first round of the tournament.
Notes:
Art!
Steppy
Mama Oruga
a stray knife
ZeroRanger423
Memes!
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
Chapter Text
Ochako forcefully reminded herself that she had nothing to be scared of as she waited for the match to start. If a group of students that weren't in the hero course could strand up against Bakugo and even call him Kacchan just because they thought it was funny, then she, a future hero, had no reason to be terrified of him. Now if only her heartbeat would get the memo.
Midoriya had offered to help her come up with a strategy to use against him, but Ochako already had the beginnings of a plan in her mind and she didn't want to only rely on the support course to get her though. If she succeeded here, then she'd know she was strong enough on her own merit and if she didn't then she'd know she still needed to improve.
The second that Midnight started the match, Ochako rushed forward, only to be brutally blown back. She kept going. It could have just been her imagination, but it felt like Bakugo was going even harder against her than he normally would. A couple of times, she even heard him mutter something about Deku as he forced her back, so she figured he was probably taking out his frustrations with Midoriya out on her. It wasn't fair, obviously, but this was Bakugo they were talking about, the guy who called pretty much everyone extras, so she didn't really have high expectations when it came to kindness or empathy.
Hopefully, however, she could use his anger to her advantage. When people were angry, they got hyper focused and missed things. She used the smokescreen Bakugo was creating to float as many small rocks as she could, only slowing down and stopping when she felt like there was no way he could avoid her meteor shower.
"What? Finally giving up?" Bakugo scoffed. "I should have expected that from anyone willing to partner up with Deku. "
"I think you still have a lot to learn about not underestimating people." Ochako panted. She was close to her limit now, but it had to be enough. She'd make it be enough. "Thank you."
Bakugo's eyes narrowed, "What the fuck for?"
Ochako smiled and brought her hands together, "For keeping your eyes on me."
She lunged forward, ignoring the sting as some of the small pebbles hit her on their way down. Bakguo's eyes widened and she saw a tiny glimmer of fear. She could do this! She reached out toward him. Just a little farther!!!
Bakugo's entire body tensed in determination and suddenly there was a loud boom as the loudest boom Ochako had ever heard rocked the stadium. It was enough to knock her completely off her feet and disintegrate her epic meteor shower to nothing but useless dust and pebbles. Tears prickled at the corner of her eyes as she struggled to stand, but Bakugo was right there, forcing her to the ground again with another explosion, "What was that Round Face, huh? Did Deku give you that strategy?"
"No, that was all me." Ochako smiled and pushed past her nausea as she finally managed to touch Bakugo. He tensed as his gravity was removed, but the effects lasted less than a second before Ochako started throwing up and dropped him. So much for that plan.
"Come on, Round Face! Fight Me!"
Bakugo's voice seemed muffled as she tried to force herself to her feet, but she was already beyond her limits and ended up collapsing on the floor.
"Uraraka is unable to continue!" Midnight announced. "Bakugo wins!"
Izuku swallowed nervously and ran though everything he knew about Mina Ashido, watching carefully as she stretched, limbering herself up for their match. She was kind, from what he'd seen, and had decent quirk control, but nothing too special. She could control both the acidity and the viscosity of her acids, which made her dangerous, but she didn't really have any ranged attacks from what he'd seen.
Then again, neither did he.
Unlike the first round, there wasn't really a convenient robot for him to hack. He could take control of the security systems, maybe, but that would be risky because that would take time and would leave him open to attack. His best bet for now was to keep her at a distance and then figure out something out as he went along. That was all assuming he even wanted to win this round to begin with, which he still hadn't decided.
"Begin!"
Ashindo immediately started skating toward him on her acid, "Honestly, I feel kinda bad for beating you. Bakubro said you were quirkless, so this is kinda a bad match-up for you, huh?"
Izuku couldn't help feeling annoyed as he ran away, "Every match-up's a bad match-up for me. That doesn't mean I should just give up."
"Oh yeah, more power to ya!" Ashido laughed. "But you're still gonna lose!"
It was weird because it felt like she should be making fun of him, but for some reason, Izuku felt like she just hadn't clued in that what she said might be rude, so he'd forgive her this time...but he also kinda wanted to prove her wrong. Actually, he wanted to prove a lot of people wrong. He wanted to prove, live on national television, that quirkless didn't mean useless and he wouldn't even need to rely on his tech to do it, just Ashido's quirk and maybe a loophole or two.
Izuku grinned and kept running around the stage, zigzagging around the small space and keeping just barely out of reach of Ashido. The crowd seemed to be getting bored with their game of cat and mouse, but it wouldn't last too much longer. Izuku was already having to jump half the time just to avoid the acid trails that Ashido was leaving everywhere as she ran. He waited until about 80% of the stage was completely coated in acid before taking off his uniform jacket and running toward the corner of the stage.
There was a small torch in each corner. They were mostly for decoration and Izuku honestly wasn't completely sure that they didn't count as out of bounds but he didn't technically have to cross the lines to reach them, so he was willing to risk it. He crumpled his shirt into a ball and shoved it into the flames until it caught, then ignored the gasps and screams of the crowd as he threw the now burning shirt onto the ground, smirking at Ashido as the acid on the ground caught fire and the flames started racing toward her.
Her eyes widened and she immediately jumped off of her acid trail, but there were only so many places she could go. Unlike Izuku, she hadn't been paying attention to what areas on the field were free of acid, so while she was busy trying to find a safe place to put her feet, he was able to pick his way around the flames and give her one final push over the line.
"Ashido Mina is out of bounds!" Midnight yelled. "Izuku Midoriya wins! Now both of you get off the field before you get hurt!"
"Did...did they seriously just knock eachother out?" Mic asked. "Well, I guess that's what you get when you're evenly matched, huh? Kirishima vs. Tetsutetsu will be decided via a tiebreaker once they finally wake up!"
Sero cracked his neck and grinned as Midnight announced the beginning of the match, "This is kinda a bad match-up for you, huh? I mean, it could be worse, like can you imagine if Todoroki had made it to this round? But, uh, still, you ever tried to vacuum up a piece of string? This is gonna be kinda like that…"
Kaibara shrugged and started rotating his fingers experimentally, "I guess you might be right, but what kind of hero would I be if I let a little thing like a bad quirk match-up keep me from fighting."
Sero shook his head and shot tape from both of his elbows. As he expected, the tape immediately started wrapping around his arms. It wouldn't be long before he wouldn't be able to rotate at all and Sero would win!
To his surprise, however, Kaibara suddenly started rotating faster than he was producing tape. Before Sero could speed up to compensate or cut off his tape, Kaibara had used his tape to pull them together and Sero's eyes widened as Kaibara's head started to spin. One devastating headbutt later, Kaibara was grimacing as he tried to free his arms from the tape.
"Sero is KO'ed. Kaibara wins!"
"Are you sure you don't want to use any of my babies?" Hatsume asked innocently. "Just to level the playing field, you know!"
Monoma scoffed, "Are you implying that I can't beat you on my own merit? Class 1B is superior, we don't need to rely on charity from other courses to prove our abilities, unlike some classes. Are you forgetting that it was my team that came in first during the cavalry battle? At least I didn't provide opportunities for those class 1A bastards to steal our points!"
"We just wanted everything to be fair!" Mei jumped up and down in excitement as she made a final mental inventory of her babies. "Taking away that many points and not giving anyone a chance to recover would have just been rude!"
"The best don't have the time to worry about the opinions of others." Monoma rolled his eyes. "You may as well give up now. Your babies aren't going to stand a chance against three quirks."
"Hmm…" Mei pretended to think about it for a moment. "Nah, I still haven't gotten what I came for!"
"And what is that?" Monoma sneered.
Mei grinned manically as Midnight told them to start, "The spotlight!"
Monoma huffed haughtily, rapidly growing his hand ten times its size and reaching toward her, "The spotlight goes to those that deserve it."
Mei tapped the mic that Izu-kun had programmed for her and smiled when she heard the sound echo through the stadium speakers, "Hello, ladies and gentlemen! I'm Mei Hatsume, the future CEO of Hatsume Industries and I'd like to introduce you to my babies!"
"What?!?!" Mic's voice echoed over the speakers as well. "How is she doing that?!"
"My best guess is that Midoriya helped her hack into our speaker system." Aizawa sounded amused. "Problem children."
"This first invention is one of my personal favorites!" Mei announced eyes zooming in on the booth where the support companies were watching with interest. "It's a multi-purpose capture net that can take care of even the most troublesome quirks!"
She shot the net toward Monoma, who might have been able to dodge if the extra weight from his larger hands hadn't thrown him off. He growled as the net wrapped around him, but his eyes shone with anger and determination as his hands shrunk and vines started growing from his head and reaching between the holes in the net.
"Ah! As my lovely assistant is demonstrating, nets aren't the best fit for every quirk heroes encounter. That's why each of my capture nets is controlled by magnets!" She pressed a button and the net fell apart. "One button control for easy capture and release!"
"I'm not your assistant!" Monoma's face turned bright red and he untangled his vines from the remainder of her net and shot them toward her. "Stop toying with me!"
Mei simply kept smiling and pressed another button. Legs shot out of her backpack and effortless helped her dodge, "My universal tripod senses and responds to threats in the environment and the multi directional control means that this nifty invention will help you dodge and weave no matter where your opponents attacks are coming from!"
"Stop monologuing and fight me already!" Monoma yelled. "Do you think support is better than 1B?! Is that it?!"
"Sometimes, however, you need a little more firepower!" Mei ignored Monoma's protests as she grabbed another invention from her belt. "And what's better for firepower than a flamethrower? Perfect for combating plant-based quirks or really any quirk that might be flammable!"
Monoma panicked as the vines caught fire, but he detached them quickly enough that the flames didn't manage to burn him. Mei was both curious and excited as she wondered what quirk he'd use next, since Izu-kun had said he could copy three. He'd also said that his quirk would limit the fight to about five minutes, since after that he'd basically be fighting quirkless and it wouldn't be nearly as entertaining, so she had to be efficient and show all the inventions she wanted to before his quirk ran out. Mei glanced up at the support booth again and smiled in triumph. They were eating this up.
"Fine! You wanna play dirty?" Monoma scowled at her. "Let's see how you handle this!"
The ground beneath her turned to mush, but Mei simply activated her hover boots and her jetpack, "I recommend using these two inventions in tandem, but they're both amazing on their own as well! When it's too dangerous to be on the ground, why limit yourself to obeying gravity?"
Monoma ground his teeth together and reactivated the quirk that made his hands larger as he attempted to swat her out of the air. She responded by shooting him with a portable taser.
The fight went on like that for a few minutes and Mei was careful to respond to each new threat with a different baby so that the support companies would be able to see the full variety of her arsenal. Monoma kept getting more and more angry until he stopped being able to call on the quirks he'd copied and his shoulders slumped. Mei finished off showing one more invention, then bowed.
"Thank you everyone! Just a reminder that it's Mei Hatsume, future CEO of Hatsume Industries!" She dusted off her hands and stepped over the line with a sigh. "Pleasure doing business with you!"
Midnight sounded like she was holding back laughter as she announced the match, "Hatsume is out of bounds. Monoma wins!"
Kamakiri started shooting his blades at Tsuburaba as soon as the match began, but, as predicted, his blades simply buried themselves harmlessly in an invisible shield of hardened air. He didn't let that intimidate him, however, and kept throwing his blades. The thing about Tsuburaba's air constructs was that they were fragile. Enough good hits and they were liable to shatter. He kept up his assault, but Tsuburaba didn't make it easy with how he kept moving around the stage to avoid his knives.
Kamakiri rolled his eyes as Tsuburaba made his way to his other side, visibly out of breath, "Are you done already? I was looking forward to a fight!"
Tsuburaba simply smiled and took a deep breath. It was difficult to see Tsuburaba's constructs, so when Kamakiri thought it was safest to dodge when it looked like his opponent was throwing something. He felt something similar to a spear fly past him, but that wasn't the biggest surprise. No, the surprise was the wall he ran into.
"You…" Kamakiri sent a few blades out from his body in every direction and for the first time, realized that Tsuburaba hadn't been moving around to dodge, but instead to create a maze of invisible walls that were now blocking him in on three sides. The only exit he had was straight over the line and Tsuburaba was running toward him, holding a shield of air in front of him that already had several blades buried in it.
Kamakiri tried to hold his ground, he really did, but it only took a few instinctual steps backward for him to officially lose the match.
"Kamakiri is out of bounds!" Midnight yelled. "Tsuburaba wins!"
Pony was really hoping that Shinso's quirk wasn't riddles.
She knew it was some kind of brainwashing, since she'd obviously spend a good portion of the second round under his control, but she had no idea how to protect herself, so the best thing to do would be to end the match before he had a chance to use it!
That was why, as soon as Midnight gave the signal to begin, Pony immediately began shooting her horns at him. He dodged most of them deftly, only getting a few grazes, but he just kept staring at her.
Present Mic's voice echoed over the field and Pony made a note to tell Vlad-Sensei that they might need a new speaker system, since the audio quality was super weird, " For those of you who don't know, Pony is an exchange student from...where was it again? Australia?"
"America!" Pony yelled. How did her english teacher not remember where she was from?! They'd talked about her hometown!
From across the field, Shinso smirked, still maintaining eye contact, "I win."
Pony felt her body relax with a jolt as Shinso took control. Oh no! It must have been eye contact! That was why he hadn't stopped staring at her!
"Turn around and walk out of bounds like a good little hero." Shinso ordered and Pony didn't have any choice but to obey.
"Well that was weird!" Present Mic spoke up again, but the audio quality was better. "She's just obeying him!!!"
"Pony is out of bounds! Shinso wins!"
"It is a pleasure to fight another servant of darkness." Tokoyami said seriously.
"Of course." Kuroiro responded. "It is an honor."
"Oh come on! Stop being edgelords and let's just fight already!!!" Dark Shadow complained, lunging forward and swiping at Kuroiro. The moment he did, however, their opponent completely disappeared.
"What?!" Dark Shadow yelled. "Where'd he go?!"
Tokoyami's eyes widened and he reared back as Kuroiro emerged from his chest right where he joined with Dark Shadow, "Boo."
Tokoyami stumbled back, but managed to get a hold on Kuroiro's arm and shove him away, "How…?"
Kuroiro smirked and ran toward Dark Shadow again. Just like before, he disappeared as soon as they made contact, but this time, Dark Shadow stifferened and started moving somewhat jerkily.
"Fumikage…" Dark Shadow made a clumsy swipe at him and Tokoyami felt a strike of fear. "I'm not doing this!"
Tokoyami's mind raced. What did he know? He knew that somehow, Kuroiro was able to disappear when he made contact with Dark Shadow, it was almost as if they were melding together, and he seemed to be trying to control him, which was bad. So, how could he counteract that?
"Dark Shadow!" Tokoyami yelled. "Return to me!"
Thankfully, Dark Shadow still had enough control of his actions to obey the order and within moments he had gratefully disappeared back inside Tokoyami's chest. As soon as Dark Shadow disappeared, Kuroiro became visible again right in front of Tokoyami.
"I guess I need a little more practice before I can really control dark objects, huh?" Kuroiro looked exhausted. "Oh well."
Tokoyami didn't want to have to do this without Dark Shadow, but he would do what it took to win and to protect his quirk. Taking advantage of Kuroiro's exhaustion, Tokoyami tackled him to the ground and pinned him. He struggled for a few moments, but then Dark Shadow emerged and braced Tokoyami so that he had extra strength, all while being careful not to touch Kuroiro. After a few seconds, it became apparent that he wasn't getting out of this and Kuroiro stopped struggling.
"Kuroiro is unable to move! Tokoyami wins!"