The distance was thirty feet.
The referee was unconscious, having suffered a Misaka overload, leaving a woman in a blue suit with shining glasses to mediate the clash.
She did not shout. She barely even raised her voice. But still, her command carried over the large field to the spectators.
"Each of you will state your name, Level, and ability name. Then you will begin the three on three team battle. The time limit is ten minutes. You first!" this woman, the Dorm Manager explained efficiently before pointing directly at the three girls on the field.
These girls, who were so confident yesterday, can't help but feel shaken. To witness their idol, Misaka Mikoto's, electricity being completely defended against caused their hearts to tremble. The boy didn't even seem to be trying.
However, they were all Ojou-sama's, and so hid the shock from the boys.
"I am Motaki Ruri, Level 4, ability name Combustion."
"My name is Orokirin Kasumi. Level 4, ability name Water Dragon," the girl on the left gave a small yet polite bow. She was very short, looking almost child like. Her hair was braided down her back, and her brown eyes were set in a state of perpetual boredom.
"I'm Taki Ao," a black haired girl almost growled. She was the tallest girl there, and yet with her proportions it seemed natural. Her hair was very short, and her dark eyes continued to glare. "Level 4, Shatter Stone."
The Dorm Manager nodded, then turned to the boys. "Same." She demanded.
"Hey, hey, we're Level 0's, I don't see why-" Touma began, but cut himself off after the Dorm Manager fixed him with a glare. "Don't lie to me. I know you have abilities. Now introduce yourselves," her glasses glinted.
"Hai!" all three boys snapped to attention.
"Aogami Pierce, Level 0, Stats Boost."
"Tsuchimikado Motoharu, Level 0, Auto Regeneration."
"Kamijou Touma, Level 0, Imagine Breaker."
"HA! So that's what you're power is called!" Misaka Mikoto pointed at him in triumph, causing Touma to turn to face her. Unfortunately for her, she had pom poms in her hands, so it looked more like she was cheering for him than anything. As soon as she realised this, she blushed like a tomato and went back to trying to sink into the ground.
"Excellent," the Dorm Manager nodded. "Begin."
The girls didn't waste a second, going on the offensive immediately.
Before the boys could take even one step forward, the ground beneath began to shake, knocking them off balance.
In this moment, there was an explosion between all three of them, sending Aogami, who had point, flying forward, while Tsuchimikado and Touma were flung back a little.
As soon as Touma's hand touched the ground as he fell back, the shaking stopped.
Ao's face displayed confusion. Her ability had been stopped.
Before the boys had time to recover though, three tendrils of water sped through the air, trying to knock them backdown.
However, in a surprising display of speed, Aogami dodged to the right, and then ducked under it as it tried to swipe at him.
Touma simply stuck his right hand out, destroying the tendril completely.
The only one that had been hit the water stream was Tsuchimikado, but even that was just a glancing blow, and Touma was quick to destroy it before it could do anymore damage.
The final intact tendril of water retreated back to its owner, just as Touma spotted something in front of his face.
An orange light.
They discussed this yesterday. As the only girl they knew that was going to compete, Tsuchimikado had quickly found out her ability and researched its weaknesses.
Combustion causes the air to explode into flames at the specific area the ability holder, in this case Motaki, concentrated on. She didn't have to see where she was aiming, though it helped increase the speed of Combustion if she could. It had a range of fifty feet, and it took 5 seconds for her to cause an explosion.
The weakness Tsuchimikado discovered was that, for a full three seconds before the actual explosion, there was an orange light hanging in the air.
On a sunny day, it was hard to miss, but at night or on an overcast day like today it stood out.
Touma didn't even think about it as he swiped the light away with his right hand, the familiar noise like glass breaking accompanying it.
Again, Touma spotted the confusion as the ability failed to work, this time on both Motaki and Kasumi as well.
As one, the three boys began toward the girls. Again, the ground began to shake, but this time Touma was ready, and ducked under to press both hands on the ground, stopping the shaking.
With both arms on the ground, he used them to boost his running sped by getting a crouching start.
It was needed to catch up with Aogami and Tsuchimikado, both of whom could out pace Touma any day.
The distance had been reduced to a mere 15 feet when streams of water once again flew out. This time the boys were ready though, and while Aogami and Tsuchimikado skilfully dodged all seven that were aimed at them, three for Tsuchimikado and four for Aogami, Touma ducked around the five after him, destroying three of them with a single swipe and jumping over the last two.
The distance was 10 feet.
Again the orange light show appeared, this time in front of Aogami.
He must have noticed it, because he ducked under it and continued to rush, trusting Touma to have his back.
He did. With another swipe, the orange light was gone, and noting went boom.
Seven feet left.
The earth rose in front of the boys, looking like a wave of soil.
Aogami and Tsuchimikado stopped in their tracks for all of half a second, before starting to run again.
That was all it took for Touma to pull ahead of them and punch the wave of earth, causing it to collapse into a heap, which all three boys jumped over.
On the other side, they could see a wall of water surrounding their enemies like a bubble, three oranges lights glowing. That was Motaki's limit, a limit which increased her charge up time.
Not that that mattered. Touma continued on, while Aogami and Tsuchimikado ducked behind him like they were using him as a shield for the explosion.
They were.
When the lights turned to fire, and the air grew hot, Touma extended forth his right hand, and the fire may as well of been nothing.
The concussive power of the fire was the only thing that effected Aogami and Tsuchimikado, both of whom caught Touma as he was blasted back.
A quick check revealed no real injuries, only a little bruising.
Before the boys was nothing but steam, most likely caused by the water bubble that was protecting the girls from the blast.
The taller two boys dragged Touma to his feet, but prevented him from making a noise.
He glance towards each of them, who nodded their heads. As silently as possible, they continued on.
When they emerge in front of a smug looking Motaki, who had thought she'd won with that last blast, there was nothing that she could do except stumble back in fear.
It was Ao that saved her, creating another wall of earth that quickly scattered and flew towards the trio while she dragged Motaki back toward safety.
They tried to best to dodge the stone, but in the end only Aogami came out of that one relatively unscathed.
The distance was a mere three feet.
"DEL-TA-FORCE! DEL-TA-FORCE!" their class cheered exuberantly; a younger girl with black hair waved a sign which read: Delta Foce Go! in front of them, joining them in their cheers, a smaller girl with flowers in her hair shyly joining in as well.
Beside them, the Misaka cheerleaders danced to the movements. Even Mikoto was doing it, and looked be laughing about it too, no matter how embarrassing it was.
The Imouto's were lined up into three rows. The back two rows were the normal sisters, while the front row consisted of Misaka Mikoto and Last Order, who was cheering her little heart out. Last Order was in the middle, while Mikoto was to her left.
To Last Orders right was Accelerator, who, due to Last Oder having no idea what male cheerleader usually did, was forced to go along with the synchronised female routine.
His thoughts perfectly mirrored the expression on his face, i.e. murderous.
'Kill that guy, that guy and that girl. Oh, did he just glance at me? He's on the list. Oh, I'm going to make that one painful. Is that fucking hero looking at me? Oh, he's going on my list too. Wait, he's already on the list twelve times over. Fucking hero!' he raged.
As though he could sense the murderous intent, Touma shivered and looked back at the three girls.
"So, do you give up?" Touma asked. None of the girls had been hurt yet, but they must've known how close they came to losing and that none of the boys were really injured yet.
For a single moment, Motaki seriously looked like she would fold. But then she seemingly noticed something and smirked.
"Isn't it you who should give up," she suggested.
All three boys followed her gaze, and found a girl in a maid uniform surrounded by Tokiwadai girls, the same one's they'd run into yesterday.
"Huh. Aniki?" she questioned. "What are you doing here?"
Three glares turned to Motaki. "Are you seriously using my sister as a hostage?" Tsuchimikado growled.
"Well, I wasn't intending to, but…"
"Aogami," Tsuchimikado spoke softly, belying his anger. "Get my sister over to our class."
"Got it," Aogami nodded once.
"Huh, you really think we'll let you?" Ao asked.
"Its not a matter of you letting him; after all, its not like you can stop him," Tsuchimikado told them.
"Ha, we'll see about that," Motaki yelled, creating an orange light in Aogami's path.
He ignored it, and sped away, faster than Motaki could follow. Faster than all but the most battle experienced could follow. "How?" Motaki and Ao gasped.
"Didn't you ever wonder what Aogami meant by 'Stats Boost'?"
"Wha?" Motaki mumbled. She'd dismissed it as nonsense.
"Whenever his body is flooded with adrenaline and other natural hormones like that, his stats rise. It's like a computer game where you have Speed, Strength, Agility and all those things. And with how angry he is with this little stunt…" the blond trailed off.
"Adrenaline does that anyway," Motaki spat back.
"Yeah, but with Aogami you get an effect hundreds of times greater than in a normal person."
They turned to the group of girls who were surrounding Miaka just as Aogami was closing in on them.
They fired flames and tossed rocks at him with their powers, but Aogami danced around them with a strangely grim look on her face.
As soon as she understood that they were attacking, Maika shouted "Don't hurt Aogami-nii-chan!" before smacking the closest girl in the back, preventing her from firing.
Then, Aogami was among the group of six Tokiwadai girls. With a single swing, he knocked four girls down, before grabbing Maika and running with her to the Delta Force's classmates. They continued to fire, but Aogami seemed to duck and dodge like a pro.
"He'll pay for touching my sister so familiarly," Tsuchimikado chuckled, before turning his attention back to the girls.
"And so will you," he told them, before punching Touma in the stomach.
Touma and the girls' eyes widened, but before Touma could do anything, Tsuchimikado had already flung him away.
Winded but otherwise fine, Touma scrambled to his feet.
Tsuchimikado pulled out three papers from his jacket, and gave a bitter smile. "Fallere825!" he declared.
The significance of these words went over most people's heads, but for Touma, who knew of magicians and their Magic name, the name they declare when they'll attack like they're trying to kill, this was really shocking.
"You idiot! You can't be serious!" Touma yelled.
"No one threatens my sister." The blond stated simply.
"You'll seriously hurt yourself!"
"Ha, don't worry Kami-yan, I'll make sure the damage to my body isn't too bad."
"Idiot! Can't I change your mind?"
"Not this time Kami-yan."
"Fine then. The least I could do is take some of the burden from you."
Tsuchimikado glanced behind him toward Touma. "I get Motaki."
"Rock girl is mine then," Touma told him.
"I guess that leaves me with miss water snake," Aogami smiled as he returned.
The boys turned back to the girls, only to find that they too had been planning. Surround the boys were three orange lights, a circular wall ready to blast them, and above them, a giant stream of water in the shape of a dragon, ready to crash down.
"We don't like being ignored," Motaki shouted, just as they let everything lose too attack.
However, in the time it took for Motaki to boast and the attacks to go off, Tsuchimikado had already chanted "In these four corners, none may enter my space," and set up a magic barrier that protected them all from harm.
Seconds after that was done though, Motoharu coughed up blood and then pressed down on his right side in pain.
Touma looked on in worry, but when Aogami looked at Tsuchimikado, he only nodded his head, acknowledging his friends determination, no matter how unnecessary.
'What kind of things do those two do together?' Touma couldn't help but ask himself.
A moment later the barrage stopped.
In less than a second, the three began to move. Motoharu destroyed the barrier before they bypassed it, allowing the three to leap at the girls.
Again they were shocked that their attacks didn't bury the boys.
As Aogami appeared in front of Kasumi, she tried to raise her arms as well as the water to protect herself, but Aogami simply punched before she could raise her defence. All it took was a single hit, and she was unconscious. He was simply that much faster than her.
When Touma landed in front of Ao from his leap, he purposefully rolled, allowing his right hand to press into the ground.
With a satisfying sound, Touma could tell he stopped her power from defending herself.
Coming out of his roll, Ao was completely unprotected as his fist hit her cheek and knocked her down.
Unlike Aogami, Touma didn't knock her out cold, but never the less, she was out of the fight.
Before Tsuchimikado had even landed Motaki was already preparing her explotions. She wasn't going to get caught by surprise so easily.
However, even then it was too late.
Tsuchimikado swept past the orange lights that telegraphed an explosion, and before she could do anything, was punched once in the stomach and then flung right next to where her own Combustion was taking place.
"Burn," Tsuchimikado said, before the explosion caused her to fly through the air.
Motaki landed hard, burns along her arms from where she had tried to shield herself. Once the reaction had started in the air, it was too late to stop it, although she had managed to weaken it somewhat. She, too, was unconscious.
Looking at his own wounds, as well as those on his friends and enemies, Tsuchimikado couldn't help but ask himself something.
Was it worth it?
A/N: And once more, I realise that I'm much more suited to comedy than action. Oh well.
Oh, and Adrenaline doesn't quite work like that. It does have a part in it though. It is known as the Flight or Fight response, and it is the body's way of preparing for physical duress.
Level 0's to me are powers which are passive. Asin only activae duriing certain situations and the person has little to no control over actuvation. For example, Tsuchimikado can heal, but you only heal when injuried. So long as he is not injured, he has no power. Aogami's power responds to his body. As long as he is not stressed, he is essentially normal. Heh, I tried to keep an Otaku theme for his, and hence Stats Boost. Video Games, huh?