Kayama-sensei ordered everyone who'd made it through the cavalry battle qualifier to gather in the middle of the stadium, forming a fair-sized crowd of UA gym uniforms in front of her podium. Forty-two kids all gathered together, all looking up at the big digital screen. Behind them, the imported American cheerleaders were trying their best to get the crowd hyped for the next event. All around, the students who hadn't made it past the obstacle race were helping event staff roll out game equipment for the "recreational" events.
"Come closer and draw lots to see who you're up against," Kayama-sensei said brightly, holding a box braced against one hip. "Then enjoy the pleasure of the recreational games before we start. The sixteen finalists have the option of participating in these activities or sitting out to prepare for battle."
Kei already knew what she was going to do. She needed time to meditate, not perform like a trained seal.
She shifted her weight slightly, making sure Monoma was within eyesight. It might've been a bit judgmental, but being caught unawares by his Quirk just once was enough. Giving Isobu an actual excuse for direct violence would be one of the last mistakes of somebody's life.
"I'll start with the first place team," Kayama-sensei went on.
One by one, the kids picked up their numbers.
The brackets shook out like this:
First up, Midoriya and Shōda. Both of them went sickly pale when they realized they made up the first match, and Kei couldn't blame them. She leaned toward rooting for Midoriya on the whole, if only because a kid whose fighting style drew so heavily from the Black Knight probably needed to get a pro's attention and train himself up differently. She'd wave a foam finger for Shōda anyway, though. If she had one.
The second match: Todoroki versus Sero. While Kei thought the tape-using kid seemed nice enough, Todoroki could punch nearly in Kei's weight class with his ridiculous ice Quirk. If it wasn't a one-shot fight, she'd be surprised. Few people could overmatch Kei's Water ninjutsu so easily, at least since she'd properly practiced and learned to work together with Isobu.
The third fight would be between Kaminari and Ojiro, and Kei already knew who she was rooting for there. And it wasn't the human stun-gun, despite the power output he'd showed earlier. Hopefully, Ojiro would manage to close the distance before getting lit up like a Tesla coil. Outlasting Kaminari seemed easy, as long as the first attack wasn't a total knockout.
Fourth: Iida and Hatsume, whom Kei had finally identified as a member of the Support Course. She'd been under the impression that the pink-haired Hatsume could be another strange Quirk user from General Studies, because after seeing engine exhaust pipes growing out of Iida's legs anything seemed possible. Apparently she was just a less successful Tony Stark, but with binocular zoom built into her eyes.
Kei's half of the brackets started with the fifth match: Shinsō versus Ashido. She seemed friendly enough, so Shinsō's Quirk ought to be effective. If not, well, he'd get some use out of what self-defense tricks Kei'd managed to instill. While hopefully not getting melted horribly, because some people's appearances and their Quirks were hardly on speaking terms.
After that, Tokoyami was up against Yaoyorozu. Having seen neither of their actual fighting styles but plenty of their Quirks, Kei didn't really know what to think. She couldn't stop looking at Dark Shadow and seeing a shape Isobu might like to take someday.
Kei's own match would be second to last, facing off against 1-A's Kirishima in what'd have to be either the longest brawl ever or a very straightforward use of her "Quirk." Worse, she wouldn't be able to throw the match convincingly to the kid whose deal was turning his body into a rock. Her friends back home would absolutely give her shit for losing to Kirishima even on purpose.
The very last match of the first round? Uraraka versus Bakugō. Once again, Kei knew fuck-all about one of the Quirks in that fight and plenty about the other. While she suspected explosions would turn out to be pretty hard for Uraraka to fight, Uraraka deserved to win as far as Kei was concerned.
Midoriya made a noise like a mouse being stepped on, his eyes darting back and forth between his and Uraraka's matchups.
"This'll be fun," Shinsō said, rubbing the back of his neck as he scanned the crowd for Ashido.
Kei nodded distractedly. Isobu's temper thrummed in her chest like a second heartbeat, keeping her on edge. By the time the recreational games began, Kei was forced to bid Shinsō a brief goodbye to "prepare for the tournament."
He accepted that excuse, and probably went off to practice zingers suited for Ashido.
Retreating to the prep room instead of sticking around to watch the "fun" felt a little like she was trying to become a hermit, but Kei did it anyway. Even if she didn't need a few minutes to calm Isobu, she definitely wanted a chance to recover some of the massive amounts of chakra she'd expended inside of an hour. Throwing around that many Water Dragon Bullets, one Water Wall, two Hidden Mists, and one Great Waterfall on top of her other general enhancements was the kind of drain that would've been incredibly wasteful from the perspective from any ordinary shinobi. Especially because not one of those ninjutsu had killed anyone. The pride of many a dead Kiri-nin howled for blood.
Kei only really cared about the turtle monster doing the same in her head.
This prep room's only occupant was Midoriya, with Shōda nowhere in sight. Maybe it was for the best—she'd known Midoriya a little longer, and the kid had a tendency to get caught up in his thoughts worse than a fish in a net. She could keep to herself here and be left alone.
Midoriya raised his head when she entered, waving weakly, before going back to his muttering once she acknowledged his presence with a nod. Probably going over what he knew of the other boy's Quirk and trying to think around it. By the time Kei pulled up a chair and slumped over the far table with her head pillowed on her arms, he was mumbling about needing his fingers.
She left him to it. Midoriya didn't need her help. Isobu did. Therefore, Kei set an alarm on her phone and closed her eyes to drop into her and Isobu's shared mindscape.
The formerly-tranquil cliffside beach was a wreck of disturbed coral, rock, and uprooted palm trees strewn all across white sand, and the cause of it all sat in the middle of a brand new inlet with his forelegs folded to the sides. When Kei's mental avatar floated down to his face, he turned it as far away as he could and closed his good eye.
"I am not sorry," said Isobu, at once in her head and to her face. "I will never be sorry for defending us."
"I wasn't gonna ask you to be," Kei told him, drifting closer until she sat on one of the spikes jutting forward from his head. His entire body shifted so he sat lower in the water before she could entirely settle, sending waves so high they nearly touched Kei's toes. "You wanna help me clean this place up?"
"No demands to change my behavior?" Isobu asked, though he dragged himself farther onto the beach. His huge digits dug into the gray-white sand and started shifting debris.
"No demands, no," Kei said, swinging down from his spikes one-handed. Her feet crunched onto the beach sand, strangely warm under her toes. It was all an illusion, but it was still comforting. "I remember what we agreed on, and I remember the thing with Inosuke. And Madara, and Kakashi, and with the butterflies, and like…I get it. Scolding you won't change anything."
"It will not." Isobu shifted a bit, allowing Kei to stoop and pick up coral fragments from under the side of his shell. As she started gathering fish-shaped mental projections and hucking them back into the water underhand, he said, "Of all the ways we could be attacked…"
"I know," Kei said, brushing her fingers against his shell. As he rumbled, she went on, "It's awful. I don't—if I didn't know it was all just kids messing around during a school event, I'd…probably have reacted a lot like you."
"How much experience do either of us have with such a situation?" Isobu wrenched a flattened palm tree out of the sand and hurled it out to sea. "Even the most childish of the 'games' you have recently lived through could end in dismemberment or death for all participants. And if it was the case, you could have died without knowing what killed you."
Kei nodded, even as she flung another fish into the surf. "I know."
"And?"
"And he's a kid. Messing with powers because it's what he does," Kei told Isobu. She sighed and leaned back, staring up at the artificial sun far above their heads. "I am and was angry, and I get why I was angry even before I get to how you influence my mood, but that was dangerous. If me being unable to keep my head is going to mean you're about to start killing people, we need to talk about this."
Isobu's rumble became less contented and more threatening, like an impending landslide. He clearly wasn't in the mood for a heart-to-heart. Only one of them had a literal heart, but Kei would argue that Isobu's emotions ran, if anything, more intensely in him than a lot of people.
"I know what Shinsō's Quirk is like," Kei said, "even if I don't remember being under it. Next time, maybe instead of trying to pop into V2 cloak and losing our collective shit, you could try just like…" Kei paused, then held up an arm so Isobu could see. In here, Kei wore her jōnin uniform instead of either of the UA sets, and Isobu's gold-on-red eye laser-focused on her. "Punch me in the face. Just grab my arm through our chakra coils and sock me right in the jaw."
"…I could also just do that when I want to," Isobu said, instead of acknowledging the practicality of Kei's plan. For him, it must've been easier to just tease her.
"If it works to get us out of a genjutsu…" Kei trailed off. She hadn't been truly caught by a genjutsu for a while now, and many of the stronger ones hardly allowed movement. Some couldn't be broken by pain, either. Still, it was something approaching a plan. "Same principle."
Isobu made a noise like "hmph," but scaled up tenfold. He abandoned his attempts to clear the beach, but the false debris was already starting to fade into dream-stuff. Before he disappeared into the waves, he told her, I will think about it.
Kei waved to his retreating tails, and all three of them waved back.
Then her phone alarm beeped.
Kei checked whether she'd drooled onto the table before she sat up. Once she'd determined everything was still more or less as she'd left it, minus one Midoriya through a still-swinging door, Kei got to her feet and decided to head for the stands. She checked her phone, of course—Obito had a knack for spamming the hell out of a groupchat that was difficult to tear her eyes from.
GreenThumb: now we have brackets
GreenThumb: i saw youre up against rock kid
GreenThumb: dont lose to him
GreenThumb: im sure youre thinking about it
GreenThumb: a whole afternoon of not doin anything
GreenThumb: but splodey kid is RIGHT THERE
GreenThumb: and purple kid versus pink kid too
GreenThumb: i dunno how thats gonna go but
GreenThumb: tell shinsō hed better not lose
GreenThumb: i spent too much time gettin used as a trainin dummy
GreenThumb: so
GreenThumb: COME ON AND WIN THIS ヾ（＾ヮ\\)ﾉ
Defib: Or throw the match and save yourself the further attention of a rabid media-focused world. You don't need to be in the finals to accomplish your goals. Or on television.
Defib: Aren't you supposed to be more subtle than this?
TMNT-TNT: Probably.
GreenThumb: excuse me
GreenThumb: but this is team awesomeness only
GreenThumb: no killjoys allowed
Defib: Better a killjoy than dead.
GreenThumb: +ﾟ*｡:ﾟ+凸(◕‿\\✿)+ﾟ*｡:ﾟ+
TMNT-TNT: Aren't you two literally right next to each other? Within punching distance?
Obito didn't send any more messages after that. Neither did Kakashi.
Kei tucked her phone away and headed up toward the stands.
The student sections of the audience were divided by class, though as far as she could tell there was no actual ban on visiting the other groups. 1-A had one smattering of benches, while 1-B was next to them, and so on. It was pretty similar to their arrangement within UA's halls, only there weren't any massive sliding doors. Walls between the sections were high, though, and few people were already in their seats. Kei stuck her head in two of the doorways just to make sure the Hero course students were where she expected them to be, then wandered to 1-C's spot.
"Gekkō-san, there you are!" said Homura, her hair and eyebrows blazing away with excitement.
"Um."
Kei stood there, a little stunned, as Homura took both her hands in hers and said, "Congratulations on getting as far as you have. I mean, I know you were always a strong student, but right now you're representing our whole class. You and Shinsō-kun!"
"Thank you?" Kei managed, still blinking in surprise. Dang it, now she felt bad for thinking of throwing her match in the tournament. She still would, but it'd be less funny.
And she hadn't even been particularly nice to any of these kids.
"It's nice to know I have your support," Kei said, not entirely sincere because she wasn't fully certain of Homura's motives. Some of the other 1-C students weren't looking her in the eye, and that was certainly not a new development. "Make sure you tell Shinsō-san the same, okay?"
"As soon as I see him, you can count on that!" Homura promised. She let go of Kei's hands and peered behind her, as though expecting to see Shinsō following her. "Nobody's seen him for a while, though. I asked Shingetsu-kun already."
Shingetsu's head spun around at the sound of his name, though his torso kept pointing in the direction of the pointy-eared kid he was lecturing. "Sorry, did someone say something?"
Homura's fiery eyebrows dimmed somewhat. "Have you seen Shinsō-kun?"
"Not since the last time you asked." And then Shingetsu was back to telling the other students why throwing popcorn was bad manners. Or something like that.
"I haven't seen him either." Kei scratched the base of her scar. "Mind if I go look?"
"The matches will be starting soon, though," Homura said, though she wasn't actually telling Kei not to do what she would.
"Be right back, then," Kei said, and darted back into the building. It was as much to find Shinsō as to get away from her classmates. As she left, she heard Shingetsu tell Homura something along the lines of "you scared her off," but didn't stop to ask.
Weird they were choosing now to put aside their fear of her and make nice.
With the first match so close to starting, Kei wasn't surprised to find the hallways nearly empty of spectators, students, and everyone else. Not for the first time, she took a second to curse the total lack of chakra available to sense in the general area, which would have made finding people a snap. She ended up effectively circling the stadium twice through the halls and stairways, finding only Midoriya and Shōda up and about (and still quite nervous, despite each getting a quick pat on the back from her), before deciding to search outside the building. She could afford to miss the first match.
The stadium was set at the end of a long cement pathway, but there was a forested park jammed up against the back of it. While trotting along in search of Shinsō, she passed Todoroki leaning against the building and remembered just in time what a terrible mood looked like, so she gave him a wide berth. Tokoyami was up in a tree, his animate shadow keeping an eye out and waving down at her as she passed. It took a little longer, until she was almost on the far side of the trees, before she spotted Shinsō sitting on a root with his back against the tree trunk.
"There you are," Kei said, relieved. She came to a stop next to him.
"What's with that look on your face?" Shinsō asked, sitting up. One purple eyebrow went up. "You look spooked."
What went unspoken was probably along the lines of, "And I've seen you literally being held hostage before, so what the fuck?"
"Our classmates were trying to be nice." Kei shook her head slowly. "To me. Not in general. But also in general."
Shinsō stared at her.
"Or at least Homura-san was," Kei added, somewhat defensively. "It was weird."
Shinsō sighed. He rubbed the back of his neck and said, "Took them long enough."
"…What?"
"To get over themselves," Shinsō said, a bitter look crossing his face. As she sat down in the grass across from him, he rested his chin in his hand. "You're standoffish as hell, like a cat, so everyone's been tiptoeing around you trying to figure out what to do. Only now you're doing well, without them, and it's giving them ideas."
Kei thought this was all rather cynical, but, as a cynic, waited patiently for the next part of the explanation. It was only polite.
"When people weren't wondering when I'd turn into a villain or avoiding me, they'd act like my Quirk was super special. Like they were my friends." Shinsō rolled his eyes. "But the second they found out I wasn't going to use it to manipulate anyone because they were 'so nice to me' and asked me to, they went right back to spreading rumors."
"I'm not," Kei said, once he'd finished.
"Not what?"
"Not using you to get ahead," Kei told him. She leaned back, bracing her hands against the grass to keep her balance. While a muscle in Shinsō's jaw jumped and he fought not to interrupt, she went on, "I fully admit to not being a super nice person. I don't know how people like Midoriya-san do it, to be honest. But…as awkward as that was, I think Homura-san was trying."
Not particularly effectively, but there was effort behind it.
"I don't tend to give people much of a chance." She found herself scratching the lower end of her scar and stopped once she noticed. "I ignored almost everyone at the beginning of the year. But Homura-san seemed like she meant well. It's not her fault if the rest of the class isn't gonna follow her lead."
Shinsō didn't immediately respond. Instead, he pried at a scrap of loose bark and peeled it off, a pensive look on his face.
"So, what're you doing this far from the stadium?" Kei asked.
"Meditating. About the only thing I can do now." Shinsō started tying the strip of bark into a knot. "It's not really working. I'm still nervous."
"I think that's normal," Kei told him. "But like you said, you've made the top sixteen. The parts that wiped out basically everyone else are over."
"That's one way of looking at it." Shinsō sighed again, tossing the bark into the manicured lawn. "How'd you keep calm? During that match your brother talked about?"
Kei paused. Visions of losing her temper as badly as she'd ever done before Isobu, and then having to frantically apologize for ruining Gai's apology, flashed through her mind. Not her finest moment. "Um, you probably don't want to know."
Kei knew the instant Shinsō's brain caught up with his mouth. He paled a little further, likely recalling the scraps of information Hayate had let slip. "…You know, I think you're right." He got to his feet. "Might as well stop putting it off."
"And maybe our classmates will surprise you," Kei added, as they headed back to the stadium.
"Maybe." It wasn't a no, at least.