Summary: None needed. The one man army keeps knocking them out of the park, and soon he'll have around half if not more or less to beat given how he's done so far.
Chapter 25
Kinoko Komori was her name, and shrooms were her game. No, but seriously, her power was formidable, so I had to have my guard up regardless of my polite standing with her. Taking a 'bathroom break' before continuing, I made sure to sneak a touch on Mina when no one was looking, including her; not that I didn't trust that she'd give it to me, but to always keep my wits with me for say, if I wanted to get someone else's power without their permission. Coming back, Kinoko was on the other side of the arena, "Hi there, you're the mushroom girl"? She gave a large smile with her already rather full mouth, "That's right, let's see if I'm too 'mush' for you to handle". I gave a sarcastic chuckle, "Really? Nevermind, how come you don't show your eyes? Doesn't that hair get in the way"? She removed some with one of her pretty eyes showing; it was kind of like Mei's in that it was a cross but it was still relatively feminine, and kind of cat-like. She seemed pretty excited, "I can't wait to fight, are you ready? I'm going to grow, grow, grow until you can't see the sun". As the match began, the sun beat down and this was her chance; Komori touched the ground with all five of her fingers and with the green thumb of a power she had, mushrooms of all kinds began to cover the ground in seconds. Spreading over to my spot I sprayed my acid all over them, which took out the ones coming towards me, but there were already too many to try and destroy at once. Walking through the mounds of mushrooms, she just stood there with a wide smile, caressing a small mushroom coming out of her finger, "This is just the 'tip' of the iceberg buddy. Here, try this". Taking the mushroom and tossing it right into my mouth, I ended up swallowing it, but at least it didn't choke me. That mushroom I ate was, unfortunately, some that would come back up later on, but not during the fight; I guess I had a high tolerance, or just didn't digest it properly. Continuing with melting all of it around me, I caught up to her and took Kinoko by the shirt, "Alright, enough games". She kept smiling, "But there's always time for games". In the blink of an eye, she completely covered herself in mushrooms to act as some protection, her uncovered eye being the only thing I could see, "Let's up the ante huh"? I stated, "I'm still going to beat you". She wasn't as confident as I thought, "Of Cordyceps you could, but I still have a chance, especially with that little shroom you swallowed. You're going to look fungi stumbling around". After a few moments, I noticed there were a few hundred ants crawling towards me, "What the hell"!? She was proud, "Like it? My mushrooms are much more advanced than anything you'll find in the wild. And as for my little helpers, the mushrooms I grew take effect in seconds compared to the normal Cordyceps". The ants all had mandibles and pinchers, so with that, I needed not a moment to get out my power and start killing the little bastards. She laughed rather playfully, Kinoko was getting a kick out of this for sure, "You seem like a 'fun-guy' Koizumi. Forget the ants, it's my turn". Skipping over the mushrooms and coming over to me, she punched me right in the gut and kneed me over onto the ground, "Ugh...not bad". Komori giggled, "You're kind of cute", I said. She responded, "You're kind of cute yourself. I still have to beat you though". Getting up on my feet, I sprayed her with acid, melting her little shield of fungus and giving me a chance to grab her by the collar again. Punching her in the side, I flipped her upside down and gave her a piledriver. She moved around in slight pain, "Ugh, why aren't my mushrooms working on you"? I picked her back up, "I don't know what you're talking about but, game over". Giving her a strong enough blow to the head, I knocked her out; sending her flying a few inches and onto the ground. I shook my fist, "Sorry if that was too hard. Hopefully, we can meet again on better circumstances. Good fight though"; as if she could hear me. As she was carried off to the nurse's office, I got to thinking about Momo again, "She just needs some food is all. She'll be okay, right"?
Next up was Ibara, and I definitely didn't want to hurt such a pure girl like her. She smiled at me as she entered the ring, "Hello again". I waved to her, "Hi, how are you"? She was very cordial, "I'm quite fine right now. You're not nearly as sinful as the others in this place". I inquired, "How sinful am I exactly"? She gave her opinion, "You are relatively brutal in your attacks, and you swear. But other than that, I find you rather pleasant". I smiled back, "Well, that goes both ways. How do you want this to go? Mind if I go easy on you"? She shook her head and declined politely, "No, I would prefer a fair fight if that's okay with you. Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean you should treat me any different". I shrugged, "But that's my thing. I mean I'll do as you asked, but you are pretty much one of the definitions of what I find so wonderful about girls". She blushed in slight confusion, "*silent*". As the battle began, I slid on over there to get up close and take her power for my own. Ibara raised her hair as a shield, and like a wall I hit it, the stuff felt like a cactus. Removing the little pricks, I sprayed all over it, melting a hole through the hair and managing to touch her hand. She pulled me over to her, the both of us hitting and being inches apart, "Oh, um, sorry". I looked at her pleasantly, "It's okay. Heh, you smell like holy water and perfume. In other words, the church". Her mouth made a little notion like she wanted to chuckle a little, "We can speak more after this". With a jolt, she knocked me back with a bunch of her spiky hair coming out of the ground. Ditching the shield for a moment and going for the Offensive, Ibara burrowed her hair underground before bursting out and trapping everything but my feet and head like pointed coils. With my acid still at hand, I melted it away, the downside being I ended up falling a few feet. Recovering and ready as always, I sidestepped around every bursting vine of hair and managed to get in the minor blow with an acidic fist hitting her shoulderblade. Feeling the median sting of the acid, Ibara fought back with an even better version of what she just used on me. Flowing her destructively elegant hair all around, it ended up covering a huge portion of the field. The vines were seemed practically sentient the way slithered around me until cornering and entrapping me again, but this time they squeezed. My bones began to crack, not critically but painful enough to feel, "Will you yield", she asked politely. I smirked, turning up my solubility more to take the vines down another notch to equal her. Once free again, I broke out my acid spraying like a hose in each hand and got to work with melting all of it, ALL of it. The green hair dissolved into clear blue-green puddles and eventually, Ibara started running low on hair, now it was around shoulder length. I spoke back to her, "Sorry milady, but I'm not in the business of giving up so easily. You might want to reconsider your strategy. Your power is useful, but everyone has a limit, so choose what you do next wisely". She actually took my advice, "Alright, then let me try something new". Using her hair, she took two strands in the back, lifting herself up a couple of feet off the ground, the vines now acting as legs. Taking the rest of it, Ibara formed makeshift fists with her hair. Taking grand steps towards me quickly with her new form of locomotion, I was hit with her long reaching 'fist' in a hot second. Skidding across the dirt with my palms trying to hold on, I didn't get very far to the boundary line, but it was a nice try. I admired her transition, but all this meant was that I needed to work harder with my acid, so work harder I did. Making an 'Acid Veil' at my front, the vines tried to hit it, but while in the process slowly began to burn away. The longer she tried, the less hair she had, so in the end, she backed off. Dropping my little shield, I got my own idea on how to use the acid, and so taking off my hoody and shirt, I had it in mind and set in into motion. Acting like a sprinkler, my whole upper torso unleashed a fury of acid in large quantities, the solubility about the same medium power as I had been using. Protecting herself with what remained of the 'fists', the acid was flung everywhere until she was completely left with about nothing but her 'leg' vines. Putting back on my clothing, I slid on over there and took a jump up, spritzing her with some more acid midair. Hitting the ground with a thud, I wasn't done with Ibara yet. As she was downed, I took her by the feet and started to swing her around and once I had some momentum I let her go, Shiozaki heading out of bounds on her small little butt. "Koizumi wins", I heard from Ms. Kayama with slight boredom in her voice.
Heading on over and giving her my hand, I helped her up as did all the others. "Hey, nice work out there". Ibara's hair was just barely covering her ears now, "I can't help but feel I could've done better". I helped her confidence, "Nah, you did all you could. But like with Denki, your trumps and cancels out his power. With acid, it pretty much trumped yours. Tenya might've been cheap with his match against you, but speed against vines isn't exactly the best matchup. You showed your potential here and in the Cavalry Battle. I'd say did exceptionally". She smiled at my kind words, "You flatter me. Thank you for the fight. I should keep on pushing my limits, I must work on that. Now, if you would please excuse me, I need to go regrow my hair". Without much pause, the next person showed up; Jurota Shishida. He fixed his glasses, "Hello sir, are you ready to face me"? I couldn't help but talk of his appearance, "You are fifteen right? You look like bigfoot". He frowned, "Do you really need to insult me"? I shrugged, "Sorry, just pointing out the obvious. Beast huh"? He nodded, "Yep, so let's see how far I can get against your Acid quirk". Staying in his 'normal' form for a little bit longer, he dodged my acid with careful reactions until his hairy fist got me in the stomach. In the air for not even a second, he took and slammed me to the ground next. Picking me right back up, he landed another punch in the chest this time and kept it up until I stopped him. Singing off some of his arm hair with it, the acid burnt him a little, "Alright, perhaps it's time for my quirk". Transforming before my eyes into a werewolf it looked like, his body looked more wolf than man and he was on all fours, his height bigger than me, being my size just on the four legs. Leaping and chomping onto my arm, I wriggled it around to get it out, "Goddamn, get the fuck off me"! Kicking him in the snout and spraying acid into his now exposed eyes, he retreated back a few feet. I took a look at my bite mark, "I'm gonna mess you up for that you dirty animal". Running at him head-on as he did to me at the same time, I made a veil of acid the moment he hit me, causing him to hit it instead of me. The acid spread to his skin and fur, him licking it off with barely any pain. Without a break, Jurota charged me again but this time pounced, his weight holding me down as his jaws began to snap at me. Placing my arm under his neck to keep him from biting my face, I used my free hand to punch and kick him in the underbelly. Not budging from the blows, I had no choice, Mina's power wasn't viable here. Touching the exposed skin patch, I took his power. My outer appearance didn't change, and I was still hairless, minus the usual hair a man has, but that'd change as soon as I used it. Activating the power, my bones shifted around, surprisingly not painfully, and a surge of euphoria went through me; not nearly as good as sex but more so like what I assume injecting caffeine straight into your veins felt like. Shoving him off in anger, I had enough and went full on beast mode. My mind was perfectly clear despite the feeling, but the longer I saw his movements and such, it seemed Jurota more or less lost his actual mind while in this form, but regardless it was time to give him a taste of his own medicine. Like two wolves fighting I lept onto him, pinning him this time and biting at his face savagely until I drew some blood. He whimpered and managed to get me off soon after; licking his wound, I took the brief second he let his guard down to jumped at him again. grabbing his foreleg in my jaws I began to knaw at it, tearing off the fur and some of the skin underneath, "*GROWL*", is all that came out of my mouth. Using my own foreleg, I started slashing at him while biting, drawing some more blood and creating claw marks on his side and some of his face. Nipping me in the face to get me to drop his foreleg, Jurota took off some distance, but I just went after him without remorse. Beginning to limp, I started to circle around him, both of us growling and staring each other in the eyes as I prepared the right moment to pounce at him. Once the opportunity came, I jumped again, landing on top of his back. Raising his head and turning into around he tried to defend himself, which led to us rolling around in the dirt snapping and clawing at each other. After slicing and cutting between both of us, I managed to get the upper hand one last time, slashing him at the same injured leg to get him off guard. Falling down from the pain, I opened up my jaw and took his neck into my mouth, biting down rather hard until I heard a light cracking. Jurota was right between my jaws, and this gave me a dilemma in my head. I had no ill will against him but, I felt like I wanted to kill him right there; just one bite down strong enough and he'd be gone. I wondered if it was the beast part of the power corrupting my mind a little, or, was it actually me, having killed people in the past. "NO", I thought, "No, I only kill the people who deserve it. He might've given me a hard time, but rage can only give you so much reason". Making my choice, Shishida was now unconscious regardless, me cutting off his air for too long. Dropping out of my mouth, he fell down but was visibly still breathing. Half clapped, while the other remained silent, but regardless I still won.
Changing back to myself, with my clothes intact, fortunately, the injuries I received from the attacks actually manifested as if I got them as normal. My next opponent was fairly underwhelming given it was yet another form of strength power, but still, he had a chance; Nirengeki Shoda, or just Shoda for me. He was pretty short in my opinion, and rather quiet, "Hello". I waved, "Hello. So uh, have you ever seen this movie called Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory"? He didn't seem to get it, "Why"? I rolled my eyes, "No reason, just asking. Anyways, you think you can take me on little guy"? He accepted the challenge; he already had by getting in the arena, "Yeah, I'm ready. At least this time I'm not being brainwashed". The 'flag' was drawn and the battle set, so with that, the two of us ran at each other at the same time. Being somewhat shorter than me I had to lean down forward slightly to get him and get him I did. Taking the blow rather impressively, Shoda countered with a blow of his own into my leg, followed by using his power of 'Twin Impacting' to double up on the pain I received, as it felt like he had gotten me twice at the same time. Not taking any chances, I turned into my 'beast' mode and took him in my jaws while his guard was briefly down. Biting down on his panted leg, I jerked my head back and forth as any canine would pulling onto something. Shoda shouted as I deepened my bite force into his leg, to the point of hearing a crack; I actually broke his leg. He hit the ground and tried using his power to try and get me to back down, but the pain didn't hurt as bad in this form, regardless I did let go. Struggling to stand up, I pounced onto his again and took his hand into my mouth, planting my sharpened claws and large paw onto his chest. In my animalistic state, I swear I forgot that skin touch cancels my current power, and with that, I ended up getting his over what I had. Turning back to normal my mind returned fully and I could think a lot better. Now with Shoda's power, I decided to take an equally aggressive approach. Using it the whole way, I kicked him instead of punching, taking his height into account this time, and the blow sent him back quite a ways, especially due to his now broken leg. He could barely get back up onto his feet after that, so I did the merciful thing. Getting up in his space again, I took him up by the throat and tossed him outside the ring; he wasn't very heavy either. Lying face first on the ground in defeat, his leg bled pretty badly, so I went to go help him to the nurse. He looked up at me as I outstretched my hand, "You broke my leg". I apologized, "Sorry, maybe I went overboard, but I was just thinking of bloodlust at the time. Let me help you over to the nurse huh"? He took my hand and I let him wrap his arm on my shoulder as support. While there I checked up on Momo, who was lying in bed, "Hey there", she said weakly to me. I took a seat beside her, "How you feeling "? She pointed to an empty plate of food with her eyes, "You almost better"? She nodded, "Yes, I just need a little more rest. My stomach's full, I just need to digest and I'll be back to normal. Don't worry about me, it was my own stupid fault". I took her hand, gaining her power too from not wearing my gloves at the moment, not that I was after it, "You just need to take into consideration when to back down. If you're too focused on winning to that point, then you need to consider something else. Don't you know to be sparing with your power"? Momo again acknowledged her mistake, "I just thought I could handle making a few more things. The only reason I pushed so much was so I could win the contest, but I can see your reasoning in a real situation. I won't let that happen once I'm a Pro Heroine, I can say that". I gave her a little smile, "Well, as long as you're okay that's all that matters right now. Enjoy your rest, I need to go finish up this competition. Bye Momo". She held me back for a second, "Hey. Make sure you don't push yourself either...alright"? I took her suggestion, "Yeah, I know. I'll see you soon". My next opponent was Pony, the last of my partners from the Cavalry Battle, "Oh, hi again. So um, can I ask you something before we fight"? I entertained her, "Go ahead". Pony asked, "If you're American too, then how come you came here and have a Japanese name"? I answered, "I'm half, a Japanese-American. I just look more American and don't have squinted eyes, but honestly, there aren't many with squinted eyes here in the first place. But yeah, I moved here some years back, that's my story. You"? She gave hers, "I'm more of an exchange student. I came down here because U.A is one of the best in the world". I felt a little awkward, "No hard feelings about petting you earlier"? She shook her head, "Nah, I mean it was strange but I don't judge you for it. A lot of people think I'm cute". I managed to slip in a compliment, "Well, it might be that you're cute both ways, know what I mean"? She got it, "Oh, heh, thanks but I can't see many cute boys going after a horse girl". I shrugged, "You never know, everyone has their special somebody out there. You know, if you're from America, you ever hear of these 'people' called Bronies"? She luckily didn't, "No, why"? I shrugged again, "Forget I mentioned them, just know there are lots of people who have exotic tastes". She was curious, "Are you one of them"? I smirked, "Well if I find girls like Tsu cute, and I really like Mina, then yeah, I guess I do. Anyways, want me to take it easy on you? We were partners after all and you're a pretty sweet girl". She declined, "No thanks, I'll take you on the classic way".