As much as Nanami would hate to admit it, Bakougo would easily be the toughest opponent she would face in the tournament. Tetsuya 2.0 helped her realise that in his own way, but now was the time to work on that realization!
Nanami peaked over the partition between the A and B section block, from where she once shouted at Midoriya. However, it was a lot emptier than last time as Iida hadn't yet returned from his match and Midoriya was under Recovery Girl's care. Quite a few students had gone to see how he was doing. Thankfully for Nanami, Bakougo had already headed towards the Waiting Room and thus what she was going to do was made a lot less awkward.
"Um… Yaoyorozu san, can I…", Nanami said in a very very low voice as she realised how ridiculous her request may sound.
"Huh, who? Me?", Yaoyorozu noticed her voice and turned her attention to Nanami. Seeing her face put Nanami slightly at ease since if Yaoyorozu was anything like Monoma, her face would radiate malice and make Nanami's task a lot harder.
"Can I copy your quirk for my next match, I promise I'll just use it for that match.", Nanami rushed her sentence and sounded like she was asking some stranger on the road to give her money with the promise of returning it later. Though on thinking about it, her request was similar in more ways than she would have liked to admit. Nanami always tackled awkward conversations by rushing them and let's just say the success rate wasn't high.
"Um… Sure. I don't mind.", Yaoyorozu was slightly confused by Nanami's request as her match with Tokoyami had sent her down a path of self-doubt.
"THANK YOU VERY MUCH! I'll… Um… Need to make… P-Physical contact to copy the quirk", Nanami knew it would be weird to make this request by hearing it out loud made it a lot more awkward! But thankfully, Yaoyorozu didn't feel so or at least she didn't show the awkwardness she was feeling. So, she stretched her hand as if going for a handshake and let Nanami copy her quirk.
For Nanami, copying quirks was a way of connecting to people, so the tension she felt from needing to have this conversation was now being reduced significantly.
"Um… so you just think about the molecular structure and you can create what you want to?"
"Yes."
"Wow, that is so cool!"
"But I can't think fast enough in matches for it to count..."
"I mean we are all learning but think of when you would be able to do this quickly! I think you could solve practically any problem out there!", Nanami started to realise that Tetsuya 2.0 was leading this conversation by subconscious suggestion, but for the first time, she had no problem with it. She was just happy that the awkwardness had mostly subsided. This complement, however, made Yaoyorozu blush a little.
"She is cute!", Tetsuya 2.0 now just thought it out loud instead of suggesting stuff subconsciously.
"I know. Just keep doing what you were, don't make it awkward"
"Too late"
"Fuck"
"Thank you very much, I am very grateful", Nanami rushed her thanks as she tried to stop this conversation before a blush was visible on her face. But she could hear a small commotion on the other side of the wall just after she went back to her seat.
"Did they notice"
"I hope not"
Though on listening carefully, she heard Kaminari and Mineta trying to ask Nanami to copy their quirks too after seeing how she copied the quirks.
"Can I use their quirks?"
"Not in this battle, at least with our current plan…"
"Thought so.", Nanami wasn't still used to the 'our' thing.
"I know it feels weird but anything else wouldn't be correct"
"Yeah, yeah I know"
Ibara had returned to the stands and she seemed pretty dejected, the class did their best to make her not feel so, but it wasn't very effective. But in any case, Tokoyami easily pushed Ashido out of bounds almost instantly with the help of Dark Shadow and it was time for Nanami's match!
"You got to get one of those!", Tetsuya 2.0 was hyped as fuck after seeing Dark Shadow in action.
"Won't be of much use in my match though!"
Nanami directly made her way to the Arena and Bakougo started making his way there from the Waiting Room. As Nanami crossed the A section block, Kirishima wished her luck for her match. He held no grudges and was a constant reminder to Nanami that she got carried away last time for the sake of revenge, but at least this time she won't have the opportunity to do that. Bakougo was a force to reckon! On her way down, Tetsuya came rushing to her to wish her all the best for her match, but she knew exactly what he wanted to say and how he would say it. She could only reply with a short "Thank you" as she made her way to the stage.
"This is the last match of the top 8! On one side is Bakougo, who has taken an oath to take the first position and on the other side is Nanami, B-Section's last hope. Let the match begin!"
"Jeez did he have to put it this way?", Tetsuya 2.0 sighed over his nervousness.
"Shut it, I need to concentrate in this match, you'll know when you are needed!"
Without using any quirk, Nanami rushed at Bakougo to gauge her opponent for herself. But just like in his match against Uraraka, Bakougo launched an explosion towards his approaching opponent to push her away! However, Nanami easily managed to evade it and rushed at him again from a different side, but this time, not only did Bakougo quickly react to her attack in such quick succession, Nanami barely managed to evade his attack!
Nanami could feel her heart skip a beat as she felt the heat from her opponent's attack as it barely missed her face. She had gauged him enough to realise that the easy way won't work! However, now that she knew what to do, and with the plan ready in her mind, she snapped her fingers to use her quirk for the first in the finals!
With the nervousness of this match piling onto the anxiety of talking to Yaoyorozu on top of all the hopes of her classmates riding on her shoulders, Nanami substantially grew in size and slammed her fist down to create a dust screen to conceal her position! But added with the dust created by Bakougo's earlier attacks, Bakouogo's vision got completely hindered. However, he could hear heavy breathing around him and he realised that Nanami was using the Solid Air quirk. Tracing her sound, Bakouogo correctly predicted the location of the next Solid Air and landed a direct Explosion on it! Everyone could hear the sound of the solid air shattering.
But Nanami didn't get hit and instead she could be seen falling on Bakougo from directly above him. As the dust started clearing, he saw her falling from above him, he strengthened his stance and prepared the attack he launched against Uraraka's meteor shower! As Nanami fell ever so closer to him he could hear her repeating something but irrespective of that he launched his attack, seeing the attack a bit too late, she felt like she couldn't dodge it and so she tried to Harden so that she could survive his attack.
However, just in the nick of time, her body was taken over by Tetsuya 2.0 who watched all the while she was in the air and steered her clear of Bakougo's attack faster than she could move on her own!
"DO IT!", Tetsuya 2.0 shouted in her head!
Her plan was again on track, even though it might have seemed that she was just falling. She snapped her fingers and put the plan into its final stages!
"Bakougo's biggest attack was barely dodged by Nanami even though she was in the air!", Present Mic was clearly enjoying this match. "But now she has no control of her trajectory and Bakougo fires a quicker but smaller attack at her! What will she do?!"
That was indeed the question on everyone's mind! Nanami then started releasing a white liquid from her hand, which resembled Mina's acid from a distance! But somehow, that 'acid' seemed to counter Bakougo's attack and reduced its firepower.
"I can't do that!", Mina exclaimed as everyone looked at her for an explanation.
"She is definitely not copying Mina, her physical appearance would have changed too.", Monoma explained to the people in their block looking for an explanation.
Whatever it was, it worked and extinguished Bakougo's fire completely! Then with the liquid-foam still pouring out of her hand, she locked fist with Bakougo covering his hand in this foam. Bakougo then realised what she was muttering on her way down. But, amidst his realisation, he was kicked back by a strong kick and Nanami then snapped her fingers again.
As Bakougo threw a punch at her while she rushed at him, she easily dodged his punch and while doing so, Bakougo could see frost developing on her right and then he felt a freezing chill on his fist as the foam on his hand froze…