Chapter 31- Unyielding

The time had come for my next fight, and while I had come up with several ideas to use against Kirishima, I wasn't confident enough in any of them to build an entire strategy that I could put into practise. Instead, I would be forced to simply see how things unfolded and make up a plan on the fly, and I could only hope that that we be good enough.

The announcement that we should both make our way to the preparation rooms rang through the stadium, and we each moved to leave the observation box after getting well-wishes from our respective groups. It was only when I turned to leave that I had noticed that Ojiro had returned and was sitting with Koda and Hagakure next to the exit door, it seems that he didn't even announce his arrival. Ojiro was absorbed in conversation with Hagakure, and only when I moved past him did his eyes flick towards me, but I couldn't get a read on his expression before he turned away again.

Once I was out of the observation box I moved to the right side of the corridor, which turned towards Room A, whereas Kirishima was directed to Room B. At least I knew the way to the room this time, so I should have plenty of time to prepare and warm up.

"Hey, Shinso!" Kirishima called out to me, and by the time I had turned to face him he had jogged over and was stood just in front of me "I just want to say something before you go."

I immediately thought of my recent exchange with Ojiro, and a creeping dread in the back of my mind reared its ugly head as I wondered what exactly Kirishima was going to say. But whatever concerns I had were banished when I saw the wide grin on Kirishima's face.

"I just wanted to talk to you before the match!" Kirishima called out again, grinning again as soon as I met his gaze "I just wanted to clear the air before we started the fight."

"Oh yeah?" I tried to stay open to Kirishima but I couldn't quite manage to keep the cynicism out of my voice.

"Yeah!" Kirishima punched one hand into the other for emphasis "I've seen you fighting before but we've never actually fought in training before, so I've been hoping to come up against you today!"

"Right…" I wasn't sure exactly how to respond to this declaration of intent, but before I could say anything else Kirishima spoke up again.

"I guess I've been wanting to test myself against you." Kirishima sounded a bit more relaxed when he spoke against "You've got all of those impressive moves and techniques, and I wanted to see how I could do against you."

"Isn't this a certain win for you though, I can't really harm you with your Hardening?" I was testing the waters with this question, I guess I wanted to see what Kirishima's view on the coming battle was. "I expect that this should be a fairly easy win for you."

"I had thought about that as well." Kirishima scratched the back of his head in what I assumed to be an attempt to relieve the tension "But you've got the same look in your eyes that I've seen before, so I'm guessing you've got a plan."

"We'll see." I chuckled, hoping not to give away that I was still figuring out what to do "I wouldn't want to give away anything before the big show."

"I guess you're right, but don't think I'll be going down easy!" Kirishima slammed his hands together again, displaying an enthusiasm that easily rubbed off on me "I can already feel it, this is gonna be a great battle!"

"I'm looking forwards to it." I answered earnestly this time, I always found myself getting pumped up before a fight, serious or training "So did you just come here to wish me good luck?£

"I guess I want to say that I admire the way you act." Kirishima chuckled in something close to embarrassment "You've got that manly spirit, and I'm looking forwards to fighting against you. I just wanted to make sure that there weren't any hard feelings."

I wasn't really sure how to reply to such an earnest declaration, but I knew that Kirishima had certainly gone up in my estimations, even though this was our first conversation that lasted longer than a few seconds. It seemed that Kirishima was intent on befriending all of Class A, even managing to have Bakugo react towards him with less explosive vitriol than he treated the rest of the class, which spoke to Kirishima's determination if not his taste in company.

"No hard feeling here." I finally replied, holding out my hand in an offering of peace "Let's have a good fight, no matter who comes out on top in the end."

"You've got it!" Kirishima grabbed my offered forearm in a traditional gesture of respect, which I returned "And may the best man win!"

I nodded in agreement, and we both went our separate ways, ready for the fight that would occur in only a few minutes in the arena below. I felt far more at ease with the upcoming battle, since I knew that there was no enmity between me and Kirishima, and he made the battle sound more like a friendly sparring match than a battle in the largest sports event in the country.

Though I appreciated the easing of tensions, that didn't mean that I wasn't going to try my hardest to win the fight, and I was certain that Kirishima was thinking exactly the same thing at this moment. I made my way to the preparation room for one last attempt at figuring out a plan, or at the least to get warmed up and ready for the fight ahead.

Facing down Kirishima was fairly intimidating, and the knowledge of his strengths and capabilities only intensified this feeling, though I endeavoured to remain as calm and collected as possible. I dimly heard Midnight reciting the rules of the battle as the cheers of the crowd faded into the background, all of my focus was on Kirishima, and I tuned out any noise or sights that might distract me. I took slow and deep breaths as the countdown towards the beginning of the match rang out across the arena, steadying my heartbeat and preparing for battle.

As soon as the battle began, Kirishima rushed towards me while activating his Hardening over his entire body, readying himself for both attack and defence. I spent every second that I could spare watching how Kirishima moved his limbs as he moved towards me, knowing that these first few seconds could potentially set the tone of the entire fight. Once Kirishima was close enough and ready to attack, I leapt diagonally away from Kirishima and out of his range, stopping him from landing any hits on me.

After much deliberation, I had come up with a loose three-step strategy that I believed would give me the best chance of beating Kirishima, though it was admittedly a rather tenuous plan. Each step of the strategy would require me to think and act in a totally different way, and the whole plan would only work if certain assumptions I had made about Kirishima's Quirk were true.

The first phase was the one that I was executing right now: Avoidance. I knew that I had no chance of doing any meaningful damage to Kirishima while his Hardening was active, so I would just stay out of his reach and observe his actions until the time came to execute the second phase. It was frustrating to have to fight in such a restrained way, and I had to stop myself from striking out and exploiting obvious weaknesses, knowing that any attack would be futile.

I had to stay away from Kirishima as much as possible, since even a single hit while he had his Hardening Quirk active could be a significant drawback, and it was difficult to recover once hampered by an injury. At the very least I knew that Kirishima's range was exactly as far as his fists could reach, which meant that keeping a safe distance was fairly achievable. I remembered my various acrobatics techniques that Aizawa had hired a dance teacher to teach me, and now seemed like a better time than most to deploy these moves.

The fight was a game of chase and escape, with Kirishima racing after me and trying to attack with brutal punches whenever he got close enough, and me leaping, diving or ducking away from any blows that got a little too close for comfort. Moving backwards constantly meant that I was able to keep my momentum going throughout the battle, leading one jump into the next to make my movement more efficient. I stayed light on my feet during most battles, though this was the first time that I had spent an entire fight just dodging attacks without making any attacks of my own.

Kirishima's attacks were wide and slow, but he punched with good form and it was clear that he could throw a solid punch even without his Quirk active, speaking to a good deal of training in the physical skills needed to make best use of his Quirk. I was more accustomed to making quick jabs with my fists rather than the wide swings that Kirishima employed, but then again he didn't really need to worry about keeping his arms close at all times for defence. I imagined that having built in defence meant that Kirishima only really learned the offensive half of combat techniques, a weakness that I was counting on for my plan later on.

Kirishima made a particularly wide swing that left him open for enough time to make a safe counter attack, and I decided to test the waters of his toughness if I needed to resort to all-out attack later on. Deciding to preserve my hands, I lashed out with a quick kick to Kirishima's chest, planting my foot solidly into his stomach. It would have been a solid hit against any other opponent, the kind of hit that could potentially turn a draw into a victory in a single blow.

Unfortunately, Kirishima was unaffected by the hit, barely even moving or flinching despite all of the force that I had put into the blow so that I could better test his toughness. The affect on my leg felt like kicking a brick wall, and I was glad that I hadn't gone for a punch since that would have probably done some serious damage to my hand. Kirishima did seem slightly stunned that I had seemingly shifted towards attacking, and I used this brief moment of shock to pull myself back from my strike and leap out of the way and back into safety.

Kirishima went straight back into attacking as soon as he saw me leap out of the way, and I returned to dodging and jumping away from him in what had become an almost familiar pattern of avoidance. I knew that falling into a pattern when fighting was always a bad thing, and if I wasn't careful then Kirishima would figure out a weakness in my movements and find a way to start landing hits on me.

I could hear the voices and calls of the crowds slowly growing louder and louder, and from what I could discern they were slightly frustrated at the lack of action and combat in this fight so far, apparently having been expecting a dramatic clash of Quirks. I wasn't particularly concerned with pleasing the crowd though, so they would just have to wait until I could put the second part of my plan into action. I assumed that the Pro Heroes had a little more patience than the civilians when it came to how the fights unfolded, since I knew that I would still have to attract the attention of a few Pros to get offers for Internships.

As I pondered this, a particularly ambitious backwards leap had pushed me into one of the corners of the arena, leaving me unable to continue on my backwards path and Kirishima's wide stance meant that a retreat to either the left or the right was too risky to attempt. Kirishima was clearly aware of my current predicament as well, and he lunged forwards to capitalise on my situation and maybe even knock me out of the ring. It seemed like a total dead end, but there was something rather audacious that I could attempt that might just work, though I had never quite mastered the move before my training before I entered UA had come to an end.

I held my arms up above my side and crouched low for a second, testing my balance as I watched Kirishima get closer and closer with raised fists, ready to take me out. With a single leap, I jumped towards Kirishima as high as I could manage while tucking my legs in and rolling myself forwards in mid-air, using my momentum and the movement of my body to carry myself forwards. Once I was over Kirishima, I extended my legs and planted both feat squarely on his back, kicking off again by extending my legs and diving forwards. This second leap off of Kirishima's back renewed my momentum and sent me several metres behind him, where I managed to land without falling or stumbling.

This move felt like an eternity, but I knew that it had barely even been a second; and while I had counted through the steps individually, the move as a whole was reminiscent of a flip that led into a kick on Kirishima's back that launched me out of the corner and into safety. I heard a brief cheer from the crowd at the display of acrobatics, though this barely even registered in my focused perception, I was mainly just relieved that the move had gone off as planned. If any of those steps had gone wrong, I could have been pushed out of the ring or just landed flat on my face, but I had somehow managed to land at a good distance.

I had foolishly hoped that the kick on Kirishima's back might have put him off balance while he was lunging forwards, and possibly even knock him out of the ring for a lucky finish on my part. But Kirishima's stance and movements were rock solid, and it seemed that I had done little to disrupt his movements, though it was clear that he was caught off guard by my sudden escape from the trap I had put myself in. After a second to process what had happened, Kirishima turned to face me again, clearly ready to continue the fight that had briefly been paused.

I used the brief pause in the battle to pull myself back onto my feet and steady my breathing, ready to continue the repeated dodging that I had been undergoing for the past few minutes. I was glad that these battles didn't have a time limit, since my plan would take a while to execute and I didn't fancy losing on a technicality before I was able to pull off what I had planned. Still, I could already feel my stamina beginning to ebb from all the dodging and leaping, and I could only hope that I would be able to begin phase two before I ran out of energy myself.

Up above the rest of the stadium, Shinso's two hidden observers watched his latest fight with interest, taking in every move that their prospective recruit made. They had been impressed with Shinso's actions so far, but they kept a constant scepticism of the student that had been presented to them. This wasn't an act of spite, but merely a necessity of the job that they had both devoted themselves to.

"He's doing well so far." The woman spoke to her colleague first, briefly looking over the sunglasses she had used to conceal her face "I admit, Eraser's proposal is seeming a little more reasonable now."

"I'm still not sure, putting a kid through all of this." The man replied, gesturing his hand to both himself and his colleague "It doesn't seem right, you know?"

"We were both kids when we were approached as well." She shot back, reminiscing about the past "The Network knows that it's easier to reveal The Lie when our new recruits are younger, it gives them more time to get over it."

"We were both graduates, we were more experienced." He retorted, feeling uneasy with the content of their conversation "Recruiting somebody still in school is insane, let alone a First Year."

"Eraser was a Third Year when he was recruited." The woman replied, looking around to reassure herself that everybody was focused on the fight and not on their conversation. "And he's ended up being one of our most successful members."

"Eraser was a special case." He murmured, recalling when Eraserhead was brought into the network only a year after himself "He had an incredible Quirk and an attitude towards society that made him ideal for us."

"Both of those things are true about Shinso as well." She answered, sighing briefly to relive some of the tension her shoulders carried "Believe me, I'm not comfortable with this either."

"I'm not disputing how suitable he is." He sighed as well, hating arguing with his long-time colleague "I just don't want to force somebody so young into our line of work."

"I know what you mean, but we don't have the luxury of time." The woman removed her sunglasses and massaged her eyes in stress, showing an expression of exhaustion "Dozens of threats we've been monitoring have all flared up at once, and now this 'League of Villains' shows up and attacks UA."

"We need new operatives, I agree." The man groans in frustration, an injury from his last raid was still giving him trouble "But pushing children into our world isn't the way to fix that problem."

"What choice do we have? We've always recruited slowly; we have to if we want to survive." She shrugged and replaced her sunglasses over her tired eyes "We have a small pool of suitable candidates as well."

"Right, most people don't have the attitude or mental fortitude to last in this job." He carried on her train of thought "Anybody who's been a Pro Hero for more than a few months is compromised too heavily for us to use them, so we can only grab new students that aren't too heavily involved in the system."

"Right, so we need somebody who's all of the following: not a Pro for more than a few months, not a blind idealist, doesn't have any family in the industry, has a compatible Quirk, has the right frame of mind and willing to bend traditional rules for the greater good." She counted out each point on her fingers for emphasis "Once all of those conditions have been met, we're left with very few people to choose from."

"And we're looking at somebody who meets all of those conditions right now." The man groaned, admitting the position he was in "Not only that, but he comes with a recommendation from a member of The Network."

"He's an ideal candidate, and he comes with UA-grade training as well, so we don't even need to worry about teaching him the basics." She replied, not sounding elated even though she had just won her point "In any other situation, We'd have approached him up by now."

"Except for his age."

"Except for his age."

"Damn, you're right." The man chuckled without humour, realising the truth of his situation "So, what do we do?"

"We don't do anything, at least not right now." The woman corrected, looking back towards the arena "It's up to Eraser to take the first step, the kid is his responsibility after all."

"So we just sit back and assess his skills?" He looked back towards the fight as well, watching the battle in progress "I admit, watching him fight is certainly interesting."

"We'll see him soon enough." She replied, thinking through the file on Shinso that Aizawa had sent to The Underground Network "It's only around two weeks, then we'll see if he's really up for the task."

Kirishima threw another Hardened punch, which I was barely able to dodge while also somehow managing to keep my footing, and I leapt backwards before Kirishima had a chance to follow up on his attack with another series of punches. That was one of the closest calls yet, and it was a mixture of training and luck that had kept me in the fight without receiving a hit. I had kept the distance between myself and Kirishima fairly consistent throughout the fight so far, staying at least three metres away whenever I could so that Kirishima couldn't lunge forwards and attack me without giving me time to react.

It was only this close call with Kirishima that let me notice a certain detail that I might otherwise have missed in the heat of battle, a detail that I had been looking for ever since the fight had begun. Just around the collar of Kirishima's shirt, I could see that his skin had returned to it's usual soft state, no longer being reinforced by his Quirk, and a quick glance revealed that same was true around his arms where the sleeves of his shirt started.

My suspicions were correct then, maintaining Hardening for extended periods of time was draining for Kirishima, and in order to save energy he was deactivating his Quirk in concealed areas to maintain the appearance of total strength. This was the true purpose of the first phase, to see if Kirishima's power would ebb and to draw out the fight for as long as possible in order to make the next step easier. Now that I had confirmed that my plan would work, phase two could begin.

Phase two was Weakening, and to accommodate this new approach I stepped out of my evasive stance and into a more traditional combat stance, ready to engage in a more direct manner. Kirishima grinned at this change in pace, and he leapt forwards and started to attack again, wide punches flying from both arms with a surprising speed. I dodged each of there blows in turn, though I kept my dodges quick so that I had time to deliver my own counter attacks, which formed the bedrock of phase two.

I delivered a series of quick jabs to different areas of Kirishima's chest, and while some of my punches were stopped by the shock of Hardened skin, a few of my blows struck unprotected areas, which visibly caused Kirishima to wince with the sudden impact. As I dodged another punch, I realised that Kirishima was likely unused to receiving damage in combat due to his strong defence, and this meant that I would be able to catch him off guard. I noticed Kirishima's skin around his neck seemed to shift between Hardened and normal, and I realised that he was unsure of which parts of his body to defend.

This was the plan behind phase two, since I had confirmed that Kirishima's stamina was weakened by maintaining Hardening, I would continually make quick attack against areas of his body that he wasn't using his Quirk on in order to preserve energy. The benefit of this plan was that Kirishima would expend energy by continuing to Harden large areas of his body, and I would also be able to start landing solid hits on my opponent, which would likely expend even more of his stamina.

As I ducked under another wide punch, I raised my left leg and aimed a kick towards Kirishima's exposed neck, but as my strike was about to land I saw his neck Harden and turn to unyielding rock. I used the momentum of my kick to instead throw the attacking leg sideways onto the ground and spin myself sideways into another stance. As the attacking leg landed on the ground I shifted all of my weight to it and kicked with my other leg instead, this time hitting Kirishima squarely in the stomach. Kirishima must have been caught off guard by this sudden switch of attacks, as his stomach was unprotected and he stumbled backwards with the impact of the hit.

Kirishima's durability and stamina was waning, and the affects of this were becoming more and more obvious as time went on. This was the best chance I had to win before I was totally drained of energy as well, and the fight came down to pure endurance. Now was the time to put phase three into action, which was by far the most risky part of the plan so far, though it was my best chance of winning.

Phase three was Confrontation, where I would take on Kirishima directly and exploit every weakness that I had noticed so far and hopefully secure myself victory in this battle. I didn't change my stance at all for this final phase, since I didn't want to give away that I had changed my approach again, and ensuring that Kirishima wasn't aware of what was about to happen was crucial to ensuring that this phase went off without a hitch. But as soon as Kirishima went to attack me again, that is when this part of the plan would go into action.

Sure enough, a winded Kirishima threw a Hardened punch straight towards me, and unlike every other strike that had been thrown towards me in this fight so far, I made no effort to avoid this punch, instead I faced it head on. As the punch was about to make impact, I grabbed Kirishima's extended arm with both hands and pulled it towards me and to the side, pulling him off balance and weakening his usually solid stance. As Kirishima stumbled, I stepped around him and wrapped both my arms around his shoulders, joining my hands together behind his head in a Full Nelson grab.

Kirishima realised what I was doing and flailed against the hold, but I managed to keep my grasp together despite the sensation of Kirishima's hardened arms cutting into my own limbs. I gritted my teeth through the pain and began to push forwards, using all my remaining strength to slowly march Kirishima forwards, despite his attempts at staying still or escaping from my hold. It seemed that maintaining Hardening took more energy out of Kirishima than I had first realised, as I was sure that he would be able to escape from my hold or resist being pushed if he was still in peak condition.

From what I could discern, it seemed that the areas of his body that Kirishima was able to keep Hardened were getting softer as well, no longer being as solid and unyielding as what I had clashed against earlier. I kept pushing forwards slowly and steadily, forcing Kirishima to keep stepping forwards, and he must have eventually realised what I was planning by keeping him in this hold for so long. With each step that I forced Kirishima to take, we got closer and closer to the edge of the arena, and my plan was to force Kirishima off the edge of the arena by making him unable to dodge or avoid being pushed out.

Once we were stood at the very edge of the arena, Kirishima made one last attempt to stop himself from being pushed out, fully deactivating Hardening all over his arms and head, and I could tell from his change in stance that he had Hardened his legs. It was a smart play, and it would probably have made it impossible to move Kirishima any further, if not for a logical weakness in the way that his power functioned that I could exploit to my own advantage.

In order for Kirishima to be able to move while his Quirk was active, his joints must still be able to bend so that he could walk and swing his fists. With this fact in mind, I pulled one of my legs up and delivered a strong kick to the back of Kirishima's left knee, and my theory was instantly proved when the force of the blow knocked him forwards and weakened his stance. Seeing this work, I kicked the back of his other knee as well, and as soon as Kirishima dropped slightly, I saw my opportunity to end the fight.

As Kirishima dropped to his knees, I released my hold and took a half-step backwards, raising my left leg and lashing out as hard as I could with a kick on his back. Kirishima's stance was gone, and he didn't have the time to react before my hit connected, and it sent him falling over the edge of the ring and into the grass below.

There was a pause for a second where all I could hear was my own breath, and I watched from the edge of the arena as Kirishima pulled himself back to his feet. I gasped for air and stretched my arms outwards as my adrenaline slowly faded at the end of the fight, and I waited for the silence to subside as the end of the fight was broadcast across the screens. Soon enough the crowd erupted into cheers and applause, and Midnight's voice rang through the arena, the speakers casting her voice all throughout the stadium and into the crowd far above me.

"Ejiro Kirishima has been knocked out of the ring!" Midnight called out, and this time I at least had the energy to turn and see the Pro make the announcement "Hitoshi Shinso Wins!"

Author's Note

And Shinso adds another victory to his list of accomplishments, though this one might have been even more narrow than the last. It was certainly fun to write a Chapter with Shinso fighting Kirishima, given that he is impervious to most of Shinso's combat techniques and is able to throw out a serious offence of his own.

In the end, I had to have Shinso display his more tactical side again, which is something I know that a lot of you enjoy, since showing Shinso's tactics is always fun. I tried to come up with logical weaknesses for Kirishima's Quirk alongside with what's been shown in canon, though I have to give special thanks to user alexanderjuarez499 for giving me the idea of using Kirishima's joints as a weakness for his Quirk that Shinso is able to exploit.

The next Chapter will show the other three fights taking place in this round, which I should be able to dive into a bit more deeply than the last round given that there are fewer fights for me to explore. After that will be Shinso's next fight, you can probably guess who it will be, but in the name of narrative suspense I'll keep things mysterious for now.

I have a Discord server now, and it'll be nice to see you there if you decide to come along. The link is in my profile, and I'll be glad to see you there.

Thanks for reading, I'll see you next time.

And to answer some reviews:

Aleska1492: I'm glad that you enjoyed Shinso's commentary on the fights, and I hope that the expanded Chapters and the additional commentary was a good read. I hope that you enjoyed the fight with Kirishima, it was definitely a strength vs. skill fight and I hope that the eventual victory for Shinso was a satisfying outcome. You're right to say that Asui, Shoji and Tokoyami all have difficult fights ahead, I wanted to make it that all four of them could conceivably lose their fights, and even though Shinso won his battle, the others could still go either way. As for Iida, as far as I can tell he got the news about his brother after his loss against Todoroki in the third round, so that won't come into play just yet. Thanks for the great review and don't apologise for writing a long comment, that's my favourite kind of thing to read and reply to.

Klincher: Thanks for the review, you're right that things weren't detailed enough and I hope that the revised Chapters and this new fight was a good read and that things came out better.

Raven Mordrake: You're dead on with how things unfolded, Kirishima is certainly a competent fighter but Shinso had enough skill to figure out a way to overcome him. I hope you enjoyed this Chapter and that the fight was a good read.

Takajou: Thanks for the positive review, I hope you enjoyed this Chapter as well.

Evergone the Great: Dead on as always Evergone, though it wasn't an easy fight you're right that Shinso was able to come out on top. As for Bakugo, you're right that it's going to be an incredibly difficult fight, but we'll have to see how things pan out.

StandupSitdown 1: I'm gonna split my replies up because these reviews were pretty long, so thank you for giving me such an enthusiastic and interesting review. The cheerleader thing was just a gag I thought of in the moment, since I thought it would be funny to see Shinso's reaction to such a strange situation. Work has been pretty busy for me as well, and I'm glad to hear you've had the chance to catch a breath and get yourself some time to relax. I mainly went for the Ojiro rivalry since they have conflict in canon and I liked the contrast between their worldviews, glad to hear that you liked the setup.

StandupSitdown 2: Glad to hear that you enjoyed the fight, I enjoy writing the step-by-step actions in combat so it's good to see that that came across well. There will be reactions to Shinso's fights sprinkled throughout the coming Chapters as well, I hope you enjoy those.

StandupSitdown 3: It's good to see that you liked Shinso's insights, though I've expanded them into two Chapters after some feedback and my own thoughts that things were too brief. I like the idea of using Brainwashing in small amounts for an advantage, and while I had finished the Kirishima fight before I saw your review, I'll keep it in mind for the next fight. I'm not sure what would happen in canon if Kirishima was Brainwashed, but my own interpretation would be that the Quirk would deactivate, since it requires conscious effort to maintain and Brainwashing totally shuts down any movement or thought. Thanks again for the extensive reviews, and I hope that you enjoyed these two Chapters as well.

Amelia831: Thanks for the review, and I hope you enjoyed this Chapter as well. You're right that the fight was difficult, but Shinso was just about able to come out on top. An interaction with Stain would certainly be interesting, and while I have the Internship mostly planned out since it's the point where everything comes together, I'll keep that idea in mind.

Peggy: I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed this new Chapter, and I hope that the fight with Kirishima was satisfying and an enjoyable read. I'm glad to hear that you enjoy the dynamic between Aizawa and Shinso, which is something that I always enjoy writing and coming back to.