Rule #53: Arrogance makes idiots of us all
Following the somewhat humiliating debrief of the first round where every student's participation in the fight was picked apart by the teachers like they were being stood in a police line-up, the two teams for the next round were called down to the arena. "Come, mes amies, we must prepare!" Aoyama sang as he danced towards the stairs with his classmates on his heels.
"Right!' Toru chirped, skipping to follow after him as she silently promised to meet up with Shinso later. Following after the others, the invisible girl couldn't help but feel a little out of her place amongst her teammates; not in skill level (although there may have been some of that there) but because they all wore capes or cloaks of some kind and she felt like she had missed a memo of some kind, as silly as it sounded.
"Hey Yaoyorozu?" Said Kendo.
"Yes? What is it, Kendo?" Momo hummed.
"Why weren't you in the pageant? I thought I'd see you there. I'm sure you would've stood a good chance"
"For some reason Aizawa-Sensei failed to tell us that something like that would be taking place. I also had band practise, so I wouldn't have had time to prepare for it. I s'pose he must've decided a pageant wasn't necessary for my hero progress"
"Hm. After we were in that commercial during our internship, I think some people have started to put us in the same category. Our fans have pushed us into a box"
"Into a box?"
"Y'know, it's like when people think that idols in the same genre are all alike" Toru helped when she watched the rich girl's face go blank. "At the School Festival, the same people shouted 'Yaoyorozu!' and 'Kendo!' 'cause they've lumped you together"
"Oh!" Momo perked up. "Now that you've mentioned it…"
"Ugh! Idolatry, a troubling ritual" Tokoyami groused as Kuroiro grinned in agreement.
"Adultery?" Momo reiterated in confusion over the avian's vernacular.
"Not the same thing!" Toru panicked, hands flapping about.
"Look, if I'm being honest, your grades & Quirk are both better than mine, Yaoyorozu" Kendo continued.
"I wouldn't say that—" Momo tried.
"—It's easy to see! But I wanna be my own hero! Which is why I'm dying to try my hand against you today!"
"…I accept, gladly, with all of my heart"
Challenge issued, the two teams came to a pause at the intersection where the two teams would part and head for their respective jails."Hey Tokoyami?" Kuroiro sang, turning to the avian with a sinful grin on his lips.
"Hm?" Tokoyami hummed.
"If you think about it, we're basically the same type too"
"If you say so"
"Hehe, you & I share a destiny, we are brothers in the shadows"
"Oh? You have also stared into the abyss?"
"Heh, long live eternal darkness, my friend!"
"Great, now there's two of them!" Toru grumbled under breath as the two swapped dark poetry lines like teenage girls swapped song lyrics. "This is going to be so much fun!"
"Bah! Those two aren't twinkling at all!" Aoyama chuckled as they each moved to find their respective jailhouses and plan their strategies. Toru just tried not to think about all the eyes watching them.
"Both teams are at their bases and now its time" Blood King's voice echoed throughout the training ground. Even down in the arena, you could've heard him without the microphone. Honestly, he and Aizawa were like complete opposites. "TEAM KENDO, TEAR THEM TO PIECES! START THE SECOND MATCH!"
"STOP WITH THE BIAS COMMENTARY!" Mina's screech sounded faintly, but it still made Toru smile as the second match began.
"Right, let's go!" Momo instructed, taking the lead as Class A raced off back down the path they had come from; all of them far too used to improvising on the run than thinking it out beforehand. "We'll start recognisance immediately" She turned to Tokoyami. "If you please?"
"Roger" Tokoyami nodded, "Now, Dark Shadow!"
"Got it!" Dark Shadow grinned as he surged forward from beneath Tokoyami's cloak raced ahead of them through the smallest & darkest of spaces with ease.
"Report back when you find the enemy"
"Leave it to me!"
There was barely a pause before Tokoyami's head jerked up in recognition as whatever feedback between the boy & his shadow was relayed in real time. "Dark Shadow's found our opponents. They're located near the chimneys"
"Quickly, then!" Momo chirped as they adjusted their course accordingly.
"Magnifique! You're able to let Dark Shadow go pretty far, now" Aoyama complimented, taking the words right out of Toru's mouth. Compared to the beginning of the year when the avian boy had next to no control over his Quirk, (particularly in the dark) he now soared (pun intended) leaps and bounds beyond where he had begun. "Did you level up during your work study as well?"
"Somewhat, yes" Tokoyami replied as he hurdled a rather large network of pipes. "But the further he is, the less time he lasts"
"Speak of the devil…" Toru trailed off as she noted the shadow's rapid return.
Something seemed off with Dark Shadow; he was moving erratically and cawing like a bird in pain. His eyes appeared pained even as he returned, the connection between himself and his vessel pulled taut. It didn't take an expert to see that something was seriously wrong. "Stand back!" Tokoyami cried out, making them all slam on the breaks just as Dark Shadow punched his vessel clear across the arena.
"Tokoyami!" Momo worried.
"What's going on?!" Aoyama asked as the shadow writhed in pain. "This isn't right!"
"Fumi…kage!" Dark Shadow rasped as his body to seem to move of its own will. "He…got…me!"
"Did 'Yami lose control?" The blonde cried as he jumped out of the way of a wayward claw, one which barely scraped the back on his armour.
"But there's plenty of light out here!" Toru replied as she leapt onto a higher vantage point. "Does Class B have a possession quirk in their arsenal?"
"No time to question it now!" Momo replied as she dodged out of the way. "We need more light!"
"Right!" Toru nodded as she spun on her heel, arms spread wide. "Twinkles! Light me!"
"Bon appétit, mon ami!" Aoyama declared as he shot a beam of light from his navel laser straight towards her.
"Ha! You…missed!" Dark Shadow grit out.
"He wasn't aiming for you!" Toru smirked as white light engulfed her vision.
"Oh no…"
"COMBO MOVE: LANTERN—!"
Toru grit her teeth and stumbled a step or two at the sudden impact; but as soon as the light hit her system she felt like she was flying on cloud nine. Once her vision had exploded into violet, the invisible girl turned to the shadow who loomed dangerously—warily— above them. Toru faced the blackbird with a giddy grin on her face and unfurled the whip at her hip. Giddily, she could feel her quirk surged through her and down into the whip in her hands until it came to the tip where it formed a morning star of epic proportions.
"—MORNING STAR!" At her call, Toru leapt into the air and swung her newly acquired weapon towards Dark Shadow. It shone violet, bright & proud, like a thousand suns and burnt through the brunt of the shadow with enough force to make him retreat back into Tokoyami. Powered by Aoyama's quirk, she was much faster than normal and part of her revelled in the look of shaken horror that gleamed in the bird's eyes as she brought it down upon his head. And part of her—the bigger part—hated that she had to hurt her friends, but she knew that short term pain now would equal long term gain later on.
"Look! Kuroiro was inside Dark Shadow!" Toru pointed up towards the boy as she kept a grip on her morning star, landing upon the violet head with a crouch as it touched down. The boy in question, descended from the heavens like a wingless bird now that he had been ejected from his ride, but he didn't seem discouraged by this at all. In fact, if Toru hadn't known any better, she would've said he looked almost gleeful at the act. No sooner had his toes touched the floor did he take off again, but not without Momo relentlessly chasing after him as she threw all manner of capture items at him. But all were in vain, particularly as he disappeared back into the shadows that almost seemed to swallow him whole. Brothers in the shadows, indeed.
"He vanished!" Aoyama cried.
"Escaped into the shadows!" Momo cursed, coming up alongside the blonde. "So that's his power in action!"
"Hehe!" Kuroiro giggled manically as he popped out from a shadowed pipe behind Tokoyami, "Tokoyami Fumikage, I swear I will vanquish you! Hehe~ You and I share a hallowed destiny of darkness after all!"
"I see, fated rivals? Very well" Tokoyami hummed as he ripped his cloak from his shoulders and turned to face the shadow boy behind him. "I'll use your challenge to reveal something, a move I discovered when working with Hawks"
"…A new move?"
"That's right—Dark Fallen Angel"
"Hehe~Dark Fallen Angel? Sounds dramatic! Show me what you've got, Tsukuyomi!" Kuroiro sneered as he slipped back into the stubborn and unforgiving darkness.
"He's moving through the shadows again!" Momo worried as she and Aoyama hurried to place themselves around the large violet construct upon which Toru rested.
"Still only one of them attacking?" Aoyama asked, shifting slightly against the heat that radiated against his back. "This is unexpected"
"Tokoyami? Are you okay?" Toru called out.
"Yes" He nodded, body tense and ready for a fight. They all were.
The silence seemed to stretch on, broken only by Kuroiro's gleeful cackles that bounced this way and that as he swam through the shadows. Toru had half a mind to flood the entire area with light, but she didn't want to blind her own teammates or lose what power she had stored up from the combo move. Shit! She cursed, chewing at her lower lips as she scanned the shadows Korosensei would be so pissed if he saw us right now!
Her hands dug into the violet construct at her feet as shame washed over the invisible girl and she remembered his teachings. The yellow octopus had told them time & time again how so often too much arrogance, rage and pride would be their downfall. Rage blinded your vision as it tunnelled it down to nothing, arrogance blinded you to your own faults and pride blinded you to the aspect of even losing. Humility, it was the one thing that the yellow octopus had tried to shove down their throats (aside from the occasional pudding and deep fried napkin), but they were teenagers; stubborn to a fault.
"Yah!" Aoyama suddenly yelped as he was yanked off of his feet and dragged off into the intricate network of pipes by the hood of his cape. Toru practically jumped at the sudden call, her morning star disappearing on a dime as the blonde was taken from them.
"Aoyama!" Momo despaired over Kuroiro's chortles and the blonde's screeches.
"Twinkles!" Toru chorused as Dark Shadow suddenly appeared and wrapped himself around Tokoyami before both took to the air and chased after them. "He can fly?!"
"…So it would seem" Momo blinked in disbelief before the two girls shook off the reveal of the new move and turned to chase after their teammates.
Toru found it almost too easy to keep up with the boys but she had to keep pausing to wait for the rich girl to keep up. Powered by the concentrated light she had absorbed, Toru buzzed as she hopped & climbed through the intricate network system. She felt like she could run at the speed of light, but again, she refrained from doing so on the fact that she wanted to savour the power she had obtained. Surging ahead at this point would just get her in trouble, or more importantly, her peers who very likely would not be able to handle her quirk if she found herself losing control of her quirk much like what had happened during the Provisional Licensing Exam.
Thankfully the two girls were soon able to spot Tokoyami, now in possession of Aoyama, flying high above their heads."Aoyama! Your Navel Buffet!" Momo instructed to the pair above them. "Tokoyami, cover the area!"
"Dark Shadow, get under the cloak" Tokoyami ordered as the hooded shadow retreated further beneath the material which now served to help the pair fly.
"I shall give light to these dark shadows!" Aoyama sang as his quirk surged, raining down bolts of laser light that pierced every shadow within reach. "NAVEL BUFFET!"
It was in this rain of light that the two girls were able to quickly discern Kuroiro as he appeared clinging to one of the pipes up ahead and searching for another shadow to escape into; something that was becoming harder to find thank to the two boys. "There he is, Hagakure!" Momo pointed.
"I see him!" Toru responded as she sped up, her toes barely touching upon pipe as she bounded along. "Let's nab him! Hurry!"
"That's as far as you go!" Momo snarled when the two girls had him cornered.
"We won't let you escape!" Toru added.
"Launching a surprise attack alone? Bold move and certainly unexpected" The rich girl crouch low as if preparing to charge the blackened boy."No matter, I expect the unexpected"
"Oh?" Kuroiro hummed as he skidded to a stop in front of the two.
Why is he smiling? Toru's eyes narrowed.
"I don't know about that—"
"—Stand down!" She called, hands fizzing with whichever creation she had in mind.
"You don't know when you're beat!" Toru snarled, her own hands ignited in violet and curled up into claws.
"Hehe~So it is true!" Kuroiro smirked, completely nonplussed about the two snarling girls before him. His grin widen (if at all possible) when a multitude of mushrooms suddenly sprang to life upon their exposed flesh and making them look like dryads straight out of a fantasy. "Kendo is better than you!"
"Mushrooms?!" Toru exclaimed as she tried to uselessly bat away the offending fungi suddenly attached to her body. "What the hell?!"
"It's just like our brilliant class red said, 'shroom!" Komori giggled as she appeared from where they had just come from, spraying some sort of chemical into the air that had mushrooms appearing as far as the eye could see. "If we see too much light then Plan A has failed! Haha~So we start Plan B! Cute lil' mushrooms for everybody!"
"Ugh! There's more?!" Mom despaired as she hid herself beneath the comforts of her cloak. Toru was starting to curse herself for not having that added accessory and for not coming up with a plan beforehand.
"Ah! Not cool! Not cool! You can see me!" Toru whined, about two seconds away from stomping her feet like a child. With both the invisible girl and the rich girl occupied, the two Class B students slipped back into the shadows to regroup with their classmates.
"These must be her quirk!"
"They won't stop growing!" She groused because for every 'shroom that she got rid of, two more popped up in their place. "I hate this! What's going on?!"
"Calm down and stay focused!" Momo replied, much more calmly than her counterpart. "We just need to regroup. Okay?"
KRR—BOOM!
"WHY'RE THERE WORDS COMING OUTTA THE GROUND?!" This time, she did stamp her feet.
