Chapter 54: The end of round of 16

Listeners! It's time for us to move on to our next fight!" Mic announced, "It's Mezou Shouji who was the pivot in Team Watanabe's plan last round, vs Uraraka Ochako, the one who humiliated Endeavour by puking on him!"

"It was an accident," Uraraka pouted hearing the commentary.

Some of the crowd chuckled at the memory of the incident while Endeavour fumed in his spot. Yagi had been keeping a keen eye on him and made sure he couldn't go to Shouto and give him a talking to. A single step out of line and he had no doubt he'd be thrown out. Nedzu was a man of his words.

"Oi! Wait a minute!" Someone called out, "Who won the last fight!?"

The crowd roared their approval, "Yeah, yeah! It was such a good match! Who's the winner?" They demanded.

Midnight waved her flag for silence, "On investigation, we found out that Watanabe was knocked unconscious before Tsuyu fell to the ground,"

"That sucks for him. Poor kid was top all this time," Someone commented.

"Watanabe didn't lose," Midnight announced, much to the surprise of the crowd, "What do you mean?" Someone shouted.

"When Tsuyu threw the weight, she fell unconscious immediately, making Watanabe the winner," Kayama explained.

"HUH!?" The crowd yelled.

"I don't get it," Some members of the crowd voiced their confusion.

"Me neither,"

"Look," Midnight shouted to gain their attention, "Basically, Tsuyu got knocked out first, then Watanabe, and then Tsuyu fell to the ground. Even though Tsuyu fell out of bounds later, she got knocked out first, got it!?"

The crowd cheered in response, "Man, the girl is going to be pissed. She just needed to be awake for a few seconds,"

"Yes, but the victory wasn't undeserved," Ms. Joke said, "Watanabe's endurance was better. It was just like a real fight, a few seconds was crucial for the win,"

"That is true but Tsuyu is really impressive," Ryukyu commented.

"Didn't say she wasn't," Ms. Joke replied, "Are you planning on nabbing her for the internship? You rarely show much interest," Emi inquired.

Ryukyu smiled politely, "I have my hands full with Hado. Maybe later,"

Emi sighed, "I'd like that Watanabe for myself. He looks pretty mischievous to me. Maybe I could teach him some tricks to annoy Aizawa," she mused out loud.

"No way! Watanabe is mine!" Snipe said pointedly.

"Eh, how so?" Emi asked, "It's up to him to choose,"

"I already called dibs,"

"That's not fair! You're his teacher you saw his potential earlier," Emi pouted.

"Deal with it,"

"Hmph, you deal with Nighteye. The guy thinks the kid is his second coming or something. You sure you can pry the kid away from All Might's sidekick?" Emi pointed out.

Snipe stayed silent after that remark, "What about Midoriya?" he asked, "He's pretty good too," Snipe remarked. All Might had already told all of the staff about the secret of his quirk and his connection with Midoriya to avoid questions. The relation between the symbol of peace and the staff was frosty after they discovered that he had originally told him he couldn't be a hero, but hey, he seemed apologetic.

"The kid's fighting style seems pretty fluid. I'd like to train him but I don't think I'm the right person for it," Edgeshot told them. Some of the lower-ranked heroes were impressed that Izuku managed to get one of the top 10's approval.

"I think I'd do a good job. I can train his strength," Death Arms told.

Snipe snorted, "Really you?"

Death Arms was offended, "Yeah, why not?"

Snipe started to laugh uproariously causing all the heroes to stare at Emi who looked confused, "What? I didn't use my quirk!"

"What is it?" Death Arms asked a bit aggressively.

"Oh, you don't remember trying to crucify him on national TV when you said weak quirks are liabilities!?" Snipe snarled aggressively.

The heroes flinched under Snipe's tone. They had rarely seen the cool and collected man lose it multiple times in a matter of minutes.

"B-but, that can't be! That kid was quirkless!" Death Arms said.

"Late bloomer," Snipe told quietly, using the lie that All Might had told them to use in case they were ever questioned. Snipe's words had jogged everyone's memory and now most of the heroes were staring at him with hostility. Death Arms gulped and stepped out of his seat, "I think I'll just patrol…" he said quietly and left.

"That's the third time Uraraka has floated herself back in after being thrown out of bounds!" Mic's booming voice suddenly erupted, "Will Uraraka be able to keep up her quirk usage enough to edge out Shouji's endurance?"

"The match started already?" Emi asked rhetorically.

"Yes, now keep quiet and let us watch," Nighteye told quietly causing Emi to roll her eyes in annoyance.

Shouji exhaled deeply as Uraraka used her quirk to avoid falling out of bounds. He was adamant that his plan would work, "My endurance is far better than Uraraka's. Her quirk will make it harder for me to win but she should yield sooner or later,"

Uraraka panted on the other end, wary of Shouji's moves. The boy was tall and big but unnaturally fast as Uraraka quickly discovered, "What should I do!?" She panicked inwardly, "Shouji knows I am at a disadvantage. My endurance is nothing compared to him and to win I have to get close to touch him but if I do that, he just grabs me first," Uraraka groaned, "At least Shouji is waiting to defend than attack, that gives me some time," Uraraka thought to herself, but she thought wrong.

Shouji was cunningly building up muscle fibers in his right arm to launch a long attack. It was a bit of a costly move but Shouji was willing to take the risk. He knew that the longer Uraraka had, the higher the probability he lost.

Shouji waited patiently for Uraraka to drop her guard even for just a second. His chance came as Uraraka looked elsewhere. Shouji let his muscle fibers rip. The elastic fibers recoiled with great force and sent a long muscular arm headed towards Uraraka's way.

Uraraka stared at the fast-approaching arm, taken by surprise. It was only her reflexes that caused her to duck. She was still struck square in her chest but managed to avoid a knockout blow to her head.

Uraraka flew out of the ring again. Shouji wasn't messing around this time. He grunted as he lifted his gigantic arm extension and caught Uraraka who had still not caught up to what was happening.

Right before Uraraka could activate her quirk, Shouji brought his arm down and slammed Uraraka to the ground.

Shouji grinned, he had won but his excitement was short-lived, "Uraraka Ochaco wins," Midnight stated calmly.

"W-what, how?" Shouji demanded.

"You're out of bounds," Midnight pointed to his arm that was coiled around Uraraka. Shouji paled, he had forgotten to bring his arm back to him after throwing Uraraka down, and now, it was his extension that was touching the ground out of bounds and not Uraraka.

Shouji sulked and absorbed his arm back as a dazed Uraraka slowly stood up, "I won?" she asked disbelievingly and then shouted excitedly, "I WON!" she jumped up.

Uraraka noticed Shouji looking on sadly and tried to comfort him, "Sorry Shouji, you should have won. I didn't stand a chance," she admitted.

Shouji smiled, or that's what Uraraka thought he did. it was hard to tell with a mask covering his face, "Don't worry about it. It was my stupidity that cost me,"

"So, no hard feelings?"

"None at all," Shouji replied as the two shook hands with a grin.

"Sheesh, that was so… anti-climatic," Kamui looked unimpressed.

"Not really. Shouji had a sturdy plan and almost pulled it off. It was just his inexperience that made him hasty and lose. I see quite the potential in him," Edgeshot praised.

"You're sounding like Eraserhead," Emi said in a flat tone. "But I'm sure Edgeshot just likes him because he wears a mask too," Emi teased with a giggle.

Edgeshot looked away but did not refute the statement causing some of the heroes to laugh, "The girl was pretty lucky to have won. She needs some combat training," Fat Gum observed.

"I thought All Might would be good at that, but I guess you can't be good at everything," Native thought out loud.

Mirai tensed hearing that. He never liked anyone bad-mouthing All Might. He doubted that he couldn't teach but he was also angry at his former colleague for not choosing Mirai as his successor.

Nighteye scowled at that memory and stared at Izuku with disappointment. The boy could barely control his power. He couldn't understand why on earth Yagi would choose someone so incompetent when he had trained Mirio to be the perfect successor.

Snipe noticed Mirai's dirty glare. He knew that Nighteye was All Might's former sidekick and now that he knew the truth about One for All, Snipe had an intuitive feeling of what Mirai was thinking. With a sigh, he stepped in, "Everything alright, Nighteye?"

Mirai put on a smile, "Of course,"

"Listeners, this will be the last match of this round of fights! It's the surprise entrance from the support course, Hatsume Mei! And the opponent is Class 1B's delinquent, Monoma Neito!"

The crowd cheered. Hatsume ran in with a cheerful smile, soaking in the crowd's attention, eager to show off her inventions, or as she called them, babies.

Meanwhile, Monoma had a scowl on his face, "Of course you'd label those with villainous quirk as delinquent. But with these inventions, I'll show them!" Monoma thought darkly as he clutched some of the inventions that Hatsume had handed to them.

"I thought she was going to try and win?" Momo looked at the inventions handed to Monoma.

"She is," Shouto replied, "She told me that she can't showcase it all, so she's giving the opponents some of her stuff too,"

"Of course she is," Momo facepalmed.

"Hey, you're part of the hero course, you can't be carrying support equipment," Midnight warned.

Monoma frowned, "Hatsume is the one who gave it to me,"

Mei nodded enthusiastically in response, "I wanted our match to be fair, sensei," Mei slightly lied.

Midnight squealed, "Such a display of youth! I'll allow it!" she ruled.

"Hah, is she even allowed to do that?" Mic asked his friend.

"I suppose she is the judge, so it's whatever she wants," Aizawa shrugged.

"Now, are you both ready?" Midnight asked

Both contestants nodded, a confident smirk on their face, "Then… start!"

Monoma flew right off the blocks with an evil grin. Hatsume had told him what each of his equipment did and even given him an extensive manual, the idiot. There's no way he could lose.

He tilted his arm back to activate the taser he had been given and punched. Mei flashed a grin as she caught it with a fluid substance.

The stadium's mics rang with static causing the audience to groan with pain, "Ladies and gentlemen, and most importantly, all you support companies, welcome to my invention showcase! With me is Monoma Neito who has kindly agreed to help me!" Hatsume spoke in a reporter's voice.

"I agreed to nothing like that!" Monoma said and struggled to free himself, "Let me go!" He ordered Hatsume who simply laughed in response.

Meanwhile, Mic was trying to regain control of the sound system, "How the hell did she take control?" he asked as he frantically searched for a solution.

"The support department was in charge of it. I'm guessing Hatsume went behind Majima's back and did this," Aizawa took a guess.

"As you can see, Monoma is armed with a taser and not just any normal one. It can emit enough to destabilize mutant quirks but don't worry, you can adjust the settings for different people," Hatsume explained the mechanics.

Monoma roared in anger as his attempts at escaping were ignored. He swiped viciously at Hatsume with his free hand but it got stuck in the fluid, "Now this fluid you are seeing," Hatsume went on, taking no notice of Monoma's anger, "It is a rubbery fluid that ground electricity and also captures most people. Very efficient!"

Monoma tried to use one of his copies quirks but it was to no avail. He had passed his time limit for the copy and now he was quirkless. He cursed himself for coming in underprepared. He could still take Hatsume's quirk but he doubted someone in the support department possessed a strong quirk.

Mei finally seemed to take notice of Monoma and chuckled, "Don't worry, I still need to show my other inventions," she said and let Monoma free.

Monoma fell to the ground. He growled and looked up angrily at Mei who didn't seem too bothered about the whole thing.

Monoma took one of the rods Hatsume had supplied him, into his hand and tried to hit Hatsume towards her unguarded back but Mei automatically moved away to the side, "That, was a program that automatically detects incoming attacks and moves the wearer away via an automated machine response," she grinned.

The crowd started murmuring at that, "An automated system?"

"It would come in handy for heroes,"

"Not just heroes, other dangerous professions too, like construction work," Someone pointed out.

"That is true, she's quite the genius, isn't she?" The crowd praised causing Hatsume to grin further.

Nedzu himself was bursting with excitement. He had already witnessed what 1A and to some extent, 1B was capable of. But now a Hatsume was also catching his eye. He wanted to train her, badly. Maybe Powerloader would lend her for his teaching sessions with the hero department?

The support companies were also in heavy discussion. Hatsume had successfully caught all of their attention and now they were all arguing about who was to take her for her internship.

While the show was proving jovial to most, for one man, it was hell. That person was Monoma Neito.

He glared at Mei with rage, "That asshole. She would have never done this with someone with a hero quirk. But just because I have a villain quirk… I'll show her!" Monoma thought furiously and ran straight at her. He didn't have a plan, he didn't need one. He was going to beat her without anything!

Hatsume simply smirked and pressed a button that made Monoma seize up and fall to the ground. The crowd watched in stunned silence.

That was a defense mechanism. You see none of the equipment belonged to Monoma. This button here lets you override your Hatsume equipment and tase them, knocking them out!" Mei explained.

Midnight shook her head at Hatsume's antics and checked Monoma. He was indeed unconscious, "Hatsume wins! Robots, escort Monoma to the medical wing," Midnight announced.

"Remember you all, these are all patented, so you better take me as your intern if you want to use these," Hastume warned the conspiring support companies that were planning to replicate what they had seen.

As Hatsume basked in her glory, Monoma was being loaded into a stretcher, his consciousness slowly returning. He watched the crowd cheering on Mei, but to him, it felt like they were jeering at him, insulting him. It was all Hatsume's fault, she had made a laughing stock of him. All because he had a 'villainous' quirk.

"I'll make them pay… I'll make them all pay!"

A/N: Here's quarter final bracket:

1) Tokoyami vs Tetsutetsu

2) Shiozaki vs Kaminari

3) Izuku vs Watanabe

4) Uraraka vs Hatsume

Wrote this on phone, so pardon a few grammatical errors that may have occurred.

Have a nice day.