Wow, I haven't touched this thing in a while…

Well, here's a relatively short chapter that's basically the fight scene continuation from last chapter. Enjoy!

Discord: discord . gg / 9t9MK3jHmV (Come here to chat about life or something.)

-SpiritOfErebus

Of course me and Bakugo were the first to be picked. Our opponents were Uraraka and Midoriya.

Bakugo and Midoriya glared at each other the whole way to the center, while I just lugged around my staff awkwardly.

"You two, learn to think from the perspectives of a villain. This is designed to mimic a real battle as close as possible. Go all out, and don't afraid to be hurt."

I was very afraid of being hurt, thank you very much.

"If things go out of hand, however, I will stop it."

Thank god. I sighed inwardly. Honestly, I was more likely to get mauled by Bakugo than by my opponents. I would have to tread carefully, but outwardly I bore a confident grin.

"Yes, sir! I'll do my best!" I said, casually yet professionally. Bakugo took a look at me and scoffed.

"Suck up…" Bakugo whispered, looking to the side in disgust.

On the way up to where we were told the bomb would be placed, me and Bakugo were completely silent. The only sounds that echoed throughout the concrete building was the tink of my staff on the stairs.

Once we got to the room we were supposed to guard, Bakugo finally spoke, gritting his teeth.

"Deku has a quirk, doesn't he?"

"…Who's Deku?" I said, scratching my head. "There's nobody in the class with his name."

"That strength… he's been lying to me all these years, huh? That damn nerd…"

I began edging away as explosions began crackling in his palms.

"Well, you can… do whatever you want. I'll just… defend the bomb." I said, already reaching into my robes and getting out some chalk.

Bakugo immediately ran out of the room, and I sighed. Looking at the camera in the corner, I took off my earpiece. It was just filled with sounds of explosions and Bakugo's rage. Midoriya said something motivational, and I finally drew the connection that this Deku was actually Midoriya.

If they're already confronting each other, I had to hurry up. I began running across the field, drawing runes for illusions and circles as fast as I could. I placed charms in the four cardinal directions and sat in the center, pretending to meditate.

Hopefully, this would get somebody to think that this was some elaborate setup.

And sure enough, everything was plunged into darkness. Shadowy mist began emanating from the runic circle. I then began to go and place various charms on the weapon, writing the kanji on the black bomb with white chalk for "shift".

That should be obvious enough. Already, a couple of minutes had passed, and I placed four charms slightly to the left of the weapon, before writing the characters for "destination" in the spot. The weapon's image flickered, and appeared on the spot that I had put the charms in.

Fantastic. Somehow, me just writing kanji everywhere made the system work. Then, I heard the clack of heels on the ground, and I sat in the center of my circle. I took a look at my watch, which was in a pocket. There were eleven more minutes.

The play was about to begin.

"I already know you're there, Uraraka." I said, trying to sound as grandiose as I could manage to be. "Heels aren't exactly a great choice in a hero costume, you know."

"E-ep!" Uraraka said, embarrassed at the failure at her attempt to sneak past me.

Then, with a look of determination suddenly flashing in front of her face, I knew that she was doing something.

I snapped my fingers, and an earthen pillar rose out of the ground, stopping Uraraka's sudden action in her tracks. She had floated into the air and was flying towards the illusion of the weapon, so it was probably for the best that I had stopped her in time. She slid down to the ground, wary of anything else.

"This is my domain. My territory, as you might say." I said. "I have bargained with the nature sprites for a spot of their authority, and I can call upon their powers for a mere half an hour."

I stood up, and gestured dramatically. "But that half an hour is more than sufficient to defeat you!"

"Flames, heed my call!" I shouted, sweeping one hand in front of my face dramatically. To my relief, flames began to roar from the point where my staff touched the ground. It circled around me, coiling like a snake, before shooting out of my staff.

I couldn't actually control it, per say. That was the audience's job. But they expected it to go towards Uraraka, and that's what it did.

"Ensnare her feet, oh Dyrads!" I said, stomping forward. The flames at my feet paused momentarily, and a ripple in the ground appeared as vines began growing out of nowhere, creeping towards Uraraka's heels.

Uraraka, of course, used her quirk to float into the air to avoid the attack. I had a "plan" for it, however, and smiled confidently.

"With your quirk, that's your only evasive maneuver. I, however, have planned for this! Oh sprits of the wind!"

A gust swirled out from my sleeves and blew the currently weightless Uraraka towards the wall. She cancelled her quirk and fell to the ground, the gust still whipping her hair around.

There was one disadvantage with an expectation quirk, and that was no sneak attacks. If I were really a mage, I would use vines to bog her down and stall the last couple of minutes.

There were seven more minutes.

Uraraka seemingly knew that as well, and she placed her fingers on the piles of crate that I had failed to remove beforehand and threw them at me. I dodged the first one, but I was hit with the second one as I failed to react in time.

I looked up, using my staff as a crutch, and Uraraka was already at the illusion.

I began laughing, as my brief mental script dictated.

"I'm already at the weapon." Uraraka said. "Why are you laughing?"

"You fool." I said, gesturing grandiosely to the ceiling. "Do you think that's really the weapon."

I snapped, and the weapon disappeared. Everything went black, and only a small light remained above my head. Then, suddenly, the room began spinning and various illusions of weapons appeared in the room. Uraraka stumbled on the outer rims of the spinning room, and looked frantically as the weapons spun by, the black and grey bombs standing out by glowing in the dark background.

"Try as you might, you will not succeed." I smirked. "For as I said, this is my territory."

I pointed my staff at her, and somehow, beams shot out of its rough approximation of a tip. Uraraka dived to the side, and my beam disintegrated the ground she had just been standing on.

Five minutes.

"Deku, do it now!" Uraraka shouted.

From below me, I could hear the floors rupturing. The whole building shook, and I prepared to fall to my death via the floor beneath me shattering.

Nothing happened to the ground I was standing on. Uraraka and I stood in mute shock as the floor beneath us remained solid and not fragmented by whatever Midoriya did.

"… What?"

"It was bold of you to assume that this place is still connected to the mortal plane." I said, trying to call up as much 'fantasy villain-ness' as possible.

"This is the essence of the moonlit gap. Where the supernatural becomes the natural and what authority you hold over the world becomes useless. In fact, try to use your quirk at all."

Uraraka did so, and was… scared to find that nothing happened. The boxes disappeared from view. The black background was replaced by swirling galaxies, turning gently.

"You have lost the moment you let me set up in this room." I said. "And in these three minutes, you can try as you might to find the weapon. It has been erased from existence. It has returned to the mortal plane amongst the crates, where only people not here can access it."

"We'll be here till the end of time…. Or, of course, until the exercise is over."

Uraraka's eyes suddenly steeled with determination, and she rushed towards me with clearly violent intentions.

"If you won't take us out of the gap, then I will! Sorry about this!"

A punch came at my face, and I shifted my metal staff to block the attack. Uraraka recoiled, shaking her hand. The hollow staff vibrated under the weight of the assault, and I settled in a defensive position.

One minute left….

A kick was aimed at my face, and I caught the heel of her shoe in the crook of my staff, before throwing her to the ground.

Thirty seconds left…

Uraraka got up and tried to use her quirk on another box as well, and it almost did float into the air.

"It won't work, remember?" I said, trying to reinforce her expectations. Thankfully, it worked, and the box thumped gently down onto the ground.

Twenty seconds left…

Now, it wasn't about winning the exercise, but proving that my quirk was powerful enough, given the situation of a setup. I snapped my fingers, and the expectations of the class began making the earth shift and the winds roar, creating a miniature whirlwind and making the earth forms walls around Uraraka.

Ten seconds left…

I unraveled the earthen curtain and Uraraka's helmet had shattered, but Uraraka remained unharmed.

(After all, a hero student would never hurt another hero student.)

The timer was over, and we had won. I sighed, and held up a hand, slowly opening it. Lights leaked out of it, forming the image of spirits and sprites, each in different colors.

"How much fried tofu are we talking for sacrifices?" I said, talking to what very well may be illusions made by my quirk. I felt insane, but the scene was believable enough was that as the illusions and the cosmos shrank before my eyes, and Uraraka gaped widly at the disappearing stars and the sensation of falling, I caught the number two (or a peace sign) as the sprites faded.

Like an airplane landing, we roughly "rejoined the mortal plane" (why did I say it like that?), and I watched the careful chalk circles I drew begin to evaporate into nothing.

Uraraka groaned on the ground, and began stirring.

"Uhh, you okay?" I said, holding out a hand. "I didn't… mean for that to actually happen. The last bit was a bit overboard."

"It was really dramatic." Uraraka said, taking my hand and getting up, one leg still slightly bent.

"Since when could you do that stuff?"

"I… may have sold plates of fried tofu to the local nature spirits." I said, nervous.

"Wait, so nature spirits exist?"

"You'll be surprised to know what does or does not exist. Now, maybe we should get Recovery Girl to take a look at you."

Walking away, I sighed to myself. What really didn't exist was my willingness to be a hero.

…

Bakugo woke up on a stretcher.

It was fucking awful.

He sat up immediately, cursing as his still angry red arm.

"Fuck." Bakugo said, thinking about the exercise. He lost to that shitty Deku again, right?

"Wait, what the fuck happened to me?"

He was interrupted by a smack on his cheek. He recoiled, before glaring at the aged nurse.

"Now, now. That was a very wreckless thing that you did, young man."

"I lost the damn exercise, that's what happened." Bakugo said, snarling to himself. "I lost to him."

"What are you talking about?" Recovery girl said, turning around to open the door to the infirmary. "Oh, hello, young girl. How do you feel?"

Round cheeks limped into the room, followed by… the basically untouched idiot that was my teammate, his costume a bit wrinkled and dusty.

"Oh, hey Bakugo." The idiot said, waving cheerily. "By the way, you're paying for a plate of fired tofu."

"What the fuck happened?" Bakugo exploded, almost wrecking a hospital bed.

Hopefully, this is a good continuation. I've been working on… uh… other things…

(Looks at 2 other fics on profile)

I'll probably update this thing soon…

-Spirit