I forgot to mention last chapter, but I have an outtake for Aoyama's chapter now! Again, if anybody has an idea of something they want to see on any chapter that doesn't have an outtake, let me know and I'll see what I can do. :)
Let it be known that I decided to switch up the tournament fights so that I could experiment with new pairings. I legit rolled dice to see who would face off against who. The resulting matchups were very interesting and in at least one case absolutely hilarious. Those that wound up basically the same as in canon I didn't dwell on much (and yes, believe it or not, Sero and Bakugou's matchup in the first round was not intentional and was decided AFTER I'd already written that smack talk in the previous chapter; also Tetsutetsu and Kirishima going against each other again was totally randomized-the universe just wants them to fight each other).
Well, enjoy the (11,000+ words) update! (And if any of my fellow writers out there have tips on how to write a convincing fight scene, HIT ME UP!)
"Hey Kendo! Good morning!"
"Hey guys! Excited for the Festival?" Itsuka grinned, ignoring the ball of nerves swimming in her gut.
"Yeah, ready as I'll ever be," Tsukino smiled back. "My sister's pretty disappointed that she won't be able to watch, though."
"Oh that's right! Kira-chan, right?"
"Yeah."
"Well, just be sure to do your best so you have some cool stories to tell her later."
"Well I'm just ready to crush Class 1-A," Tetsutetsu grinned, slamming a steel fist into a steel palm.
"Oh please. Don't tell me that idiot from 1-C has poisoned you, too," Tsukino sighed, running his fingers through his dark hair.
"What?! Of course not! But they're our competitors, ya' know?! I'm just getting pumped up for the battle ahead of us!"
"Technically, we're all competitors here, Tetsutetsu," Itsuka pointed out with a smirk. "We have no way of knowing what the events will be, so some of them may even be cooperative, but they always end with a one-on-one competition. We'll all be enemies by then."
"But for now, let's all at least pretend to be friends, yeah?" Tsukino grinned, draping his arms around both their shoulders, his bright blue eyes gleaming.
Itsuka and Tetsutetsu both laughed, returning the gesture as they made their way towards the stadium. "Only for you, Tsukino. Only for you."
"ID cards please," a policeman requested as they approached the entrance. "Also, please relinquish your bags for mandatory searching."
Itsuka quickly dropped her backpack on the table beside a policewoman with soft blue wings folded against her back, removing her wallet first so that she could show the first officer her student ID, her friends following suit.
"Ah, young man, what might this be?" the policewoman frowned, opening the cloth-wrapped package that Tsukino had dropped on the table alongside his messenger bag. Itsuka was distracted by the officer checking over her own ID, but she did catch sight of polished wood and a glint of silver.
"Oh, that's my support item! Hang on, I have the paperwork in here somewhere," the dark-haired boy muttered, rummaging through his bag before making a soft noise of triumph. With a broad grin, Tsukino handed the small packet over to the policewoman, who checked it over carefully for the appropriate signatures and stamps before verifying the information in her own files and finally running the support item under some sort of high-tech scanner.
"It looks like it checks out," the officer smiled, rewrapping the cloth and handing it back with the packet. "Good luck today, kids."
"Thank you, ma'am!"
"I didn't know that you were bringing a support item," Itsuka commented as they made their way through the stadium towards the waiting area for Class 1-B.
"Yeah, what is it?!" Tetsutetsu added enthusiastically.
"Well, I'm not going to need it until the one-on-one matches, so I'd rather not talk about it just yet," Tsukino admitted with a small smile. "Sorry guys, but if I'm up against either of you, I'd rather have the advantage of surprise, you know?"
"I guess that's fair," Itsuka acknowledged. "May the best hero win, and all-"
"Would you look at that! It's the quirkless hero wannabe! Getting ready to lose, are you?!" a high-pitched voice sneered, and the girl's head snapped up towards the speaker.
"Ugh, doesn't this guy ever take a break?" she grumbled, glowering at the obnoxious blonde that had been making their lives hell for the past three weeks as she gently took her friend's arm. "Don't listen to him, Tsukino. He's just bitter."
"Running away, are you? Why not come back here and face me, little cripple! Show me how worthy you truly are!" The blonde cackled madly. Itsuka growled in the back of her throat, her grip tightening, but she managed to restrain herself from bloodying up the kid's nose.
Tetsutetsu was somewhat less self-disciplined.
"What the hell did you just call him?!" her friend barked, his eyes flashing angrily.
"Ooh, did I strike a nerve there?"
"Tetsu, come on, it's not worth it," Tsukino pled, grabbing the other boy's shoulder. "It's fine; it's nothing that I'm not used to."
"Hell no, not until he takes back what he said about you!"
"Don't waste your energy on that extra. The bastard's all talk; he couldn't back it up if he tried," a new voice growled, and Itsuka turned with some surprise to see Class 1-A's resident hothead approaching, closely followed by his more level-headed, red-haired best friend. The General Studies kid spluttered in protest, almost choking in rage and possibly even a bit of fear as the slightly taller blonde walked invasively close to him, grinning dangerously. "And anyway, whatever he said, it won't mean anything after he gets his ass whipped today."
"Easy, man," the redhead beside him chuckled wearily, patting his shoulder. "Save it for the field, remember."
"Yeah, yeah, Weird Hair," his friend sighed, glancing back towards Itsuka and her wide-eyed friends. "See ya out there," he smirked, then strode off towards the Class 1-A waiting area.
Itsuka quickly took advantage of the stunned silence to grab both of her friends by the arm and half-lead, half-drag them through the door of the Class 1-B room a few meters away, shutting it behind them. "Well, that was…"
"Unexpected?" Tsukino offered, putting down his things.
"Mildly put, yeah."
"That salty moron still causing you grief?" Kamakiri growled on the other side of the room.
"Yeah, but it's really no problem," their friend shrugged. "Like that 1-A kid said, it won't matter after I beat him."
.oOo.
"I just wanna say, you'd better fight like you mean it, giving it one hundred percent. Otherwise, you don't deserve to be here," the blonde from Class 1-A-Bakugou, Itsuka'd learned in Midnight-sensei's earlier announcement-growled, his red eyes sweeping the crowd of first year students. There was a ripple of surprise among the watching students and even some cries of anger or protest as he finished his 'speech', but most of the watching crowd of pro heroes didn't seem too bothered. A lot of them even clapped or cheered. And honestly, he had a point. This year, everyone in the Festival had chosen to be there. If they weren't gonna give it their all, then they were just wasting their time, right? The strawberry-haired girl leaned curiously around Setsuna to watch him approach his red-headed friend.
"Dude, manly as I'll get out, but you've gotta let it go, bro," the guy sighed.
"Yeah, Todoroki was a jerk earlier, but you don't have to be a jerk back," a pink-haired girl next to him piped up.
"The guy thinks he can win this thing with only half his strength; no way in hell am I gonna let that go. It's just damn arrogant," Bakugou snarled, shooting a withering glare towards another boy with half-red and half-white hair glaring right back a few meters away. Todoroki, huh? Why does that sound familiar?
"…Yeah, I guess I can see why you wouldn't like that much."
"Eh? Am I missing something here?"
"Without further ado, it's time for us to get started! This is where you begin feeling the pain-the first fateful game of the Festival! What could it be?! TA-DA!"
"An obstacle race, huh?" Itsuka murmured, and Tsukino hummed next to her, looking thoughtful as his eyes scanned the screen.
"The members of all eleven classes who opted into the Festival will be participating in this treacherous contest! The track traverses four kilometers around the outside of the stadium. I don't want to restrain anyone, at least in this game. As long as you don't leave the course, you're free to do whatever your heart desires!"
"Does that mean we can punch out any competitors we want?" Tetsutetsu growled, eyes narrowed towards a certain blond General Studies student.
"Down, boy."
"Now then, take your places, contestants!"
Watching the green lights and awaiting the countdown was agony. Still, Itsuka did her best to breathe deeply, finding her center like her old martial arts instructor had taught her in order to calm her rapid heart rate.
One light disappeared. Three.
"Good luck, guys," Tetsutetsu muttered.
Another light. Two.
"Right."
Last one.
"Begin!"
The obstacle race was a madhouse from the very start. Fighting through the doorway was insane, especially after that two-toned kid from Class 1-A froze everything-Todoroki, right? Granted, a surprising number of students managed to get clear, especially among the Hero Course kids, but it was still nuts. Then the "Robo Infernos" turned up.
Again, Todoroki managed to pull ahead, but everyone else managed to get their feet under them pretty quickly too ("Don't expect to get away so easily you Icy-Hot bastard!" Bakugou had screeched, explosions bursting from the palms of his hands). Itsuka spared a glance for Tetsutetsu and Bakugou's red-haired friend, both of whom had apparently managed to get caught in the collapsing rubble from Todoroki's attack, as well as for Tsukino, who did surprisingly well dodging the robots and snagging a fallen piece of metal from one of them to use as a weapon or shield as needed. Itsuka felt like she did a fair job herself, shrinking the size of her hands when she needed to move quickly and expanding them at just the right moment to smash through the joints. Still, Tetsutetsu and Tsukino managed to outrun her, the former just tanking any hits he received and the latter dodging his way through like he was dancing-he'd always been more nimble than he looked.
The pits were harder. Itsuka was grateful for her oversized hands then. It made it a lot easier for her to grip the ropes and pull herself across hand over hand. Still, that part of the course became something of a bottleneck, not unlike the gateway to the course had been. By the time she reached the minefield, only maybe a quarter of the group had cleared them. The two kids in Class 1-A that were at odds had taken the lead, somehow managing to fight explosion-on-ice while not stepping on any of the mines. Itsuka began picking her way through the minefield as well, trying not to flinch every time she heard someone scream.
About twenty feet in, the largest explosion that she had yet heard made Itsuka jump, the wind pressure nearly blasting her back so that she narrowly avoided putting her weight on a mine. Then she looked up to a massive pillar of pinkish smoke, only to see-
"Tsukino?!"
Her dark-haired friend had somehow managed to dig up a bunch of the mines, then used the metal plate he had snagged from the robots as something of a launching platform to send him rocketing towards first place.
She couldn't quite keep track of him after Bakugou and Todoroki started using their quirks in earnest, not to mention after another plume of pink smoke rose up near the end of of the field, but for the first time since the race began, she listened intently to Present Mic's excited commentary as she continued picking her way through the field. "Come on, you've got it. You've got it, Tsukino," she muttered under her breath, exchanging terrified but excited glances with Tetsutetsu when he happened to glance back towards her.
"Who would've imagined at the beginning of this race that the climax would be a non-stop megamix of surprises!? And the first to make it back to the stadium is our champion… TSUKINO AITO!"
"YES!" Itsuka shrieked, unable to contain herself and drawing more than a few strange looks from the people surrounding her. Tetsutetsu crowed in delight as well, but he was a little too distracted by trying to beat out that redhead to celebrate for long.
The remainder of the race passed in a giddy blur, because whatever rank Itsuka managed to get, her quirkless best friend had managed to take first place in the UA Sports Festival! Well, only the first round of it, but who cared?! That bastard from 1-C had nothing on him now.
It was chaos by the time she managed to cross the finish line, panting for breath and beaming as she searched for Tsukino and Tetsutetsu. The latter she saw in some kind of argument with the redhead from Class 1-A (I really need to learn his name). As for Tsukino, she eventually caught sight of him somewhere in the middle of the field, bent over slightly and gasping for breath. Itsuka grinned and began making her way over to him, only for Bakugou to beat her to it, marching up with narrowed crimson eyes and a fearsome scowl. Itsuka hesitated for only an instant before hurrying over, worried that his competitiveness might have driven the blonde over the edge, so to speak. But, to her surprise, as she got closer, she saw Bakugou extend a hand towards her friend, lips moving, but too far away for her to hear him. Naturally, Tsukino accepted the gesture with a broad grin, making some sort of comment that she couldn't hear, to which Bakugou replied with rolled eyes and a smirk before walking away.
"Hey, Tsukino!" Itsuka called, jogging up to him.
"Oh. Hey, Kendo!" her friend grinned back.
"What was all that about?" she asked, glancing towards the hot-headed blonde.
Her friend shrugged. "He just congratulated me on my win. Although, he did warn me that he wasn't going to hold back in the later events just because I'm quirkless. I told him I'd be insulted if he did. I think he appreciated that."
Itsuka managed a smile. "Nice to know that not everybody's as prejudiced as that bastard in 1-C."
"Yeah, he seemed pretty excited to rub it into that guy's face that I won."
"He's not the only one; believe me. Anyway, that was amazing!"
"Thanks, but it's not like I had some big plan in mind, you know? I just tried out a few things that worked out better than I could've hoped. My real ability will be tested out after this."
"Fine, be a pessimist if you want. Just know that I'm proud of you, 'kay?"
"Heh. Thanks, Kendo."
"The first game for the first years is finally over, and what a game it was! Now let's take a quick look at the standings, shall we? Only the top forty-two will move on to the next event, but don't feel too left out if you didn't make the cut! We've prepared other opportunities for you to shine!"
Tsukino had been followed by Todoroki Shouto and Bakugou Katsuki. Then came Shiozaki and Honenuki from their class, then another string of Class 1-A kids: Iida Tenya, Tokoyami Fumikage, Sero Hanta, and Kirishima Eijirou. (Ah, so that's his name. No wonder Tetsutetsu was upset; he placed right after him.) Ojirou Mashirao placed after Tetsutetsu, followed by Awase, then Asui Tsuyu, Satou Rikido, Uraraka Ochako, and Ashido Mina. Then came Kaibara, Tsubara, Kaminari Denki, Yanagi, and finally Itsuka herself. Shishida, Kodai, Rin, Shoda, and Kamakiri placed next, then that bastard Monoma Neito, Tsunotori, Hagakure Tooru, Fukidashi, Hatsume Mei (Who's that?), and Aoyama Yuuga, followed by a whole slew of General Studies and Support kids.
"It looks like all of the Class A and B kids that decided to join the Festival made it into the top forty-two," Itsuka mused softly. "That means we're all moving on to the next event. Ugh, and that General Studies jerk."
"Dammit, I was hoping he'd get crushed under the robots."
"Oh! Hey, Tetsu! Didn't see you there."
"Now the fun really begins!" Midnight-sensei declared as another casino-style randomizing machine spun behind her. "The chance to fully move yourselves into the limelight! Prepare yourselves… for this!"
"Cavalry Battle!" another blond kid from Class 1-A groaned nearby. "I'm terrible at those!"
"Huh. That's not an individual event. I wonder how they'll split us up?"
"Allow me to explain! The participants will split themselves up into teams of two to four people as they see fit! In theory, it will be just like a regular playground game, but there is one key difference. Everyone has been assigned a point value based on your ranking in the previous event! That means the value of your team will change depending on who you have on it! Now, values go up by increments of five, with the forty-second place being five points and the second place being two hundred and five. The value of first place however is ten million points!"
Tsukino choked, his eyes blowing wide. "Um," he managed, noticing how literally everyone in the stadium instantly turned towards him, their expressions ranging anywhere from eager to outright hostile. Itsuka automatically placed herself in front of him, her big sister instincts instantly awakened.
"These are the rules that you'll play by! The game itself will last fifteen minutes! Individual point values will be added to create your team's total. Every team must steal as many headbands as they can to increase their total. Stolen headbands must be worn from the neck up by the rider-no hiding them elsewhere on your body! That means the more you steal, the harder it will be to manage them! And another thing: even if your headband is stolen or your team falls down, you can keep playing until time's up! You may use your quirks as much as you like, but if you make a team fall on purpose, then I'll slap you with a red card and you will be disqualified! Now, you have fifteen minutes to build your team! I'd advise you to get started!"
"Tsukino!" Itsuka began instantly, whirling on her friend. "You, me, and Tetsutetsu! Let's team up!"
"Uh… Are you sure?" Tsukino blinked, startled by her rapid response. "People are gonna be gunning for me like crazy since I'm worth so much…"
"Yeah, which is why we should team up! You should ride, since you're usually the man with a plan, and Tetsutetsu and I can defend, since we're both heavy-hitters with combat-oriented quirks."
"I like it," Tetsutetsu grinned fiercely. "And anyway, in a game like this, it's better to team up with people you can work well with."
Slowly, Tsukino relaxed, grinning. "Alright, if you're sure. But we should still try to find one more person. Someone who's quirk is related to mobility, like Tsunotori or Shishida, or even that kid with the engines in Class 1-A, or-"
"Hey, Ten Million! Team up with me!"
"Um. Who are you?" Tsukino blinked, startled by the sight of a pink-haired girl in oversized steampunk goggles shoving her face into his.
"Name's Hatsume Mei, from the Support Course! You don't know me, but I'd like to use your current fame for my personal gain!"
"Hey shove off, we don't need-!"
"If I team up with you, that means I'll be part of the spotlight team that everyone's keeping their eyes on! That means more potential investors will have a chance to see my beautiful babies, which means this is the best way for me to get recruited!"
"Wait. 'Babies'?" Itsuka blinked, bewildered by the sudden turn that the conversation had taken.
"Exactly! The Support Course builds inventions designed to help Heroes deal with their quirks and enhance their skills, so we're allowed to bring our inventions into the Festival with us! Haha! I packed a ton of powerful babies to bring with me, so I'm sure that you'll find one you like in my arsenal! Ooh, I see that one's caught your eye!" the Support student squealed, lunging for one of the 'babies' that she had packed in her suitcase.
"Is that… a jetpack?" Tsukino asked, his bright blue eyes suddenly taking on a calculating gleam as he bent over the invention.
"Why, yes it is! I designed it based on the gear of a certain hero!"
"It's perfect," Tsukino suddenly grinned, glancing between Itsuka and Tetsutetsu. "What else do you have? I'm starting to get the inklings of a plan."
.oOo.
"Holy crap I can't believe that worked!" Itsuka groaned, shaking out her arms as Tsukino climbed down from Tetsutetsu's shoulders, the two of them still clutching the final headbands that had pushed them into the top four teams in their hands.
"I still can't believe you managed to snag that last headband while I went for the ten million," her friend laughed.
"Honestly, neither can I."
"Guys, we're in the finals!" Tetsutetsu whooped exuberantly, tackling his two best friends to the ground in his enthusiasm. Tsukino and Itsuka could only laugh. It was probably heavily fueled by exhaustion and adrenaline, but who could blame them? They'd done it. They'd made it to the final tournament.
"It was a pleasure working with you, Ten Million," Hatsume grinned, packing up the last of her gear. "If you ever need a support item, you know where to find me~!"
Itsuka could only laugh as the pink-haired girl skipped away, her grin wide and eager. "She's an odd one, but her inventions did save our butts more than once back there."
"No kidding! That jetpack is the only reason we managed to avoid Honenuki-kun in those first few minutes."
"Not to mention her wire arrow thing and the jet boots. We really needed the mobility help with everyone coming after us like that."
"Yeah, you know in a weird way I'm grateful to Monoma for distracting Bakugou-san the way he did. I don't think we could've taken both him and Todoroki-san."
"That was so cool how you snagged him with that net gun, though! The look on that ice kid's face; he was so shocked!" Tetsutetsu laughed.
"Well, it helped once I realized that he could only use ice from his right side. I don't know what the deal is with that, but it made him easier to dodge once I knew to stay on his left."
"It's probably why he had Shiozaki and that electric kid on his team, to defend when he couldn't."
"Yeah, that combined with that 1-A kid's super move? Didn't go so well for us."
"Didn't do much at the end, though!" Tetsutetsu grinned fiercely. "Once their horse couldn't move, they were sitting ducks!"
"Still, I missed the ten million. If Kendo hadn't managed to grab that last headband, we wouldn't have moved on to the next round."
"It's a pity that Monoma jerk is in, too," Itsuka sighed, "but they needed sixteen people to complete the roster for the next round. Who would've guessed that one of the top four teams would be a team of two?"
"Yeah, Dark Shadow and Zero Gravity, right? That was a really cool move they pulled, though: combining their quirks to fly! It's little wonder they made second place!"
The three of them continued to chat on their way to the cafeteria, enjoying the time to relax as they ate. Several people came up to congratulate them as they did. It was odd to see how many of them came up specifically to congratulate Tsukino.
It was even more odd to see how many of them specifically ignored Tsukino.
"Looks like I still have to prove myself," Tsukino sighed, picking at the remnants of his rice as yet another General Studies student walked away sneering while Tetsutetsu screamed at their back.
"You don't have to prove anything to anyone," Itsuka countered firmly. "You've already earned your right to be here. If they can't see it, then they're the ones with something to prove, not you."
"Thanks, Kendo."
"So anyway, who all does that put on the bracket?" Tetsutetsu asked, still huffing.
"Well, the top four teams were Todoroki-san, Bakugou-san, Ms. Zero Gravity, and us, followed by Monoma. So we have Todoroki-san, that electric guy, Mr. Engines, and Shiozaki-kun from their team, Bakugou-san, your twin-"
"He is nothing like me!"
"-Mr. Tape Arms, and the pink girl from second place, Ms. Zero Gravity and Mr. Dark Shadow from third place, all of us from fourth, and then they pulled Monoma and that French kid from fifth place."
"I still feel kinda bad for the other General Studies kid that was on their team. It was obvious that he wanted to be in the final round, but his teammates just kinda brushed past him," Itsuka sighed, bringing her cup to her mouth.
"Yeah, but I'm pretty sure that it wasn't malicious, at least in the case of the Class 1-A kid. He was just a little… overeager."
"Well, we'll see how it goes in the tournament. Do you know how they organize the brackets?"
"I'm pretty sure it's just random selection."
"So that could go either really well, or really badly for us."
"We'll find out soon enough."
About ten minutes before their lunch break ended, Present Mic called all of the continuing competitors back to the arena. "Alright everyone, come up and draw lots to see who you're up against!" Midnight-sensei called from the front of the stage, "Then you have the option of joining in the recreational games available before we start. Participation is not mandatory, but if any of you just want to blow off some steam before getting into the real battles, you're welcome to do so. I'll start with the first place team!"
"Seriously?! How does this keep happening?!" Tetsutetsu howled when he saw his name appear next to Kirishima Eijirou's. Itsuka snickered at him, but continued to search curiously for her opponent.
"Ashido?" she frowned. "Who was that again?"
"That'd be me!" squealed a voice from beside Tetsutetsu's twin/nemesis, and Itsuka turned to see the pink-skinned girl from Bakugou's team, the one with the acid quirk. "I can't wait to melt your butt," she winked, beaming, but it didn't feel arrogant, nor malicious.
"Yeah, if I don't pound yours, first," the strawberry-haired girl smirked, extending a hand to shake, which Ashido promptly met with a laugh and a fistbump.
"I think we're gonna get along great!"
"Who're you up against, Tsukino?"
"Kaminari," he replied absently, searching the crowd as he tried to remember who his opponent was.
"Ah, that'd be that guy!" Ashido declared helpfully, thrusting a finger towards the blond kid with the electric quirk chatting eagerly with the guy with shaggy black hair and oversized elbows.
"Oof," Itsuka frowned. "You think you can beat him?"
"That depends."
"On what?"
"On whether or not he takes me seriously," Tsukino shrugged. "Um, Ashido-san, right?"
"That's me!"
"Do you know who Uraraka is?"
"That'd be her!" the pinkette replied cheerfully, pointing to another girl with a brown bob. She'd been the one with the anti-gravity quirk, right? "Why d'you ask?" Ashido asked, quirking an eyebrow at him, her golden eyes alight as though hoping for good gossip. (Actually, that's probably exactly what she was hoping for. There was a gossip in every class.)
"Oh, just because if we both win, I'm up against her next," Tsukino explained, nodding towards the bracket in question. "I guess that means I'm gonna have to watch her match before I head down to the prep room."
"Ah, I guess that makes sense," Ashido acknowledged, nodding. "Well anyways, I'll see you in the arena, Kendo!"
The break seemed to fly by. Itsuka decided not to participate in the side games since she needed to preserve her stamina for the tournament, but it was really fun to watch Tsunotori grab Monoma's arm and drag him to the stage when she needed to find a 'perverse person' for the scavenger hunt, ignoring all his attempts to insist that she must have misunderstood the word and insult her foreign background. Before they knew it, Itsuka and her two friends were making their way into the stands, ready to cheer Shiozaki on. (Itsuka noticed that Tsukino had brought his cloth-wrapped support item with him, but when she glanced questioningly at him, he just smiled and shook his head.)
"Alright sports fans, are you ready?!" Present Mic howled over the PA system, echoing the tensely excited mood.
"Quiet down; you're giving me a headache," a second voice droned. The grumpy teacher from Class 1-A, right? Itsuka had almost forgotten that he was commentating, too.
"Our competitors are all on their own now! Sometimes, heroes only have themselves to rely on! Heart! Wisdom! Strength! Courage! Our students will have to use all of these things to rise to the top! Alright, everyone! Let's cut to the good stuff and not delay these finals any longer! Welcome our first fighters!"
"Even beautiful flowers of thorns! It's the assassin from Class 1-B, Shiozaki Ibara! Versus who I'm personally rooting for-"
"Quit showing favoritism, Mic."
"-from Class 1-A, it's Uraraka Ochaco!"
"Excuse me!" Shiozaki called cautiously, "I'm not sure why you called me an 'assassin'. I've come to the Festival in search of victory, not to take my opponent's life! That wouldn't be in line with the values of a hero at all, sir!"
"Shiozaki, you're taking this way too literally," Itsuka groaned as Present Mic apologized. Uraraka didn't seem bothered by the interruption, though. She just took the extra time to size up her opponent, her eyes narrowed in concentration.
"First match! Ready? Begin!"
Uraraka instantly charged forward, keeping her center of gravity low to the ground, rapidly closing the distance between herself and Shiozaki. After a moment of surprise at the aggressive maneuver, Shiozaki turned away, allowing her vines a chance to thrust themselves into the ground, creating a shield that continued to burrow underground, cracking the cement and rushing towards her opponent. Uraraka, for her part, leaped away from the path of the vines, continuing inexorably forward as she snatched some of the broken rubble from the ground, a faint pink light flickering around her fingers as she went. She threw those pieces of rubble towards Shiozaki, forcing the other girl to dodge out of the way, remaining behind her shield and sending more vines in Uraraka's direction, which she continued to dodge, grabbing bigger pieces of cement as they continued to break from the ground to use as projectiles.
"She's keeping Shiozaki-kun blind while closing the distance," Tsukino realized.
"Why would she do that?" Tetsutetsu asked in between screaming encouragement to their classmate.
"Her quirk is touch-based," Itsuka murmured, "but Shiozaki's is more long-range."
"Exactly. That's why she has to keep her from realizing how close she's gotten," Tsukino nodded.
"So what?! Shiozaki can just trap her in the vines once she gets close!"
"She's gotta have some kind of plan," Itsuka muttered. "Nobody who fights like this wouldn't."
"Guess we'll just have to wait and find-"
A crowd-wide scream of excitement cut her friend off as Uraraka suddenly leaped forward with unusual speed, rapidly closing the distance between herself and Shiozaki and landing a surprisingly powerful punch to the side of their classmate's head, dazing her. Without missing a beat, Uraraka seized Shiozaki by the arm, braced herself against the vines, and flung her towards the edge of the ring-where, Itsuka only now noticed, the brunette had slowly been driving her with her relentless charges.
"Shiozaki has been thrown out of bounds! Uraraka wins!"
Screams of excitement and-at least in Tetsutetsu's case-disappointment ran throughout the stadium. Tsukino quietly excused himself to run down to the entrance of the arena while Uraraka straightened up, looking slightly pale in the face even as she hurried to where Shiozaki was still quite literally hovering in the out-of-bounds area.
"Here, let me help!" she called, reaching a hand towards their classmate. After a moment of surprise, the slightly-dazed girl extended a tendril of vines towards Uraraka, allowing the shorter girl to pull her a more reasonable distance to the ground before releasing her quirk. Itsuka couldn't hear the rest of their conversation, but it was at least clear that Shiozaki was not in the best shape.
Uraraka ended up helping her limp to Recovery Girl's office while Cementoss-sensei stepped forward to fix the ring.
"Moving on to the second match of the first round, on one side of the field we have Tsukino Aito, the first quirkless student in the Hero Course in the history of UA and the darkhorse frontrunner of the first two events! Versus another electric hero in the making! Kaminari Denki!"
The crowd went nuts as Itsuka's dark-haired friend stepped out of the tunnel. She knew that it was in part due to the controversy. Tsukino had done extremely well in the first two rounds of the festival, but now this was a one-on-one fight. He had no one to hide behind, no one to help him, no unexpected circumstances to use to his advantage. It was just him, his opponent, and the… cane?... that he'd apparently brought as his support item.
"What do you think it is?" Tetsutetsu asked softly-for him, at least-as the countdown began.
"Dunno. It's too short to be a quarterstaff. Guess we'll find out."
"Ready?!" Midnight-sensei called raising her whip. "Begin!"
Electricity immediately began to build around the grinning Kaminari. "Look man, I respect you for getting this far," he smirked, "but I'mma have to end this quick! Indiscriminate Shock! 1.3 Million Volts!"
Tsukino was already moving, seizing the end of his cane with his other hand and yanking it off to reveal a long strip of gleaming metal.
"Holy shit is that a sword?!"
Kaminari released his attack at the same moment that Tsukino slammed his sword point first into the ground.
"What the hell is he thinking?!" Tetsutetsu cried, gripping the edge of the balcony as he leaned closer.
"He's using the sword as a grounding rod!" Itsuka realized as the electricity started to dissipate, revealing a panting but still-conscious Tsukino and a dazed Kaminari, grinning foolishly and presenting the world with a double thumbs up. Tsukino rushed forward, switching his grip on his sword and slamming the hilt into Kaminari's stomach, causing him to double over with a muffled cry of pain, stumbling towards the out-of-bounds line. At that, Itsuka's friend dropped his sword completely, seized the blonde's arm, and flipped him out of the ring.
The buzzer went off and Midnight-sensei's voice announced the completion of the round. Itsuka whooped with delight; the entire bout was over in less than two minutes. Tsukino walked back onto the field to collect his 'support item', sheathing it in the polished wooden cane before flashing a beaming smile up at her and Tetsutetsu. They waved back, grinning, then settled back to watch the next match-up head towards the stage while Present Mic screamed about how it had been decided in an instant.
A match to 1-A and now a match to 1-B. Curious about how Class 1-A might be handling the loss, Itsuka peeked over the wall dividing their two classes. Most of the class was chattering cheerfully, apparently unbothered by the blond kid's defeat. A few were even laughing about it, namely that black-haired kid he'd been talking to before the fight and Kirishima, who was seated next to him. The only person who really seemed bothered was a purple-haired girl with her face pressed into her hands.
"Damn it, Pikachu," she mumbled, glaring as the boy was placed on a stretcher and carried off the field. "I told you not to underestimate him! That was just embarrassing!"
"Serves the idiot right," Bakugou snorted on her other side, smirking openly.
"Aw, did I miss it?" a disappointed voice called as Uraraka appeared at the top of the stairs.
"Unfortunately, yes," a dark-haired boy in glasses replied. "It was quite an impressive match! Tsukino, the quirkless student, apparently fights using a sword! With a significant degree of skill, I might add!"
"You're gonna have to watch out for that when you fight him," a purple-haired kid next to him hummed thoughtfully. Itsuka didn't remember seeing him in the obstacle course, so he must have been one of the students that dropped out. Itsuka wondered what his quirk might be as she sat back down next to Tetsutetsu.
"We're gonna charge right along to the third match! Let's hope that gaudy belt suits some sort of purpose! It's Aoyama Yuuga from the Hero Course! Versus a fully equipped gadget dynamo! The Support Course's Hatsume Mei!"
Hatsume entered the pitch covered from head to toe in gleaming silver support gear, even beyond the supplies that she'd shown Itsuka and the rest of their team for the Cavalry Battle. From the other side came the 1-A kid with the wavy blond hair and gaudy belt. It seemed to be some sort of support item, so Itsuka was curious to see how their gear matched up.
As it turned out, very poorly. Not that Aoyama seemed to care.
"This is just embarrassing," Tetsutetsu growled next to her, his fists clenching. He looked slightly green in irritation.
Itsuka just stared, a mixture of hysterical amusement and overwhelming embarrassment churning in her stomach as she watched Aoyama twirl in the center of the stage, firing off lasers at Hatsume's delighted command and allowing her to show off the evasion capabilities of her hydraulic bracers. The strawberry-haired girl didn't have the faintest idea how her former teammate had managed to create some kind of gear capable of remotely hacking into the PA system, but she couldn't deny that she was mildly impressed, even if this really wasn't the time nor the place to be advertising herself to this degree. A glance around the stadium suggested that most if not all of the pro heroes agreed with her, although the areas of the stands reserved for support companies were buzzing more than ever.
"Suddenly, I'm kind of glad the Festival isn't broadcasted this year," Tsukino admitted next to her, where he'd returned a few minutes into the fight (Honestly, that had been a welcome distraction from the match, while everyone inundated him with questions about his sword skills and how long he'd been training and why hadn't he mentioned it before and how he'd gotten the administration to let him bring something so dangerous as his 'support item'; he'd just smiled and said he would explain later).
"Why's that?"
"Because Kira doesn't need any more ideas."
Itsuka snorted at that. "She built your dad's motorcycle basically from scratch, right?"
"Yep. And she's been spending the last few weeks designing me a pair of escrima sticks with built-in tasers."
"How old is she again?"
"Nine."
"Ugh, it's been seven minutes already!" Tetsutetsu groused. "When can this end so that I can go punch that red-haired bastard across the arena?!"
"How do you think 1-A's handling their fellow classmate acting like this?" Tsukino wondered out loud.
Itsuka glanced towards the divider. She couldn't deny that she was curious. And anyway, she wasn't sure how much longer she could just watch Aoyama making a fool of himself. So she stood up, peeking curiously over the barrier.
The first thing that she saw was Kaminari burying his face into his hands, looking about fit to die of embarrassment. "Of all the people who could wind up in some kind of support gear commercial, why did it have to be the one guy in the Hero Course that would just go with it? And why does the guy have to be in our class?"
"Like you have any room to talk, Drooly," Bakugou rolled his eyes, but judging by the occasional sparks bursting from his hands, he was about ready to murder their classmate himself.
"Hey, that's not fair! That quirkless kid was tough!"
"He's not saying that 'cause the quirkless kid beat you," Kirishima smirked on Bakugou's other side. "He's saying that 'cause you didn't put up much of a fight."
"Ugh, okay I get it, I acted like an idiot; can we please move on now?" Kaminari groaned.
"Sure, man."
"For now."
Itsuka snickered as the group continued to bicker, sometimes playfully and sometimes with a little more heat, then turned her attention to some of the other little cliques in the class.
"You know in some ways, it's not a bad strategy," Uraraka was saying thoughtfully. "It does showcase Aoyama's ability to improvise in an unusual situation, and he's still able to show off the range and power of his quirk."
"I suppose that is true," the glasses boy mused, his hands chopping at the air around them, "in which case I suppose I must commend Aoyama on making the best of such an unfortunate situation!"
A triangle-headed boy next to her began gesticulating rapidly, his head cocked slightly to one side. "He wants to know if you think they planned it from the start," the indigo-haired boy with them translated in a weary voice.
"I doubt it," Uraraka snorted, "but Hatsume's certainly taking full advantage of Aoyama's attention-seeking tendency."
Thankfully, the match ended not long after that, when Hatsume finished her little 'commercial' and stepped out of the ring, ostensibly forfeiting to Aoyama.
"Freaking finally!" Tetsutetsu growled, getting to his feet-he had been about ready to blow a fuse in frustration. "I'll see you guys after I beat this next bastard!"
"Good luck!" Tuskino called cheerfully, waving as he headed towards the arena.
"The fourth match includes two completely redundant quirks! On one hand we have the passionate, manly fighter made of steel! Class 1-B's Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu! Versus a passionate, manly fighter made of rock! Give it up for Class 1-A's Kirishima Eijirou!"
Tsukino snorted. "Even their intros are the same. I'll bet Tetsu's pissed."
Itsuka just cheered their friend on.
The 'identical twin' trope continued throughout their fight. Kirishima and Tetsutetsu matched each other blow for blow, howling in frustration when neither of them could seem to gain the upper hand. Neither of them were much for using their feet, instead opting for a literal full-on fist fight, trading uppercuts, hooks, and jabs in equal measure. Heck, they even dodged (or failed to dodge) strikes in practically the same way. So, it wasn't really a surprise to anyone when it turned out that the two brawlers also had the exact same amount of stamina.
"It's a draw!" Midnight-sensei called as both boys collapsed at the same time, obviously unconscious. "When Kirishima and Tetsutetsu awaken, we will have a neutral contest to determine who will move on to the next round! Perhaps arm-wrestling…"
Whatever the logistics turned out to be, it was obvious as the students were carried off the field that both Kirishima and Tetsutetsu had made a good impression on everyone, both with their passion and their tenacity. Itsuka chuckled as she heard the pros chattering about it, rising to her feet.
"I think I'm gonna check on Tetsutetsu. You coming?" she asked Tsukino as she stretched, but the boy shook his head.
"Next match is Bakugou-san. I wanna see his fight."
"That's fair. Take notes for us, okay?"
"You bet!"
Itsuka waved as she made her way out of the stands, skirting past Shiozaki, who had just made it back. The vine-haired girl smiled briefly at her questioning look, her expression unruffled and content. Itsuka grinned briefly in turn and hurried on her way. She was glad that Uraraka had taken the time to help her classmate out a bit; it really was considerate of her. She would have gone herself, but she hadn't wanted to risk missing Tsukino's match. But now the next two matches were composed entirely of 1-A kids, so she could take a quick break to check on Tetsutetsu.
"Oh! Kendo, right?"
Itsuka glanced back, a little bit surprised, towards the pink-skinned girl skipping down the hall towards her. "Oh, hey. It's Ashido, isn't it?"
"That's me!" she grinned brightly, falling into step beside her. "Going to see your buddy, too?"
"Yeah," the strawberry-haired girl smiled in turn. "Don't you want to watch your friend's match, though?"
"Eh, I already know how it's gonna end," Ashido shrugged. "Sero's gonna put up a good fight, but Blasty did promise to cream him, so that's what's gonna happen. And anyway, Kiri and I have a pact. Us Horn Buddies have to stick together, you know?"
"Horn Buddies?"
"Long story," Ashido laughed, pulling open the door marked 'Infirmary', "but basically, it's my job to remind him when he's being a hard-headed idiot!"
Itsuka snorted, but quickly bit the sound off as she heard Recovery Girl grumbling not-quite under her breath as the two of them entered.
"Damn kids pushing themselves too hard and ripping themselves to shreds," she muttered in her scratchy voice, the sound complimented by the too-forceful scratching of her pen on the report she was writing.
"Um, is this a good time?" Itsuka asked cautiously, exchanging glances with her new friend.
"Hm? Yes, yes, it's fine, just keep your voices down; there are people recovering," the irritable doctor sighed, waving for them to proceed. Itsuka nodded her thanks, then slipped further in to claim a chair next to Tetsutetsu, while Ashido plopped down directly on the edge of Kirishima's bed. They were still definitely unconscious, so the strawberry-haired girl took a moment to glance towards the video screen displaying the tournament. The video had been muted, but it appeared that there were still closed captions, declaring, 'at the expense of some really creepy looking elbows. From the Hero Course, it's Sero Hanta. Versus the hotshot with the determined face. From the Hero Course, Bakugou Katsuki.'
"It's kinda weird to look at the words without hearing Present Mic-sensei's voice, right?" Ashido frowned, and Itsuka nodded.
"Seems like there should at least be a few exclamation points here and there. Anyway, what exactly are your friends' quirks again?"
"Oh, Sero can shoot tape out of his elbows and Blasty has explody sweat that he can blow up whenever he wants," the other girl grinned. "It oughta be quite a show!"
The fight was just getting underway, Sero trying a preemptive attack with his tape and Bakugou managing an impressive dodge with a well-timed explosion, when Tetsutetsu's low groan, soon mimicked by Kirishima's, pulled them both away from the television. Her friend's dark eyes met her turquoise ones in a little bit of a daze, blinking through a concussion as he tried to focus on anything in particular.
"Kendo?" he mumbled blearily.
Itsuka grinned at him, tuning out a similarly-opened conversation between Kirishima and Ashido. "That's me."
"Did I win?"
"Not quite, but Midnight-sensei called it a tie, so you'll have another shot."
"Dammit," her friend grumbled, reaching up to his bruised face. "I wanted to beat that guy. And my head hurts."
"As well it should!" Recovery Girl scolded, glowering at him and Kirishima alike. "You're both covered in bruises, you both have concussions; you literally knocked each other out! Honestly, if you're going to rely on your fists to fight, then you need to at least learn how to dodge! I don't care if both of you have hardening quirks; that can't always protect you from injury, understand?!"
"Yes ma'am," Tetsutetsu and Kirishima mumbled in sullen unison.
Recovery Girl huffed and pecked them both on the cheek. "Just get some rest. Whenever the two of you wake back up, you can head to the stands until you're called down for your tiebreaker."
Ashido and Itsuka both snickered as their respective best friends conked out seconds later, both snoring softly. "Well, I guess they both deserved that," the pinkette snickered, glancing up towards the screen. She promptly winced a moment later. "Yeah, I coulda seen that coming," she muttered.
Itsuka followed her gaze, eyes widening at the sight of a body getting flung across the pitch, trailing a plume of black smoke. Sero-the body in question-did his best to correct his trajectory with his tape, but Bakugou had seen the move coming, using another set of rapid explosions to propel himself forward and disintegrate the lifeline before his opponent could complete the movement. Sero seemed to squawk, open-mouthed as he made another desperate bid to stay in-bounds, but suddenly Bakugou was in front of him, flying through the air and roundhouse-kicking him into the stands.
"Um. Ouch?" Itsuka offered, wincing as the blond boy was announced as the winner.
"And there's another one that I'm going to have to drag down here," Recovery Girl groaned, echoing her thoughts.
"Ah, he'll be fine," Ashido waved their concern away. "Bakugou would never hit hard enough to actually hurt anybody."
"Mm," Itsuka hummed. Somehow she doubted that, but whatever. "Anyway, the next two fighters are from your class too, right?"
"Iida and Todoroki," Ashido nodded.
"The ice guy?"
"Yep," her companion replied, popping the 'p'. "My money's on Todoroki on this one. The guy's a powerhouse. Iida's fast, and he's a decent fighter, but nobody can quite match Todoroki. 'Cept for maybe Blasty. Maybe."
"I'd bet on Bakugou over Todoroki any day."
"Sero!" Ashido squealed, running over to the stretcher entering the room and-in spite of his low groan of pain and Recovery Girl's hiss that the boy likely had a broken rib or two-throwing her arms around the decidedly lurpy-looking boy propping himself up on it.
"They sure got you down here fast," Itsuka commented. "It's only been, like, two minutes."
"Huh? Oh, I'll bet it's just the TV lag," Sero grimaced as he was helped to a cot. "The match actually ended a good five minutes ago."
"Huh. In that case, your classmates will probably be starting in just a minute here. Anyway, that was a good fight. Pretty brutal, though."
"Eh, it's fine. It's just Bakugou's way of showing respect, you know? He goes all-out 'cause he knows we can handle it."
"Exactly!" Ashido cheered. "Oh look, Iida!"
"That… does sound like something he would do. You know, from what little I've seen of him."
"He's the kid with engines in his legs," the screen soon announced as the tall boy with glasses and dark hair stepped into the ring following its reconstruction. "Iida Tenya from the hero course. Versus an early frontrunner in the competition who's way too strong for his own good. Someone who rightfully got into the Hero Course based on recommendations. It's Todoroki Shouto."
"Uh, does that kid just have a really bad case of resting bitch face syndrome, or-?" Itsuka began, only to be cut off by a rumbling BOOM and CRACK! that shook the entire stadium.
"Are we having an earthquake?!" Recovery Girl squawked, eyes wide. That would be the same direction the strawberry-haired girl's mind went, except for the fact that the world went still just as quickly as it had started shaking.
"Um, okay, what was that?" Ashido asked with wide, black-and-gold eyes.
"Holy shit," was the only verbal response Sero, or anyone else, gave as he pointed wordlessly to the TV screen, which had just caught up with the events outside.
The entire arena had been transformed into a veritable glacier, extending from Todoroki's right leg and rapidly expanding outwards, trapping a shocked Iida in the middle of it. Shortly thereafter, Todoroki was declared the winner and the boy stepped forward to melt his opponent out of the icy prison.
"Shit," Sero hissed again, looking as though he was seriously rethinking the odds for his 'Todoroki versus Bakugou' bet. "I knew that Todoroki was strong, but I thought Iida would be fast enough to outrun him. I didn't expect… that."
"I suppose it might have been a calculated gesture," Itsuka managed weakly. "You know, taking Iida's speed into account and preemptively stopping him in his tracks."
"Good thought, but this feels a little overkill even for him," Ashido squeaked back.
"Well. Um. I… guess it's already our turn to head to the stadium, then?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I guess," her opponent nodded, her bright pink cheeks unusually pale, eyes still fixated on the screen. Then, in a softer voice, "Jesus, Todoroki, what is your deal?"
"Let's hope we don't have to find out, considering he's up against Bakugou next."
"Ah geez," the other girl winced, following her out the door. "I'm not sure which of them would be worse to fight, actually. The pissy guy that can turn you into an ice cube or the pissy guy that can blast you into oblivion."
The two of them split up a short while later, and before she knew it Itsuka was waiting to head to the pitch, tuning out Present Mic's excited commentary while she focused on calming her breathing and heartbeat. By the time she was given her cue, the hero-in-training was as ready as she'd ever be.
"Up next, we have the mistress of martial arts, it's Kendo Itsuka from Class 1-B! Versus-is there some sort of purpose for those things sticking out of her head?-from Class 1-A, Ashido Mina!"
The crowd roared around them, but it didn't matter. Itsuka was preparing for battle. Everything extraneous to that plain fact simply melted away. On the other end of the arena, Ashido was bouncing lightly from one foot to the other, her golden eyes bright and energetic, but not unfocused. The pinkette might be a little ADHD, but she was not incompetent.
The moment Midnight-sensei called for them to start, Itsuka rushed forward, eyes fixated on her opponent. Ashido set off almost immediately as well, but something was a little off. Her pink-skinned opponent wasn't running. She was skating, acid pouring from the soles of her shoes and melting portions of the concrete to increase her speed and mobility.
That might be a problem. She needed to gauge the other girl's capabilities before she could risk showing her hand. Literally.
The moment Ashido was in range, Itsuka's fist shot forward. She didn't expand it, not yet, but she needed to see how her opponent would react. Ashido instantly dropped below the girl's attack, spinning on her stream of acid to whirl behind her. On instinct, Itsuka threw herself into a forward somersault, darting out of the acid-user's attack radius and rolling neatly to her feet. She knew that she had made the right call when she pivoted back towards her opponent, sliding into a stance just in time to see Ashido's legs sweeping back under her, as smoothly as though she were dancing.
If Itsuka hadn't moved when she did, her legs most definitely would have been knocked right out from under her.
"Hey, you're pretty good!" Ashido called cheerfully, bouncing on the balls of her feet once again.
"You're not so bad yourself," the strawberry-haired girl called back, smiling to herself. "Ready for round two?"
"Are you?" Ashido grinned even as she darted forward again, zipping in on her acid and mimicking Itsuka's own earlier jab, aiming for her throat. The martial artist quickly deflected the strike, biting back a hiss as a sharp pain flashed across the back of her wrist. She darted back, glancing downward to assess the damage, and saw that her skin had grown red and inflamed where it had made contact with the other girl's.
So she didn't just secrete acid from her feet, and she could change its composition depending on where it was being produced from. If she had used the same kind of acid on Itsuka's skin as she had on the concrete, it probably would've eaten all the way through to the bone. Either way, the pinkette was coming at her again, golden eyes gleaming and grin turning fierce and determined as she aimed a sucker punch towards Itsuka's ribs. A quick strike with her palm deflected that hit, too, but it also turned her palm the same shade of inflamed red as her wrist.
Itsuka grit her teeth against the pain.
She needed a way to end this quickly.
The strawberry-haired girl skipped backwards, trying to force some distance between herself and her opponent, but Ashido wasn't keen on letting her give herself room, using her skating technique to weaken the concrete and zip forward once more.
Weaken the concrete.
Hm…
Time to capitalize on the element of surprise.
The next punch she threw, Itsuka expanded her fist. Ashido yelped in shock, trying to spin away but still catching the hit on her shoulder, sending her stumbling, her stance momentarily broken. Itsuka's eyes widened slightly at that. Her opponent obviously didn't have as much formal martial arts training, so she wasn't able to recover as quickly as Itsuka could from unexpected attacks.
That meant this plan of hers might just work.
Clasping her hands together, the young martial artist expanded both hands and brought them down with a snarl and a grunt on the weakened patches of ground that Ashido had created, shattering the concrete into jagged pieces of stone. She seized the closest one, wrenching it from her ground and gritting her teeth against the pain as it scraped across the irritated skin of her hand and flinging it towards Ashido, not unlike Uraraka had done in her fight against Shiozaki.
Again, Ashido yelped, waving a hand towards the basketball-sized chunk of concrete and flinging a film of acid towards it in the process even as she darted back. The acid wasn't quite enough to fully melt the chunk of rock, but it did reduce it in size, as well as slow its momentum so that the pinkette had an easier time dodging it. Of course, by that time, Itsuka had managed to gather up several more chunks of rock-one hand to hold them and the other to throw-to fling at her while sprinting forward.
Quite suddenly their roles were reversed, Itsuka attacking in a relentless barrage while her opponent was being forced back, but her speed made it difficult to corner the other girl. As much as she tried to force Ashido towards the out-of-bounds line, the acid-user always managed to pirouette her way out of a corner, moving back towards the center of the pitch where she had plenty of room to maneuver. It was frustrating, but Itsuka did her best to push that frustration away; this was no time to get emotional.
Eventually, the young martial artist ran out of rocks. She quickly moved to smash the concrete once again-most of the surface had been affected by Ashido's acid at this point-but it seemed this had been the exact moment that the pinkette was waiting for, because suddenly a puddle of acid hit the ground right next to Itsuka's shoes, forcing her to stumble back, the edge of the material hissing as it burned away. Ashido didn't let up on her attack, skating forward and sending wave after wave of acid splashing towards Itsuka's feet, but keeping enough distance that she couldn't be reached even if she did enlarge her hands.
Before she knew it, Itsuka had been forced to the edge of the arena, surrounded on all sides by mushy, acidy concrete with the soles of her shoes starting to fall off from the constant splatters of acid eating away at them. The strawberry-haired girl gasped when Ashido was suddenly in front of her, sliding instinctively into a fighting stance and in the process stepping into a puddle of some of the more potent acid at the same time.
Her cry of pain was cut off by Ashido's uppercut, which sent her flying out of the ring, landing hard on her back and knocking the wind out of her. Still, she felt herself gasping, desperately fighting to draw attention to her alarm as she kicked weakly at her damaged shoe and the cold-burning sensation beginning to reach her foot.
"Ah, shit! Shit!" a voice hissed hurriedly, and Itsuka suddenly became aware of a pair of hands seizing her pant leg and the heel of her shoe and ripping it off along with her sock, flinging the both of them away. "Midnight-sensei, does anybody have a water bottle, or a water quirk or something?! Also, we're gonna need a stretcher; she shouldn't walk on this!"
Itsuka couldn't hear a response; she was too busy focusing on calming herself down so that she would be able to breathe. Still, she sighed in relief when she felt something cool trickling over her foot, leaning her head back as she managed to take her first breath. Then another, and another.
"…probably get her hands, too."
"That was some quick-thinking, kid," someone was saying when she was a little bit more aware of her surroundings, "but you do need to be a little more cautious with a quirk like yours. You could cause a lot of damage if you're not careful."
"Yeah I know, I just got caught up in the moment, and… Shit, I am so sorry, Kendo," that voice from earlier groaned. "I didn't even think about what might happen if your shoes got destroyed; that was so stupid of me!"
Itsuka opened her eyes to see Ashido kneeling beside her, wringing her hands under a spray of water produced from the hand of a hero that had obviously been attending the Festival, her gold-and-black eyes wide and worried. The man's other hand was pointed towards her own left foot, and was probably the source of the refreshing coolness taking the edge off of the painful bite in that general region of her body. She vaguely recognized him as a sidekick from an agency in Shinjuku. What was his name again?
"It… It's okay," she managed, remembering that Ashido had just given her an apology. "How… How bad is it?"
"Not bad," the water quirk hero assured her, his sea green eyes gentle and reassuring as he helped her sit up, taking her inflamed wrist and hand and gently pouring water over those, too. "Your friend here managed to get your shoe off before the acid could bite through more than the first couple layers of your skin, then got a few people to throw her their water bottles to dump over your foot even before I got down here. The wound is nothing that Recovery Girl can't heal, although it will leave a pretty wide scar."
Itsuka chuckled weakly, relieved to hear that there shouldn't be any permanent nerve damage. "That's fine. What kind of battle hero would I be without a cool-looking scar or two?"
Ashido managed to giggle at that, looking relieved herself as she glanced towards the pair of medical robots droning towards them with a stretcher. "Well, I guess I should go shower then," she said finally, rising to her feet and stepping away. "I don't want anyone giving me a victory hug while I still have acid on my skin, y'know?"
There was something sad in her voice as she said it, something dark and uncomfortable in her eyes, and suddenly Itsuka found herself wondering how many times Ashido must have accidentally hurt people to know right away that the best treatment for an acid burn was running water, and how many times she must have been judged or rejected for it.
"Hey, Ashido!" she called after the other girl as the water hero helped her to her feet-Pressure Wash, maybe? That seemed right.
"Yeah?" her fellow hero-in-training replied glancing back uncertainly, her arms slightly held out from her sides, probably to avoid accidentally burning through her clothes.
"That was an awesome fight. You earned that win."
The pinkette's eyes seemed to widen for a moment before she smiled, the fear hovering in them draining away in an instant. "You did great too, Kendo. And call me Mina. I don't like being formal with my friends."
There was an invitation there-one that the strawberry-haired girl was happy to accept. "Then call me Itsuka, 'kay?"
"Sure thing! I'll see you later, Itsuka!" Mina grinned, waving with all of her old cheer before she practically skipped away.
"Way to be sportsmanlike," Pressure Wash smiled as she settled down on the stretcher, carefully keeping her injured foot off the ground.
"Well, I didn't come to UA to make enemies, you know?"
"That's a mature way to look at it," the man laughed back. "If you really are interested in being a battle hero, you might consider my boss Goliath's agency for your internship. We'd be happy to have you."
"I'll bear it in mind!"
Cementoss was still repairing the ring after the damage she and Ashido did to it when Itsuka arrived at the infirmary. Both Tetsutetsu and Tsukino were waiting for her there, looking anxious and eager by turns.
"What did that pink-skinned b-"
"Tetsu!"
"-do to you?!" Tetsutetsu half-yelled, half-screeched the moment she came into view.
"Keep your voice down; this is a hospital!" Recovery Girl's voice snapped from inside the office.
"Her name is Mina and she actually saved my foot," Itsuka sighed back, accepting a hug from her other friend before the bots carried her inside.
"I wondered when I saw her grab your shoe," the dark-haired boy admitted, following, "but you know Tetsu. The guy was beside himself."
"Hey, you try keeping calm after you've just heard one of your best friends almost start screaming!"
"I did keep calm after one of my best friends started screaming."
"That's not the point-!"
"I said quiet!"
Tetsutetsu cringed as Recovery Girl's cane beaned him over the head, the woman herself visibly fuming. "Out, both of you! You have your tiebreaker in a moment, and you're the first match of the second round, so out! Out!"
"We'll see you later, Kendo!"
"Bye, guys!"
Recovery Girl released a deep sigh, leaning against the door she had just slammed shut for a moment before she hobbled back to her newest patient's side. "Acid burns, correct?" she mused, gently taking her injured foot and turning it back and forth to assess the damage. Itsuka winced slightly at the spike of pain that broke through the dull throbbing the limb had settled into.
"Yeah. Mina and Pressure Wash poured water over it and my hands the moment they got my shoe off. As far as I know, that was the only treatment they used on it."
"Wise of them," Recovery Girl nodded, gently lowering the limb and taking her damaged hands. "Ashido was right to act quickly. If your shoe had been left on any longer, there might have been nerve damage. As it is, the scarring will extend from the end of your foot up to your ankle."
"Like I said before, what's a battle hero without a few scars?"
"Don't you start getting flippant on me about injuries, young lady! I don't need any more recklessness than I already have to deal with on a daily basis, understand?"
"Yes ma'am," Itsuka murmured meekly.
"Good," the aged doctor huffed. "Well, Ashido and Pressure Wash already performed what basic first aid I would be able to do here, so I'll use my quirk on you and let you heal on your own. You'll probably doze off for a few minutes, during which time I'll wrap your injuries since they'll still be a bit tender. After you wake up, you'll be free to go back to the stands."
"Thank you, sensei," Itsuka murmured as Recovery Girl pressed a kiss to the back of her hand. A wave of drowsiness swept through the girl as her hands and foot seemed to tingle, not unpleasantly. Deciding not to fight it, she settled back against the pillow and closed her eyes.
Outtake:
"Hey Iida, you finally made it back!"
Tenya managed a weak smile as his friends all spun towards him, Uraraka sporting a sympathetic smile, Asui tilting her head towards him, Kouda signing frantically, and even Shinsou watching him in his own, quietly concerned way.
"What kept you?" Asui asked softly, bringing her finger to her chin. "Todoroki didn't injure you that badly, did he?"
"No, he didn't," Tenya sighed wearily, reclaiming his seat on Uraraka's other side, "but Recovery Girl-sensei sent me to Power Loader-sensei to ensure that Todoroki didn't accidentally cause any sort of damage to my engines. We've been spending that last twenty minutes or so running diagnostics."
He decided not to mention that he'd also attempted to call his brother, feeling frustrated by the outcome of the match and wanting to talk it over with him. But, the call had gone straight to voicemail, as it only ever did when he was on a mission and couldn't talk.
"Makes sense," Shinsou nodded. "If you're walking, I guess you're good."
"Yes, we couldn't find any problems. I'm cleared to continue training once we reconvene on Monday. Either way, I apologize for being unable to support our classmate for her match."
"Ah, no worries," Uraraka grinned briefly. "Mina-kun did great! The girl from 1-B was really cool, too; I've gotta ask her to teach me her moves some time!"
Shinsou chuckled softly at that, turning back towards the stadium as the next match-up was being called out. "We know; you wouldn't shut up about it the entire match."
"Hey, I apologized for that already!"
Tenya was distracted from any further conversation when his phone suddenly began to vibrate, subsequently causing his own body to vibrate as well. Blinking in surprise, he reached into his pocket and removed the device, eyes widening as he saw his mother's name on the Caller ID. "Excuse me, I have to take this," he murmured, standing and moving towards the hall as he answered the call.
"Hello, kasan? I'm sorry to tell you this, but-"
"Tenya! Thank goodness! Where are you; are you alright?"
"What? I'm absolutely fine, kasan, I'm still at the stadium. What's wrong?"
"It… it's your brother."
"Oniisan?!"
"A villain… a villain got Tensei. They think it was the Hero Killer."
"What!? How is he doing?! Where are you; I'll come right away!"
"His life's not in danger, but they're still assessing the potential long-term repercussions of his injury. We're at Hosu General Hospital, but Tenya, please don't try to come on your own. I'm sending a car for you, but after everything… I don't want you to make yourself vulnerable. So please, be patient."
"I… I understand, Mother. I'll be waiting by the main gate."
"Thank you, Tenya. The car will be there soon. Just… Just hold on."
"You… You too. I'll see you soon."
I am Iida because I have my parents listed under their actual names in my phone. Also, does anybody else, like, close their eyes and then suddenly they're awake again and they can't remember if/when they fell asleep? 'Cause that happens to me ALL the time.
Hope y'all enjoyed getting a little bit of Class 1-B's perspective! Did I manage to do it justice? Anyway, next update we're taking a break from the Festival to catch up on events in Hosu, courtesy of Iida-oniisan. :) Then we'll finish off the Sports Festival. (Originally I wanted to put the entire Festival into one chapter, but when I realized I already had 26 pages and over 13,000 words and I was only maybe 66% done, I decided that maybe I should break it up.) Also, what did y'all think of my OC?! I'm really proud of his name:
吾人 - Aito, "myself", "human" (I was going for "I am human", referencing his quirklessness)
月野 - Tsukino, "moon" (or more technically "of the moon"; If you made the connection with Kira-chan, you'll figure it out)
Anywho, next update comes out July 10th. Until then! PLUS ULTRA!