CHAPTER 11

Landing Action

Yokohama Arena,
Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture,
March 7

The behemoth of an arena overflowed with anxious teens and tweens, most of which were disappointed fans whose hope to see Yon*Machi live was crushed by a freak hurricane a week before. They had been trickling into the arena since the gate was opened in the morning, and stood patiently as the sun rolled down the sky into the horizon. More and more coming in, stuffing the arena to its full capacity, until there was no space left between fans.

Neito Monoma and Hitoshi Shinso were in the middle of it.

"We're lucky we came here early," Monoma remarked, observing the empty podium only a dozen meters away from where he stood. "Not really VIP spot, but good enough to get a clear view. If we came a couple hours late, we'd be standing near the exit."

"Most of these fans are spillover from the botched concert last week," Shinso replied, a bit annoyed. "The event organizer extended their tickets to make up for the freak accident, so now there are more fans than the arena can accommodate." He looked at the fans that were still coming in, although there was barely any room. "I guess the organizer doesn't want to refund the tickets from the first concert."

"Understandably so," Monoma scoffed. "We're talking about millions, maybe billions of yens. I mean, look at all these people lining up to see cute boys' tushies."

Shinso gave Monoma a dirty stare. "Is that what you're here?"

Monoma threw a foolish grin. "You know I like yours better… Hitoshi-kun."

Shinsho averted his eyes, but he kept Monoma on his peripheral vision, wondering if the loud Class 1-B blond actually had a hidden agenda.

Monoma's grin stretched from ear to ear, but quickly diminished when the arena began to make loud noises. The roof rattled and clattered, as if a strong wind was blowing onto the superstructure. Show lightings and sound systems started to detach from their moorings. Security guards ran toward the podium to keep the stands and the instruments from falling all over the place. Confetti, saved for the critical moment of the show, started to fell like snowflake, which threw the audience into utter confusion.

The fans, expectedly, started to get panic.

"This is bizarre," Shinso looked at Monoma. "The girls of Class 1-A mentioned this anomaly last week. Strong wind that defied weather prediction. What is the chance of the same freak accident happened twice at the same group just as they are about to perform?"

"I don't know, but this starts to smell fishy," Monoma ground his teeth. "Looks like somebody really doesn't like Yon*Machi."

"Or the producer to reap the fruit out of these concerts," Shinsho added. "It is easy to see the motive behind Yon*Machi's competitors."

"What if it doesn't have anything to do with money or competition? What if this is personal? Or worse… hate crime?"

"What are you suggesting?" Shinsho cocked his brows.

"I don't know, but I read that Yon*Machi had a lot of 'enemies'" Monoma observed the situation. "Some people want them to fall, partly because of they are jealous, partly because they're aggravated by Yon*Machi's 'antics'." The roof rattled more violently, detaching lights and speakers from their anchors until they were dangling on the structures by the cables. "Get the people out of here safely."

"What are you doing?" Shinsho grabbed Monoma's pullover.

"If somebody's behind these misfortunes, I'm going to expose him!" Monoma broke through the crowd. "Use your quirk to get these people out! I'll meet you outside!"

"Neito-kun!" Shinsho wanted to go after Monoma. He agreed with him, that the two accidents were too similar, too predictable to be called freak incidents. Somebody was trying to sabotage the Yon*Machi concerts, and Monoma was out to confront him. Shinsho never doubted Monoma's fighting prowess, but they didn't know how strong the villain was. Worse still, if there were more than one villains, Monoma was screwed.

But the lightings and sound systems started to fall apart, and thousands of fans were in a brink of a panic stampede inside an overfilled capacity. If order was not established, some of them would get hurt. As much as Shinsho wanted to go out and fight villains, helping the fans from getting hurt was more paramount. So Shinsho used his quirk to speak loudly and firmly, "Everybody! Please calm down and make an orderly walk toward the exit! This is just a precautionary procedure! Walk slowly, and do not rush! There is nothing to be concerned about!"

Like mindless lemmings the audience followed Shinsho's direction, moving slowly toward the exit doors, not exactly knowing why they had to do it. They just had to do what Shinsho asked them to do. Some fans that didn't hear Shinsho's voice tried to bulldoze their way to quickly get out of the building, but upon seeing that the majority of the fans behaved in orderly fashion, they went with the flow.

Outside, Monoma wasn't surprised to see strong wind hammering the arena like a tsunami beating up levees. He quickly climbed up to the top of the arena to get a vantage point. The strong wind was close to blowing him off the roof a couple times, but he held on, grabbing everything he could to keep him grounded. He gaged the direction of the wind and observed the area. And sure enough, while most people scurried away to avoid the wind, one figure stood bravely, as if the wind didn't bother him. Either he was the source of the weather anomaly, or he was extremely stupid.

Monoma climbed down the building and took a different route, circumventing the guy's position to attack him from his blind spot. As he speculated, the wind subsided once he reached the vicinity not in the guy's direct path. He slipped behind a corner and stuck his head out to observe the guy, oblivious of him as he was busy directing the wind. It was Inasa Yoarashi, the Pro Hero student from Shiketsu High School. Monoma recognized him, he saw him before at UA Cultural Festival. But he didn't remember his name nor his school.

"Well well, this is unexpected," Monoma decided to confront the large guy. "This is not natural disaster, but a Pro Hero trying to sabotage a teen idol group. What would your school do if it found out that the 'freak accident' that has been troubling Yon*Machi was actually perpetrated by its own student?"

Inasa turned around, flashing a big grin. "They deserve this!"

"Not a fan of Yon*Machi, I presume?" Monoma approached him cautiously.

Inasa chortled. "I am for Aqours. Aqours for the win! These whiny brats do not deserve to stand on equal ground with Aqours! And I am making sure of that!"

"So you sabotage their concert and knock the wind off of them, so they pull themselves out of Love Live competition?" Monoma started connecting the dot. "Awase is a big fan of Aqours too, but as much as he wants Aqours to win Love Live Finals, he will never lower himself to this debauchery."

"But I'm not Awase, am I?" Inasa shot an intimidating stare, letting Monoma know that if he didn't back off, he would get in a serious trouble. "Now back off, or you will suffer the same fate as Yon*Machi!"

"You're a Pro Hero in training," Monoma took a fighting stance. "You know I can't do that."

"Then I will have to back you off myself!" Inasa raised his right hand, and a strong gust blew Monoma off his feet. But Monoma used his cat-like agility to summersault and land on his feet. The gust subsided, and Monoma rose, brushing his blonde hair with his hand as if it was tussled by a mere breeze.

"Perhaps you should do this more often," he taunted Inasa. "Using your quirk on fighting criminals, instead of sabotaging concerts."

"Shut up!" Inasa growled, then sent a cascaded squalls at Monoma. Trash cans and newspaper stands and jagged-edged debris pelted Monoma with murderous intention. Monoma slipped behind a bus stop shelter, but a trash can slammed onto the plexiglass wall, spraying glass splinters to a large area. Monoma jumped off before the splinters hurt him, and grabbed a couple of children in the process. He put the children down behind a dumpster and put a large cover to shield them from Inasa's subsequent attack.

The altercation between the two Pro Hero students began to attract the crowd. Pedestrians pulled their phones to record the incident, while motorists slowed down to observe what in the world was taking place. But when debris started flying in every direction, they knew it was too dangerous to stay. They scampered off the vicinity covering their heads, while a few of them called the police.

Monoma used his speed and agility to circle Inasa then made a mad dash to come into physical contact with the larger student. But Inasa knew what Monoma was doing. He was a shapeshifter; he 'stole' his enemy's weapon and use it against him. He could not let Monoma get within arm's length. Inasa grabbed a long wood plank and swung it like a baseball bat. The serrated plank ripped Monoma's jacket, but didn't quite make it to the skin. Monoma recovered from the near miss and lunged to get a hold of Inasa's arm, but Inasa shifted and shot another blast of wind at Monoma's face. Monoma was stunned and rolled backward. Inasa followed up with yet another sharp gust, but Monoma recovered and jumped behind a parked car before Inasa's wind blast throw him off.

So far Monoma was on the defensive, because he had to make physical contact with Inasa to make use of his quirk. He turned every direction trying to find the chink in Inasa's armor, but Inasa was very well fortified, using the strong gust as his shield. He had to find something ingenious to penetrate Inasa's defense, touch him, then use his own quirk to beat him.

Monoma picked up litters on the ground, trash that was spilled from the dumpster, and broken frames from the busted bus shelter. He chucked them at Inasa. Flashing a derogatory grin, Inasa created a wind wall. Monoma's attack fell short, and Inasa threw a litany of taunt at Monoma. But it was what Monoma wanted. He kept pelting Inasa with debris, and in his cocky-minded self Inasa failed to notice that Monoma inched closer. When Inasa realized that Monoma was within striking distance, it was too late. Monoma launched a roundhouse kick at Inasa's midsection, and Inasa had no choice but to block it with his arm. He followed up with an uppercut, but Monoma jumped back, putting a good 30-feet gap between them.

"I got you now!" Monoma chuckled as he put his palms forward, and a twirl of wind started forming in front of him.

"Aw, shit!" Inasa put up a wall of defense, but Monoma was a second faster. A strong blast of air catapulted Inasa across the street, crashing onto a bakery. Cookies and bread sprayed every which way as Inasa's large frame bulldozed the display of the bakery. Inasa quickly got up, covered in sprinkles and marshmallows, and got ready to fight. But knowing Monoma now possessed the same power as he did, he chose to exit from the bakery's back door.

However, Monoma was not conditioned to harness such a powerful quirk. His skinny body was thrown backward like a rag doll. He crashed onto the floor, breaking every bone in his body.

"Neito-kun!" Shinsho arrived and knelt beside Monoma. "Neito-kun, you're hurt!" He quickly got up and prepared to take on Inasa, but the large man was nowhere to be seen.

"Don't worry about him, I blew him out of the water…" Monoma wheezed.

"No, no, no, don't move!" Shinsho went back to Monoma. "You need ambulance!" He drew his phone and called EMS. "Somebody is hurt very bad in front of Yokohama Arena! Please send medicsr ASAP!"

"Stand by, help is on the way," the operator replied. In less than 3 minutes, an ambulance parked next to Monoma and Shinsho. The paramedics sedated Monoma and strapped him on a stretcher.

"You'll be fine," Shinsho said as Monoma was being pushed into the ambulance.

"Just do me a favor…" Monoma said weakly. "Don't let Class 1-A know about this."

"They will not know anything," Shinsho replied worriedly. "Everything will be alright."