My Hero Academia - Under Pressure - Season 2 - Chapter 12 - Overwhelming Odds
The stadium was still in shock over what had just happened.
Goya's display of power might have been impressive to behold against a villain, but to many, him using it like he did on a student, and in the way he did it, was not something they wanted to see. After declaring his intent to Tonen, Goya left the battlefield with his typical arrogant smile on his face.
Tonen lifted up Kuroda, who was still unconscious, and then alongside Chuya went and took her to Life Force's station in the back of the coliseum. Projection called for a small break so that certain matters could be attended to.
As the duo reached the station, the nurse had seen what happened on the nearby TV and immediately went to work using her Quirk to heal Kuroda.
Though he didn't express it much because of the anger flaring up inside of him, Tonen was incredibly relieved when he saw Kuroda briefly gain consciousness before heading back into a resting state.
Life Force noted that she would be out for a bit, so it was best if they headed out so that they could continue to monitor them.
"I promise, she'll be fine," said Life Force with as much positivity as she could manage. "As bad as it looks, there was no major damage done internally. She just needs rest now, that's all."
They both nodded at Life Force before heading out. But Tonen didn't go back to the entranceway or to the waiting areas where he knew Eri, Oshibu and Sanda were at. Rather, he guided Chuya to the stands. More specifically, he guided her to where the bulk of Class 1-B was sitting.
All were happy to see Tonen, but stiffened up when Chuya appeared next to him.
He gave them a motion to let him speak, "Soldier here has something to say, don't you?"
Chuya met there gazes and struggled for a bit to speak, but eventually she bowed and with rare emotion said, "I'm sorry for how I treated all of you. I had my reasons, but they don't matter, and my actions were inexcusable. Please give me the chance to make it up to you all."
Instead of looking at her, many of their eyes turned to Tonen, who gave a nod of approval that he was ok with them bringing her back into the fold.
Fenella sighed at this, "Well, you did go to Kuroda after what that fool did to her, so you seem to mean it. Have a seat next to me lass and let's watch the next matches."
Chuya wasn't sure what to do, so she turned to Tonen, who nodded happily and gave a thumbs up that she should do it, and she did so. Hesitantly, but she did so.
Peace seemingly reigning for the moment, Tonen made to leave, but a voice called out to him, "Tonen?"
He paused and turned to see Ebirima looking at him with a fierceness he'd never seen from her, "Light him up next round."
One by one, the other members of 1-B looked at him with equal fierceness. Each signaling that they were with Ebirima on this.
Tonen couldn't help but smile at the unity, "You got it."
As he left, a tapping of the microphone got everyone's attention, Projection had returned to her booth, "Sorry about that. Had some...business matters to take care of. But now we can head onto the next match!"
The crowd cheered in almost a relieved way, clearly wanting to get the last match out of their minds.
"Alright, so let's get this started! First up with have the lady of a thousand talents, Eri Ogata!"
Eri walked out of one entranceway and towards the battlefield, her expression blank, and yet clearly focused.
"And her opponent, the master of blitzing speed, Oshibu Noka!"
Oshibu walked out and waved the crowd like he did in the last match, but he did get a focus about him when he faced Eri. The two stared the other down, each knowing that what was to happen next was going to be good...for one of them at least.
"Are we all picking Oshibu for this fight?" asked Wasuke to his classmates in the stands. "Or do you feel that Eri can pull off an upset?"
"The odds are against her," noted Kanagita with a bit of worry.
"Oshibu's speed is something," added Ueno with his wobble in full effect, "that's hard to stop."
"But not impossible," put out Anno.
Many turned to him, not suspecting him to state such a thing, "Did you all forget? I was able to put him down thanks to my shark senses and reaction speed. True, he might have gotten a bit faster, but that doesn't mean he's untouchable."
"That's true, and that Particle Girl was able to stop him for a bit," Ebirima remembered.
"Well if it's just reaction time she's got this in the bag," stated Fenella, "we all know she's quick, and who knows what reaction skills she's copied over the years."
Doza made a noise of uncertainty, "Reaction time only goes so far. The 1-B girl thought she had him beat but he was able to pull something off with that blitzing tornado. If Eri didn't plan for various things, she'll be in trouble."
"She has a plan," said a voice.
They turned, and to their surprise, Chuya was gazing out at the battlefield, right at Eri, "Eri is a tactician, and one look at her face shows you that she's not afraid, she's just waiting for the first move to be made. I can't say she'll win, but this will go on a bit longer than we think. She's that good."
"Have you told her that you think she's brilliant in that way?" asked Fenella with a raised eyebrow.
Chuya looked away from her gaze.
"I'll add it to the list of things to do to make everything up to us, lass. But for now...let's see who's right."
On the battlefield, the staredown continued. Oshibu's grin grew as he mentally prepared for his first move, while Eri remained stone-faced.
"Let the match, begin!" called out Projection.
She sounded her horn, and a fraction of a second after she did, Oshibu blitzed forward and hit Eri right in the center of her stomach with an open palm. The move sent her flying backward and right out of the arena.
Feeling he won, Oshibu started to gloat and wave to the crowd. But a voice made him pay attention.
"An impressive open move by Oshibu Noka! But he doesn't seem to remember the rules of a ring out..."
Confused, Oshibu turned to where he sent Eri flying, and to his surprise, Eri wasn't touching the ground. Or at least, she wasn't touching it with her feet. Instead, she was doing a perfect handstand and then walked on her hands towards the arena and then gracefully got back on it without her feet ever touching the ground.
She dusted herself off before stepping towards her opponent, who was a bit stunned at this, "Handstand? Really?"
Eri shrugged, "Gymnastics was one of the first things I learned with my Quirk. It's very useful as you can see. If it helps, your impact threw off my balance so I almost touched the ground...almost."
From the stands, many people were cheering Eri's display of skill. While others, like Chuya, were simply smiling at what unfolded, "Told you she had a plan."
Fenella waved her down, "No need to gloat, lass. But frankly I'm glad you're right, I didn't want to see Eri go out like that."
"But now..." said Ikaim leaning in, "the real test begins."
"She has to actually win now," added The Twins in unison.
Hana groaned a bit at the prospect, "Not the easiest thing given the circumstances."
"Think she can do it, Iha?" asked Azujima to his friend beside him.
"Yep," she answered simply.
Back on the battlefield, Oshibu shook off the shock of what happened, "Ok, ok, I get it, I underestimated my opponent...again. But like you said, I almost had you. And you'll find that next time will make sure I get you!"
He blitzed out of sight and right towards Eri again. But this time she reacted quickly herself and stepped just to the right of where she was. Just enough so that when Oshibu appeared from his blitz she could smash him outside the head with a punch.
Oshibu stutter-stepped but was able to stay upright, but was again shocked at what happened.
"What reaction time!" cried out Projection from the both. "Eri Ogata made a small move and thus drew out Oshibu Noka just enough to hit him! This might be closer than we all expected, folks!"
"You're fast, Oshibu," admitted Eri as she readied herself for his next strike. "But you can be quite predictable when you think you have something in the bag. You wanted to prove that your attack could work again on me, so you did the exact same thing. And speed is easy to avoid if you know where the person is going to be.
He massaged his face a bit before getting back his grin, "I dig it. So that just means I need to be more unpredictable. On it."
With a quick stroke of his shades for effect, he blitzed off in another direction, and like a previous match, he bounced from point to point in a whirl of movement. Going so fast that he was able to tag Eri multiple times before she could dodge because she didn't know where he would be.
One particular hit sent her right into the middle of the ring. By dumb luck she was able to avoid one attack and get upright, "Ok, let's slow things down..."
She closed her eyes and tried to block out everything going on around her. But to the audience, it looked like she was giving up.
"What's she doing? Eri's not the type to lay down after a few hits," wondered Hana as she gazed at her classmate.
Azujima however laughed lightly, "She's using my training!"
"For real, Azujima?" asked Anno, quite surprised.
"Yeah! She helped me and Iha with martial arts stuff, and we helped her in certain ways too. She asked me how she could enhance her senses without augmentation, and I taught her a few tricks for listening, and she's about to put it to work!"
Not sure what she was doing, Oshibu continued to blitz around Eri. But this is what Eri wanted. As she drowned out the noise of the arena and everything else, she focused solely on the floor of the arena, where she could faintly hear the sound of footsteps. The steps that Oshibu had to take before blitzing in a certain direction.
Because of her own skills, she knew how to tell if someone was running towards her or away from her, so she mixed this with her time with Azujima...and had a radar sense of sorts to tell when he was coming.
Which was proven when he decided to attack again, and she again side-stepped just enough to not just dodge his attack, but grab him and do some pressure point attacks on his arm.
His right arm now limp, Oshibu retreated to a safe distance and quickly used his blitzing Quirk to get feeling back into it again, "That was mean."
"Be grateful I didn't have time to do it to your leg," teased Eri. "Care to try again?"
"Yeah, I think I will."
He blitzed away, and Eri again went and blocked everything out, and prepared to strike again when he moved towards her. He did so quickly, but to her surprise, he didn't go for a punch move, but instead, blitzed in a way that allowed him to go and sweep her legs out from under her. She hit the ground with a thud, but sprang back up.
"How was that for changing things up?"
"Better. But let's see if you can keep it going."
"With pleasure."
The challenge accepted, Oshibu blitzed away and started a key back and forth between him and Eri.
Oshibu would rush in for a variety of attacks, and then Eri would go and dodge them or at times even jump over them before landing a few attacks of her own. Oshibu would counter and was able to get hits on her, but every time he would try and push her off the battlefield she would use her gymnastic ability to rebound or redirect her balance and momentum so she could stay inside.
When Eri went in for some attacks, she would do her best to send out a flurry of strikes, including her pressure point abilities, to try and slow Oshibu down. But he would always get away just long enough to shake off the attacks and get right back at her.
The two traded blows for a while, and to many in the audience, it seemed like a stalemate. But to some in Class 1-B, they knew better.
"Final moments," said Chuya simply.
As if hearing this, Oshibu did a blitzing attack like he'd never done before. It wasn't the tornado attack, as he knew that Eri would likely have a counter for it. But instead he just blitzed around her with such speed that even with her hearing she couldn't really pick up what direction he was going in and when he was going to attack her.
She realized that he wasn't going right at her, but instead, beside her, and tried to strike at him, but whiffed every time. This was all the confirmation he needed to know his plan would work.
He rushed by her and saw her whiff on another strike, and when he did, he pivoted quickly and did another leg sweep. As she hovered in the air, he blitzed away and then rushed right back in and pushed her to the edge of the arena, then did another back and forth to get momentum, and just as she was trying to reach for the edge of the battlefield to grab onto it, he did a two-handed shot right on her, sending her to the ground with a thud, and ending the match.
Projection sounded her vocal horn and let out a noise of joy, "What a match! Eri Ogata absolutely put up a great fight against Oshibu Noka's speed, but it just wasn't enough in the end! Still, great match all around. But it's Oshibu who is the third member of the semi-finals!"
As the crowd cheered, Oshibu basked in it like before, but then he stopped and went over to Eri, who was stretching out her body and making sure nothing was wrong with it.
"You good?" he asked honestly.
"I'm good," Eri replied just as honest. "That last flurry was surprising, I was the one who didn't see that coming."
"I copied you ironically enough, you kept doing those combo moves on me while I was doing single strikes, so I figured I ought to try it out myself."
"Well played. I am not mad at this defeat, but do expect me to go and think of how to beat you next time, got it?"
"Sounds like a blast."
Oshibu extended his hand, and she happily shook it before they went off in different directions.
Projection knew it was best to keep things rolling, so that's exactly what she did, "Since there's no reason to delay, let's head to our final match of the round!"
The crowd cheered much more earnestly this time around, which Projection greatly appreciated.
"First up, we have the master of earth, Sanda Hideaki!"
After getting a quick pat on the back from Oshibu as he passed by, Sanda nervously went out onto the fighting stage. From their point in the stands, his classmates could tell he was uneasy about the fight he was about to have.
"Sanda's on edge," pointed out Doza, "can't say I blame him given that we know next to nothing about this 1-A guy."
Ueno paused his head wobble as he eyed the opposite entranceway, "We don't even know how he won the last round, we couldn't see anything. How can you prepare for something like that?"
"He could go all out, brother," suggested Ryo after some thought.
"Just wreck everything, sister?" pondered Ryu with equal thought. "It could work, but like Ueno said..."
"...we don't know enough about this guy," finished Ebirima with worry.
The others nodded in acknowledgement of the statement, and their worries didn't stop when Projection continued her introductions.
"And next up, we have the mysterious last member of Class 1-A, Kazekuwa Norihisa!"
Kazekuwa walked very lazily to the ring, his emo vibe pouring out of him as he made his way across from Sanda.
"Let's have a good fight gentlemen, and...begin!"
She sounded her horn, and Sanda wasted no time in pounding the ground with his fists and sending ripples across the battlefield. Kazekuwa didn't flinch, or even try and dodge, he just rode them for all it was worth and didn't seem to mind.
A bit fazed by this, Sanda pounded the ground again, and like he did with Ebirima, tried to go and trap his foe in a prison.
But while it worked at first, and he personally witnessed Kazekuwa get trapped in it, when he threw the sphere off the stage and opened it up to spit him out...he wasn't there.
The crowd gasped and Sanda turned just in time to see Kazekuwa not just behind him, but attacking him with punches and kicks. Sanda was able to push him back, and moved the earth to go and strike back. But no matter the attacks he did, Kazekuwa seemed to weave in and out of them without much effort.
With a roar, Sanda sent his hands and feet into the ground and raised a plethora of spikes all over the arena, only shielding himself via another sphere of earth.
From inside the sphere, he expected to hear something from the crowd or Projection, but he didn't hear anything. At least, not at first.
Within the sphere, he heard breathing, but it wasn't his own. Sanda turned in fear just in time to see a hand grab his face.
From the outside, nothing was happening, and neither of the two fighters couldn't be seen or heard. But then, a cracking of earth pierced the silence. A chunk of the earth sphere shattered, and from the hole, Sanda was tossed out onto the ground, with Kazekuwa emerging right after.
The crowd was stunned, but Projection was able to pull it together to sound the horn and call the match over, "And in yet another surprisingly quick fight, Kazekuwa Norihisa has come out on top! He seemed to have no problems with Sanda Hideaki's earth powers...though how he exactly won isn't clear! It is clear though that he is the odds-on favorite to win folks!"
Eventually, the crowd shook themselves from their state and was able to cheer for the winner. But much like before, Kazekuwa didn't care, and merely walked off, muttering to himself as he did.
In a waiting area, Tonen and Oshibu watched on in shock at what just happened in the match.
"Did...did Sanda do ANYTHING to him?" questioned Oshibu with clear disbelief.
Tonen paused as he thought about it, but shook his head eventually, "Not that I can see."
"He was screwing with the layout of the whole stage...and he did nothing...are we screwed?"
"Probably. Although, we did get some information about his possible Quirk."
Oshibu was a bit surprised by this, "Uh...really? Because all I got was that he was freaking quick to beat two people, including our classmate who again, CAN CONTROL THE EARTH!"
"Calm down," Tonen said with a look. "Think about it, he was able to withstand explosives despite being right next to them and then knockout the maker of them without him noticing. And now, he beat someone who was sending all sorts of earth-based attacks at him. That is enough to narrow down what he can possibly do."
"Go on..."
"Option 1) he's a phaser. He can make his body intangible and thus can shrug off attacks. Option 2) Like Shifty, he might be able to go and merged with the ground in a way that allows him to move around without being seen or heard."
"Well...he was in that rock sphere and yet somehow got out, so both of those would track with that."
"Which brings us to Option 3) he's a teleporter."
"Now that would explain a lot," Oshibu admitted, but then a realization came over him. "If it's that last one, we're in more trouble than we thought."
"How so?" asked Tonen.
"When I'm speeding along, I have to know where I'm going before I blitz. That guy had no visibility in multiple points of those matches and yet he was able to get to where he's going. So he might just be able to go where he wants to no matter where that is."
"...good point."
"So what do we do?"
"I have to go and deal with Goya. You head up to the stands, talk with everyone and tell them what we think is going on. See if you all can come up with a plan. I'll try and make this match last as long as possible, but no guarantees given Goya's psychic power. So do what you do best, make it quick."
"And do it in style," said Oshibu with a pose before blasting off.
Tonen shook his head and rolled his eyes at his classmates departure, but quickly regained focus as he knew that his own fight was next and he had to work out his own strategy for it.
As he told Oshibu, Goya's psychic power was nothing to scoff at. He had seen it firsthand eliminate multiple people from the tag team round, including some of his close friends in Azujima and Iha. And then he saw it brutalize Kuroda without so much as major effort from Goya's part.
Though he wasn't around, he could already see Goya in his mind gloating and laughing over the victory that might come in their fight. But he knew he couldn't let that get to him.
So Tonen did what he always did in these moments, he took deep breaths and focused on what he knew he could control. Much like Hana and Kuroda, he knew he had a fraction of second to go and launch an attack else he'd be caught in the psychic field.
Could he get around that? And if he could launch an attack, would it be enough? He would find out soon, whether he liked the answer or not.
A tap at the door of the waiting area let him know it was time to go. He took one last deep breath and steadied himself before walking out.
In her booth, Projection took a deep breath herself as she was unsure as to what was about to happen in the match ahead. But she knew she had to put on a brave face, and voice, for the crowd.
"Ladies and gentlemen," she said with enthusiasm, "it's now time for the semi-finals!"
The crowd roared with excitement, and Projection fed off of it.
"Our first match is one between two absolute powerhouses in regards to their Quirks. It's Goya Ramasu..."
Goya walked out, but this time there was distinct booing from the crowd. This affected him for but a moment before he put on his arrogant smile once again.
"...and Tonen Keitomo!"
Tonen walked out as confident as he dared to be under the circumstances. His eyes were fixed on his opponent, and the same was true for Goya.
One way or another, this would be settled.
"Keep it clean gentlemen," warned Projection with clear intent, "and...begin!"
*credits*
