The Battle Trial! It's Finally here! Even though it took much longer than I anticipated to get here. The first Match-up will be...
Bakugou and Iida, vs Midoriya and Kaminari.
I still don't know whether I will do the other battle trials in detail. Perhaps I will for Todoroki and Yaoyorozu, but other than that it may be shortened a lot. There will… Probably be a lot of commentary in between or something.
Let's see how well I can write the battle trials.
Also, this probably goes unspoken, but I should probably warn for language.
Bakugou has a potty mouth.
All Might announced that the activity had started, roughly five minutes into the uneasy silence he was enduring. The armored teen gave one more glance to his uncouth teammate, charging away into the unexpectedly decrepit building, idly registering a gruff "Don't get in my way, Extra" through the noise of explosions.
Tenya huffed a sigh, both in relief (though he'd never admit it) and in disappointment. He had known that this activity would be troublesome from the moment he saw the pairings. He had hoped that it wouldn't be the case, hoped that, despite his gruff looks, his teammate was reasonable. However, the sound of gradually quieting explosions had him thinking otherwise.
His teammate had left him behind, he realized sullenly.
With a sigh, he pocketed the building's floor plan. The doorway ahead of him only showed an empty wreck of a main hall, lit dimly by the light from the doorway. Steeling his resolve, Tenya entered the now decrepit ruins.
While the outside of the building looked fine, the inside was the complete opposite. The extent of the damage proved to be much worse than he thought when he walked through the doorway.
All the lights were shattered and ripped out of their places, leaving the building unsettlingly dark. He had to pull his phone out to even realize it, illuminating shattered glass (or was it plastic?) and broken lights along the floor. The building wasn't much better. From the floorplan which he'd done his best to memorize, the stairwells which aligned the building were severely damaged.
It had to have been done deliberately, to stop or at least slow down his "team". He had to admit, he was impressed. Midoriya had seemed like a gentle giant to him, in their few interactions, and Kaminari seemed too carefree to think of strategies like this. Perhaps he had to re-evaluate his competition.
He could also see light coming from a window on the second floor, followed by a heaping pile of rubble below it. The connected stairwell had been demolished, much like the other three in the building, however, if he jumped from the rubble to a part of the broken staircase, he thought he could make it up to the second level.
He tested the stability of the pile of rubble, before backing off. He took a running start, jumping to the top of the pile, before launching himself off the wall and onto what remained of the staircase. He could vaguely hear his "teammate" blasting his way around the second level.
Running around on the second level, Tenya found it was in a similar state of disrepair as the ground level. A majority of the lights had been ripped out, and the stairwells were also smashed beyond recognition. What's more, all the rooms were barren of their furnishings, with markings left behind which indicated that they were picked up and moved elsewhere. It left him wondering what sort of obstacles he should anticipate. All the furniture could be used to blockade something, and it would definitely make sense for Midoriya to capitalize on his strength.
It was amidst this pondering that Iida heard several uncharacteristically loud explosions, much louder than the almost ignorable cracklings which he suspected were propelling his "teammate", followed by a roaring cry.
"I finally found you, you fucking nerd! Now stop hiding and fight me! Or are you just going to run away like the worthless Deku you are?!"
That sounded like it came from upstairs. Bakugou must have encountered Midoriya.
Leaving the level behind, Iida rushed to the confrontation.
Izuku paced silently (at least, as silently as his hero costume allowed) through the third level of the building. His eyes had mostly adjusted to the dim lighting of hallways since they'd ripped out the wires, and he was anticipating a fight within the next few minutes.
For now, he was patrolling between the five smashed stairwells, trying to keep track of Kaachan's noisy exploration. It was this progress, and the lack of any notice from All Might, that told him that Kaminari's gambit had worked. That being said, they still had to stall for the remaining time or evade the enemy team until the activity ended.
He ducked into a darker hallway, hiding around the corner and waiting as he heard the fiery blond blast up to the third level.
'It shouldn't be long now' he thought, pulling his hood up, the Ninth holder crouched while his legs flooded with a fraction of One for All. The explosions were getting closer…
Closer…
The hallway started lighting up as Kaachan came closer and closer.
Until defiant red eyes rounded the corner.
The concrete floor beneath him shattered as Izuku launched himself at his friend-turned-bully. His fist, rapidly filling with power, soared closer and closer toward the explosive blond.
At least, until a wave of heat rushed over him, as he was engulfed in flames and noise.
Izuku winced, eyes closing tightly as smoke flowed over him.
His ears might have been ringing from that explosion, but Izuku was hearing cackling from him.
"You flinched, you weakling. What, too scared to fight back!?" Kaachan scoffed. "Don't look down on me, Deku!" he hated that nickname, but Kaachan was right in saying that he flinched. He didn't know what his power would do to a person after all.
He gritted his teeth.
He'd been warned by both All Might and his Dad several times before about how dangerous his quirk could be. He knew that firing off a smash at anything would be dangerous since it only took one punch to topple a Zero-Pointer. Even so, this was the first time he was using it against another person, and he didn't even land the hit.
"I finally found you, you fucking nerd! Now stop hiding and fight me! Or are you just going to run away like the worthless Deku you are?!" the blond lunged, blasting a hole through the nearby wall as Izuku leaped out of the way.
He knew he had to use it for combat eventually, but he also didn't want to kill Kaachan. As much of a stuck-up jerk as he was, Izuku still saw so much potential from the blond to cut short his future. And so he held back, even if unconsciously.
"Don't dodge my attacks, Deku" Waving away the smoke, he saw Kaachan's menacing grin steadily approaching, starburst sparks crackling from the fiery blond palms, before he came running at him.
An explosive cloud flew over his shoulder, narrowly ducked under thanks to Izuku's reaction speed. The cloud was swiftly followed by a sweeping backhanded fist, propelled by explosions which he backstepped away from.
He had to thank All-might for the lessons on boxing later, with this stance, even with all the force from the blasts, Izuku didn't feel like he was going to fall over any time soon.
His opponent continued spinning, using the momentum to follow up with a kick. Even with the gauntlets providing as much protection as they did, he still felt the impact on his arm with every attack.
The kick wasn't as strong as the backhand, but would still rattle him if he took a blow to the head. He lept back to avoid the downward blast, charring the ground where he stood seconds ago.
*Ping*
"Stop dodging you fucking nerd!" Izuku ignored him in favor of hearing what Kaminari had to say.
"The trap's ready dude, and I can hear you two fighting downstairs. You gonna be ok?"
Pressing his earpiece, he ignored the blond's taunts, so he could respond to his teammate. "Little-" he ducked back from an explosive punch "- occupied right now!"
"Got it, try to lead them up if you can. I'll be ready and waiting. Kaminari Out." *Ping*
"DON'T IGNORE ME YOU SHITTY DEKU!" Kaachan was relentless, but Izuku was as quick as the blond was ruthless.
Izuku was already familiar with how he fought, having been on the receiving end of the onslaught many times before. It looks like the few months he hadn't seen the blond had changed that. It was only a little faster, but for some reason, it didn't seem as scary as it once did.
He just needed to counter Kaachan and break his rhythm.
'I can do it. I can do it.'
The onslaught stopped as suddenly as it started, and Izuku couldn't help but worry at the sudden calm in the fiery blond's expression.
"They're loaded," he muttered.
'Loaded? What's loaded- wait don't tell me-'
"You won't even use your so-called quirk, yet you think you can win without it? Are you looking down on me, Deku?"
"My name isn't Deku! I'm not just some kid you can push around anymore!"
Perhaps that was the wrong time to say it, as Izuku saw Kaachan's smirk turn maniacal.
"It's been a while since we talked, but with your stalker books you probably already know. My sweat is like Nitroglycerine, and I can ignite it from the palms of my hands and make it explode. And thanks to all the running around I've been doing, my gauntlets are full of nitroglycerine right now." he lowered into a stance, raising an arm and pulling back the metal of it.
"Young Bakugou! Stop! You'll kill him!"
Izuku could tell that something big was coming. All Might's voice blaring from the announcement system served as a decent indicator. Cautiously, he placed a foot behind him, raising a fist and filling it with the crackling energy of One for All.
A pin-like trigger popped out of the gauntlet, as Kaachan wrapped his finger around it.
"He'll be fine as long as he dodges!" In a fluid motion, the blond ripped the pin out.
The hallway was swiftly filled with fire and ashes, concrete tearing as the flames rushed towards him. He almost wondered if this was the right decision, as his fist flew at the oncoming oblivion.
A murder.
He'd just witnessed a murder.
A cloud of ash and debris loomed over the destroyed hallway, with smoke so thick that it blotted out everything.
Only…
The smoke quickly split open, pierced by a verdant arrow striking true - sailing into the head of his cackling teammate.
It was only after Midoriya's armored fist struck Bakugou a second time that he regained his senses. Tenya rushed to aid the blond, watching as Midoriya landed two more blows into the blond in rapid succession before he finally launched himself at his opponent.
However, it seemed that he had vastly underestimated his classmate's reaction speed. Midoriya had ducked under his kick, falling out of his vision, before he felt his legs being swept out from under him, and a fist crashed into his armor, thoroughly crumpling it into his back.
Crumpled or not, he had to be glad that he was wearing it, as he skidded through the ruined hallway and into some sort of miniature crater.
It took him a few seconds to stand, after receiving such a blow, so he had to admit, while Bakugou was… rude, uncouth, and possibly insane, he certainly was tenacious. On unsteady feet, he watched as the blurry silhouette of his teammate somehow managed to stay on his feet after receiving three devastating attacks.
At least, it seemed that his failed attack gave the blond the breathing room he needed to retaliate, as he blasted forward with an outstretched right hook-
Only to be grabbed by said arm, flipped over his back, and slammed into the floor. The tile below him shattered under the force of the impact. It didn't look like Bakugou would be getting up any time soon.
He watched Midoriya let go of his teammate, as he raised a hand to the side of his helmet, and with the press of a button, it unfolded back into the armored hood.
The recording room was utterly silent, All Might stood frozen on his way to the door. He was fully prepared to dash out towards the building and stop the test himself, but the exclamations from his students had him turning back towards the screen.
He was glad that he did too, as what he saw shocked him. Waves of relief and amazement washed over him, as he watched his protege take down both Young Iida and Young Bakugou within a minute.
"Damn, do you think Iida is alright? Like, Holy crap he went flying there"
"I'm more wondering how Bakugou is taking all those hits! Midoriya's arms are covered with metal, and we all saw how far he threw that ball"
"You'd think he'd been training since childhood to get that good"
Walking back to the screen, All Might glanced at his students as he returned to the control panel. He was confident that Young Midoriya could handle things from here. Young Uraraka and Asui were talking animatedly about the fight while the Yaoyorozu and Todoroki heirs were staring at the screen, the latter looking rather unsettled.
"Man, How did Midoriya get through that wall of fire though?" It was Young Kirishima who had asked that, and it was loud enough for the rest of the class to hear.
"Wait, didn't Midoriya look like he was trying to throw a punch before Bakugou fired that?" Young Sero brought up a good point. Tapping a few buttons on the monitor before him, All Might paused the main screen, before scrolling the footage back a handful of seconds. Sure enough, his protégé was poised to defend against the oncoming assault.
"He's not even flinching from it! So manly!"
"Now that I think about it, remember how he threw the ball?" The rhetoric was punctuated with a faint ribbit. "Even though he aimed too high, it still went nearly One point Three kilometers. If he could throw something that hard, then imagine what happens if he were to hit something that hard, even if the only thing he hits is air."
Her companion let out an awed gasp. "It would be just like All Might-Sensei's Smashes!"
Murmurs broke out among the several clusters of students. Young Asui was correct in her assumption, as Young Midoriya had indeed used the shockwave of a punch to stop a majority of the flame wall from hitting him. However, the only reason All Might knew that was because of context clues.
He had heard the young man yell the name of one of his signature moves through the audio network right as the wall of flames engulfed him.
'What a fanboy,' he thought, trying to not chuckle at the memory.
"Midoriya blew the flames away," a calm and seemingly emotionless voice stated.
All Might looked back to the class, trying not to jump at the alarming expression that the Todoroki successor showed, before addressing the class.
"Let's return to the footage. After all, their trial isn't over yet!" idly making a note to look into Young Todoroki's student file later, All Might turned back towards the screen, and moved the footage up to the present.
It took a few attempts (no thanks to his inconveniently large hands) until the cameras flickered back to all the competitors.
*pant*
*pant*
"Holy woah…"
He felt like his brain was on overdrive as he gasped for air. Somehow, amid all the adrenaline flooding his body, he'd managed to beat both Kaachan and Iida-san at the same time.
He watched the blond bully beneath him, passed out in a crater that he made. It took a moment for the realization to hit him, as he unlatched his helmet and looked around.
Iida-san looked so shocked that he couldn't stand, kneeling in the small jump crater he made. Around them, the hallway was annihilated, with a gaping hole past Iida-san, looking out to the open street.
Shaking off his stupor, he reached into his pocket. The exercise was still on after all. Pulling out the capture tape, he went to wrap the utility around the blond's wrist.
Only to meet a fiery explosion to the face.
Izuku winced, his eyes shut themselves as tightly as he could manage and he backed away step by step. Kaachan was still awake apparently and very, very angry. He couldn't help but be pushed back by the consecutive, indiscriminate explosions.
His eyes felt like white-hot agony, wincing as he tried to blink away the countless blurring spots.
Additionally, it felt like the capture tape in his hand was falling apart. With a quick glance, trying to see through the spots, showed flickering tails of orange, which he promptly threw to the ground. The tape had caught on fire, much to his dismay.
He couldn't fight like this. If Kaachan got up again, and Iida started attacking too, he wouldn't be able to keep up with attacks he can't see. Reluctantly, he turned away and started running.
It annoyed him that he'd had to run, he'd just managed to do something he would have thought impossible a year ago, lamenting his loss of progress.
'At least there's still the main plan and the backup plan' he thought.
*Ping*
'Oh- right. Kaminari had been pinging on the earpiece ever since Kaachan destroyed the hallway.'
He tapped his earpiece as he ran towards the stairway. "Hey, Kaminari"
"Holy crap- Midoriya you're ok!"
"Y-yeah, things got a little out of hand…"
"A little out of hand- Dude, the hell just happened?! One moment I'm sitting on top of the barricade and the next I'm on the ground buried up to my ass in Furniture!"
"Uhh, well… Kaachan used his support tech on me. Do you remember how I said his quirk makes his sweat explosive? The gauntlets he has collected that sweat and stored it for big attacks." Izuku rounded a corner as he recounted the fight to his teammate.
"A-Anyways, I fought him and he used a gauntlet on me. Then Iida joined and I managed to beat them both somehow... Kaachan hit me with a flashbang, but he wasn't following me. I thought I knocked him out, so maybe he's lashing out on instinct. Oh- and my capture tape got burned in the explosions. I'll make my way back to you as my vision clears up."
"... Alright dude, be careful though, you smashed up the stairwells pretty thoroughly, and you said your vision was spotty because of the flashbang."
"Got it, see you in a minute."
*Ping*
Izuku ended the transmission as he arrived in the stairwell, channeling a bit of One for All into his legs, he launched himself up the fourth level.
It was time to meet back up with his teammate.
After the fires died down, and his consciousness had fully returned, he found himself lying in a smoldering crater, with the armored extra looking at him pensively from a few feet away.
He took a moment to examine himself and his senses before he got up.
"Young Bakugou! If you use that attack again, I'll disqualify you immediately." He was extremely tempted to rip the communications device out of his ear and crush it.
'Looks like my big attacks are out.' he scowled, dropping the gauntlets to the floor. One of them made a much heavier thud than the other. There was no use carrying dead weight. The imbalance would just screw him over anyways.
His arms were trembling and his entire body hurt immensely, worse than the training he did whenever he booked time slots at the local gyms. At least he could still fight, nothing felt broken, just bruised and sore.
Katsuki's anger was seething, but the Nerd had already left and he knew better than to take it out on his teammate. As much as he'd wanted to, he'd probably lose marks for it. Methodically, he let his rage simmer until he could break down everything that just happened.
'Deku was fast. Faster than the extra, but with all that speed and power, he's still a coward using my attacks' smoke cloud against me. Obscuring visibility would be a bad idea, not that I can use my gauntlets again, at this point, my body won't be able to handle the recoil, besides, All Might said he'd eliminate me if I tried.'
"Tch- That fucking Nerd…"
"Bakugou, are you alright?"
'Of course, that's what the armored extra would ask' he thought with a scowl.
His eyes narrowed. Everything looked slightly spotty, though he didn't know if it was from himself or because of that shitty Deku. He held his hands out in front of his face to verify. He'd been slammed into the ground, hard enough to crack it, so while he didn't think the Nerd was strong enough to give him a concussion, he needed to check just in case.
Left arm, palm facing towards himself. Index finger up. Next, pinky. Next, middle.
'Good. No concussion. It seems the spots are slowly fading too.' he lowered his hands.
Experimentally, he began letting small sparks out from his palms, gradually increasing the size and force of the explosions. Almost growling at the intensified burning sensation in them, he let off a big explosion in the direction that the nerd went, leaving cracks in the wall.
"I'll live. Deku won't," he replied through gritted teeth.
Brushing off the rubble and dust from his costume, he stretched, momentarily wincing from the kick to his ribs, before continuing on, stalking through the hallways instead of blasting off.
After a short moment, his teammate began to follow him. At least he wasn't getting in his way. He remembered how his teammate had attempted to help, only to get sent flying by Deku. Though he loathed acknowledging it, the brief moment of breathing room had helped, even if he got countered hard enough to black out for a few seconds.
"Fucking Nerd pulled a fast one, but he won't get the same chance," he grumbled. His arms were shaking, so he needed to give them time to rest, despite being on the clock. He started lightly jogging around through the dark halls, making a promise to himself to not screw up again.
A large, two-person sofa was shoved back into place, followed by a sigh and the wiping of his brow. Denki definitely hadn't been expecting a part of the barricade to fall down on him, especially not while he was sitting on it, but he was immensely glad that he didn't get crushed by anything.
He wasn't strong enough to lift the sofa up and into its original position. It had initially been weighing down the barricade from on top of two cabinets, and he wasn't strong enough to lift it over his head, so instead he just sat down on top of it while he waited for his teammate to return.
Speaking of which, he couldn't help but think of what Midoriya had come up with after finding out about his quirk. Eager to try it out, he held his hands together, before lighting them up with his quirk.
Slowly bringing them apart, he watched as his lightning jumped between each hand sporadically, periodically flickering in the middle before returning to one of his palms. He'd had very little control over it since his childhood, for the most part just frying whatever electronics he'd touched. He felt bad for all the bills that Mom and Dad had racked up because of him, but at least he learned how to hold back the lightning when he turned eight. Too bad that was all he knew how to do though.
Midoriya had said something about circuits and wires, with things like light bulbs or power outlets between the start and the end. He said that Electrification was basically a living reactor. He didn't really understand what that meant, but he had a vague idea. His teammate kept making the shape of a box, and something about positive and negative, and while that part flew over his head, it sort of looked like a cycle, or some kind of journey that ended where it began, so if he tried to picture it while using his quirk…
Denki clasped his hands back together while imagining the box. His arms would be the wires, and between his hands would be a light. He had tried doing precise actions with his quirk before, but he'd only managed to confine his electricity to certain parts of his body in the past. That always seemed to be the extent of his control. He wasn't expecting anything big from his little experiment,
The electricity crackled along his arms as he tried to control it. He could move where the quirk was being activated, but he had a feeling that this wasn't what his teammate had meant. All he'd succeeded in doing was faintly lighting up the hall in front of him. Shaking his head, he took in a deep breath, cutting off his quirk, before trying again.
Maybe the plus and minus that Midoriya had talked about were like push and pull?
'But how the heck does someone do that with lightning?' he wondered, sending his electricity through his arms again. Lightning crackled off from his jacket, down one arm, and up the other.
"This definitely isn't it"' he mumbled. With a sigh, he turned off his quirk. Leaning on one of the arms of the sofa, he mused. "Maybe I should just ask Midoriya after this."
Denki looked at the crack between the tiles. Minutes earlier, he'd been placing stripped electrical wires between most of the cracks. His teammate had spent roughly two minutes dashing around on the first and second levels, ripping out all the lights and wires for them to use in this trap.
And the trap was brilliant if Denki had to say so. With it, he didn't have to use his Indiscriminate Shock as he had initially intended on doing, plus, this gave him some much-needed range for his quirk.
Bringing his hands together, he tried to create the circuit at least he was about to before he heard Midoriya rapidly approaching.
"Dude! You good?" he stood up, electricity fading as he approached the armored teen.
"Y-yeah, the spots are disappearing faster than I thought they would. We should get ready though, Kaachan and Iida are probably going to be here soon. Do you remember the plan?"
Denki raised an eyebrow at Midoriya's choice of names but proceeded regardless. His companion had already explained a part of where it came from, but given the angry pomeranian's attitude, he couldn't help but wonder if there was more to this so-called friendship.
"Don't worry, I got it. Once we can get both Iida and Bakugou into the trapped area, I'll light them up, and you'll knock 'em down. Just make sure you watch where you step, the wires are in the cracks, but the electricity jumped around a lot when I tested it."
"Got it. Oh- and my capture tape got burnt when I tried to get Kaachan, can I borrow the one you have?"
"Yeah dude, if Bakugou goes after you again, then I'll deal with Iida, I don't think I'm fast enough to capture either of them though, so I'll just leave that to you" he pulled the roll of tape out from his jacket's pocket, before handing it to his teammate. "Now let's get ready, I don't want them to get the jump on us."
Denki faintly saw Midoriya's silhouette nodding in the dimmed corridor before he turned towards the empty hallway. Looking faintly at the cracks in between the floor tiles, he couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement at what was to come.
They didn't have to wait long either. After a good minute, Midoriya tapped his shoulder and pointed to the hallway. Denki didn't hear anything just yet, so in a hushed voice, he asked, "Are they coming? I can't hear them"
"Two pairs of footprints, one heavier than the other. It sounds like metal boots on the floor."
He couldn't help but be shocked at this. Was his hearing really that bad? Sure, he might blast music on his headphones from time to time, but he didn't think it'd make his hearing worse other than tinnitus.
Or perhaps, Midoriya's hearing was just abnormally sharp. His teammate seemed insanely strong to begin with. From the random internet surfing that he did late at night, he remembered that it took between 2 and 30 minutes for people to recover from flashbangs, but it had barely been two minutes between him checking in through comms and meeting up with him.
Perhaps Midoriya was just built differently. That or Bakugou couldn't do a proper flashbang.
Shrugging off the notion, Denki stretched lightly and tried to remember the footwork Midoriya told him about earlier.
Thankfully, there were no surprise attacks, as Denki watched their opposition round the corner.
"No more running away this time, Deku." the pyromaniac muttered, explosions crackling menacingly in both hands.
"Out of my way Pikachu!"
Izuku heard Kaachan yell as an explosion lit up the dark hallway. Once again, he wasn't surprised that his childhood friend/bully charged after him immediately.
One explosive-propelled fist flew past him, idly swatted aside by a well-placed wave. Izuku couldn't evade as much here, what with the blockade behind their backs, so instead, he settled for deflecting as much as he could and knocking him back. Just because the barricade behind them was a ruse, didn't mean that Izuku wanted them to discover the ruse too quickly.
He just hoped that their opposition would be too preoccupied to notice the ruse and the time.
"Stop being a fucking coward and fight me you damn Nerd!"
A forward lunge was swatted to the side, followed by a left hook, blocked by his gauntlet, a backhand, propelled by concussive force was ducked under and a tornado roundhouse kick (Izuku didn't realize Kaachan knew Taekwondo), powered by momentum was backstepped, in favor of propelling himself forward, sending an armored elbow into the blond's chest.
Hit after hit was either dodged or blocked as Izuku did his best to stall the fiery blond. Sure, he wasn't able to block all of the attacks, but the gauntlets on his arms, and the armored jumpsuit protecting his body seemed like more than enough to protect him from the shockwaves. He'd have to thank Dad later for picking this material.
A wave of heat snapped him back to reality, as one of Kaachan's explosives got a bit too close for comfort. Waving away the heat, he threw another punch at the fiery blond, only for it to miss and trigger another retaliation, in the form of a boot, blocked by his other arm.
Izuku followed the block with a kick of his own, trying to knock Kaachan down, only for the blond to do a handspring of all things, before propelling himself back into battle, quite literally, as an armored knee crashed into his guard. Izuku would not envy anyone who got hit by that, It looked sharp enough to impale someone.
"Cheap tricks like that won't do shit against me. Stop looking down on me you fucking Deku!"
He clenched his fist tightly. "Stop calling me that! I told you that's not my name!"
Izuku pounced forward as his fist crackled with the power of his quirk. A vicious right hook flew into the blond's arm brace as he sent his adversary flying back through the hallway. He wondered if he went too far for a moment, until a split-second later, a fiery retaliation nearly knocked him off of his feet.
"Then try and make me stop you fucking weakling! The Old Hag can hit harder than that!" Kaachan was so aggressive that Izuku could barely keep track of the others, apart from the minimal light that his teammate gave off.
From the sounds of it, Iida and Kaminari were also fighting, even if their confrontation was more of a stalemate. Metallic clangs and the constant buzzing of electricity filled the halls between the violent staccato of explosions.
The silhouette of Kaminari and Iida trying to fight was briefly lit up from Kaachan's blasts as the blond flew past. His electric teammate was sparking constantly while trying to hit Iida. Any kick that the engine user landed would deal damage back to him, as electricity leaped onto his armor with every attack. Meanwhile, his teammate didn't seem to be faring much better, as he was heavily favoring one leg over the other while trying to stay clear of the big kicks.
Kaminari wouldn't last too much longer if Iida landed many more attacks, and he could tell that Kaachan was getting more and more angry.
He had to finish this fast.
'It seems like Kaachan can take a punch at 5% without any problems somehow. Did I hold back unconsciously? No- don't think about it. Whatever I did, I just need to do it again.'
The trigger-happy opponent rushed at him again, with Izuku dashing forward to meet him halfway. Literally crackling with energy, he punched Bakugou again, trying to clock the blond in the head to stun him.
Ultimately, his attack had missed due to the fiery explosion aimed at his head. The blast had set off his helmet too, as it clamped shut around his head. He was quite glad that it had shut when it did though, as he felt Kaachan grabbing the helmet before his head was pulled forward, and then his entire view was rattled. It would take until later for Izuku to realize, but Blond had just kneed him in the head, followed by his typical onslaught of attacks.
He had endured them though. Izuku had long since gotten used to Kaachan's attacks from the years at Aldera. Plus, his suit seemed to cushion every hit. However, he was sweating profusely under the armored jumpsuit.
An empowered fist put a stop to his assailant's stomach had put an end to the assault. It was more of a shove than a punch, but it was more than enough to send Kaachan flying once again. The precious few seconds were enough for Izuku to get his bearings.
"Midoriya?! Any time now!" he vaguely heard Kaminari past the ringing and explosions
"Working on it! Kaachan's Harder to take down than he looks!" his voice was muffled by the filter of the helmet.
Ducking under a roundhouse kick, Izuku elbowed the domineering blond in the stomach again, eliciting a choked cough followed by an axe kick. Izuku barely managed to avoid getting hit by it by dodging to the side.
"Then work faster! I can't hold him off forever! Woah-" Izuku briefly saw Kaminari dodge back from a kick, before lunging forward with electrified fists. His attack missed, but it pushed Iida back regardless.
He briefly considered changing his fighting style, despite only being familiar with boxing techniques. Kaminari was right in that they wouldn't be able to hold Kaachan and Iida off for long, and at the rate they were going, he wouldn't win against his childhood friend either.
For some reason, the boastful blond seemed to know which attacks were powered with One for All and was only dodging them, narrowly avoiding being hit every time. This wasn't working for him. He couldn't beat Kaachan again this way. He needed to hit him with something which he wouldn't expect.
Izuku took a deep breath, as deep a breath he could draw with the helmet on, in order to steel his resolve. One for All steadily flooded into both of his arms as he leveled an even glare at him.
"Finally getting serious, you fucking Deku?! Fine then! I'll blow it away. You, that barrier, and that shitty power you've been hiding all these years!" 'What does he mean "all these years"? Is that how he sees One for All?'
Izuku glared at his aggressive childhood friend, ignoring the blond's taunt as he dashed forward. He needed to get as up close and personal as he could, in order to make the most of his idea. Thankfully, it looked like the two were on the same page.
"LET'S SEE IF THAT WEAK-ASS POWER CAN KEEP UP WITH THIS YOU SHITTY NERD!"
Kaachan rushed at him with a vindictive sneer, arms stretched out and trailing explosions.
A flurry of fists and fire rained down upon him in a rapid assault. It paused briefly as Izuku kicked with One for All. The blinding inferno paused briefly enough for him to dash at the blond to retaliate.
Writhing flames enveloped him again, the heat being held off by his jumpsuit's protection as Izuku closed in. With One for All saturating his arms, he brought his palms together, as fast as he could.
*BANG*
"Argh-"
While his hands had missed the blond's head, the blast of force and sound that roared forth from his clap had visibly knocked Kaachan back. Desperate not to lose his momentum, Izuku leaped forward, colliding with the blond.
His helmet collided with the blond's head, rattling the both of them as their bodies collided. Thankfully, with all the padding inside the helmet, alongside his untamed hair, the impact wasn't an issue for him.
Grabbing Kaachan by the torso, Izuku lifted him off the ground, killing off the extra momentum by pivoting around one foot, before throwing the blond as hard as he could.
"Kaminari! Duck!"
"Wha?- WOAH!?" seeing the oncoming blond flying his way, the electrification user did his best to jump out of the way as he hurled himself to the ground.
As he did, he heard the resounding thud of two people colliding, as he watched Bakugou collide with the armored Iida, sending them both tumbling to the ground.
'Talk about perfect timing' Denki smirked, placing his hands to the cracks between the tiles.
"Midoriya! Jump!" that was the only warning given as the electric teen poured his quirk into the conductive copper wires.
Electricity crackled along the floor of the hallway, reaching up to the corner of the stairs. Bakugou and Iida, who were weighed down by the armored teen's hero costume, were ensnared by the energy, locking them in place.
The moment Denki cut his electricity off, his teammate rocketed towards them like a jet, quickly wrapping both of their opponents in the capture tape while they were stunned by the trap.
It was only a few seconds before the announcement system sounded with All Might's booming voice.
"THE DEFENDING TEAM WIIIIIIIINS!"
He couldn't help it when his shoulders sagged and he started giggling. It wasn't long before it devolved into full-blown laughter.
"Hahaha! We did it! Yes! " Denki sprung to his feet, fist pumping as he bounced around.
The infectious laughter had spread to Midoriya as well, as he saw the green-haired teen laughing too.
"Dude high five!"
Their palms smacked together, and although Midoriya's palm was coated in some hardened synthetic material, the slight stinging sensation Denki felt was trivial compared to his elation.
It took a few minutes for him to calm down. Apparently, All Might was letting them bask in their victory.
'Man, what a nice teacher'
When he did eventually calm down, Denki realized that Iida and Bakugou were being carried away by medical robots, as well as one robot lighting up the hallway so that he and his teammate could see.
"Man, that plan of yours really came in clutch there Midoriya!"
"It was you who managed to stun them though Kaminari-san, I honestly don't know if I could have taken them both a second time if you hadn't given me an opening."
"Buddy, you sell yourself too short. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't stand a chance against Bakugou"
"Y-yeah I guess that's true, his quirk is hard to defend against without armor… Anyway, we should really get back to the class. We shouldn't keep All Might waiting."
"Right, back to the observation room, there are other matches to sit through." Denki sighed, remembering that dark room. They still had four matches to sit through, though sitting wasn't going to be what they were doing, he didn't remember seeing any chairs in the observation room.
The electrification user looked through the battered hallway, admiring their handiwork before his eyes narrowed on the barricade they had made. An idea started to form in his head as he approached it.
"Hey, Midoriya. Can I get a hand with this?"
The first battle trial had come and gone, and Toshinori had thought Young Midoriya and Young Kaminari's match had gone swimmingly for the pair. With the chatting that he overheard on his headset, it appeared that the two got along well, though only time would tell if his successor would take that leap of faith as he'd said and build this interaction into the bridge known as friendship.
That said, the two were taking a considerable amount of time to return to the observation room.
After the match had ended, he had turned off the cameras for that building and had swapped the main screen back to the match lineups. Young Iida had even had the time to return from Recovery-Girl's office after the match had ended. It appeared that, while Young Iida was able to continue watching the class, Young Bakugou was not, as the Explosion user was too exhausted from being healed.
He was about to send someone to look for them, at least until he heard talking outside of the door. Though their voices were muffled, he heard something about not fitting through the door.
What they were talking about became obvious to him, the moment when Young Shoji opened the door.
"Wha- Oh, Thanks dude!" The electrification user looked through the door with a side glance, trying to focus on not dropping the furniture in his hands.
Young Kaminari was turned away from the door, carrying a two-seater sofa with Young Midoriya outside the doorway. At the sight of this, members of the class stared in disbelief at the unexpected sight.
Young Iida began to chastise the pair as the class broke into chatter. He was glad that he still had an hour and a half left, it looked like they would be here for a while. Their antics reminded Toshinori of something from decades ago at this point, and he couldn't help but chuckle at the memory.
Noticing the numerous sets of eyes on him, he decided to continue with the lesson.
"Nice of you to finally show up! While I don't mind you grabbing seats, I would appreciate it if you didn't take so long to get here. We're burning daylight, and there are still many ladies and gentlemen who have their trials to get through."
"S-sorry All Might!"
"My bad, Sensei!"
Perhaps it would be wise to continue the lesson now that the two were here, even if they were physically preoccupied with the sofa.
"Everyone will be getting an in-detail breakdown of their battle trials tomorrow, but for now, would anyone care to guess who the MVP of this match was? Any thoughts?" Toshinori probed. He had an answer ready for the question but had thought that it would be better to have the class discuss it amongst themselves.
He thought back to the actual exercise, thinking over the audio that had been captured. The attacking team barely strategized at all, whilst the defending team came up with no less than three backup plans.
Both teams had done a large amount of damage to the building though. He couldn't say too much about it on the defending team though, as the damage had been intentional. The majority of the damage came from collapsing stairwells on themselves, while the rest of the damage to the lightning system could be considered minor in comparison. Then there was Young Bakugou's gauntlet firing, as well as the damage sustained throughout combat. They were considerably lucky that none of the demolished parts of the building were load-bearing.
The defending team did a good job with their barricades though, and hiding the real bomb. Though Young Iida doesn't know it, the barricade that Young Midoriya and Young Kaminari were defending was a ruse, with the real one hidden in the basement. Young Kaminari gets bonus points there for thinking to put it in the basement, as well as for thinking to look for one. The student exercise blueprints typically don't include everything to leave room for students' improvisations and ideas, as per Principal Nezu's instruction. As he surveys the class, he can't help but notice Young Yaoyorozu looking at him pointedly, as if she has a question or something to say. Perhaps she had an answer to his open-ended question.
"Yes, Young Yaoyorozu?"
"All Might, sir, I believe that either Midoriya or Kaminari should be elected as the MVPs for the match. Midoriya has demonstrated good combat skills and teamwork with Kaminari, as well as the ability to adapt to new information and change his plans accordingly. Meanwhile, Kaminari has shown out-of-the-box thinking, as he found the basement, which wasn't in the building plans, but also came up with the idea of placing the bomb in there and luring the Attacking team with a fake bomb. Additionally, Kaminari was the linchpin to their trap, which enabled Midoriya to capture the attacking team without retaliation, unlike in his first attempt. Furthermore, another point for Kaminari is that he didn't damage the building to the degree that Midoriya did. However, that last point is mostly because I've noticed Aizawa-sensei docking points from Midoriya because of property damage."
'Holy crap that was thorough!'
Young Yaoyorozu's answer was so thorough that he was shocked for a moment, taking a moment to formulate a response. "That's entirely correct, Young Yaoyorozu. Even if it was planned, damaging the building more than necessary could lead to the building collapsing. It's too early in the curriculum for demolition and load-bearing walls for now, though you'll have that to look forward to later this year. You've covered all the bases. Teamwork, cooperation, planning, and damage mitigation. This is why Kaminari will be the MVP for the first match, for being a good teammate with out-of-the-box thinking, and because he enabled two of the plans which the Defending team used."
His explanation, following Young Yaoyorozu's, drew back the attention of the class. Young Midoriya and Young Kaminari seemed halfway through cramming the sofa through the doorway, though the latter had paused mid-way through, staring slack-jawed and in awe.
"Now, let's move on to the second match, shall we?" Toshinori turned back to the monitor, bringing up the list of students and their pairings once again. The first pairing was shown on top of the groups below, though their icons were smaller and had no color. Pressing a few more keys on the keyboard, the pairing's icons scrolled through the center of the screen, not dissimilar to a slot machine.
Eventually, the icons stopped scrolling, showing the next match.
"For the second match of today, Mezo Shoji and Tsuyu Asui as the attacking team, while Mashiro Ojiro and Yuga Aoyama are on the defending team. I'll let the four of you get to the trial zone. Due to the poor state of the previous building, we'll be moving to the next one. Be on your toes, you Zygotes!"
Battle Trial! Complete!
*stamps the word "Complete" onto the logo with red ink*
I've decided to completely randomize the rest of the team matches for the Battle Trials. Though I won't be going fully into detail about what has happened during each student's trials, they'd be more like Izuku and company watching the battle trials from the observation room while having a discussion. The only exceptions will probably be for Todoroki and maybe Yaoyorozu.
Also, Sofa. feels nice. I know I would be antsy if I had to stand around for an hour in a costume, so I had Kaminari snag a sofa to sit on during the class. Perhaps the other classmates would become jealous though…
Anyway, Next chapter, a big chunk of it will be exploring characters and their personalities. I still haven't gone through the stuff with Mineta's punishment from the end of chapter seven, so I'll be giving a brief glimpse of what it is too. Maybe a few more snippets of characters who've shown up too, but that's enough of a preview for now.
Next time: Through the Looking Glass