A/N: Sorry for the days-late update, ladies and gents. I been taking care of my sick son, followed by trying to survive sickness myself (also a family reunion, but that was actually fun, so I dunno that it counts as an excuse).
In any case, let's see what Team Applicant is capable of!
P.S. Thanks to prmths.c on Instagram for lending me Akabane!
What It Takes
Team RWBY soon found their base and set about preparing a strategy for countering their opponents. "I can't help but feel as though our team has been shoved in an extra slot just so those other students will have a chance to get into the hero course," Weiss complained as they examined the cage designed to hold their enemies. "They don't even have any proper hero training, do they? This won't be much of a challenge." Her winter costume featured a heavier, light grey combat skirt with black fur trim, and boots that went up past her knees to help ward off the chill while still allowing for greater flexibility.
"Can't believe I'm gonna say it, but I'm with Weiss," Yang shrugged as she folded her arms. Her costume featured the biggest change out of the four of them, granted that her summer outfit left little enough to the imagination. Now she wore a heavy leather jacket with long coattails that brushed the ground, and black leggings leading into hefty combat boots that matched the jacket. The material was designed to blunt impact without dispersing it entirely, which would allow Yang to take more hits and store the potential energy without taking as much direct damage, enabling her to fight for longer periods of time before her body could no longer handle the power of her quirk.
"I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss them," Blake cautioned her friends. "We all know how tough Mister Aizawa is on us. If these guys have got his attention well enough that he'd even consider letting them fight us, they must have powers that aren't going to be easy to overcome." Her winter outfit also sported a long-tailed coat that held plenty of extra ammunition clips in its pockets, though hers' was made of a soft white material that would keep the girl warm in colder climates. Underneath it was a black bodysuit made of a similar fabric.
"I think that it's more likely that their powers aren't exactly conventional," Ruby mused as she peered at a path that led away from the base through the concrete jungle. Like her friends, her new costume was made of heavier fabrics, but alone among them, she had actually opted for some light armor that fitted to her shoulders, over a gray undershirt that accompanied her combat skirt. Other than that, her outfit hadn't changed much from the summer edition.
"How do you mean?" Weiss asked, her brow dipped, though not in admonition. She knew that if Ruby had a suspicion regarding someone's abilities, she was right more often than not.
"Well, I think that's part of the exercise- for us, anyway," the younger girl answered. "We don't know what their powers are, but UA's hero course doesn't let people in unless they have powers that let them take down villain bots- stuff that normal people would have no chance against. But not every quirk would be good against machines and all that, and I think that Mister Aizawa would wanna keep an eye out for people like that."
"What makes you say so?" Yang inquired. Better than Weiss, she knew that if Ruby felt off about something, it was best to keep their guard up.
"Well, I don't think that quirk erasure would do very well against robots, but it definitely does the trick for our teacher," her sister answered. "I doubt that there's a person on their team that can cancel out our powers, but I think we're gonna have to be on guard for something weird from at least one of them."
"One of those girls did mention that she couldn't take the entrance exam because of an injury, so her quirk might be a little more straightforward," Weiss recalled.
"Yeah, but I couldn't see anything about her that would tell us what her quirk might be," Blake mused aloud. "Even so, that admission tells us that she's a little overconfident and eager to succeed. None of us would broadcast any of our capabilities to a potential opponent."
"That might be because we don't have to," Weiss said dryly. "UA students have a lot of acclaim just from coming here- chances are better than good that they know how our powers work already."
"Her point is that even if we don't know their physical abilities, we might be able to exploit their personalities," Ruby said to head off any potential arguments. "It's all we have to work with, so let's make the most of it."
"You got any bright ideas yet?" Yang grinned, confident in her sister's brainpower to give them a good start against their opponents.
"Yeah, this is an urban jungle- what we were trained for the most back at Second Amendment," Ruby nodded quickly. "We need to play to those strengths."
"Who's your money on?" Kurai asked Izuku, both of them staring up at the screen that displayed both teams as the match officially got started.
"Under most circumstances, I'd say that our classmates would have this victory without much of a contest," his friend answered, his eyes remaining glued to the screen. "They each have amazing quirks, and they know how to use them. Rose, Belladonna, and Schnee are smart, and while she doesn't have their talent for thinking ahead, Xiao Long can hit as hard as All Might if she plays her cards right. On top of all that, their teamwork is flawless."
"Yeah, I'd say your biggest mistake the other day was not sending them at me as a cohesive advance unit," Kurai nodded. "Either that, or you should have sent them all in after you'd weakened me a bit. Splitting them up was a bad idea." Mina had gone to talk to Jiro about something or other, so Kurai had lost the near-starry-eyed expression in favor of a more focused one that he was directing at the monitor.
"You really think so?" Izuku asked, his eyes finally breaking from the screen as he looked at his friend in surprise.
"Didn't you notice how I specifically tried to avoid tangling with them unless they were separated from each other?" Kurai said with a sidelong grin. "I had to book it to make it to the hostage in time in order to hold them off and split you guys up."
"Interesting…" Izuku murmured as he pulled out his notebook and swiftly jotted down a few notes. Up on the screen, the teams were moving out, but there had been no direct contact just yet.
"You're telling me that you weren't worried about fighting any of the rest of us?" Kirishima asked as he walked up, apparently having heard part of the conversation. "That kinda hurts, man." He was grinning, which meant that he wasn't serious about the complaint, but Kurai still felt that it deserved an answer.
"Teamwork isn't something that's been stressed a lot for us throughout the hero course," he explained. "It's necessary for us to complete a lot of our exercises, but it's not something that we work on in our own time, unless it's our idea. This allows us to excel on an individual level more easily, but I think it's also a result of the hyper-competitive society that we live in, where heroes are constantly trying to outdo one another however they can. With Team RWBY, though, they've been taught the necessity of teamwork since day one, and they've kept that necessity in mind ever since. Solo hero work isn't exactly prevalent in America, where the crime rates are astronomical compared ours', so they've tried to combat that by instilling a sense of greater camaraderie in their rising heroes."
"You sound like you agree with that line of thought," Uraraka commented from next to Izuku.
"Honestly, the only reason heroes could compete the way that they did in Japan for so long was because of how All Might influenced society," he nodded. "His presence alone forced villains into a mind frame of near-subservience, which just made things easier on other heroes, and allowed them to more or less diminish heroics into a competition."
"Diminish?" Kirishima repeated, sounding as surprised as the others looked. "You're not saying that All Might was a bad hero, are you?"
"Not at all," Kurai said with a swift shake of his head. "I think he did the best that he could, but other heroes lost sight of what mattered when it started becoming a matter of how everyone measured up to him, and less about helping people."
"I've heard words like that before," Todoroki murmured, causing Kurai to turn and look at his friend, who was regarding him coolly. "Stain said much the same in Hosu."
Kurai glanced at Iida, who was busy talking in an animated fashion to Yaoyorozu, before he replied, "Stain was a maniac. That being said, what made him so terrifying and persuasive was the fact that he wasn't entirely wrong. Dad always said that the most troubling villains were the ones who had based their actions on a grain of truth and distorted it with their own agenda- because at the core of their purpose was something that any average Joe could relate to. Of course, that never justified the means to their end."
"And you think that restructuring our ways of how we view heroics and its practical applications to be more like those in America is the answer?" Izuku inquired.
Kurai shrugged before answering, "All Might is gone, and more changes are coming, whether we like it or not. We've seen enough of that for ourselves, especially those of us who were in work studies. I can think of worse ways for our society to adapt accordingly."
"I'd be inclined to agree, except for one thing," Todoroki said as he directed their attention back to the screens, where the first encounter was about to begin. "A team may well be an effective tool for combating powerful and unexpected enemies, but there is always the risk that it can still be brought low by the weakest member. If we don't excel as individuals first, how can we be sure that we're not going to let our comrades down?"
"So, what do you do?" Yang asked as she cocked her gauntlets, the sound of the chambers being loaded serving to make her opponent flinch nervously. She had made for a northwest heading at her sister's discretion, Ruby's quirk allowing her to gain an almost-bird's-eye view of the battleground and see their opponents departing their own base about a half-mile away.
"Uh… I just wanted to give you a chance to give up," Akabane said as she eyed the blond girl from behind her red bangs. "If we actually fight… Well, my quirk is kinda gross." She was now wearing, Yang was intrigued to see, what looked like a nasal cannula, except that the tubes ran down into a pair of black gauntlets about the same size as Yang's own weapons.
"I've got a classmate who can spit out her own stomach," the American girl grinned confidently. "You ain't got nothin' on that." This was a good setup for her- Yang's natural self-assurance would lend to her being able to walk all over her shier opponent.
"…Don't say I didn't warn you," Akabane murmured before the cannula began to fill with a dark red liquid that made Yang pause in mid-step.
"Wait, nosebleed?" she sputtered once the blood had reached the gauntlets. "Your quirk is super nosebleed?"
"…Told you it was gross," Akabane mumbled as she clenched her fingers. "Last chance to give up and go to the cell."
"Last chance, yourself," Yang snorted. "You're gross, Bloodsnot, but 'gross' isn't enough to make me quit."
Something in Akabane changed as she registered those words, because her visage hardened, and she settled into a fighting stance that Yang recognized was by no means amateurish. "Call me 'Bloodsnot' one more time," she said in harder tone. "See what happens."
"Why?" Yang snickered as she drew back her right fist. "'Snot a great nickname, but it's nowhere near as bad as 'Snow Angel'. At least yours' is kinda accurate."
Akabane's eyes narrowed before she jerked her right fist forward, something small and red shooting through the air just before she rolled to the side in order to avoid Yang's rubber shotgun pellets from her left gauntlet. Her reflexes were quicker than Yang had been expecting, and she narrowly avoided getting hit by her opponent's opening fire, herself. With a grunt, Yang fired a second blast downwards, using the recoil from her weapon and the power of her quirk to get her high in the air, where she would be able to quickly build the momentum needed for a brutal knockout blow.
At least, that's how it would have gone if Yang's gauntlets hadn't both given out in midair. When she tried to fire both weapons behind her back to drive herself forward, she was stunned to realize that there were red crystal shards embedded in the gauntlets, preventing them from being used as intended. "What the hell?!" she demanded before she managed to turn her descent into a controlled roll that allowed her to spring back to her feet only moments after hitting the ground.
"I researched everyone's quirks as much as I could before today," Akabane replied as she reached out her hand, and the crystals embedded in Yang's gauntlets responded, flying toward her until they softened into liquid and went back into the cannula that fed into a nozzle on each hand. "I know that this is my best chance at getting into the hero course, so I'm not about to mess it up."
"Who talked?" Yang growled, her eyes flaring red. "No one in our class would give out details to Class B unless it was necessary for a work study, and none of us interned together." She realized that her opponent's quirk had something to do with blood manipulation, sort of like Vlad King, but there was no telling the range of this girl's capabilities when compared to the teacher. Not only that, but she realized that while the other girl was genuinely a shy person, it had only served to hide a more calculating aspect of her personality- one that sort of reminded her of Hikari whenever he got serious in preparation for a fight.
"No, but I've got a good friend who's in the support course," Akabane answered her spoken question calmly. "That means that he got to look at the schematics for a lot of your guys' costumes, and gave me a pretty good idea of how to counter your powers. For example, I know that you designed your winter costume the way that you did because while you can absorb the kinetic force behind any individual impact, you can't do the same if the object goes through you, like if a sword or a bullet managed to penetrate your body. That's why you're in all that heavy leather."
Yang's anger was quick to surge again, but she forced herself to dial it back for the moment. Clearly, she had underestimated her opponent's resilience and capabilities, which Ruby had warned her against. Still, how was I supposed to know that tech support was gonna rat me out?! she fumed.
Akabane was now getting back into a fighting stance as she said, "You won't be able to absorb the impact of my blood crystals to use against me- they're hard enough to cut through solid metal, forget your clothes."
Cursing, Yang realized that the other girl was right, and now she had no way to send up a signal flare to call for help. No, snap out of it! she told herself. Hikari didn't give up just because he was badly matched in Fukuoka, or even against the class! If I just give up against this chick the second that she surprises me, I'll lose face with Rubes- and I'd rather chop off all my hair than let her down!
Slamming her fists together as hard as she could, Yang gave off a smirk as her hair burst to life, glowing as if on fire. "You're not bad," she admitted as she repeated the motion, continuing to build up the force in her body with each impact. It wasn't as fast as taking a hit from someone or something else, but she could still augment her physical abilities in this manner when she had few other options, like she seemed to have right then. Ignoring the ache in her knuckles, she then asked her opponent, "What name are we gonna call when you hit the streets in your hero costume?"
Akabane smiled a little bit at her opponent before she answered, "Firecracker, meet Bloodshot."
"Wait, 'Bloodshot' is okay, but 'Bloodsnot' isn't?"
"Gyah!"
Ruby narrowed her eyes as she whirled her scythe to point behind her while keeping a steady finger on the trigger as she looked at her opponent, the boy with purple hair who had donned a face mask and was giving her a flat stare without so much as a word between them. "So, what's your deal?" she asked as she prepared to use her weapon's recoil to give herself an instant burst of momentum that would be all but impossible to dodge when she combined it with her quirk. "You wanna fight, or do you wanna give up and come quietly?"
"I've never been one to give up," he replied as his eyes narrowed sharply. "Though I gotta say, I prefer it when someone else can do the fighting for me."
"What's that supposed to-?" Ruby suddenly froze in place, her tongue stilted, and her body no longer responding to her commands as it should.
From across the open space, Shinso lowered his mask to allow his grin to show while he said, "That's it, little girl. I win."
"Uh… Why is she just standing there?" Mina asked as she and the others continued to look up at the screen. "It's not like Rose to take this long to get the butt-whooping started."
"That would be Shinso's quirk at work," Aizawa informed them, though he kept his eyes riveted on the display screen. "He can brainwash and control anyone who answers a prompt from him. Not very useful against the robots from the entrance exam, but I think you'll all find it to be an effective tool, especially when people don't know to expect it."
"Wait, brainwashing?!" Izuku muttered as he began to write down notes at a furious pace. "So he can control people, but how precise is his level of control? How long does it last for? Is there a way to undo it?" He continued to mutter to himself as his pencil scribbled rapidly while his comrades all exchanged concerned looks.
"Talk about a game-breaker," Kurai muttered. "I wish we'd have had this guy with us during the yakuza raid- the whole thing would've been over with a lot quicker."
"How do you mean?" Ochaco asked as she gave her friend a sidelong glance.
"Think about it," he replied. "If all it takes for this guy to get someone under his control is talk to them, he could have just spoken to Chisaki and gotten the guy to tell all of his men to stand down. He probably could have even forced him to hand over Eri without any need for excessive violence."
That got Izuku to pause while he looked at the others, each of them sharing in looks of surprise as they realized that he was right. "With a quirk like that, he'd be able to diffuse almost any hostage situation instantly," Mina pointed out. "He could get villains to just turn themselves in as soon as he walked in on the scene."
"Let's wait and see before we start giving him too much credit," Izuku murmured, drawing his friends' attention back to him. His pencil had grown still in time for him to say, "It's a powerful quirk, but just like all of ours', it's gotta have a flaw of some kind. We should keep an eye out for it, just in case we ever have to fight him ourselves."
Blake and Weiss had managed to corner the other girl in the supplicate team, Mitsuha, though they had not been able to determine her quirk just yet. She seemed pretty confident in herself, but both of the Americans were used to keeping cool under the pressure that often arose from venturing against the unknown. She may have reason to be confident against us, but that won't keep us from winning, Weiss thought as she whirled her rapier, drawing Mitsuha's attention toward her as she readied a white hex beneath her feet.
This was a feint, and the other girl fell for it as she settled into a slight crouch before dashing at Weiss from a complete standstill with a speed that surprised the two girls. However, it wasn't enough to keep the two hero course students from proceeding with their plan. Weiss launched herself straight up, swiftly bounding from hex to hex as Mitsuha turned her head to follow her movements, and missing Blake's following actions as a result.
The raven-haired heroine had wrapped her ribbon around her weapon's hilt while compacting it into its firearm mode so that when she hurled it, the trigger was pulled, the throw's force being augmented by the recoil from the bullet being fired into the ground. The sound pulled at Mitsuha's attention, but by then it was too late. The gun, having retained the sharp edge of the blade atop the pistol's barrel, slammed into the ground a few yards away from Blake, who held on with an iron grip to the other end as Mitsuha tripped over the resilient fabric and went skidding across the ground with a loud yelp and a curse as soon as she stopped rolling end over end. The Shadow Heroine didn't advertise the fact, but her hairpiece was actually made of a fabric similar to Aizawa's capture scarf, though it favored greater elasticity in exchange for a less sturdy material than Eraserhead's capture item.
Blake and Weiss didn't give their opponent any time to catch her breath, though. The instant that she had tripped over the ribbon, Weiss hit the floor, used her rapier to dislodge the pistol from the concrete, and used another hex to send Blake speeding ahead while she readied her next set of sigils. Mitsuha barely had time to get to her feet before she was on the defensive, keeping Blake back with a surprisingly nimble set of martial art's defenses and reflexes, though it was clear that the other girl's sword gave her a distinct advantage. It made it difficult for Mitsuha to avoid harm, yet she seemed to be avoiding giving ground as much as possible.
This gave Weiss pause as she hung back, her pale eyes narrowing as she tried to understand what their opponent was hoping to gain by dragging out the fight. She was surprisingly quick during that first exchange, so she should be able to get away from Blake easily enough, if her quirk granted her that speed, she mused with a frown. Maybe her power only works in short bursts and she needs time to recharge the ability?
Whatever the case was, she knew that she could only afford to speculate so much. It would be better for them if they moved to capture this girl so that they could move on with finding their other opponents and assisting their friends. With that in mind, Weiss called out, "Checkmate!"
Blake grunted before she slashed at her opponent's midriff, forcing the other girl to backpedal, even as Blake darted sideways to make room for Weiss' high-speed lunge that would have been all but impossible for most people to dodge. Yet not only did Mitsuha dodge the first attack, she managed to evade the series of follow-up attacks that both girls unleashed, somehow keeping just out of their reach until all three girls were panting for breath while they faced off.
"Did I miss something?" Weiss gasped. "How did she avoid all of that?"
"It's not like my quirk, as far as I can tell," Blake muttered, her breathing the most controlled out of all of them. "I think she's got a speed-type quirk, and she's been trained to use it."
"Hehe," Mitsuha grinned at them. "You two are at a real disadvantage, here. The longer this fight goes on, the more powerful my quirk gets. From what I know, Schnee's no good when it comes to endurance contests, and Belladonna doesn't have a power that grants a lot of offensive capabilities. It's not for no reason that I came out to meet you two once I knew where you were going."
Both girls frowned at that statement. One of the others must have a quirk good for gathering intelligence, Weiss thought quickly. That explains why it took them a few minutes to make an appearance. They were monitoring us.
"Now then," the other girl smirked as she wiped sweat from her brow. "Let's wrap this up, ladies."
"You assume you'll win because of your quirk's power," Blake murmured as her eyes glowed slightly. "That'll be your downfall." Five shadow clones sprung to life out of her body, all of them brandishing their swords as they headed right for Mitsuha, who crouched slightly before she transformed into a blur that swept past three of the shades before she encountered one that she could not avoid, and drew her fist back to clock it in the jaw- only to let out a howl of pain as her skin was torn and her knuckles were cracked from the force of an unexpected impact. She went tumbling past the two girls, both of whom were wearing knowing smiles as ice crystals sprayed across the area.
"What the hell was that?!" Mitsuha groaned as the pain threatened to make her feel ill. She looked up through a film of reflex tears to see that the other four clones had surrounded her and were wearing stony expressions as they stepped over shards of ice that had suddenly appeared around them. And was it just her, or were the clones themselves radiating a chilly aura?
"Combined ultimate move," Blake said as she approached and levelled her gun at Mitsuha's head. "Ice-style Shadow Clones."
"Her quirk's mirage, my power's durability," Weiss bragged. "It's for when people like you, who know about her clones' fragility, come after us. You thought you'd just bulldoze through them with your speed, but you'd have to be moving a lot faster than you just were to shatter an ice replicate."
"Argh…" Mitsuha groaned as she tried to get to her feet, only to have Weiss' heel press sharply into her back and sent her to the ground.
"None of that, thank you," the Regal Heroine said frostily. "Sorry about the rough treatment, but we can't afford to play too nicely when we're dealing with an unknown."
Weiss' voice, combined with the pain in her hand and the sound of Blake's pistol cocking, let Mitsuha know that any further struggling would be pointless. She sagged to the ground in defeat, bitter tears of disappointment mixing in with the ones born of her pain.
"How do you feel about hero teams now?" Kurai grinned at Todoroki, who shrugged without looking over.
"I never said that they weren't beneficial," he replied. "I just still happen to think that it's wise to be self-reliant before placing too much weight on another's shoulders. The real issue at hand is whether or not Belladonna or Schnee could have defeated Mitsuha on their own."
"Ha!" Everyone was surprised to hear Bakugo snorting contemptuously as he kept his own gaze fixed on the screen. "Schnee didn't need help with that. She coulda taken that garbage extra down with both her arms tied behind her back." With a sideways looks aimed at Kurai, he added, "If she can go toe-to-toe with Saiyaman for more than a few seconds, these rejects don't stand a chance."
"Well, look who's turning into a big softie," Kaminari grinned slyly. "Never thought I'd see the day where 'Kacchan' could actually… give out… a compliment?" His words had begun to slow down, and they were practically nothing more than a squeak by the time that he finished, thanks to Bakugo's imminent invasion of his personal space, his eyes practically glowing like lava as he reached for the electric boy with sparking fingers.
"Call me soft… One. More. Time," Bakugo growled ominously.
For once, Kaminari did the smart thing, and chose to say nothing at all while his classmates tried vigorously not to burst into laughter all around them.
Yang was in a bad spot, and it infuriated her. Somehow over the course of their fight, Akabane had her pinned to the wall by her clothes with enough blood crystals to render her incapable of moving. Her strength hadn't been augmented enough to allow her to escape her constraints, so her usual option to rely on brute force was out. Even so, she wasn't known for giving up, so she levelled a glare at her opponent and said, "Now what? I can't move, but it doesn't count as your capture unless you get me in the jail cell. You're just as stuck as I am."
As Akabane regarded her silently, Yang also finally noticed how pale her opponent had become, and she was struck by a realization. "You won't get very far as you are, will you?" she grinned. "Your blood doesn't automatically replenish like Vlad King's quirk, does it? You have to take it back in, or you'll pass out from blood loss."
"…I won't pass out, not from this," Akabane replied stubbornly, though she swayed as if dizzy. "And I don't have to take you back to the jail to win this."
"Uh… You kinda do," Yang snickered. "All that blood loss is getting to you, Drippy. Rules say that whichever team has more prisoners by the end of this are the winners."
Akabane's gaze sharpened as she bared her teeth before saying, "Don't worry about the jail cell rosters. You'll know it better than me by the time this over."
"Pfft, you're not gonna drag me like that, besides which even if you could, I'm not just gonna go along with you," Yang snorted. My teammates know my position, and they'll be along any minute to kick the crap outta you."
"We know," said a new voice, causing Yang to crane her neck as best she could in order to see Shinso approaching them with a dark look in his vacant eyes. "We're counting on it."
"The hell is that supposed to-?" Before she could finish speaking, Shinso was smiling, knowing that he'd won again. Over his shoulder, he looked at Ruby, who had been following him with a blank expression on her face- a face that mirrored Yang's in almost every way at the moment.
"Alright, time for phase two," he chuckled as Akabane began to retrieve her crystals with her quirk, relief coursing through her as she felt her blood being returned to her body. "You good to go?"
The girl went to answer, but then settled for a nod, which got her teammate to roll his eyes in irritation. "My quirk doesn't work on everybody when they talk to me," he reminded her. "I don't need to control you, so you can talk to me without worrying about that."
"Right, sorry," the girl said with a shake of her head. "I just didn't know if it was different while you're already controlling other people."
"No, it only works if I want it to," he replied. "You seen Asada anywhere? He was supposed to meet us around now."
"Right here," their third teammate said as he stepped out of a dark corner. "I was busy avoiding the others- they got Mitsuha, and it didn't take them long to figure out how to counter her quirk. Splitting them up as much as we could was the right move, but I doubt that these other two are gonna fall for that at this point."
"Doesn't matter," Shinso said confidently. "Those two still don't know how our quirks work, so it'll be easy for us to capture them."
"Don't underestimate them," Asada warned him. "These guys have planned for a lot of contingencies, and it only took them a few minutes to do it. You may have brainwashed their leader, but the one that dresses in white is just as sharp. If you go against her directly, she'll probably figure your power out."
Asada's quirk allowed him to witness past events connected to an object, which was good for gleaning intelligence on potential adversaries. He needed to be able to touch the object, and he had to close his eyes while holding his breath to see the past, and while the visions could only go back half an hour in time, it was still proving to be enough to let him put together a game plan against their more experienced opponents.
As the two groups had left the main waiting area, Asada had quietly lifted a sniper round off of Ruby's belt and waited for the match to begin before using it as a focal point for his quirk. This allowed him to look half an hour into Ruby's past and gave him the opportunity to glean several tidbits that would help their team in forming a counteroffensive, such as the fact that the girls were planning to run their standard scouting drill- two single units and a pair spread out across the urban jungle. With that information in mind, he had been able to make a reasonable guess as to what direction each girl would take, and who would be best for countering their quirks. He had thought it best to send Mitsuha at the two-person team, since her quirk was the most straightforward when it came to combat, but now he saw that sending her alone had been a very bad idea, one that had cost them their teammate.
Still, they now had the two very powerful sisters under Shinso's control, so there was still a chance that they could turn this around. With that in mind, he said, "We should get these two into the jail so we gain the advantage in terms of prisoners. Then all we have to do is wait out the other two until time runs out."
Shinso immediately frowned, that plan not sitting well with him. "That'd be taking advantage of the fact that this is training," he said with a negative shake of his head. "If we wanna make it into the hero course, we need to treat this like a real battle. We have to beat those other girls for real if we wanna impress the teachers."
"You have something in mind?" Akabane asked as she finished retrieving the last of her blood, her cheeks a much more healthy color than they had been a minute ago.
"We may have lost a teammate, but I see two candidates ready to fill her spot," Shinso said as he indicated the Americans. "We have a numbers advantage of five to two, and I like those odds."
"I don't," Asada said with a frown of his own. "All it'll take is one hit from those girls, and then your control is disrupted, right? If Belladonna and Schnee can get their friends back before we beat them, we're gonna be in real trouble- my quirk isn't much good for direct confrontation. It'd be Akabane doing the heavy fighting, since two of them will know how your quirk works, or at least be able to guess at it. I don't like those odds at all."
Shinso scowled, but his teammate had a good point. Even so, there was something he felt that the other boy was overlooking. "They'll never be able to hit Red over here," he said as he gestured to Ruby. "She's too fast for them to strike her. I can send Blondie to jail, but we should keep the squirt as a backup teammate since we're down a member."
Akabane and Asada exchanged a look before the latter reluctantly nodded his agreement. "Alright, that compromise seems reasonable," he said. "We get one in jail to match our loss, and hopefully we can keep Rose on our side."
"It's risky," Akabane added. "But in circumstances like these, we have to take some risks, or else we won't gain anything."
"Then it's settled," Shinso said as he fitted his mask to his face and gripped his scarf. "We'll show the teachers- and the students in the hero course- that we have what it takes to stand up with the best of them."
Akarui: Well, somebody's ambitious.
Mataras: I do not remember inviting you here.
Akarui: I also don't remember volunteering to stop my brother from tearing off your-
Mataras: Point taken.
Akarui: I mean, he was about to-
Mataras: I get it!
Deku: Wait, is Kurai stronger than you?
Mataras: That depends, what strength are we measuring?
Deku: What does that-?
Akarui: If we're talking pure strength, there is no contest. Kurai would snap Mataras here over his knee without even thinking about it.
Mataras: ...You do know it's not too late for me to kill you instead of your brother through this story, right?
Akarui: Yeah? Here, have a Glock.
Deku: Where did you get that?!
Akarui: I even loaded it with a soft bullet- means it'll pretty much go splat once it hits my skull, but it doesn't stop. That ammo is designed to rip stuff up on its exit. Put that up my jaw or through my neck, and it's goodnight smartass!
Mataras: You are way too enthusiastic about this.
Akarui: Because I know you won't do it.
Mataras: Oh really?
Akarui: Really.
Mataras: Really.
Akarui: Really.
Mataras: REALLY?!
Kai: Hi.
Mataras: Wait, I gotta deal with-
.
..
...Ah, hell.
Kai: C'mhere!
Mataras: NOPE!
Akarui: Next time- Pendulum
Kai: Point a gun at my brother, SEE WHAT HAPPENS!
Mataras: Oh, like you haven't been tempted?!
Deku: Umm... Team Applicant better be ready to Go Beyond?
Akarui: Plus Ultra!
Mataras: No, no! You don't get to use that power for another-!
Kai: Ultimate Move, True-!
Next time on Your Hero Academia: Ipseity...
"If they've managed to capture Yang or Ruby, they're even more dangerous than we gave them credit for," Blake replied as she assumed a thoughtful look. "We haven't heard any big explosions since the match began, so whatever they can do, it's likely that they're banking on stealth and catching us off-guard to make it work."
"So we'll have to be ready to flip the tables the second that they make an appearance." The furrow in Weiss' brow deepened before she added, "I've finally got that one move down, but do you have anything else that might help in case of an ambush?"
Before Blake could give an answer, both girls unsheathed their blades as they heard a familiar rush of wind coming right at them from further up the field. "Is that Ruby?" the raven-haired heroine asked as she narrowed her eyes at the oncoming storm.
"If it is, she probably needs backup," Weiss replied as the air around her began to cool off rapidly. "Get ready." Blake made no reply, but she did leap up onto a streetlight in order to get a better vantage point on whoever might be chasing their friend while Weiss prepared for a more direct counterattack. "What do you see?!"
"…Weiss, get out of there!"