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Chapter 6: The First Day

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I woke up early the next day as I had classes to get to. Upon reaching the communal area, I noticed that most of us did, and had the same idea.

"Hey, Monoma!" the red headed boy, Kirishima, called out when he saw me. "Do you do breakfasts as well?" I tried not to roll my eyes at the mass of people suddenly paying attention to the conversation.

"I can, but not today," I told him. I snorted a bit at his saddened expression. "I've got class in half an hour. I'm just making some snacks and a pot of coffee. Yes, you can have some." The boy grinned, looking a bit sheepish at being predicted.

I had a feeling that this was how my mornings were going to be most of the time. Anyway, once I made some basic snacks and coffee in excess (which were consumed quickly as soon as I left them), I made my way towards U.A. It was fortunate that the dorms had bicycles for everyone to use, since the university's main building was quite the distance from the dorms.

The lecture was basically an introduction into the engineering course, as well as the extra lectures that were recommended to supplement what was going to be covered. Power Loader was our main lecturer, holding the position of head of the Support course (who were similar to the hero course, being a series of classes added to the normal courses) and the man in charge of U.A.'s development studios, where students were supplied equipment to actually build things. I heard that Power Loader was also a big part of the production of the hero costumes we would be given.

After the lecture, I stopped by the cafeteria for lunch. Midoriya (who had apparently shown an interest in engineering for the sake of making support gear for the different quirks in his notebook) was telling me about some of Power Loader's achievements and works as we ate, before I brought up the thing we mentioned last night.

"W-well, it's not very impressive," he stuttered. "I actually didn't have the quirk until the entrance exam. We think it was the year of training that awakened it, because I now had a body that could withstand it."

I hummed, ignoring my Communication and Covert talents that were pointing out the lie. "Barely." Midoriya drooped at the reminder. "Say, what did you do during the exam?" I asked. "And the physical tests too?"

"Oh, well, the person who was helping me train my body gave me some advice on how to use my quirk," he told me, making me raise my eyebrow. "Uraraka was trapped under some rubble, so I had to stop the zero point robot from crushing her. I jumped, remembered what Al- Mr. Yagi told me and punched."

I ignored the slip up and focused on a certain bit. "You broke your legs, didn't you." The boy flinched at the declaration worded as a question. "And your arm, like what Aizawa stopped you from doing yesterday."

"Y-yeah. After that, I used my quirk on my finger to launch the ball, but it broke as well." I nodded, spotting what I thought was the biggest issue.

I sighed. "Aizawa was right, you have no idea how to use your quirk." Just to confirm what I was thinking, I reached over the table and flicked his broccoli-like hair, acknowledging the new quirk I had access to. Having finished out food, I stood up and gestured for him to do the same. "Come on, I've got to show you something, and we should probably do it outside."

Midoriya followed me out onto a large patch of grass as I focused on his quirk. I didn't really feel anything strange, perhaps becoming more aware of myself than normal.

"Now, this is what you normally do, right?" I tried replicating what he described, pushing the quirk through my arm as I pulled it back and punched. Midoriya tried to stop me as soon as he saw the marks that crisscrossed around my arm, but I ignored him, making him cover himself.

Nothing happened. Actually, something did happen, but it was small enough to be written off as near useless right now. The punch that I threw was only as strong as I was, albeit all of me, so there wasn't much difference in output. Midoriya noticed the lack of anything huge and looked at me while I massaged a discomforting feeling out of my arm.

"What happened? Why didn't-"

"It's about how our quirks work," I explained. "I can copy quirks, but sometimes I find one that needs some kind of external element to use. For instance, if I copied Fat Gum's quirk, Fat Absorption, I couldn't really use it, since I'm about as far from fat as you can get." Body Tune-Up keeps me in peak physical condition, so long as I don't try to become a couch potato. "Your quirk is the same. It gains power from some external source. When I punched, I only did so with my own power."

I watched his eyes widen as he thought about that, likely realising something that I've forgotten in the years since watching the anime. "Anyway, what I did is what you've been doing." I snapped him out his thoughts, making him look at me confused. "I used the quirk to punch with all the power I had, which is very little compared to you, admittedly. However the punch was stronger than I'd be able to do without it, since it contained all of my strength in my body and compressed it in my arm."

That was what I noticed, and likely was what he needed to realise for that green lightning thing I remember him doing. For me, one punch containing all of my strength wasn't much. For him, with the strength All Might developed, as well as the past wielders of the quirk, he had a lot more power to punch with.

"All of your strength in your arm?" Midoriya frowned, looking at his arm before looking back at me. "Can you even do something else? You use your arm to throw a punch, unless... there are several muscles in your torso that are used to punch, and people can get extra power using their hips and legs to twist, and there are muscles in the neck that get used if you want to keep your head steady, as well as in your feet-"

I let the boy continue mumbling to himself for a second before clicking my fingers, getting his attention again and making him blush in embarrassment. "I think you've cottoned onto the idea," I smirked, amused. "If I used your quirk throughout my body, I probably wouldn't be able to do anything more than I would without it. After all, it would be using the power of my body to move my body, but you're different."

"I have a lot more strength to spread around," he realised, smiling. "If I channel my strength through my whole body instead of just my limbs, I should be weaker than a full powered punch. That'd be a good thing for me, since it should spread the stress my body is under, instead of just causing my limbs to break under the stress."

I checked my phone as he was talking. "You can test it later, probably," I told him. "1-A has hero training in an hour, and you don't want to try it without supervision that can drag you to the infirmary if you fail and get hurt." He grimaced at the thought, but thanked me and nodded.

I didn't much listen to his thanks, an idea forming in my head. His quirk was rather useless to me, unless...

[-]

The whole group was gathered, waiting in anticipation for the first hero class. There was a quiet buzz of whispers as the clock ticked forwards, closer and closer to the designated time.

Everyone in the communal area seemed to be getting more and more antsy, until...

"I AM..." The easily recognisable voice came from outside, the doors opening automatically. "...coming through the door like a normal person!" I suppressed a snort as Communication talent pinged a lie.

The man was a blur as he entered the dorm building, appearing in one of his older costumes and striking a pose. The quiet buzz erupted into a mess of voices, awed at the number one hero in Japan, and maybe the world, teaching the course.

"I'm in charge of your Hero Basic Training," All Might declared, smiling at everyone. "In this part of the course, you'll be learning the basics of heroism, such as the different scenarios where a hero would be needed and what to do, as a hero, in those situations." People were settling down and listening, making the man nod. "Alright then, let's get right into it!" He pulled out a remote and clicked a button, letting us all watch as a part of the floor retracted and stacks of cases emerged from within the secret compartment. "I thought I'd start you all on some basic combat training, as it's unfortunate that a lot of being a hero has us fighting people who use their quirks to commit various crimes. Such people rarely just give up, so you need to be able to subdue them.

"For that, you've been supplied these! When you were accepted into U.A., you were asked to submit your quirk registrations and requests for your hero costumes, which our own Power Loader was in charge of creating for you." The excited buzz returned as people realised what was in the cases. "Find your case, get changed, and make your way to Ground Beta!"

"Yes, sir!"

[-]

Hero costumes were the thing most heroes were recognised by. It was their image that people could see and think, 'we'll be okay'. Not everyone can be All Might, who has been seen doing hero work in casual clothes. They could also act as a weapon or shield against the villains that heroes often fight, or even tools to be used in the case of disaster if the costume had the right gear.

The hero costumes my dorm mates had access to were considered top quality, in terms of material at least. Using their designs as a basis, Power Loader orchestrated the creation of most of the costumes through some support companies that work with U.A., so that they work with the quirks of the people that would use them. The costumes were built as closely to the original design as possible, though that didn't mean that they would be as useful to the users as they hoped.

For me, it took a while for me to decide on a costume. I was never going to be running around in latex like an idiot from a comic, nor did I want anything too colourful. I also wanted people to underestimate me until they knew my tricks, meaning gloves and other ways of covering my skin.

After quite a while working on the design, I ended up with a black ankle-length tailcoat and a tight but flexible metallic grey waistcoat with gold coloured buttons. I wore black pants and brown-black, low cut boots with a few more gold accents and a pair of red gloves over my hands. Anesidora sat in my hips again, under the tailcoat, while its control module and scanner had been combined into the cuffs of the tailcoat at my wrists. For the final piece, I had eye and upper face protection in the form of a white, birdlike domino mask with back designs around the eyes. The holes in the mask for one to look through weren't holes at all, but rather a perfectly clear material.

The mask itself was due for an upgrade, hopefully including a HUD of some kind and a way to filter light once I got time to work on it.

And somehow I got the feeling my daughter from my last life was squealing in glee for some reason, but I couldn't remember why.

"You seem to have settled into a role, Neito," Fumikage said as he and Jiro looked over my costume. "Like myself, willing to step into the shadows to save lives."

I nodded, looking over his costume. Any support gear he had was hidden under a black cloak. "I'm not too concerned over how I get the job done," I revealed. "If sneaking around is needed, then I can do that. Plus, sneaking up on people to copy their quirks will probably be useful."

Jiro, in her headphones, black leather jacket, and support gear boots, clicked her white gloved fingers and pulled a folded tissue out of her pocket. "Which reminds me, here." I took it, being careful as I unfolded it. "I figured you already proved you could use it, so there's no point keeping it from you."

Within the tissue was a lock of her hair, bound in what looked like an elastic band. "Thank you, Jiro," I smiled honestly, before it shifted to something of a smirk when I saw her blush. "Well, that's certainly a reaction. Should I read into it at all?"

I technically already had, Communication and Covert talents letting me spot some tells and find out what caused that reaction and giving me a good idea of what she was thinking, but I enjoyed the blushing scowl that spread across her face. Fortunately, before she could verbally tear into me for teasing, a new voice made us all jump.

"Did you just give him your hair?" The three of us paused, looking towards the voice to find that it very nearly had no source. In fact, the source seemed to simply be a pair of floating blue gloves and a pair of shoes. Hagakure Toru, whose quirk made her invisible, was stood there, very possibly-

"Are you naked?" burst from Jiro's lips as she gave the other girl a once over. Fumikage and I wisely stayed quiet.

"What? No!" she denied. "Why would I be going around naked? Do you have any idea how cold I'd be if I went around doing hero work naked in winter?"

Jiro held her hands up in surrender. "Sorry. It's just you don't look like you have any clothes on. Usually they're just floatin' there, but now we can't see them."

"Hmph!" she... said? I could have sworn that she somehow made that noise into an actual word with its intensity. "It's fine. The people who made my costume got in contact and asked to use my hair to make a bodysuit for it so I'd be covered, even if people can't see me." That made sense. I knew the technology that did that. "Anyway, what's Monoma going to do with your hair?"

"Copy her quirk from it," I told her, smirking behind the mask as I removed one of my gloves to touch the hair directly. Jacks grew from my ear loves as Hagakure made a noise of realisation. "It requires my quirk factor, which is spread through every part of me, to come in contact with any part of the person I want to copy from, which includes hair." I put the glove back on and dismissed Jiro's quirk, happy to keep my secret from my classmates a little longer.

"I see." Hagakure hummed, seemingly thinking about something. "Do you want mine? Oh, but I'm not sure if it'll be good for you, given your clothes..."

I raised an eyebrow, not that she could see it, and smiled. "If you wouldn't mind, I'd be glad if you gave me access to your quirk."

"Everyone!" All Might called. "It's time to get started!" Everyone congregated around the man as he stood in front of three boxes. "Now, during the entrance exam, you all fought enemies in the open streets, but that's the kind of stuff you see on the news. Some of the more heinous villains I know, however, tended to hole themselves up for one reason or another. Hidden compounds, imprisoning people, backroom deals and quiet murders... the most intelligent of villains stick to the shadows rather than step into a busy street." He gestured to the boxes in front of him. "Today, I'm splitting you up into pairs and setting you against each other in one of these buildings."

"Without basic training?" Asui asked, making All Might shake his head.

"There isn't much to train, in this case. You can all fight in some manner, as you proved during the entrance exam. Now you need to practice against other people- with supervision, of course." All Might looked around and nodded. "Now, I'll explain the exercise." We ignored the script he was reading from. "The situation is that villains have large explosive device hidden away in their hideout. The heroes are trying to infiltrate the hideout and dispose of the weapon before it goes off. The win conditions for the heroes will be to either lay both hands on the bomb, thereby disarming it, or they need to capture the villains. The villains need to either capture the heroes or defend the bomb until time runs out. The teams will be decided by drawing lots!"

"That seems rather haphazard," Iida noted from within his full body of white armour.

"Pro heroes often have to work with anyone who's on the scene with them," Midoriya noted. "Maybe that's why?"

"I see," Iida nodded, understanding. "I apologise for the interruption."

"It's fine," All Might brushed off. "One at a time, everyone come and draw a letter."

The middle box was full of letters, and everyone quickly started pairing up. I ended up on team C with Yaoyorozu, who smiled in greeting before our teacher called for attention again.

"And the first fighters will be these two!" He held up two balls from the remaining two boxes, revealing the two teams to fight. "Team A will be the heroes, and team D will be the villains! The rest of us will head to the monitor room with me!"

Midoriya and Uraraka vs Iida and Bakugo, huh? This should be interesting.

[-]

Interesting? Yes. Fun to watch? Not so much.

For the first part of the fight, Midoriya seemed to be reading each move Bakugo would make while Uraraka went to look for the bomb. Iida was with it, seemingly talking to himself while Bakugo went hunting. Then, when Midoriya got away, Bakugo kept hunting him, resulting in a game of cat and mouse on that front.

Meanwhile, Uraraka found the bomb on the top floor of the building, with Iida having removed any objects she could have used with her zero gravity quirk before she got there. No one bar All Might in the monitoring room had sound, so we had to watch as Uraraka was caught because she laughed at something Iida said, presumably.

Back with Midoriya, he'd been found. The two boys were just standing there, right up until Bakugo raised one of his grenade style gauntlets and All Might shouted.

"Young Bakugo, stop! Are you trying to kill him?!"

The words had the class completely silent as we watched the screens with wide eyes. We quickly learned what caused that reaction from our teacher as an explosion filled the hall that the two boys were fighting in, obscuring the cameras and making people worried.

"What the hell, man?" Kaminari, a blonde boy with an electric quirk, asked. "This is supposed to be a basic class."

"So not manly," Kirishima agreed.

"Also something that would normally be considered attempted murder," I noted, almost idly. That got everyone's attention on me as I frowned at the screens. "An attack on that scale, indoors, is-"

"Beyond reckless," Yaoyorozu cut in, also frowning. "Even ignoring the fact that he used it against a fellow classmate who had little, if any, room to dodge, he could have brought the building down around him, seriously injuring himself, Midoriya, and the two upstairs... and the bomb, if we consider the scenario."

"It's like if Endevour lit up a chemical factory in an attempt to stop a villain," I gave an example. "Using fire directly on someone can be dangerous enough, but the collateral damage could be catastrophic."

"Young Bakugo, if I see you about to use that attack again, I'll instantly disqualify you," All Might decided, and the rest of us could see Bakugo look upwards and scowl as he complained.

The fight continued, Bakugo using explosions to out manoeuvre Midoriya and strike at him, before the green haired boy came up with an idea. Accompanied by a flash of green, Midoriya quickly found himself with some space as he faced his opponent, that green flash vanishing as the right arm of his costume tore itself apart. The two of them charged at each other, attacks primed, only for Midoriya to shift his.

Everything ended quickly. Under the full force of Midoriya's punch, the layers of building above him shattered and rose, allowing Uraraka to hit the floating debris with a pillar, launching it all at Iida. As the boy shielded himself, the girl floated over to the bomb and landed on it.

"HERO TEAM WINS!"

[-]

There was another two fights after that before it was my turn. During that time, Hagakure had managed to find a way to cut off and bind a bit of her hair, and I had to suppress an evil grin as I placed invisibility within my quirk case next to my newly acquired earphone jack quirk.

Especially since Yaoyorozu and I were facing off against Jiro and Kaminari, playing the villains in this scenario. I approached the duo before we were told to go down to the building, grinning as I leant on Kaminari's shoulder.

"Regret choosing today to let me copy your quirk?" I asked Jiro. "Especially since my suit is as insulated as the guys at I-Island could get it, so my human stung gun over here isn't going to be much of a help." I poked a gloved thumb against the side of Kaminari's head, making him frown a bit.

"Hey! Don't copy my quirk just before we fight," he complained. "And what do you mean, 'I-Island'? Did your costume not come from U.A.'s support companies?"

"Don't sweat, Kaminari. Monoma needs skin contact for his quirk to work," Jiro assured him, reaching for my gloved hands to prove it. Seeing that I did not grow his partner's jacks, the boy started to calm down as I laughed internally. "And this guy's spent the last few summers there, working as some researcher's assistant. It doesn't surprise me that he had his costume made there." Then she turned to me. "And you can have my quirk, if you want it." Good, because I do have it. "It's just another chance to prove I'm the better one with it."

I grinned at the challenge before turning to catch up to Yaoyorozu. I waved over my shoulder as I went. "We'll see."

Down at the entrance to the building, I asked my partner a question.

"In the dark?" she confirmed, making me nod. She pulled out a book that was attached to the back of her (rather revealing) costume and started flicking through it. "Ah, here. I could make a night vision scope, but I'd a few minute to focus on making it."

I nodded as we made our way inside. "If I asked you to make some coverings for the windows on the floor that the bomb is on, and possibly the one below it..?"

This is when she caught on. "Not the floor below. Not enough time." I nodded again, smirking as we climbed the stairs. Technically our prep time doesn't start until we're at the bomb. "And I could barricade the room the bomb is in as well," she offered.

"Not with me inside," I denied. "I want to go hunting." This time she nodded, thinking things through.

"I can remain with the bomb, both to assist the barricade and to act as defence. It would mean that I probably won't see much action, but that's fine."

I glanced over at her. "You have that much faith in me?" I figured that was why she didn't ask how I was going to make it dark when the lights are on.

"You have a sharp mind, at least from what I've seen with the MVP analyses." They happened after every match, where All Might declared the MVP and had the rest of us try to figure out why that was. Mostly it was Yaoyorozu and I taking point during those discussions. I did enjoy playing devil's advocate at times.

We arrived on the floor where the bomb was. "Well then, let's get to work."

[-]

"BATTLE START!"

I listened to the announcement, as well as to the sounds of Jiro and Kaminari entering the building one floor down. A slight cracking sound let me know that Jiro was doing the same thing I was, and had plugged her jack into the wall, triggering my attack.

I used her quirk to amplify my heartbeat and inject it into the wall through my own jacks, trying my best to aim at her connection. Given how rapidly I heard her pull back, it seemed to have worked.

"Fuck you, Monoma!"

Yeah, it worked.

I smirked and used my dad's quirk to turn my hands to the metal of a nearby door handle, smashing straight through and locating the wires that I heard humming with Jiro's quirk. I have no doubt that she heard that, but it wasn't risking anything with this move. Letting my body return to normal, I used the last minute of Kaminari's quirk to channel electricity into the building's circuits. Every light bulb in the building increased in brightness before popping, sending sparks and glass falling from the ceiling.

Now, it wasn't completely dark. I was on the second floor, and we only blocked the windows on the fourth, where our bomb was. Still, for most of the halls and rooms, there wasn't a great amount of light to see by.

"So, you said Monoma couldn't have copied my quirk, right?" I heard from down the hall, towards the stairs to the floor I was on.

"Not with those gloves on. Honestly, I'm not sure why he has them, but he needs bare skin to copy a quirk," Jiro answered. "It must have been Yaoyorozu."

I smirked and put a finger to my earpiece. "Yes, Yaoyorozu, it worked like we said it would," I said at a volume I knew Jiro could hear. Of course, I wasn't referring to some mythical device, but our plan, and my tone made it clear that it was a taunt. "They shouldn't be able to even see the stairs to the fourth floor, never mind get to you."

Using my night vision (thank you Velvet), I ran with purposefully heavy steps down the dark halls, trying to find the darkest one. I heard the two heroes reach my floor and start chasing after me, led by the flickering light of exposed lightning and Jiro's hearing.

"You think so, you damn villain!?" Jiro called out. "I can hear you, so I can find you!" Then, in a volume I probably couldn't hear without Velvet's own enhanced hearing (seriously, thank you) as well as Jiro's quirk, said "Go upstairs. I'll keep you hidden."

I had to grin when I heard a low, but constant sound, likely coming from her support gear, acting as white noise to hide Kaminari's movements. "You think that'll help you?" I asked, playing oblivious. "I can still trace the sound back to you, hero. You're just broadcasting your location." Especially since her actions have dampened her own hearing. Then, into my earpiece, I whispered "Lightning is on his way up. If I have time, I'll pincer him." The earpiece clicked twice to let me know that she heard, and I finished my end of the plan.

I pulled my quirk case out of an inside pocket of my coat and tapped my gloved hand against my newest sample.

#=#

Jiro was getting annoyed.

Monoma's heavy footsteps had been easy to follow at first, and she had thanked whatever I-Island researcher decided to give the boy those boots for his costume. Destroying the lights and ambushing her and Kaminari would have been a good plan if not for the regular thudding sounds that Monoma gave off.

To be honest, Jiro was just happy that her quirk was being useful against him. She wasn't a fan of how he predicted what she'd do at the start of the match and countered her before she could find him and Yaoyorozu.

Then, after sending Kaminari towards what was probably a hook (of course the 'overheard' communications was bait, but Kaminari didn't seem to mind taking it), things started to change. The near constant sound from her stereo boots amplifying her heartbeat didn't do much initially, meaning Monoma was still rather easy to follow, but he was getting quieter and quieter as the seconds went on, until she had no idea where he was.

'He's getting used to being quiet in the shoes,' Jiro thought, deciding to turn her boots down a bit to hear better. Kaminari was already long gone, so any warning Yaoyorozu would get of his arrival would be minimal.

Just as she thought that, her earpiece crackled. "Jiro, I'm on the forth floor, but it's damn near pitch black! I'm never going to find the room with the bomb."

She moved her hand to reach for her earpiece, shifting her voice as quiet as she could get it. She knew what her hearing was like. "It's fine. I'm heading- GUH!"

Now, 'GUH' wasn't actually a word, but it was the sound she made when something heavy slammed into her stomach. Jiro was knocked backwards into a wall, hitting it rather hard as well. Though she did make use of the wall, planting her back against it to force herself straight after the stomach blow. Otherwise she'd likely be hunched over, ready to puke.

"Jiro? Jiro, are you okay?! Jiro-" She pulled her earpiece from her ear and pulled her jacks out of her boots to help her hear better. She had gotten hit and had no idea how, since she didn't hear a thing. With no noise, she should be able to hear something- anything to indicate where Monoma was. Breathing, heartbeat... just something.

In this dark, she couldn't see anything. Jiro quickly realised why her opponent had chosen this spot. No windows nearby, and the lights were fried. A perfect ambush position.

"Alright then, you smug prick," she breathed, sneaking one of her jacks into the wall behind her. "I'll swear, I'll find you, even if I have to reinvent how I use my whole quirk." With that done, she sent out a single heartbeat into the building, listening to it bounce around. She'd never done something like this before, relying on other people moving to give her something to listen to. "What?"

She got nothing. No boots on the ground to absorb the mockery of echolocation, no flesh, or fabric to do the same. He wasn't on this floor, according to her new move.

But he obviously was, because as soon as the thought entered her mind, she got hit again, a bit lighter this time, but still hard enough to send her down the hall. The worst part of it was that her jack was ripped from the wall, but even that wasn't too painful.

Jiro climbed to her feet, got into a bracing stance, and blared her heartbeat through her boots in the direction she was hit from. She heard the floor and walls crack under the vibrations, but nothing else. After ten seconds, she let up.

"How about that, you damn serial killer?!" She almost snorted, realising how accurate that joke could be if he tried. "You done being a scary fucker yet?"

And honestly, she was getting a little scared. Jiro had no idea what was going on, and Monoma kept making shit happen. She had seen him beat the zero point robot, and she'd said it then. Someone with multiple superpowers was scary. Hell, he even agreed with her! Having that much power is scary!

... and now he was proving that he could be scary in a whole new way.

Jiro didn't realise that she'd been still for too long. She had been listening for anything that could tip her off to Monoma's location, but it was only when she felt several things wrap around different parts of her that she realised she was really screwed.

Monoma grabbed both of her hands in his and twisted his arms so that she could barely move them, pressing himself against her back to get better leverage. Something (his own jacks, most likely) got tangled with her jacks and dragged them upwards, keeping them from getting her free. That meant no boots, not that they were facing the right way, and no stabbing him with the jacks themselves. And then, as if it wasn't enough that she'd been caught, she heard the building's speaker's turn on.

"KAMINARI DENKI HAS BEEN CAPTURED!"

The fight left her after hearing that, and she stopped trying to escape. She lightly tapped her head against Monoma's chest, confirming her theory when she felt the same stuff the walls were made of. She'd forgotten about that quirk, and it explained why her makeshift echolocation didn't see a person on the floor. He wasn't a person at the time.

"How'd you get so close?" she asked, feeling the hard material fade as Monoma returned to flesh and blood.

"Wall crawling and Absorption," she heard him answer, making her shiver as she felt his breath on her neck, an audible smirk in his voice. The heat in her face was embarrassing, but at least Monoma couldn't see her blushing since it was too dark. "Absorption turns my whole body into whatever I touch, and walls don't need heartbeats, or need to breathe." That made sense, but Jiro couldn't focus on it after realising that he was literally intertwined with her. "Hagakure gave me her invisibility too, so even in the areas where you had light, you'd never have seen me coming."

"Well you're certainly not naked," Jiro blurted out... again. She really didn't know what was going on with her today. First that thing with Hagakure, and now Monoma. 'Is it just something to do with the idea of them being naked?' she wondered.

Jiro shivered again as Monoma chuckled, causing vibrations to move from his chest to her back. Vibrations and voices were always what got her... interested in people. Her mum was the same way with her dad; said it was something to do with their quirks.

"No, I'm not, but I think I'll keep that a secret, for now." That made sense. The fact that his damn voice was smirking and just sounding really good wasn't helping her make much sense of anything right now, but keeping trump cards made sense. "Now, should we run down the clock, or are you going to surrender? I'll give you my earpiece if you want, since you threw yours away."

The longer this went on, the worse her blush seemed to get, so she quickly opened her mouth. "Just give it to me, you dick." Then she paused, groaned, and decided just to forget this entire day when she heard him chuckle. On the bright side ('in pitch black darkness. Well done, Jiro, great pun'), she didn't think her blush could get any worse.

"Very poor choice of words." An earpiece was quickly pressed into her hand, and stuck it in her ear, trying to ignore what just happened.

"I-I surrender."

WHY!? WHY DID SHE STUTTER!?

#=#

Back in the monitor room, Jiro couldn't meet my eyes. The whole thing with her had been kind of hot, and just plain adorable, so I had no intention of forgetting it.

"Alright, so, I know it was a bit hard to see what was going on in that fight, but I think I have an MVP to award," All Might declared. "Given what I heard from the earpieces," Jiro blushed even more when the man very obviously didn't look at her. "I'm awarding Young Monoma the title of MVP of the match." He looked at me and Yaoyorozu, likely because we're the only ones that could really figure out why. "Care you make it four for four?"

"The plan was Monoma's," Yaoyorozu started, looking at me and daring to deny it. Like I mentioned previously, I enjoyed playing devil's advocate. "And between the overloading of the lights, the baiting of the hero team's only method of tracking where the bomb was, and Jiro's capture, it's clear why he got it."

"Ah, but my plan would have left a hole when it came to the defence of the bomb," I smirked, watching her eyebrow twitch. "And besides that, it left you in a dark room without a way to see properly. If you hadn't made that night vision device, I'd have just been a detriment to you and a bad partner."

"Maybe I'd count that point, if you didn't make sure that I could produce the scope before we started. You did, so your point of being a detriment is moot. I have no doubt that you'd have either come up with another plan, or been a help with my own."

"Let's not get to into this, students," All Might cut in. "Unlike the other times, where we could see what you were discussing, Young Monoma's plan was excellent at removing the sense of sight from the equation. Let us just move on."

And so we did, watching the last fight of the day. And at the end of it, Yaoyorozu and I gave each other challenging grins as most of the class sighed in exasperation.