Chapter Thirty-Three
" Welcome to the first match of the Finals Tournament!" Present Mic announced. "It's the mean green powerhouse, Izuku Midoriya, versus the scaled defender, Hiryu Rin!" He paused for cheers. "The rules are simple, immobilize your opponent, or force them out of the ring! You can also win by making the other person cry uncle! All right contestants, show us what you're made of!"
Both boys took fighting stances, fire geysering from the vents at each corner of the arena floor, the distinctive red glow of OfA spreading across Midoriya's skin and green sparks dancing along his form, the other boy's arms turning dark green, hands shifting to talons.
Nodding to each other, they both took off running, charging the center. The arena, bigger than I thought, was over about a hundred feet across and half that wide, so they had a moment to just run, right until Deku took off in a streak, directly for his opponent.
Flying forward with a fist raised, Deku reached his foe, while Rin shoved an arm forward, and I had to glance up at the screens to see what was happening in detail. The scales that covered the boy's arms shot off, forcing Midoriya to break away, circling around while dodging the projectiles. However, Rin could only fire off a few at a time, and let loose everything he had, missing by inches, letting Izuku dart forward for an Quirk enhanced punch.
The ponytailed boy blocked it with one arm, eyes widening as some of the scales cracked under the blow, a resounding crash that sent him skidding a dozen feet backwards. Deku darted forward once more, but had to back off as Rin sent his damaged scaled firing off like a shotgun blast, still able to control them when they were broken.
Midoriya mostly dodged the projectiles, but there were holes in his sleeves, and a thin line of blood ran across his cheek, what might've been a more serious wound negated by the toughness that OfA imbued in its users.
Izuku stopped, taking stock of his opponent, but said opponent wasn't about to let his foe have a break either and loosed more scales, like shaft-less arrows, at the green haired boy.
Deku danced out of the way of the seemingly endless attacks, deep in thought and even muttering to himself, though the directional mics couldn't pick up more than a few words of "control on contact" and "fixed rate" as he moved. However, even to my eyes, Midoriya made a mistake.
He became predictable.
As Rin walked, firing off scale after scale, he spotted the pattern in Izuku's movements, just as I did, and the next shot didn't go off like the others had. No, it went a half second later to where he thought Midoriya would be.
And he was right, Deku reflexively dodging the shot that should've been thrown at him, if his opponent was firing as quickly as he could, and so the green haired boy jumped right into the path of the next attack. Eyes widening, a crackle of emerald electricity played along Izuku as he contorted in mid-air, the shot that would've taken him squarely in the calf only skimming it instead, still tearing open the leg of his uniform with worrying ease.
Landing, stumbling slightly, but still dodging the follow up attack, Deku pulled back while Rin stopped firing, letting his arms fill up with green projectiles. Izuku, rather than seem worried, or angry, just smiled, one hand behind his head, looking abashed. "Oh, whups! Kinda got carried away with the planning."
"You did," the other boy agreed, calmly, watching his opponent consideringly. "Are you going to take me seriously now?"
" I am!" Midoriya objected, eyes wide. "I was just trying to figure out how to do this. I don't suppose you'll answer a question about your Quirk?" Rin slowly shook his head. "Thought not," Deku sighed, smile fading as determination took its place. "I'll just have to find out for myself."
The words had scarcely left his lip when the boy blasted forward, Rin taking a reflexive step backward, arm slashing forward and sending out dozens of scales, but Midoriya, blurring slightly, darted between them, barely slowing.
The scaled boy frowned, watching, before stepping forward, bringing an arm in front of him, the scales covering it aiming outward, to shred any incoming attack. However, Midoriya wasn't attacking from the front, instead, pushing off course slightly in a super-powered side-step, he came up behind his opponent, right arm glowing with power as he yelled, "Nevada!"
Rin's uniform shredded as his back erupted into outwards facing scales.
"Smash!" Deku yelled, not with a punch, but with sideways swipe, as the razor-sharp projectiles fired, point blank, but were yanked to the side by the sheer wind of Midoriya's move, the scales sent to imbed themselves in the arena wall. This left Rin with nothing but green tinted bare skin, which the green haired boys left hand, closed in a fist, and with a lesser amount of OfA, slammed into with the sound like breaking stone, sending Rin flying forward as if ejected by a car crash, bouncing along the arena as he neared the edge.
However, the boy slammed scaled arms down, digging two deep trenches in the concrete, stopping himself with only a few feet to spare.
Midoriya, massaging his now bruised right arm, let his opponent stand, smiling. "So they are reflexive," he smiled, happy to have his prediction proven right. "That's one impressive defense!"
His ponytailed opponent staggered to his feet, turning to spit a bit of blood. "Not enough," he remarked, voice a little shaky, but still determined. "You can still get through it."
"Yeah," Deku agreed easily, "But I had to go really hard, and against most attacks it'd be more than enough. Can you do a full body suit?"
Rin stared at the boy, brimming with good cheer, and sighed. "Not yet," he admitted.
Izuku smiled, "I'd love to see it when you can. I'm sure it'll be great!"
Present Mic's voice caused the green haired boy to jump. "It's great to see inter-class cooperation, but this is a fight!"
"Sorry!" Midoriya reflexively apologized, looking to his opponent. "Ready?"
Rin nodded, and Izuku once more darted forward, but dropped low as he did so, reaching and grabbing bits of torn-up concrete that Rin had left behind as he'd tried to recover. The scale-user fired, having restocked as much as he could while they'd talked, but Izuku dodged, before whipping forward attacks of his own, the rocks he'd picked up.
Rin was forced to defend himself, dodging and covering his head, spoiling his aim and letting a grinning Midoriya close.
Pulling back a fist to punch, Izuku stepped in close, even as Rin crossed his arms, outwards facing scales lining his limbs, more coming out of his shoulders and chest, piercing through his jacket. Midoriya, however, dropped the blow and ducked down in a slide, grabbing the boys shoe, and used that to drag Rin off his feet as All Might's successor popped up, taking his opponent with him, and hurled the boy out of bounds even as scales erupted beneath his fingers.
Flung high, the other boy tried to fire his scales to get enough force to shove himself back in the ring, but there weren't enough and he landed on the grass right as Present Mic announced, "And Izuku Midoriya wins the first match by Ring Out! Give it up for him everybody! That's a great way to start the Tournament!"
The crowd cheered, and Izuku went to wipe his forehead off, leaving a streak of blood instead. The cheering abated for a moment, but the boy just shrugged it off, and the crowd's fervor came back twice as hard. Deku jumped down to Rin, who was starting to get up, and offered his uninjured hand, with the other boy took, the two of them walking off the field together.
"That went fast," Mina said beside me, leaning back.
"Most fights do," Momo replied from my other side, "Unless the foes are evenly matched. The boy from class 1-B has impressive attack and defense, and against a slower opponent he could use it to take his foe down, but Midoriya's speed let him negate that, and Rin's partial coverage allowed Midoriya to go after a safe target."
"Some safe target, did you see his hand?" Mina argued, wincing.
From her seat in front of us, Ochaco looked back, "Do you think he's going to be okay?"
"Compared to what he originally did to himself, whenever he used his power?" I reminded my classmate. "No, that was nothing. Recovery Girl's ability works well with lacerations, he'll be fine."
My girlfriend pulled her hand from mine to grab the snack she'd bought, tearing it open and offering us some sour gummi worms, shaking her head as she did so. "I'm not sure I coulda done that, knowing I'd be grabbing a handful of knives. Little dude's hardcore."
"You wouldn't need to, none of us would," I pointed out. "You could make a glove of acid to protect your hands, I could turn my hands to solid lightning, and Momo, you could just make actual gloves."
Yaoyorozu glanced down at the metal-plated handwear sitting in my lap. "Didn't you make 'actual' gloves as well?"
"I made S upport Items, but yeah, that's like half the reason I made these," I agreed easily. "I didn't know who'd make it to the finals, but if someone like Vine-girl did, I'd want something to protect myself from her thorns. They looked nasty."
We settled back to wait, Cementoss, from his concrete throne off to the side of the arena, didn't even have to get up to control the arena floor, the broken stones melting into the ground and the uneven parts smoothing out until the entire thing was unblemished cement.
"All right listeners, who's ready for the next match?" Present Mic cheered, and the crowd cheered with him. "On one end, we've got a contestant who redefines playing hard, Eijiro Kirishima!"
The redhead walked out, giving a shark-toothed grin to the crowd, his costume already ripped up from the previous event.
"And on the other side," Mic continued, "the newest up and comer from the Support Course, Mei Hatsume!"
Grinning, Mei shot out from other entrance on hover-boots, loaded for battle with harnesses full of gear, head scanning until she saw me, waving while smiling broadly. I grinned, mouthing 'Looking forward to it', and she nodded, giving me a thumbs up, before turning to scan the top boxes for the support companies.
"Who will win in this fight of Brain versus Brawn? Will ingenuity carry the day, or will hardheaded sheer determination go the distance?" Present Mic questioned, the crowd cheering.
Kirishima winced, "Come on, man, do ya need to put it that way?"
"Ready?" Miss Midnight, standing opposite of Cementoss at the midpoint of the field asked, waiting for both to nod. " Fight! "
Kirishima, hardening, charged forward, but he had a good bit to go, and Mei didn't waste any time, whipping out a capture pistol, firing it with pinpoint accuracy at his feet. He tried to jump out of the way, but he was no Midoriya, and was bound to the floor.
"As seen before, this is my patented capture gun!" Mei announced, a microphone built into her headset catching her words better then the directional mics of the stadium, coming in clearly through the speakers. "Or, Denki, is it patented!?"
" It is!" I yelled back, having done the paperwork myself, with Power Loader's help, and she nodded, more likely reading my lips then actually hearing me.
"Now, you've seen the explosive red foam last round, but this blue foam, also patented, is completely inert! See? Oh, you better harden up," she advised Kirishima, lobbing a small explosive charge his way.
The boy panicked, flesh turning crystalline, the detonation further shredding his uniform, but still leaving him bound.
"It can hold several thousand pounds per square inch, and has a similar compressive strength, and forms a rigid shell making it also protective to avoid. . . accidents. However, you might say, 'what if I bind someone and then realize I need to move them out of the way?'" she asked rhetorically, grabbing a squirt gun. "Well we've also developed a proprietary counter-agent that can free someone mistakenly captured in seconds! Here ya go!" she cheered, tossing Kirishima the water pistol.
"Um. . . thanks?" he said, spraying the foam, which crumbled to blue dust, freeing him. "I'm still going to beat you though."
Mei, however, just laughed. "You're going to try!" she corrected. "How else am I gonna show off my other wonderful Ba-Creations! Like this!" she said, catching herself, pulling a sphere and tossing it at him. "My Flashblast!"
"Isn't that supposed to be flash bang?" Kirishima asked, eyeing the globe with trepidation, skin already hardening.
"NOPE!"
The ensuing distributed kinetic blast picked him up and sent him flying backwards, the bright flash not as disorienting at range, but it dropped him off well within the limits of the arena. As the redhead staggered to his feet, blinking his eyes clear, Mei announced, "And these are just two of many products designed by Hatsume & Kaminari Creations! Now come on, rock-boy. I've got a gravitation amplifier that I can't wait to show off!"
I winced. "Oh, did she solve the self-destruction problem?" I wondered aloud, having had to dodge out of the way as that thing had gone off during testing, the internals not quite up to the task of the increased gravity it itself created.
Tossing the disk down as Kirishima charged, he tried to go around it, but it made a wide ellipsoidal field of increased gravity, instead of a column like he probably assumed, still catching him. He managed to power through it, though, before it overloaded and drove him to his knees, the device exploding, but in such a way that all the shrapnel went straight into the concrete.
"The device can stop enemies in their tracks, and gives an extra burst of Stay Down before it runs out, while also making sure your opponents doesn't use it against you!" Mei announced, as if that was part of the plan.
I sighed, "That's a no." The hard-headed hero charged her, only for her to leap into the air, boots whirring, as she pulled out the sonic cannon, detailing the electro-shoes, which she'd improved by watching me try to Induction Grind. "Oh, that's gonna suck," I winced. It made sense that she'd want to show the sonic cannon off again, though. Before we'd been surrounded by smoke, and this was essentially a tech expo for her. I hadn't seen the MHA movies, but I heard that the first one took place at an actual tech expo, and made a mental note to see if I could get her in.
"Once again, I'm Mei Hatsume, Support Prodigy. That's H-A-T-S-U-M-E, Lead Designer of Hatsume & Kaminari Creations!" she announced. "Now let's make some noise!"
Leaning back, I watched as Kirishima, who doggedly chased after her, was picked up and thrown backwards by the sonic cannon, which, after it had done its job, she disconnected the power from and slid away from her, so as to better show off her next prototype. While she was looking like she was playing with him, my talk with her had seemed to work, and not only had she not offered him some gear of his own to use, she'd refrained from calling them her Babies, at least during the 'meeting' with the bigwigs.
It was only then that I realized several members of my class were staring at me. "What?"
"Is she. . . always like that?" Jiro asked.
It was Momo who nodded, sighing, " She is. And, yes, Denki does make Support Items with her."
"I knew you said you worked with a Support Course student before, but I must admit I had my doubts," Ida stated, surprised. "To have her publicly tie the two of you together! My family has some Support Technicians they deal with, and very few of them would be willing to give credit in such a manner."
"Well, she's almost done," Minetta sighed. "And then it's just dudes for a bit. Maybe I'll get to see some skin in the fifth fight."
Ignoring Mina's muttered, 'Pervert!', I replied, "Um, dude? That backpack she's wearing is folded space. It only lasts for a bit, and you want to be freaking careful reaching into it, but she's got. . ." I thought of how many things we'd gotten certified, "Like two dozen more Support items to go. At least."
Watching Mei whip out the taser-whip, and use it to both shock and bind Kirishima, before turning it off and backing away to let him get up and charge her once more, I settled back for a long demonstration.
"And last, but certainly not least, the electromagnetic catapult!" Mei announced, turning off her boots to get solid footing, and pointing the unholy combination of pistol and blunderbuss at her opponent. "Step one, set anchors!"
Kirishima, breathing ragged, still doggedly tried to charge her, and wasn't able to dodge as the black, sticky balls, somewhat reminiscent of Minetta's, slammed into him, adhering to what little remained of his shredded uniform. The boy didn't even flinch, as focused on taking her down as he was.
"Step two, weigh anchors!" she cheered, which didn't exactly make sense, but she fired the second blast, the targeted electromagnetic pulse surging forward, hitting the black balls, which slammed Kirishima backwards, sending him flying out of the ring, the boy hardening right before he impacted the arena wall, leaving a him-shaped dent in it as the now-activated anchors stuck him fast to the surface.
" Finally!" Miss Midnight exclaimed, exasperated. "Kirishima loses to ring out. Next. Now!" Mei, grinning, quickly moved around the arena, picking up her gear. "Wait," Midnight called, gesturing towards the other combatant. "Let him down."
"Oh, don't worry," Mei told the other woman. "They'll run out of charge right. . . about. . . Now!" Kirishima didn't move. "Oh, right, I upped the charge. Soooooooo, now?" she asked, and the black spheres attached to Kirishima liquified, dropping him the ten feet to the grass below. "See! Now I need to get to work. Little Green is fast, but I've got some ideas on what to do about that!"
Cackling, she ran out of the arena as Kirishima struggled to his feet. " Can keep goin'," he muttered, took a few steps, and collapsed.
He was taken off the field in a stretcher, and Cementoss reset the field, setting the stage for the third fight.
"Alright!" Present Mic announced, a little tiredly, but gaining vigor. "Now that the last fight's finally over, and I have control of the sound system again, it's time for the next match! In one corner, we've got the tape-man who's sure he's got this fight all wrapped up, Hanta Sero!"
The boy in question, stretching out his arms, paused, thought about that, and then shrugged, nodding along in agreement wearing a wide grin.
"And in this corner we've got. . . Yo, Eraser, who dat?" the Pro asked.
Aizawa sighed. "Did you do any research? Don't answer that," he lethargically added. "That's Ikari Bradley, from the Business Course."
"The Business Course?" Present Mic echoed in disbelief.
". . . You were reading his name off during the Cavalry Battle," Eraserhead deadpanned. "Because he didn't take the test to be a Hero student, we don't have a record of his Quirk, or if he even has one."
"He could be Quirkless?" Midoriya, who'd come in during the last fight, questioned, a note of wonder in his voice.
Present Mic's voice was doubtful as he begged, "Come on, man. Gimme something to work with. Fine. And in the other corner, a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, wearing an eyepatch. Who knows what he's capable of, other than 'business', whatever that actually is. Ikari Bradley!"
There was still cheering, though it was more than a little confused.
"Ready?" Miss Midnight asked, and getting nods, whipped her flog down, yelling " Start !"
Sero shook his head, commenting, "Too easy," as he whipped his arm over, sending a strip of tape from his elbow towards his opponent, who leaned backwards, as if he were limboing, letting it miss him by inches.
As soon as it passed, Ikari hurled himself forward with quick, but ground eating strides, arms out and ready, not saying a word. Sero, surprised, hesitated a moment before, stepping back. He flung another long strip of tape sweeping across the arena from the other side, trying to trap his opponent using the boy's blindspot.
However, the Ikari jumped, getting an easy ten feet of lift and clearing the tape, not stopping at all, and closing fast.
Even as Sero, judging the other boy's course, shot a strand of tape on a collision course, Ikari twisted in mid-air, barely missing the tape as he hit the ground and closed, now only thirty feet away.
Rapt, I watched what was going on. Bradley wasn't that much faster than anyone else, but his movements were fluid in a way that almost reminded me of Aizawa, that day at the USJ. He just moved with no hesitation, and a surety that almost looked out of place on a teenager.
Sero, now visibly panicking, yelled, "Stay back", throwing as much tape down the field as he could, and Bradley, almost without seeming to mean to, weaved his way through the holes in his opponents attacks.
However, that only worked as long as there were holes, and right before the business student got to his destination, the sleeve of his jacket got caught on a bit of tape, causing the boy to stumble, another strand wrapping around his other arm.
"Got ya- aaaah!" Sero tried to crow, only for Bradley to leap forward, his sleeves tearing away easily around his shoulders.
Before the boy could do more than cry out in surprise, the Business student was on him, delivering a right cross that sent the Hero student stumbling backwards, but Bradley stayed with him.
Sero tried to turn his arm to hit Bradley with his tape, but the other boy grabbed Sero's wrists, twisting them outwards, even as he hit Sero with a rising knee that I just winced seeing. Sero tried to double over, but Bradley punched him again, Sero sprawling out on the ground even as he twisted around, trying desperately to capture his attacker.
Bradley jumped, in a spinning somersaulting, and landed, hard, on Sero's wrists, squatting down, with a knife-hand to the other boy's throat that stopped an inch before it hit. It was then, and only then, that Ikari spoke.
"I do believe this is my win."
It wasn't said arrogantly, almost musingly, and Sero, wide eyed, nodded.
You could hear the smile in Bradley's voice as he reminded the other boy, "I think you need to say you give up. Or we can keep going. I'm amenable to either."
"I- I give up!" Sero squeaked, voice tight with pain, and Bradley, who I hadn't realized was balancing on the boy's wrists, leaned backwards, heels touching the arena, before stepping off.
The crowd was silent, watching, shocked.
Miss Midnight was the first to collect herself, calling, "Winner by submission, Ikari Bradley!"
Her words broke whatever spell had been wrapped around the crowd, who, quietly at first, then louder, started cheering.
"That. Was. Awesome," I breathed, not having seen anyone like that the first time around, another flap of the butterfly that was my actions.
"Yeah, and after you win your fight against Tokage," Mina noted, with a teasing grin, "he'll be fighting you."
"Oh. . . . fuck."
AN: Next Three Chapters up on , where we just wrapped up the second round!