12 Bloody Messes.

"Number 24, you can come."

Felix stepped forward and entered the filthy tiny office where a masked woman sat behind an old desktop computer, probably an old IBM that no one wanted. The woman sighed and then scratched her head before typing on her dirty, dusty keyboard, whose letters were beginning to disappear.

"As you already know, we don't ask for your name, your age, nothing. All we need is your stage name... We regulate a minimum of tournaments to avoid attracting too much attention from the vultures of the surface."

"Ah... A nickname, huh... It'll be 'Quirkless,' no other idea," Felix said as he scratched his head through the bandages he had all over his body as a costume.

"Quirkless...? Are you sure about this," she asked, raising an eyebrow, "Your opponents will just run you over without thinking with a name like that. They're going to hit you to kill you, not knock you out."

"Maybe... but I don't think my nickname is going to change anything about their fate or mine."

"All right, then. So your team consists of Tiger Bunny and Quirkless... I wish you good luck in the future. Hopefully, I won't have to clean out pieces of your brain in the ring."

The woman sighed as she waved her hand to tell him to go away and typed on her keyboard again before calling someone else. Felix exited the stinky room smelling cigarette smoke and sweat, as quickly as he could and joined his partner.

People were entering through the main door adjacent to the hall in which all the competitors were located; they were noisily walking to reach the crowd and get a proper seating place to see the fights. The thrill of this illegal contest among the spectators reminded him of the other prisoners' enthusiastic shouts that motivated him to finish off a convict he had knocked out in a cage fight.

—All this will be recorded and posted somewhere on internet, huh... Fortunately, we anticipated this.

Felix walked towards the corner of the room where Rumi leaned against the wall; she looked up at him with a strangely worried look on her face. The heroine had dyed her hair black just for that evening and had tied it up with a bun in the hope that she wouldn't be recognized; she even wore blue contacts to avoid being too easily recognized because of those red eyes, proving that she was an albino. Her long ears were already a problem, so solutions had to be found. As for her "costume," she had gotten back her high school girl clothes; it was just a little too small, which let the bottom of her buttocks show through her pantyhose. But the textile mask she wore over half her face reminded him that he wasn't there to stare at her.

"What's worrying you?" he asked as he leaned against the wall.

"Just a bad feeling. Some people here are filthy bastards. I can feel it."

About thirty people are waiting for the matches tonight. The former inmate couldn't figure out exactly who she was talking about since most of the guys in the hall appeared suspicious or on steroids and amphetamines.

He recognized Kendo Rappa from the picture he saw of him at the meeting; he came back from the bathroom with his hands dripping with water, but all the other people present were unknown to him. Several guys with piercings and hoods on their heads looked at Rumi with a mocking smile and played with their quirks in an attempt to intimidate the other competitors. However, two of them who stood aside caught his attention, a hooded guy with a white coat and a plague doctor's mask, and another one with a longer mask who wore a hooded jacket with fur; his white gloves showed that he didn't intend to touch anything here with his bare hands.

{I know you can't answer me, but that was to tell you that Nighteye and I are in position. The car is parked at the location we talked about. If anything goes wrong, I'm ready to step in.}

The voice of Iwao Oguro, the former vigilante and pro-hero, whispered through their earpieces. Nighteye was also connected to the network and could intervene at any time if an unexpected danger arose. He was hidden in the audience with a completely different look from what everyone was used to, so even Rumi or Felix wouldn't notice him.

After more than half an hour of waiting, some men came to check if the participants weren't carrying a gun or a knife; fortunately for them, their discreet earpieces hadn't been discovered despite the search, and they just walked away with their hearts pounding.

The sound of metal shattering echoed through the room and made everyone turn around.

"I hope you guys are ready to die or just get hammered!" exclaimed Rappa, banging his fists together as they were covered with iron gauntlets. "Nothing better than a good brawl!"

"Stop shouting, imbecile." intervened the woman who was in charge of the reception. "Come on, everybody! As you know, the 'simple' matches have already been played, now comes the part of the evening we promised to the people: two groups gonna fight, and a final between the two winning teams. The first group, consisting of teams A, B, C, D, E, has to get into the ring. Teams 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are coming with me and waiting for their fights to end."

"Here we go..." Rumi mumbled as she adjusted her mask. "Don't be too impressed by the crowd."

"I'm more impressed by this guy, Kendo. The A-team is just him and him alone."

"Yeah, I remember him. He's been undefeated for many years, for a long time even... He made a fortune with all his victories, but it didn't last long with all the police raids."

The Rapper, Tiger Bunny, Quirkless, Shady, and Chrono were the only names he could remember. Among their opponents were several guys with tired expressions or simply too quiet to know why they had come to this old underground bunker. Despite the apparent filth and dust, this place attracted about two thousand people every week, and just by seeing the masked faces of the public when they saw the attendees getting into the ring, Felix realized they were there to see blood. To forget the monotony of their lives just for one night.

The voice-over echoed through the vast stage, announcing each participant's nickname, followed by the audience's critics and cries, waiting for just one thing to happen. The 5 teams spread out at equal distances on the round ring and waited for the whistle to blow. Rumi put one leg forward, Rappa prepared his fists, the shady guy took off one of his gloves, and another one made blades appear from his skin.

And then...

"Don't die on me too fast, guys," Rappa shouted, throwing a punch barrage in the direction of one of the teams in front of him.

The sounds his fists made on impact showed that in the space of a few seconds, one of their opponents had just had a large number of broken bones. The guy fell to the ground with both arms broken in all directions, pieces of bones coming out of it. His teammate tried to kick him with thorns sticking out of his shoes, but he twirled in the air after a second barrage that knocked him out.

—Holy shit... But well, as we analyzed with everyone, his shoulders already seem to suffer from what he did... if I just have to dodge his shots using Nighteye's super-hormones coupled with Rumi's until the end of the game, it's going to be easy, but when it comes to stamina, I think he's stronger than me... and there are these other guys...

"Tiger Bunny!" he called out to her, placing his hand on her shoulder, taking care to boost her adrenaline and other useful hormones while reducing her sexual frustration with oxytocin so that it would be more effective. "Take care of Kendo... I'll take care of the others."

"We don't have much choice anyway," she says, leaping to the first opponents in front of her with a broad smile.

She ran directly towards the target they needed to capture, swinging both legs forward. Unexpectedly, Rappa took her double kick in the waist and immediately turned back to her opponent with a broad smile on her face. Felix decided to get out of the way to avoid taking a lost shot and released melatonin as he grazed Rappa to join his selected opponents.

He focused on the two individuals who were waiting at the other end of the ring for someone to come to them. How could he know what they were capable of? Running into them would be the best solution, but he is not Rumi and can only partially imitate her abilities; the risk is too big. Long-distance attacks were only allowed if they came from the quirk... He would have to come with something else...

[▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲]

[Super-Hormones Modifier — None.]

[Exceeding Body's Capacities: 35%.]

[Stored Hormones & Pheromones: 69%.]

[▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲]

He had enough stuff in reserve to be able to do marvelous things. He started by launching as many bubbles in their direction, which made blisters appear on his forearms because he wasn't used to Kaoruko's quirk, which he had only been able to see thanks to Nighteye again.

The two individuals dodged without any problem but obviously didn't expect them to burst simultaneously; a smell of sulfur filled part of the ring. However, their masks seemed to protect them at least a little, even though they started coughing. Seeing an opportunity, Felix leaped up to the man in the hooded jacket and gave him a kick boosted by Mirko's quirk and a cocktail of hormones. Still, the dude managed to dodge it and nearly touched the former inmate's clothes, part of which shattered like torn apart by a ghost.

—What was that...?

Before he could do anything else, Nighteye super-hormones warned him that an arrow made of hair would try to stab him from his blind spot. He managed to dodge it while running towards the individual, giving him a violent kick in the gut that caused him to move back towards the cage's grillage. He followed with a shoulder blow and drove him as hard as he could into the steel wall of the ring, taking care to dodge another one of his hair-arrow.

Aware that if he continued to attack like this, he wouldn't be able to dodge the second one that came at him with an outstretched hand, he tipped the weight of his body forward and imitated one of the techniques with more or less skill. He put both hands on the ground, raising his legs to the sky, and with the momentum and strength of his muscles, he slammed his tibia directly into the radius and ulna of the man with the elongated mask. His arm drifted from its trajectory and hit the ground, which disintegrated about ten centimeters with a noise of breakage, giving Felix more information about his opponent's abilities.

—Imitating the move of a hero isn't something to be expected, huh? I can thank Rumi for her training.

The man put one of his hands on the side of his head while Felix was already trying to attack again, but he was stopped by Chrono, the other member of his team. However, Felix was able to see, despite the hand-to-hand fight against the arrow man, that his main opponent had just disintegrated his arm and rebuilt it in no time.

—So that's it... Guess I have no other choice but to try to steal a few of his super-hormones to understand what his quirk exactly is.

Both Felix and Chrono wanted to continue their shot exchanges even if, in the end, only Felix managed to hit his opponent; punching him in the face turned out to be laborious because of his mask and without brass knuckles, it just resulted in pain with no real effect, so only uppercut and kick were really good as long as he was wearing his mask. However, one thing ended their struggle as soon as they saw what was happening to them at full speed, his arms ready to throw a torrent of blows.

"Don't be scared, buddy!" Rappa shouted as he ran across the ring, preparing to send a volley of punches in his direction.

"Hey! I'm still here! It looks like you're trying to run away; what about your will to fight me?!" Mirko yelled, blood dripping from her forehead while raising her heel after jumping; upon the impact of her foot, the entire ring collapsed, destabilizing all the people still conscious.

The audience, spurred on by what they had just seen, didn't notice the irritation of one of the fighters, holding his face in anger and indignation, his arms now covered with germs.

"Overhaul...?" asked Chrono with a worried tone.

"And to think I came all the way here for this... A fucking furry girl and a piece of garbage daring touching me... They're trying to stop me from doing what has to be done for the better good..." he murmured. "Kurono! In that case, let's kill them. Then we catch the big fish and we go away from this dump."

"Understood!"

Chrono and Overhaul both got up in an offensive stance, the first time it happened since the match began. The black-haired man walked toward the last remaining fighter of the other two teams, who began overheating his fists to hit his foe, but Overhaul easily dodged and slipped his index finger on the skin of his neck, resulting in an explosion of blood and guts, like some macabre confetti.

Rumi's expression changed immediately after seeing this, including Rappa's, who stepped back for the first time since the start of the match but still faced the same smile. In a movement that Felix tried to make as natural as possible, he, in turn, moved back and touched Rappa's foot to steal super-hormones and throw at him melatonin and cortisol. Rappa swung a few punches at him thinking it was an attack, and turned back to Felix, exposing his teeth thanks to a broad and excited smile.

"What were you doing, brother? Feet fetishist, maybe?"

"Nah, I'm good." Felix sneered by accumulating a large number of super-hormones in his legs. "To each their way of fighting, right?"

"Hahaha! We will see if you will keep this attitude after a good beatdown!"

However, this moment of inattention was enough for Rumi to give the Rapper a swift kick to the head which created a mini shockwave on impact, surprising the audience, believing that his skull had been cracked... and all this without the heroine wearing her shoes with metal toes with her.

The champion stumbled for a moment but stood still, rubbing the back of his head; after seeing that his hand was covered with blood, he shifted his pupils towards the young woman, already ready to attack once more.

"So you want to attack from behind? What a nicely shaped mosquito you are, woman!"

"That's Tiger Bunny for you!" she said while jumping towards him but stopped after seeing something.

"Tiger Bunny, heh! I thought I recognized you! And hey! You're the kid from 10 years ago. I never forgot those kicks-"

Before Rappa could finish his sentence, Overhaul was already running and almost in front of him, raising one of his hands to the torso of their common target. Rumi spun around like a spinning top, spreading her two legs to block the Yakuza path, and a second later, it was Felix's turn to attack.

He hadn't stolen many super-hormones from The Rapper, but it should be enough to touch him at least once. He felt his shoulders twirl like helicopter propellers while his fists raced in all directions without him being able to control them. In the space of 3 seconds, he felt as if he had dislocated both his shoulders and had unfortunately only hit his target once to the head.

"Stupid fucking piece of garbage..." Overhaul muttered as a hair-arrow flashed past his head toward Felix. "Looks like I'll have to turn people into bloody messes again."