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Battle Trial, Breaking Limits

Akane was playing her instrument, to be more specific, she played the violine on something that wouldn't even qualify as an instrument and it still sounded beautiful.

No! It sounded even better that the times she played live at her concerts! It felt like the music was shaking the very being of oneself, but that wasn't the dangerous part of her play.

Don't misunderstand, Akane could play at hypersonic sounds to hurt others, but she didn't because of a simple reason. She was too proud of her abilities to ruin them by doing something so despicable.

Just like how a true cook would never poison their food, even if they should assassinate someone, because they are proud of their abilities, Akane would never make her music dangerous, because it was something to enjoy.

Doing something like directly weaponizing it would tarnish everything she did to get this far. She would never do something like that.

But that didn't mean that she wouldn't use her music to attack. She played a couple of very high notes before she slowed down her playing. Staying on a repeat loop of what seemed to be one long note.

(Undertale OST, 070 - Long Elevator, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDQGK6ztbLs)

Suddenly something gathered around Akane, at first sight it just looked like some black dust, but upon closer look...

...it still looked like black dust, maybe if you would really try it would seem like black particles, but that was it.

But upon close OBSERVATION you would notice that these particles were following the rhythm of which Akane played.

"It can't be these things are expensive! Where would she have the money, or the investor to create so many of them!"

Momo already found out what these things were.

"What do you mean? What did you see, oh great tactician Momo-sama!"

"What? Stop it with these things!"

Anyways, Momo already found out. These black particles were a lot of nano robots, even the smallest size Königskrone Industries could create, with literally each of them having the size of 50 nanometers and each of these things were following the commands of Akane, well more or less.

"Well, I still need to practice the fine movement with them if I really want to be lethal, but I am currently satisfied with the results. Playing them, cutting things up to smithereens."

Everyone felt shivers down their spine, that was considered not lethal?

"Well, with the size and surprisingly high strength of these things she could invade the insides of your body, even if you try to block off all your holes. Once inside your body she could let them invade your bloodstream, forcing you to move the way she wants, making you a living human puppet. One that happens she basically has complete control over you and can do whatever she wants with you. So, her saying that cutting things up until they are only shreds, being considered the most harmless she can do, isn't really an exaggeration."

For a moment everyone's bones rattled at that thought but thinking about it a second time everyone had the same thought, as they were still bit hormonal. The thought was:

'Doesn't that sound extremely lewd?'

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Meanwhile Akane was playing her instrument calmly, but mostly eerie sounds came from her play.

She stopped for a moment, making the 'cloud' around her stop moving. She opened her visible eye, revealing a purple eye, the not visible one was orange. She smiled at the three in front of her, before removing her bow from the strings.

With her now free hand she pointed her index finger at them and taunted them to go at her together.

"Or, you know. You'll lose this test."

The three of them that were at the receiving end of her glare shivered. This was dangerous, was what their instincts told them, but they didn't back down just because of that.

The three of them planned to become heroes. Even though their goals were different, even though the intensity of the desire was different, even if their ideals didn't compare to hers, even if she was putting more for it on the line to just get the chance of achieving the goal to become a hero, they weren't willing to back down.

They also wanted to become heroes with all their being, they aren't going to back down, just because someone was ahead of them!

The first one to start their move was Mezo. He started to duplicate his arms until they become a barrier that surrounded him. He ran towards her, crashing into her would be optimal, but that wasn't his goal, his goal was to give the other two enough time to prepare a strong attack.

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Meanwhile in the infirmary Izuku opened his eyes, waking up. He was still a bit shaken with all the adrenaline that was coursing through his system.

He was still shaken by the fight with Katsuki, he was still embarrassed about the things he said during the trial, he was still angry at himself for acting so impulsively, but what bothered the most was his broken arm!

It damn hurt! What wondered him most was that it was still broken! Wasn't Recovery Girl in this school? Or did his body just not have the energy left to heal an injury of such scale? Anyways, he was awake and won his fight, he was proud of himself.

"Finally awake, crybaby?"

Izuku was surprised at the voice that came from beside of him.

"Kacchan! You are here too?"

"Pfffth! Bahahaha! That's a good joke, Deku. Did you really think that anyone could get away unscratched with the kind of attack you released upon me? Man, it was really exciting though to clash with that attack."

Katsuki continued to chuckle about their fight and Izuku slowly remembered what happened during their fight.

"But seriously, at the end your own attack did more damage to you than mine did. Talk about a demerit, I mean look at you, all the wounds caused by my Howitzer Attack already disappeared on you, meanwhile your arm is still broken, you were serious as you said that you didn't have your quirk under control, huh?"

Izuku was a bit surprised at that question, but quickly remembered what he had told him during the battle. Izuku just had to wryly chuckle at that thought.

"Yes, I guess I can just even consider myself lucky to even awake a quirk during training. I mean look at Akane! But to be fair, I imagine her to be so much more fearsome if she had one. After all she manages to keep up with everyone in class, even without a quirk. Isn't it impressive?"

"Haha, yeah. Can't believe she tricked me all the time into thinking that she is a boy, imagine the shock I felt as she revealed herself during the apprehension test!"

The two of them laughed for a moment before falling silent again. Even though they were in the middle of repairing their broken relationship it still wasn't anywhere near fully mending.

"Hey, Deku."

"Yeah, Kacchan?"

Katsuki gulped. He didn't really know how to put it into words, but he wanted to apologize to Izuku about the things he did in the past. He knew that he couldn't expect forgiveness for just that, but he still had to do his first step.

"Well..."

"Yeah?"

He really is embarrassed to do this.

"I just wanted to..."

Izuku just looked at him with a questioning gaze, smiling at him when to two met gazes. This ticked him of for some reason.

"Ugh! Who cares! Get up, we recovered well enough to stand up and walk, so move these legs of yours, I didn't plan on missing most of her battle. After all I can't surpass her if I don't know what she can do!"

Izuku was surprised at the sudden outburst of Katsuki, but he didn't think much about it, because he also didn't want to miss her battle. His pages on her where still almost empty after all!

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Recovery Girl was scolding the boys as they tried to leave the infirmary, but she gave up pretty fast after their insistence of wanting to see Akanes battle.

She let the two leave as she saw that they were strong enough to hold themself up on their feet, but because of this the two of them still needed a long time to reach the monitor rooms of ground beta again.

But after a while they finally managed to reach that place and there they were met with an incredible sight.

Akane was playing a string instrument while jumping around and avoiding projectiles on the battlefield.

Todoroki was shooting an insane amounts of ice spears after her, but most of them were either dodged, or cut into small dust particles.

Meanwhile Mezo and Mashirao were engaging her in close combat, but Mashirao could only approach Akane by hiding behind Mezo and his attacks, while he has to hold up his other arms to make a barrier, were rather weak and had no power behind them.

Suddenly Akane played a loud spike with her instrument, causing some of the nano bots to pin Mashirao's tail into the ground. Now he was easy prey for her.

But before she could knock him out, she was suddenly surprised by a rather huge glacier to her side.

"SHOJI, out of the way!"

And with his teammates signal he managed to jump out the range of the attack, with his enhanced strength. Akane just had one word to say as she saw that.

"Aw, FU..."

And she was hit by the huge ice wall.

"Todoroki, do you think this should have incapacitated her?"

"Ojiro, we don't have time for that. You go immediately into the building and find the bomb. Me and Todoroki stay here just in case. I don't want to hurt you, but..."

"Yeah, I know. Since she wiped that weird instrument of hers out of nowhere, I've been rather the burden in this fight, especially since I barely could approach her and had no means of fighting from the far. Take care, I'll go into the building. I think we should be able to make it!"

And with that he disappeared into the building where Toru was. Meanwhile Shoto and Mezo were intensely staring at his created glacier.

They didn't dare to underestimate the girl.

"Only five minutes left! You all should slowly start to hurry!"

They ignored the time announcement. In the moment, the fight between them and Akane was more important, but slowly the doubt of also going into the building creeped in.

With how long she was in there they were sure she was knocked out. Until a cylindrical, black object pierced through the ice.

It was Akane who climbed out of the hole, but the current appearance of hers wasn't a nice treat. Most of her costume was now ruined and there were several scratches on her, out of some of them even came blood.

Especially on her forehead seemed to be a lot of it, but she still seemed more than fine. Suddenly she started to clap.

"My congratulations on you three, for bringing me to such a state, but I think play and practice time is over, don't you two also think so?"

They were confused at her words. she still wasn't serious?

"Oh, no, no, no. I was serious, but you know, I didn't play a single piece since I was on the field, I was just giving the little robots some random commands, but this will now change. There should be still a bit more than three minutes left. Enough time to start and finish a piece."

She pulled her instrument out again, putting her bow on the strings again, she was about to play.

But before she could Mezo and Todoroki launched projectiles on her, they knew that nothing came out of it if they let her start play, but sadly just dodged that easily.

Now it was time for her to play.

(Undertale RED, Red's Pacifist Theme v2, made by Nick Nitro, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWrCXVQOvRQ)

It was a rather rapid theme. Each note she played felt like a full power slash. Fast, long, dangerous. Some of the slashes seemed to be splitting the air apart while she was playing, while others just chased after them or just surrounded them.

Both of them felt the danger of each of them, until they finally managed to find some debris to hide behind.

"Todoroki, this is insane! These slashes come from everywhere around us. How should we even be able to counter it?"

Shoto was just gasping exhaustedly. His quirk demerit bothered him a bit much. He felt how the right side of his body was freezing, he couldn't feel his left half anymore. But he still had a trump card left.

"Hey, Shoji. If this debris breaks, can you give me an additional minute, no 20 seconds should be enough."

Mezo didn't know what he meant, but he decided to trust him. At this point he was desperate, so any solution was welcomed. So, he just nodded at the request of Todoroki and at the same moment the debris broke, Mezo braced for impact of the slashes, hiding Todoroki behind him.

"1!"

He started to count.

"2!"

It was really painful for him to stand in the middle of that, but he endured it.

"3!"

He knew that a victory here doesn't mean much.

"4, 5!"

But that didn't mean he was willing to lose! As long as he is able to stand, he is going to fight.

"6, 7, 8, 9!"

Would he just give up if the villain in front of him is stronger than him? No! Of course not. This is what being a hero means. Fighting to their utmost to protect civilians, or comrades.

"10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15!"

But even then, he would still his limit, especially with that brutal onslaught of blade slashes that was decimating his arms by the second.

"16, 17, 18, 19, 20! Todoroki, 20 seconds passed! Are you ready yet?"

"Just a little bit more time, promise."

Mezo chuckled, a little bit? That usually meant a whole lot, but he guessed that some things weren't meant to rushed, so he decided to keep going until he fell over from exhaustion. He smiled. Never would he had guessed that a first-year battle trial would be this intense, but he guessed he was wrong.

"47, 48, 49, 50..."

He body felt tired. So, this was how working yourself to the bone felt. A warmth enveloped his chest. He was proud of himself.

"So, this is what a fraction is of what you went through. He, we all barely hold a candle to you. Yet that is."

And after that minute that felt like an eternity for him his body gave out. He couldn't stand anymore, but that same moment the attacks on his body stopped and they continued towards Shoto.

In his last moment he could see how Shoto had a ball of blue light in his hand.

"ABSOLUTE..."

He took another breath.

"ZERO!"

Todoroki shot an ice beam towards Akane that seemingly froze the air around it, the nano bots tried to attack it, to defend Akane from it, but at the end each of them were frozen by it.

Akane laughed, she guessed she had to take her other trump card out, she opened her uniform and countless individual parts started to come out of it. This wouldn't be then end yet.

All the parts floated to their positions as if predestined and at the end a piano formed.

This won't be then just yet!

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In class 1-F:

"Come on Majeta, please tell me what the thing you were most proud of after completing."

Yuiko was bothering Majeta the entire time since the end of the lesson. Even she would snap at some point.

"You want to know? Fine! It was her 'piano' part! Why? Because it's such a futuristic object that it seems we grabbed it from 100 years into the future! It a set of 88 keys, all floating together to a floating board that forms a half-circle around her! Each of the keys don't need strings to produce sound and instead imitates the waves a normal key would play if pressed! It shines in a blue color all the time and I am still confused how we managed to build that! If asked how much it costs, I would say that it costed me more than a good portion of the companies funds! Now shut up!"

Guess whose themes she will play.

It's time.

HopelessHikikomoricreators' thoughts
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