(14)->THE TEST-3

.

" " - Dialogue

' ' - Thoughts

---(LOCATION)---

--(POV)--

-(TIME GAP)-

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

.

.

---CLIFF OF THE BACK MOUNTAIN---

--Author-san's P.O.V--

.

.

After being chased around for 2 minutes with no plan of attack working, Seiya decided to stop dodging and go on the offensive. Evading the droid's oncoming attack and somersaulting over it, Seiya jumped backward, creating some space between the two of them. Once he had put enough space, Seiya stopped moving and braced himself for the droid's next attack. Ryoma, who had been watching him perform this tactic, commented,

.

Ryoma: "Looks like he is finally going for the droid's eye."

Bang: "He doesn't have any other option. Attacking any other spot on the droid's body would be useless anyway. But alas!...*sigh*"

.

Before Ryoma could ask what Bang meant by his words, however, the opportune moment for Seiya had arrived. The droid had closed the gap between them and was upon Seiya, its left arm punching towards him.

Waiting until the very last moment, Seiya sidestepped just enough to avoid the punch and brought both of his transformed hands down on the droid's outstretched arm and using it as a support, flipped over, landing on the droid's elbow following which he launched himself towards the droid's face,

*Bam*

hitting it straight in its eye, destroying it completely.

.

Seiya: 'Yes!'

.

That was what Seiya thought when all of a sudden his senses started screaming danger at him. Out of instinct, he shielded himself using his other transformed arm

*Bam*

before a punch from the droid's other arm, connected to it sending him up in the air,

*Thud*

and landing him across on the other side of the ring, close to its edge.

Ryoma, who had been watching this scene unfold, immediately turned towards Bang, expecting an answer from him about what just happened, only to find an equally surprised expression on his face. Despite dreading the answer he was gonna get, Ryoma still had to ask,

.

Ryoma: "What are 'you' so surprised about?"

Bang: "The force behind that punch,... it-it was way more than what I set before the trial!"

Ryoma: "What?! But how can that be?"

Bang: "I think in that last punch, Seiya somehow damaged the calibrator which was coincidentally located near that eye area."

Ryoma: "Then what are we waiting for, let's get him out of there!"

.

Ready to rescue Seiya at once, Ryoma was about to move when Bang suddenly grabbed him by his hand, stopping him in his tracks. Jerking his hand away, Ryoma asked,

.

Ryoma: "Now what?! Why are you stopping me?"

.

Pointing towards the droid, Bang said,

.

Bang: "Look at the droid."

.

It was only then Ryoma realized that the droid had stopped moving.

.

Ryoma: "Why did it stop moving all of a sudden?"

Bang: "It's rebooting itself, no doubt thanks to that last punch from Seiya. Now, he has 2 minutes to get himself together before it's reboot completes."

Ryoma: "One thing I don't get is how the hell did that thing manage to hit Seiya even after it's eye was destroyed?...! Don't tell me that eye was a fake, meant to trick Seiya into attacking it!"

Bang: "As much as I would like to take credit for making such an elaborate scheme, the truth is that eye was really the only way for the droid to observe its surroundings. But I did make a contingency plan for when Seiya destroyed that glaring weakness. I got those lab coats at Shield Labs to install a targeting device which follows a tracker that 'somehow' made its way to the karate gi Seiya is currently dressed in."

Ryoma: "Then what was the need of that eye in the first place if it already had a tracker system installed?"

Bang: "The eye was a part of the prototype from the beginning while the tracker system is more of an add-on. It has a major glaring weakness that it cannot observe its surroundings and can only follow the tracker which means if the battlefield was a forest or cave, then it might run into hurdles which it could not 'see' at all, and Seiya would have been able to stop it quite easily. This is the reason I limit Seiya's fight to inside the ring which had a plain surface, covering up this weakness of the droid."

.

Ryoma's twitching eye was enough of an indication of what he was feeling. He was seriously considering if Seiya had somehow offended Bang before.

.

Ryoma: "Did you even leave him a real way for him to win this trial?"

Bang: "The only real way to win is for him to survive for the remaining 7 minutes inside that ring because defeating that droid is impossible for him as long as it's core processor is being protected behind a reinforced titanium case and Seiya just proved my point in that last punch for that case was just behind the droid's ocular system which he destroyed. Now, all we can do is wait and see if he can create a miracle or not."

Ryoma: "But the calibration problem hasn't been rectified yet, not to mention, Seiya still hasn't gotten up. We have to get him out of there!"

Bang: "Please Ryoma, just wait for a little bit more. If Seiya doesn't get up by the time the droid is done rebooting itself, I will stop this trial immediately, I promise."

Ryoma: "Why are you so adamant about this? Seiya has already tried to fight that droid of yours and come up empty-handed with no plan of his working against him. What more do you hope to accomplish with this? "

Bang: "This is the first time that Seiya has been hit in this fight. Not only that but also on the attack night, he wasn't hit even once. I just want to see his next course of action now that his only hope in the form of that eye weakness has vanished and he is really hurt for the first time ever."

.

Ryoma wanted to argue further when Bang suddenly said,

.

Bang: "Look! Seiya is getting up!"

.

Immediately, Ryoma once again turned back towards the ring, focusing his attention on Seiya's figure who looked like he was struggling to get back up. About to ask if he was seriously hurt, Ryoma suddenly froze at what he saw. Not only him, Bang too was struck with terror at the sight in front of him.

Two large beastly eyes were staring right at them as if they could pierce through their very soul. They had never felt this way before, not even in front of that seemingly unassailable man who took the life of Ryoma's father and Bang's sensei. And the next moment it was gone with no trace of it having been there at all, allowing them to breathe a sigh of relief.

.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

.

.

--Seiya's POV--

.

.

Seiya: 'Phew, that was a close one.'

.

That last punch brought not only pain but also some of my memories of Ixphoria, specifically, of those times when I slaughtered the demon army. As a result, I released some of my battle intent and bloodlust, though, thankfully I managed to quickly reign it in. Getting back on my feet, I looked over at my metallic adversary who I just noticed had been standing still ever since it delivered that last punch.

.

Seiya: "What an honorable foe you are!"

.

Well, I certainly wasn't complaining about getting all the extra reprieve I could and recover as much as possible. Alas as fate would have it, right at this very moment, the droid 'woke' up from his short slumber and once again, started moving towards me. With the droid looking no worse for wear other than its now destroyed eye, which apparently served no essential purpose, and my energy reserves running extremely low, the situation seemed very dire for me.

.

Seiya: 'Honestly, I am getting a little tired of this energy level bullshit. But why did the droid wait until now to move....! Is it programmed to not hurt me while I am down or did sensei stop it?"

.

Wanting to test my hypothesis, I made it seem that I lost my sense of balance and fell down on the ground once again, closing my eyes and feigning unconsciousness. Unfortunately, it did not work, discarding both of my hypotheses. Quickly getting up, I once again braced myself and saw that it had already covered half of the distance between the two of us. Racking my brain as fast as I could, I continued to think for a solution,

.

Seiya: 'Why did it stop then? If it wasn't intentional then that means it was accidental and the only thing that could have caused an accident was my last punch which means... that there is a weak spot present where I punched it. But my punch wasn't strong enough to disrupt it completely."

.

Even though I didn't know whether even this hypothesis was correct or not, currently, I only had enough strength for one last shot and only one possible target for it. With no other way to victory visible to me, I decided to bet it all on one final stand. Pushing my remaining energy reserves to the limit, I transformed my entire body, from head to toe.

Although the cost of using my full transformation was high - high enough that with my meager reserves I could only use it for 5 seconds, its benefits were apparent too. In this form, every part of the body works in tandem with each other creating a synergic effect boosting my overall stats and bringing out the maximum strength that my body is capable of exerting along with my best reaction speed.

Once again, I braced myself for the droid to close the distance and attack me. Within moments, the droid was upon me, ready to attack but I remained unmoving, choosing not to budge an inch until the very last moment when I sidestepped just enough to dodge it's punch similar to what I did last time. However, unlike last time, I jumped directly on the droid's shoulders, my full-body transformation aiding me in this endeavor.

As I turned to look at the droid's head, I found it doing the same, it's face turning towards my own with a second punch following behind. With backing down no longer an option, I launched myself towards it, putting as much strength into my jump as I could, clenching my hands tightly to punch as hard as I could, and threw it forward...only to feel my transformation almost ending right at the last moment.

.

Seiya: 'Damn it! Why can't this ever be easy?!'

.

Within that fraction of a second, I ended my full-body transformation, transferring every last bit of my internal energy that I had into my knuckles to transform it, something that I hadn't even tried until now.

.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

.

.

--Author-san's POV--

.

.

Ryoma and Bang, who had been closely following the entire fight, were shocked senseless at what they were seeing, which was Seiya or more specifically, Seiya's knuckles.

.

Bang: "Isn't that...?"

Ryoma: "Yeah..."

Bang: "But... how?"

.

What Seiya didn't realize in his rush to hit the droid was that he had put a little too much energy while transforming his knuckles. Having never transformed such a specific part of his body before, that excess energy now covered his knuckles, creating a glow around it as Seiya threw his final punch.

*Bam*

Hitting it right before the droid's punch hit him but sadly it did wasn't able to pass through the protective shell that he hit. Expecting to be hit right afterward, Seiya closed his eyes, only to feel a gust of wind pass by his face. Opening his eyes, he saw the landing punch to have stopped mere inches from his face, that gust of wind most likely a consequence of this very punch.

With relief finally washing over him, the adrenaline that had been pushing him forward until now died down and the exhaustion of the entire test set in, with his consciousness slowly slipping away as he fell to the ground.

.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

.

.

---BANG'S DOJO, BACK MOUNTAIN---

--30 minutes later--

.

.

In an old-fashioned Japanese room with a sliding door, Seiya lay unconscious, resting on a tatami mat. Outside the room, Bang and Ryoma were discussing about what happened in the trial earlier.

.

Ryoma: "So, did you check why the droid stopped functioning all of a sudden?"

Bang: "It's as we suspected, the energy from that last punch after bypassing through the protective shell, fried the IC chip inside."

.

While Ryoma had escorted a fainted Seiya to the dojo, Bang had stayed behind to investigate the cause behind the sudden malfunctioning of the droid after that final punch from Seiya and as a result, discovered the fried IC chip.

.

Bang: "For the first time, I am actually looking forward to seeing the faces of those lab coats when I tell them how their so-called 'military-grade' robot was beaten by a 6-year old child, ha ha ha ha."

.

Ryoma could only shake his head at his friend's sick sense of humor but he too had a trace of a smile on his face. But he then turned serious and said,

.

Ryoma: "I still think you went overboard with that last trial."

Bang: "No matter. The trial has been finished and unfortunately for you, you cannot change the past."

Ryoma: "Ha Ha, very funny. But we did get some surprises, no?"

Bang responded with a nod. They were some big surprises too but it would be a lie to say that Bang did not expect any surprises, after all, when one faces an emergency situation, then it is often seen that they break through their own limits but what Bang did not expect was the way Seiya would break through them in that final punch.

.

Ryoma: "So with this latest discovery, are you going to speed up Seiya's training?"

Bang: "No. In fact, I am thinking of backtracking his training plans by a year or two. We have both underestimated his potential and it's much scarier than we initially thought. In such circumstances, we mustn't rush his training too much. Don't worry though, I won't purposely delay his training. I just don't want to rush it."

.

Ryoma kept his hand on his friend's shoulder showing his support and was about to say some words of encouragement when suddenly he turned towards Seiya's resting room and said,

.

Ryoma: "Seiya is up. Let's go, he will be looking for us."

.

(P.S. : Please make sure to read the section below. Especially the last part.)

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

.

.

\\Author-san's Thoughts//

.

.

One day later than intended but here you have it. Also, this is going to be the last chapter of this week and the pace of writing is going to drop for the rest of this month as my exams are right around the corner. In fact, I might only release 1 or 2 chapters for the rest of this month so I request you guys to have patience with me for some time.

But this is also an opportunity for you guys to share your feedback in the form of reviews to let me know how I am doing and to share your ideas and suggestions too. I have already shared the link to the discord server where you can do so or the chapter comments are good too.

Talking about suggestions, I need one from you guys urgently. As we all know that MHA does not really have a defined power system other than Midoriya who simply shows the mastery of his quirk. So I need you guys to suggest a way for me to show the MC's progression. Should I use comparative power basing based on the fights themselves or use one for all or something new entirely?

Be sure to comment and share your views. Also, do you want him to have a male friend before the canon or not (not from 1-A)?. Hope to see you next time. Viszontlátásra.

.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________