34

Chapter Text

Ochako forcefully reminded herself that she had nothing to be scared of as she waited for the match to start. If a group of students that weren't in the hero course could strand up against Bakugo and even call him Kacchan just because they thought it was funny, then she, a future hero, had no reason to be terrified of him. Now if only her heartbeat would get the memo. 

Midoriya had offered to help her come up with a strategy to use against him, but Ochako already had the beginnings of a plan in her mind and she didn't want to only rely on the support course to get her though. If she succeeded here, then she'd know she was strong enough on her own merit and if she didn't then she'd know she still needed to improve. 

The second that Midnight started the match, Ochako rushed forward, only to be brutally blown back. She kept going. It could have just been her imagination, but it felt like Bakugo was going even harder against her than he normally would. A couple of times, she even heard him mutter something about Deku as he forced her back, so she figured he was probably taking out his frustrations with Midoriya out on her. It wasn't fair, obviously, but this was Bakugo they were talking about, the guy who called pretty much everyone extras, so she didn't really have high expectations when it came to kindness or empathy. 

Hopefully, however, she could use his anger to her advantage. When people were angry, they got hyper focused and missed things. She used the smokescreen Bakugo was creating to float as many small rocks as she could, only slowing down and stopping when she felt like there was no way he could avoid her meteor shower. 

"What? Finally giving up?" Bakugo scoffed. "I should have expected that from anyone willing to partner up with Deku. "

"I think you still have a lot to learn about not underestimating people." Ochako panted. She was close to her limit now, but it had to be enough. She'd make it be enough. "Thank you."

Bakugo's eyes narrowed, "What the fuck for?"

Ochako smiled and brought her hands together, "For keeping your eyes on me."

She lunged forward, ignoring the sting as some of the small pebbles hit her on their way down. Bakguo's eyes widened and she saw a tiny glimmer of fear. She could do this! She reached out toward him. Just a little farther!!!

Bakugo's entire body tensed in determination and suddenly there was a loud boom as the loudest boom Ochako had ever heard rocked the stadium. It was enough to knock her completely off her feet and disintegrate her epic meteor shower to nothing but useless dust and pebbles. Tears prickled at the corner of her eyes as she struggled to stand, but Bakugo was right there, forcing her to the ground again with another explosion, "What was that Round Face, huh? Did Deku give you that strategy?"

"No, that was all me." Ochako smiled and pushed past her nausea as she finally managed to touch Bakugo. He tensed as his gravity was removed, but the effects lasted less than a second before Ochako started throwing up and dropped him. So much for that plan. 

"Come on, Round Face! Fight Me!"

Bakugo's voice seemed muffled as she tried to force herself to her feet, but she was already beyond her limits and ended up collapsing on the floor.

"Uraraka is unable to continue!" Midnight announced. "Bakugo wins!"

Izuku swallowed nervously and ran though everything he knew about Mina Ashido, watching carefully as she stretched, limbering herself up for their match. She was kind, from what he'd seen, and had decent quirk control, but nothing too special. She could control both the acidity and the viscosity of her acids, which made her dangerous, but she didn't really have any ranged attacks from what he'd seen. 

Then again, neither did he.

Unlike the first round, there wasn't really a convenient robot for him to hack. He could take control of the security systems, maybe, but that would be risky because that would take time and would leave him open to attack. His best bet for now was to keep her at a distance and then figure out something out as he went along. That was all assuming he even wanted to win this round to begin with, which he still hadn't decided.

"Begin!"

Ashindo immediately started skating toward him on her acid, "Honestly, I feel kinda bad for beating you. Bakubro said you were quirkless, so this is kinda a bad match-up for you, huh?"

Izuku couldn't help feeling annoyed as he ran away, "Every match-up's a bad match-up for me. That doesn't mean I should just give up."

"Oh yeah, more power to ya!" Ashido laughed. "But you're still gonna lose!"

It was weird because it felt like she should be making fun of him, but for some reason, Izuku felt like she just hadn't clued in that what she said might be rude, so he'd forgive her this time...but he also kinda wanted to prove her wrong. Actually, he wanted to prove a lot of people wrong. He wanted to prove, live on national television, that quirkless didn't mean useless and he wouldn't even need to rely on his tech to do it, just Ashido's quirk and maybe a loophole or two.

Izuku grinned and kept running around the stage, zigzagging around the small space and keeping just barely out of reach of Ashido. The crowd seemed to be getting bored with their game of cat and mouse, but it wouldn't last too much longer. Izuku was already having to jump half the time just to avoid the acid trails that Ashido was leaving everywhere as she ran. He waited until about 80% of the stage was completely coated in acid before taking off his uniform jacket and running toward the corner of the stage. 

There was a small torch in each corner. They were mostly for decoration and Izuku honestly wasn't completely sure that they didn't count as out of bounds but he didn't technically have to cross the lines to reach them, so he was willing to risk it. He crumpled his shirt into a ball and shoved it into the flames until it caught, then ignored the gasps and screams of the crowd as he threw the now burning shirt onto the ground, smirking at Ashido as the acid on the ground caught fire and the flames started racing toward her. 

Her eyes widened and she immediately jumped off of her acid trail, but there were only so many places she could go. Unlike Izuku, she hadn't been paying attention to what areas on the field were free of acid, so while she was busy trying to find a safe place to put her feet, he was able to pick his way around the flames and give her one final push over the line. 

"Ashido Mina is out of bounds!" Midnight yelled. "Izuku Midoriya wins! Now both of you get off the field before you get hurt!"

"Did...did they seriously just knock eachother out?" Mic asked. "Well, I guess that's what you get when you're evenly matched, huh? Kirishima vs. Tetsutetsu will be decided via a tiebreaker once they finally wake up!"

Sero cracked his neck and grinned as Midnight announced the beginning of the match, "This is kinda a bad match-up for you, huh? I mean, it could be worse, like can you imagine if Todoroki had made it to this round? But, uh, still, you ever tried to vacuum up a piece of string? This is gonna be kinda like that…"

Kaibara shrugged and started rotating his fingers experimentally, "I guess you might be right, but what kind of hero would I be if I let a little thing like a bad quirk match-up keep me from fighting."

Sero shook his head and shot tape from both of his elbows. As he expected, the tape immediately started wrapping around his arms. It wouldn't be long before he wouldn't be able to rotate at all and Sero would win!

To his surprise, however, Kaibara suddenly started rotating faster than he was producing tape. Before Sero could speed up to compensate or cut off his tape, Kaibara had used his tape to pull them together and Sero's eyes widened as Kaibara's head started to spin. One devastating headbutt later, Kaibara was grimacing as he tried to free his arms from the tape. 

"Sero is KO'ed. Kaibara wins!"

"Are you sure you don't want to use any of my babies?" Hatsume asked innocently. "Just to level the playing field, you know!"

Monoma scoffed, "Are you implying that I can't beat you on my own merit? Class 1B is superior, we don't need to rely on charity from other courses to prove our abilities, unlike some classes. Are you forgetting that it was my team that came in first during the cavalry battle? At least I didn't provide opportunities for those class 1A bastards to steal our points!"

"We just wanted everything to be fair!" Mei jumped up and down in excitement as she made a final mental inventory of her babies. "Taking away that many points and not giving anyone a chance to recover would have just been rude!"

"The best don't have the time to worry about the opinions of others." Monoma rolled his eyes. "You may as well give up now. Your babies aren't going to stand a chance against three quirks."

"Hmm…" Mei pretended to think about it for a moment. "Nah, I still haven't gotten what I came for!"

"And what is that?" Monoma sneered. 

Mei grinned manically as Midnight told them to start, "The spotlight!"

Monoma huffed haughtily, rapidly growing his hand ten times its size and reaching toward her, "The spotlight goes to those that deserve it."

Mei tapped the mic that Izu-kun had programmed for her and smiled when she heard the sound echo through the stadium speakers, "Hello, ladies and gentlemen! I'm Mei Hatsume, the future CEO of Hatsume Industries and I'd like to introduce you to my babies!"

"What?!?!" Mic's voice echoed over the speakers as well. "How is she doing that?!"

"My best guess is that Midoriya helped her hack into our speaker system." Aizawa sounded amused. "Problem children."

"This first invention is one of my personal favorites!" Mei announced eyes zooming in on the booth where the support companies were watching with interest. "It's a multi-purpose capture net that can take care of even the most troublesome quirks!"

She shot the net toward Monoma, who might have been able to dodge if the extra weight from his larger hands hadn't thrown him off. He growled as the net wrapped around him, but his eyes shone with anger and determination as his hands shrunk and vines started growing from his head and reaching between the holes in the net. 

"Ah! As my lovely assistant is demonstrating, nets aren't the best fit for every quirk heroes encounter. That's why each of my capture nets is controlled by magnets!" She pressed a button and the net fell apart. "One button control for easy capture and release!"

"I'm not your assistant!" Monoma's face turned bright red and he untangled his vines from the remainder of her net and shot them toward her. "Stop toying with me!"

Mei simply kept smiling and pressed another button. Legs shot out of her backpack and effortless helped her dodge, "My universal tripod senses and responds to threats in the environment and the multi directional control means that this nifty invention will help you dodge and weave no matter where your opponents attacks are coming from!"

"Stop monologuing and fight me already!" Monoma yelled. "Do you think support is better than 1B?! Is that it?!"

"Sometimes, however, you need a little more firepower!" Mei ignored Monoma's protests as she grabbed another invention from her belt. "And what's better for firepower than a flamethrower? Perfect for combating plant-based quirks or really any quirk that might be flammable!"

Monoma panicked as the vines caught fire, but he detached them quickly enough that the flames didn't manage to burn him. Mei was both curious and excited as she wondered what quirk he'd use next, since Izu-kun had said he could copy three. He'd also said that his quirk would limit the fight to about five minutes, since after that he'd basically be fighting quirkless and it wouldn't be nearly as entertaining, so she had to be efficient and show all the inventions she wanted to before his quirk ran out. Mei glanced up at the support booth again and smiled in triumph. They were eating this up. 

"Fine! You wanna play dirty?" Monoma scowled at her. "Let's see how you handle this!"

The ground beneath her turned to mush, but Mei simply activated her hover boots and her jetpack, "I recommend using these two inventions in tandem, but they're both amazing on their own as well! When it's too dangerous to be on the ground, why limit yourself to obeying gravity?"

Monoma ground his teeth together and reactivated the quirk that made his hands larger as he attempted to swat her out of the air. She responded by shooting him with a portable taser. 

The fight went on like that for a few minutes and Mei was careful to respond to each new threat with a different baby so that the support companies would be able to see the full variety of her arsenal. Monoma kept getting more and more angry until he stopped being able to call on the quirks he'd copied and his shoulders slumped. Mei finished off showing one more invention, then bowed. 

"Thank you everyone! Just a reminder that it's Mei Hatsume, future CEO of Hatsume Industries!" She dusted off her hands and stepped over the line with a sigh. "Pleasure doing business with you!"

Midnight sounded like she was holding back laughter as she announced the match, "Hatsume is out of bounds. Monoma wins!"

Kamakiri started shooting his blades at Tsuburaba as soon as the match began, but, as predicted, his blades simply buried themselves harmlessly in an invisible shield of hardened air. He didn't let that intimidate him, however, and kept throwing his blades. The thing about Tsuburaba's air constructs was that they were fragile. Enough good hits and they were liable to shatter. He kept up his assault, but Tsuburaba didn't make it easy with how he kept moving around the stage to avoid his knives. 

Kamakiri rolled his eyes as Tsuburaba made his way to his other side, visibly out of breath, "Are you done already? I was looking forward to a fight!"

Tsuburaba simply smiled and took a deep breath. It was difficult to see Tsuburaba's constructs, so when Kamakiri thought it was safest to dodge when it looked like his opponent was throwing something. He felt something similar to a spear fly past him, but that wasn't the biggest surprise. No, the surprise was the wall he ran into. 

"You…" Kamakiri sent a few blades out from his body in every direction and for the first time, realized that Tsuburaba hadn't been moving around to dodge, but instead to create a maze of invisible walls that were now blocking him in on three sides. The only exit he had was straight over the line and Tsuburaba was running toward him, holding a shield of air in front of him that already had several blades buried in it. 

Kamakiri tried to hold his ground, he really did, but it only took a few instinctual steps backward for him to officially lose the match. 

"Kamakiri is out of bounds!" Midnight yelled. "Tsuburaba wins!"

Pony was really hoping that Shinso's quirk wasn't riddles. 

She knew it was some kind of brainwashing, since she'd obviously spend a good portion of the second round under his control, but she had no idea how to protect herself, so the best thing to do would be to end the match before he had a chance to use it!

That was why, as soon as Midnight gave the signal to begin, Pony immediately began shooting her horns at him. He dodged most of them deftly, only getting a few grazes, but he just kept staring at her. 

Present Mic's voice echoed over the field and Pony made a note to tell Vlad-Sensei that they might need a new speaker system, since the audio quality was super weird, " For those of you who don't know, Pony is an exchange student from...where was it again? Australia?"

"America!" Pony yelled. How did her english teacher not remember where she was from?! They'd talked about her hometown!

From across the field, Shinso smirked, still maintaining eye contact, "I win."

Pony felt her body relax with a jolt as Shinso took control. Oh no! It must have been eye contact! That was why he hadn't stopped staring at her! 

"Turn around and walk out of bounds like a good little hero." Shinso ordered and Pony didn't have any choice but to obey.

"Well that was weird!" Present Mic spoke up again, but the audio quality was better. "She's just obeying him!!!"

"Pony is out of bounds! Shinso wins!"

"It is a pleasure to fight another servant of darkness." Tokoyami said seriously. 

"Of course." Kuroiro responded. "It is an honor."

"Oh come on! Stop being edgelords and let's just fight already!!!" Dark Shadow complained, lunging forward and swiping at Kuroiro. The moment he did, however, their opponent completely disappeared. 

"What?!" Dark Shadow yelled. "Where'd he go?!"

Tokoyami's eyes widened and he reared back as Kuroiro emerged from his chest right where he joined with Dark Shadow, "Boo."

Tokoyami stumbled back, but managed to get a hold on Kuroiro's arm and shove him away, "How…?"

Kuroiro smirked and ran toward Dark Shadow again. Just like before, he disappeared as soon as they made contact, but this time, Dark Shadow stifferened and started moving somewhat jerkily. 

"Fumikage…" Dark Shadow made a clumsy swipe at him and Tokoyami felt a strike of fear. "I'm not doing this!"

Tokoyami's mind raced. What did he know? He knew that somehow, Kuroiro was able to disappear when he made contact with Dark Shadow, it was almost as if they were melding together, and he seemed to be trying to control him, which was bad. So, how could he counteract that?

"Dark Shadow!" Tokoyami yelled. "Return to me!"

Thankfully, Dark Shadow still had enough control of his actions to obey the order and within moments he had gratefully disappeared back inside Tokoyami's chest. As soon as Dark Shadow disappeared, Kuroiro became visible again right in front of Tokoyami. 

"I guess I need a little more practice before I can really control dark objects, huh?" Kuroiro looked exhausted. "Oh well."

Tokoyami didn't want to have to do this without Dark Shadow, but he would do what it took to win and to protect his quirk. Taking advantage of Kuroiro's exhaustion, Tokoyami tackled him to the ground and pinned him. He struggled for a few moments, but then Dark Shadow emerged and braced Tokoyami so that he had extra strength, all while being careful not to touch Kuroiro. After a few seconds, it became apparent that he wasn't getting out of this and Kuroiro stopped struggling. 

"Kuroiro is unable to move! Tokoyami wins!"