"An air attack, huh?!"
Kirishima said, a wide smile on his face as the cameras showed the battle between Midoriya, Todoroki, and Bakugo.
In truth, minutes before the game started, Akuma and Izuku had already decided to attack from the very first second. But rushing in the open would have been a wasted chance, and waiting until their opponents entered the city would have given up too much space.
So Akuma tried a new approach. Right above the stairs where the attackers had to climb into the first section of the complex, he used his quirk to hang onto the wall, shaping some threads into a harness so Izuku could hang beside him.
Then, as soon as the game started, he was the first to attack, using his extra limbs to separate them.
"Isn't that super risky?!" asked Hagakure, her gloves floating in the air as Uraraka stared at Deku, who seemed to be overwhelmed.
"Die!"
The sound of an explosion covered the entire place. Todoroki stayed behind the two, supporting Bakugo by containing his opponent with structures of ice, limiting his mobility and tightly grabbing the briefcase.
As for Izuku, he was trying to cover for the explosion Bakugo sent when he felt himself being pulled from his waist. After a few moments, he rolled onto the ground. At his side, he saw his partner, Akuma Matsumoto, staring at his opponents as he spoke.
"Are you okay?"
"Y-yes! You really saved me there."
"Okay, next step, go to the city. I will buy us a minute, then you're next," Akuma said before throwing himself into the battle against those two. Deku obeyed the order, running away from the three as he crossed the corridor.
Bakugo wanted to follow Deku, but his path was cut off by Akuma, who landed behind him before pulling him in. He couldn't even turn around as a kick landed directly into his spine. Saliva poured out of his mouth before he turned around and attacked Akuma with an explosion, sending him flying away as Todoroki stepped on the ground, forming a pile of ice directly in Akuma's face.
The time for reacting seems to be getting shorter and shorter as they keep increasing power. It's incredible I'm even capable of moving at this moment.
I was able to cover myself from the ice with my usual cocoon, but unlike any other time, the thing was struggling a lot to maintain its form. Therefore, I made one part of it return to me, and with this new entrance open, I started carving my way out, moving little threads around the fractures of the ice. It didn't take long for the thing to collapse as I made the threads grow spikes and then pulled it.
The structure of ice was big enough to cover one-fourth of the chamber we were in. I clicked my tongue at the sight of Todoroki with his half already freezing and Bakugo looking at me, explosions going off in his hands as the additional storage he had in his forearms seemed to be mostly full.
With a pull, the threads on the ground answered to me, lifting themselves as they grabbed onto the skin of my opponents, cutting off much of their movement. I quickly approached them, ignoring the flames of Todoroki, even if it almost cooked me alive. While Bakugo was breaking my threads, I hit him with a side kick, stopping before my foot touched the ground to return it with another kick and finish with an elbow strike to his cheek. He repelled me with an explosion to the chest that I had to take, flying away as my body smoked. He looked at me with anger and blood on his face.
It only took me a glance to realize that phase 1 was over. I managed to contain them as much as possible, but if I kept insisting, they would beat me up, so...
I started running.
Modifying my body to enhance my physical capabilities is easier now than ever. I grab a lot of threads from my core and compress them in my leg. This makes the limb stronger, simulating what a muscle is meant to do.
As my speed increased, I couldn't help but think about what happened before this. The attacks of Bakugo, as strong as they are, seem to be having less effect on my body. Sure, it destroys anything it touches, but the regeneration seems to be less, and he didn't blow off any part of my body, so this can only mean one thing.
My threads adapt to damage.
Maybe not at an incredible speed, but slowly yet surely, they get stronger and stronger. My core also seems to be able to store more strings than before, so this can only mean my quirk is growing at a good rate.
Speaking of which, I'm not the only one growing.
"STOP RUNNING!"
As quick as I can be, the acceleration of Bakugo is something to be envious of. He comes flying behind me, an explosion catching me as I use my tentacle to hit the ground and move away. The expansive wave still hits me, making my body fly away. Before even landing, the tentacle divides itself in two, which instantly attacks Bakugo, only to be burned by the flames of Todoroki.
"You two seem to be very close, working like that... makes me jealous," I say as I cut the unusable parts of the threads, tilting my head as my voice comes out of the helmet. Todoroki speaks first, moving forward with his usual stoic face.
"Provoking isn't going to save you this time, Akuma."
"Yeah, Nerd! You're about to be roasted!"
"Huh, so you two really changed."
At this moment, we are close to the first exit, with 10 seconds for the first 5 minutes to go. They don't seem concerned about the time, but I'm sure that they will understand soon enough.
I see the briefcase in the hands of Todoroki, which is why he isn't capable of going all out, preparing myself for what's about to come. Not even 3 seconds after I said the last word, a web of strings comes out from my wrist, pushing the briefcase away from Todoroki's hands. The next second, another web impacts the face of Bakugo. I don't hesitate to turn around and use the two walls that form the exit to propel myself out of it, using my threads to balance on the walls.
"AKUMAA!"
Using his hands as impulse, Bakugo flew directly in my direction, only to meet the threads I previously left, like the webs of a spider, and him being a fly. His body was trapped, and I didn't wait for him to free himself as I sent a thread from my arm to connect to his prison, using his own momentum to throw him into the ground.
Unfortunately, his fall was stopped by a slide of ice made by Todoroki. I instead landed on the roof of a nearby building, using fire I could sense how Todoroki mercilessly burned away my own body, letting Bakugo move again.
"Don't get so ahead of yourself. Deku is still out there, and you know Akuma is always a step ahead."
"Tch! Like hell I won't!"
I didn't think twice before jumping directly into the battle. The plan is still going okay, better than I expected, actually, so let's make sure to win this fight.
As I was getting closer to Todoroki, he threw his usual mega attack of ice, which I used as a spot to throw my thread as it was being formed. Like a parabola, I balanced before letting myself go and throwing two string balls at Todoroki. They divided into little spikes but were quickly incinerated.
I land. We look at each other. His sight clashes with my helmet. With his half burning and the other melting, I can't seem to make the first move.
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At the same moment, Bakugo was moving quickly between the main streets. The sound of the battle behind him seemed to disappear as he moved forward. Using his explosions to practically fly, he could only wait for Deku to attack.
That weakling was probably expecting a moment of weakness, he thought. Sure, I wasn't dumb enough to give that to him. Unfortunately, Deku wasn't that cowardly.
The sound of concrete breaking was interrupted in Bakugo's ears by the pain of being hit in the stomach, consequently being sent to destroy a building, landing in an empty, bare room. Debris and dust clung to his body as Deku stood in the broken wall.
"DEKUUU!"
"Kacchan!!"
The rivals didn't hesitate to attack each other. Deku cut the distance, with red marks covering his body he was able to secure the first hit. The jaw of Bakugo was sent back as he quickly realized that Deku wasn't going down easily, and that in this period of time he was able to develop a new part of his quirk.
And this made him furious.
They didn't wait any longer to restart the fight. As Bakugo attacked directly at Midoriya, he slid on the ground at the last second, avoiding an explosion that cleared the room, destroying the wall behind them, making the building start to tremble.
Sliding on the ground, Deku jumped in the air, rotating his hip to make a full spin. As Bakugo turned around with an explosion in his hand, he saw his opponent above him.
"AGH?!"
Bakugo forced his head to move backwards as Deku's leg passed centimeters away from his face. As he was about to recover, he saw Deku, still in the air, moving his other leg in his direction. With a glowing green ray, he didn't have time to move as his body received the impact.
The hit made Bakugo fly away from the building. The briefcase he attached to his costume flew away as Deku jumped behind him.
"Is that all you got?!"
As the two fights went on, the city was more and more damaged. Inside the control room, you could see everyone with their eyes glued to the cameras, showing every angle of the battle going on there.
"Hey... is it just me, or... aren't they fighting a little too good?" Denki said, passing his hand around his neck as sweat dropped off his forehead with an uncomfortable smile. The cameras showed Akuma running through multiple buildings as Todoroki attacked him from below.
The cameras showed how Akuma was running into a room, pushing aside the door and breaking it as a spike of ice crossed the wall in front of him. Akuma didn't hesitate to let himself fall onto the ground as he rolled without losing momentum while the ice destroyed the building.
He didn't stop, recovering and standing up, he continued running to the window facing the street. With a jump, he broke it with his body as Todoroki stared at him in disbelief.
"HOW ABOUT THIS?!"
He pointed his arm at him as it was divided into tens of branches, that were directly in the direction of Todoroki, moving as living beings while blazes of flame tried to prevent them from getting closer.
Todoroki had to back down with a jump as they impacted the ground. His body was overwhelmed by the abrupt change of quirks Akuma forced him to do, sweating as Akuma landed on the ground, his arm coming back to normal as the threads that survived returned back to him.
"Tch."
"Don't be so harsh on yourself. Let's end this right now, shall we? There are two minutes left for the 10-minute mark."
"I'm not going down easy."
"I know."
Akuma dashed forward, chaining rapid jumps until he closed the distance. His final leap drove a front kick straight at Todoroki.
Todoroki stayed there as Akuma got closer.
At the last moment, Todoroki tilted, sliding past the blow and firing ice at Akuma's arm, trapping it. Akuma severed it instantly before the frost spread further. Todoroki spun, unleashing a wall of fire that engulfed him.
Instead of defending or backing down, Akuma decided to sacrifice his upper layer of threads, grabbing Todoroki's uniform as his other hand impacted on his face. Akuma extinguished the flames by separating the burning part, like a tarantula changing its molt. This cost him the reserve generated in at least 2 days, but he continued, now closer than ever. The battle turned purely physical, dodging and attacking Todoroki as he tried to gain space.
"You seem very invested, Uraraka-chan."
"!!"
The voice of her friend, Tsuyu, made Uraraka jump as she couldn't take her eyes off the two fights. She didn't know what to feel at that moment. Seeing two of her close friends fighting so ruthlessly made her heart skip a beat. Even if she didn't know how to interpret that, the truth was clear: she was worried.
Todoroki, Bakugo, and Deku were bleeding, huffing in pain as they fought. And even if Akuma didn't have this kind of way to express his situation, it was clear he had received a lot of damage, probably the most amongst the four of them.
The fights were going on at the same time in different parts of the city. The side of Todoroki and Akuma was almost completely covered by walls of ice, that destroyed anything in their path as Akuma struggled to maintain his body intact.
While on the other side, Bakugo was about to win.
In a last clash, the two of them were fighting at an insane rate of speed. Even Bakugo was surprised by how well Deku was holding up to him. A multitude of explosions came and went, destroying everything in their path while All Might stared silently.
With time running out, Bakugo decided the best move was to end the fight in a final attack. He used his storage grenade without warning, not on Deku, but on the ground itself. The explosion was big enough to make the kid fall as he was approaching his enemy, just to, as he slipped in the debris, be received by an explosion directly on his face.
Even so, he wasn't done, as he was pulled again, thrown into the ground as a hand surrounded his neck, putting a knee on his chest and grabbing his hand.
"HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT, NERD?!"
"A... ack..."
Even if there wasn't anything she could do, Uraraka stared at the TV, biting her lip. Bakugo stood in silence, leaving Deku lying on the ground as he grabbed the Briefcase, that was buried after the explosion before starting to run away.
Uraraka wanted to run and help her friend, but her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of something crashing.
Akuma jumped from the building he was in after being sent flying. From his back, two tentacles appeared, and two sharp chains appeared from his upper forearm. When the structure of ice appeared, just as he expected, he started spinning, at enough speed to become a spinning top, breaking the ice as he touched it. And like an icy tornado, he landed in front of Todoroki.
The impact resonated through the ground, sending up a slight vibration that echoed like a dull echo. He fell to his knees, one leg extended back to absorb the impact, the other firmly planted, solid as an anchor. One hand dug into the surface, fingers splayed and clenched. The other remained raised, still trailing the movement, leaving an invisible curve in the air that betrayed the force of his attack.
Before Todoroki could even react, Akuma reached at him with an attack to his chin, lifting him a few centimeters away from the ground. Akuma grabbed him from the nape and slammed him against the ground, putting his hand on his head, and using his other hand to hold back both of Shoto's arms.
"It's over."
"....."
Akuma let Todoroki go as he thought that, even if this wasn't a serious fight, it was so nice to win for the first time against one of those three.
"Next time, Todoroki, get stronger so we can fight for more time, because I will."
Bakugo ran as quickly as he could. With only three minutes left, he flew through the remaining part of the city without looking back, seeing the exit more and more closely.
Before he could enter the corridor, his feet were stopped by a trap that clung to his entire leg, the threads of Akuma, he quickly realized.
"DAMN IT!"
"Heh, are you having trouble?"
Bakugo exploded the threads as he turned around, to see Akuma close to him. His pants were broken, showing his calves, that were bigger than usual and purple.
"How did you get here so quickly?"
"Oh well, I will have to eat a lot to recover from this little exercise. I wasn't prepared for this, and even if most of my plan didn't go as planned, it worked, so, should we have a rematch after the Sports Festival?"
"YOU BET!"
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Hey, Author Here.
This is my last chapter before entering college, just like I say, from now on, the chapter swill publish one time a week, so I hope you can keep reading
I hope you like this series so far, if you have any questions or suggestions, I would love to hear them