Shoji waited.
It wasn't passivity. It was the kind of waiting done by someone who has evaluated the situation and concluded that moving first gives him less advantage than forcing the opponent to move. With spheres on his torso creating adhesion in the wrong direction and the ground between them seeded with sticky points, any movement from Shoji would give Mineta information he could use.
If he didn't move, Mineta would have to come to him.
He knows that waiting forces me to act, Mineta processed. And he knows that acting in open space against someone with six extra arms is worse for me than for him.
So he's waiting for me to make the mistake he doesn't want to make.
Thirty seconds of relative stillness.
The stands began to take on that energy of thousands of people realizing that what they were watching wasn't inactivity, but something closer to a silent conversation between two people who knew each other well.
Present Mic, from the booth, in a noticeably more reflective tone than usual:
— They both know each other from the Cavalry Battle. And they both know it. This isn't a brute force fight. It's… how would you describe it, Aizawa?
— Chess — Aizawa said. — Each waiting for the other to move the wrong piece.
Mineta looked at Shoji.
The original plan was to anchor him to the ground and force a retreat. The original plan assumed Shoji would push forward. Shoji isn't pushing forward.
Adjust.
He threw a sphere.
Not at Shoji. At the ground three meters from his own position, between himself and the back edge of the ring.
Shoji followed the trajectory with his extra eyes without moving.
Another sphere. Back edge, right side.
Another. Back edge, left side.
I'm closing off my own exits, Mineta thought. Shoji knows that. And he doesn't understand why.
Good. Confusion is information I can use.
The reality was simpler: Mineta was building an inner perimeter. Not to trap himself, but to establish that the ground within that radius was known territory—mapped, predictable, without surprises. If the fight reached that space, it would be on his terms.
Shoji took a lateral step.
Not toward Mineta. Sideways. Evaluating the field from another angle.
Mineta turned to keep him in view.
Shoji took another lateral step.
He's circling, Mineta processed. If he completes the circle, he reaches the point where the ground between us has fewer spheres. The angle I didn't fully cover earlier.
Mineta threw two quick spheres toward that angle.
Shoji saw it and accelerated his lateral movement.
It became a race between Mineta's coverage and Shoji's movement—and Shoji had longer legs.
Shoji reached the less-covered angle before Mineta could fully seal it.
And then he advanced.
The next twenty seconds were the most physically intense of the fight.
Shoji crossed the semi-covered space with surprising speed for his size, using his extra arms to detect the spheres on the ground and adjust his steps around them with a precision Mineta hadn't fully anticipated.
The extra eyes see the spheres before the foot lands, Mineta processed as he stepped back. I can't use the ground as a trap if he can see exactly where the traps are.
He stepped back twice, then sideways, using the space he had mapped to avoid stepping on his own spheres.
Shoji closed to a meter and a half.
His extra arms spread out in a fan, covering the entire frontal arc.
Mineta threw a sphere at the ground directly under Shoji's feet—not in front, but under.
Shoji saw it with his extra eyes, but the trajectory was too short for a full adjustment.
The foot landed partially on the sphere.
The instability was smaller than the first time because Shoji had anticipated the possibility. But smaller wasn't zero.
Mineta used that half-second adjustment to move laterally instead of backward, changing the axis of the exchange.
Shoji turned to follow.
During the turn, two of the extra arms swept through the space where Mineta had been.
They didn't hit him. But the distance had been centimeters.
Too close, Mineta processed, with that part of the brain that registers real danger regardless of strategy. Too close.
He kept moving.
The pattern established itself over the next two minutes: Shoji pressured, Mineta moved, Shoji adjusted, Mineta threw spheres to interfere with the adjustments.
It was a dance where neither gave ground decisively, and where the edge of the ring crept closer behind Mineta because retreating was faster than advancing when you have the legs of a twelve-year-old against someone with Shoji's reach.
Mineta glanced at the edge behind him.
Four meters.
Not enough space to keep retreating indefinitely.
I need to change the axis. If I stay in this pattern, I lose by position before losing by direct combat.
Mineta stopped retreating.
Shoji, who had anticipated another backward step, had to adjust his momentum at the last moment. It was a small adjustment. But it was still an adjustment—and adjustments had moments of reorganization.
Mineta used that moment.
He didn't attack Shoji. He attacked the ground at Shoji's sides—two quick spheres, one on each side—creating adhesion points at the lateral angles of Shoji's position.
They weren't traps for feet. They were positional references.
If Shoji moved sideways to circle, his sweeping arms might brush the spheres. And spheres on Shoji's arms created the same problem as on his torso: adhesion in the wrong direction.
Shoji evaluated it.
His extra eyes looked at the lateral spheres.
He understands, Mineta thought. He knows what the spheres do on arms. He saw it in the Cavalry Battle.
Now he has to decide if the lateral path is worth the risk.
Shoji chose the frontal path.
Which was what Mineta wanted.
When Shoji advanced head-on, Mineta stepped back once—not twice—and in the space between them threw three quick spheres: one to the ground, one to the torso, one to the leading hand of the main arm.
The arm intercepted the torso shot.
The ground one hit.
The hand shot was also intercepted, but doing so required that arm to angle downward, briefly removing it from the frontal coverage arc.
The frontal arc had a two-second gap.
Mineta threw two more spheres to the torso during that gap.
They landed.
Shoji now had six spheres on his torso, and the accumulated adhesion was real: the fabric of his tracksuit pulled in that direction with a force that wasn't immobilizing, but added to the weight of the extra arms he kept extended.
It wasn't enough to stop him.
But it was enough to slow him.
Slower is what I need.
The shift came four seconds later.
Mineta had been moving left consistently, establishing a pattern. Shoji had adapted, orienting more coverage to that side.
On the next step, Mineta went right.
Shoji adjusted.
Then Mineta went left on the following step, faster than usual, aided by the bounce soles of his suit.
The half-second Shoji needed to reorient was enough.
Mineta slipped to the flank.
Not fully—but enough that Shoji's arm angles didn't fully cover him.
He threw five spheres: two to the side torso, two to the nearest arm, one to the ground under Shoji's support foot.
Both torso shots landed.
One arm shot landed.
The ground sphere landed under the support foot.
And the support foot, destabilized, created the imbalance Mineta had been building toward for three minutes.
Shoji didn't fall. But he had to take a compensating step backward.
Backward was toward the edge.
Mineta pressed.
What followed were the slowest forty seconds of the fight because Shoji was exactly what he appeared to be: hard to move, hard to destabilize, patient enough that stepping back wasn't panic but repositioning.
For every sphere Mineta threw, Shoji evaluated, adjusted, compensated.
For every step back, he regained half in the next motion.
The edge was two meters behind Shoji.
And one and a half behind Mineta.
Both near the edge, Mineta processed. If this resolves through direct pushing, Shoji wins by mass. If it resolves through accumulated adhesion…
He counted his spheres.
Four left in reserve. Most of his initial stock was gone.
Four spheres. Shoji has eight on his torso and one on his arm. The adhesion is real but not immobilizing.
What does adhesion do when someone tries to move forward quickly?
Resistance. Backward.
If Shoji tries to rush me, the spheres resist in that exact direction.
And if that resistance hits when his center of gravity is compromised…
Mineta looked at the ground.
Then at the edge behind Shoji.
One more sphere. Behind his rear foot. Not to immobilize. Just to make the next step land on something uncooperative.
He threw it.
Shoji saw it.
And Mineta charged.
Not with Iida's speed or Kirishima's strength. With twelve-year-old legs, bounce-assisted momentum, and the full weight of a body trained for three years.
Shoji raised his arms.
Mineta went low—under the arms, at hip level—aiming not to strike but to shift the center of gravity.
The impact hurt. It would hurt more tomorrow.
But physics was physics.
The push below center of gravity, combined with adhesion resistance, combined with the rear foot landing on the sphere—
Shoji couldn't fully compensate.
He stepped back twice instead of once.
The second step crossed the line.
Midnight raised her arm.
— Out of bounds! Mineta Minoru advances to the second round!
The stadium took a second to process it.
Then Present Mic exploded:
— MINETA MINORU OF CLASS 1-A ELIMINATES SHOJI MEZO OF 1-A!! WITH A FIELD CONTROL STRATEGY BUILT OVER FOUR MINUTES AND EXECUTED IN TWO SECONDS!!
Aizawa:
— Interesting. He used the fight not to attack, but to prepare conditions. That takes patience and precision under pressure.
— Did you expect that outcome?
— Not completely.
Mineta stepped down.
His shoulders protested.
Tomorrow will hurt more.
Shoji walked off calmly.
Mineta watched him.
He's not upset. He's processing a problem that one of us solved first.
That's exactly what it was.
He entered the waiting area.
Kirishima spoke first:
— Hey. Good job.
Simple. Enough.
Kaminari:
— How did you do that? Shoji's huge.
— Physics.
— That's not an answer.
— It's the whole answer.
Mineta sat.
Second round. Who?
He looked at the bracket.
Kirishima, Shiozaki, Iida, me.
Next: Iida.
Their eyes met.
A nod.
Speed vs control.
Can he cross before the field is compromised?
That was the real question.
End of Episode 35.