Chapter 5: Battles - Cat's in the Compound and the Scarlet Shroom
"Who'dya think's gonna win this round, Yaoyorozu-san?" Hagakagure asked, everyone crowding around the heiress as the chosen four made their way to their positions. The creation girl watched the screens pensively, stroking her chin, deep in thought. "Hmm. I believe that Tokage-san and Sero-kun have the advantage in this case, playing defense. Tokage-san is additionally a recommended student, and likely combat-trained to a greater extent than most, seeing as her quirk is a physical one. And Toga-san and Komori-san don't appear to be tacticians, whereas Tokage-san strikes me as a leader from what I saw in the recommendation exams."
"T-that's not true." Midoriya countered, flipping through his notebook. "T-Toga-san is… odd, sure, but she's intelligent. She managed to figure out my quirk for me during the apprehension test, and she's combat-trained too, I think."
"You think?" Kendo pressed. "Did you ask, or did you see something?" Midorya blushed. "No, no, just that she said some stuff that made me think she knows her way around knives."
"I definitely saw some sharp-looking knives on her costume, and some needle-looking babies!" Hatsume chimed in. "I gotta be HER technician! Also lightning boy's! Who knows him?"
"Yo." Tsubaraba raised a hand. "I can hand over a business card or something if you want? Not sure if he'll want it though." Hatsume rolled her eyes. "Pfft, who cares what he wants? The job of a support technician is to figure out what a hero needs before they need it! If heroes knew what they needed I'd be outta a job!" She capped off her stance with gusto, scribbling down on her own little notecard, before ripping it out of her notepad and handing it to the brunette. "Give him this!"
"What is it?" Tsubaraba asked.
"A threat!" She answered.
As the two were talking Midoriya was deep in thought. ' Needle-looking babies? She means her support gear. I didn't get a good chance to look at her with everyone else around, and it's hard to tell on the cameras. It might help me figure out her quirk…'
The sound of tape squealing as it was stretched out and cut off with a snap against the cold concrete walls and floor resounded throughout the echoing halls of the simulation building. Sero wiped his brow, arms slightly sore from all of the prep work he'd set up.
"Man, I kinda wish we were doing an outdoor exercise first! I could swing around and build up some speed, it'd be awesome!" He turned back, flinching slightly at the disconcerting view of Setsuna's body. The lizard girl stood tall in a scaly, bright purple jumpsuit fashioned after a lizard's hide, the colour only broken up by dark gloves, boots, and a utility belt. Her messy verdant curls also covered a similar purple face mask, not that Sero could see it at the moment, as the upper half of her face was missing, leaving only her mouth attached to her neck, one ear orbiting it.
"You've covered up the top floor windows?" She checked, the boy nodding in the affirmative. He wore a spandex, skintight suit over most of his body, reinforced with protective padding around key areas, with metal bracers on his legs and hips for attaching supply kits. Black on the chest and legs, white in the torso with a ripped tape decal decorating his middle, and with white boots trimmed with yellow on his feet, the look was capped off with a helmet mimicking a tape dispenser complete with a jagged front piece, and round yellow dispenser-esque shoulderpads. His sleeves were cut short, exposing the cylinders on his elbows that dispensed his quirk's tape.
"Yeah, all done! Don't know if it was really necessary, though."
Setsuna chuckled. "You never know. If I had to guess, either Toga-san can scale the building like a cat or Komori-san can grow a mushroom ladder or something, or both. Can you start setting up the traps on the lower floors?"
"Aye aye!" He agreed, jogging downstairs. Setsuna mentally recounted her steps, communicator idly listening as Sero detailed choosing some front-facing windows to lay sticky traps under - almost like flypaper. ' Fourth floor. All the windows are blocked, and if they try to cut the tape they'll risk getting stuck on it and put in a bad position on the window's edge. If they try to climb up to the fifth floor, I see with my left eye we corner them into a killzone. Every window covered but one covered badly, to bait them into a box. Traps laid on the lower floors to conserve tape, to make the ascent painful and give us the height advantage. Second eye on the front door. Sero positioned on the third to move to wherever we need, and me as the bomb's guard. When the match begins, send this ear to the third floor with my mouth for the communication. Every single avenue covered. Yeah, we got this.'
"How's the hero team looking?" Setsuna wondered idly, her communicator picking up the sounds of Sero laying down more tape near a window. After a moment, he responded. "They're talking to each other, and they're… smiling, I think? Komori-san's laughing-no, now they're both grinning. I think they think they're gonna win."
"If they're confident, either they're dumb or there's a reason." Setsuna harshly answered. "And we should assume there's a reason. They might think they have us figured out, or they might actually have us figured out."
"Should we change the plan?" Sero asked. Setsuna frowned, grinding her back fangs down against each other in frustrated contemplation. "No, no time. We'd just weaken our defense. Stick to killboxes. I'll go for Komori-san, you go for Toga-san. Box her in and hit her at a range she can't reach, and I'll try to knock Komori-san out of the running as quick as I can."
"Yeesh, not gonna let her show her stuff, huh? Cold." Sero commented. Setsuna laughed to herself. "We're villains, right? Villains don't care for shit about shit except wreckin' the joint and killing the heroes. No mercy, got it?"
"Roger roger." He joked. "Here's to hoping shit doesn't hit the fan."
"Even the smallest fleck of shit hitting that fan will fuck all of this up, so make sure you can railroad them back into the plan if we go off the rails." She responded. "Sometimes the smallest thing can make the biggest changes of all."
"I love your costume! It's super cute!" Toga cheered, watching as Komori shrank and blushed under the praise, hiding under a red and white-spotted mushroom cap, matching a similar mushroom-patterned dress that stopped at the knees, cinched around the waist by a simple leather belt holding the holsters of two fungi-themed moisture guns. Her legs were bare, save for mushroomy ruffles on brown combat boots around her ankles.
"Thanks, shroom. I, uh, want to be an idol hero, y'know?" She gulped as the blonde's eyes narrowed, her face turning from joyous to neutral and her lips pursing, hiding the fangs that flashed so brightly behind an empty mask. "Those fakers?" Hiding behind her bangs, Komori trembled. "Uh, um. I-I want to be a great hero who saves people with a smile, y'know? I don't just want the fame, shroom. But… when I was a little shroom, I also wanted to be an e-entertainer." Her posture corrected itself, the short girl rising to meet the taller blonde's eyes, her bangs shifting aside to reveal a nervous, determined look. "I always thought I'd have to choose. But I have two dreams, and being an idol hero l-lets me be both! T-there's nothing wrong with reaching out to take what you want!"
Toga stared at her, eyes minutely flicking around as she studied the mushroom girl for a trace of deception. Seemingly satisfied, a small smile made its way back onto her face. "Taking what you want, huh?... Can I call you Koko-chan?"
The brunette smiled tentatively in return, a spark of mischief entering her shiitake eyes. "I thought I was a fake, shroom?" Toga shrugged. "Eh, I guess all heroes are kinda idols, right? I mean, there's All Might shirts and toys and merch everywhere." She looked pensively at the building across from her. 'Did you ever think about that, Stainy?'
"F-for what it's worth, I like your costume too, shroom!" Komori added, emboldened by her new nickname. "You look kinda like a ninja, like Edgeshot! What's with those needles though?"
Toga's neck and shoulders were covered by a deep red cloak, tattered fabric trailing off like a small cape down to her back. Adorning it was a deep red decal, six white triangles pointed inwards like a jagged, toothy mouth on a black background in a red frame, and attached to the tough cloak were two syringes held in metal clasps with built-in reserve tanks. Her body was clad in a black, padded full-body fit, reinforced with chainmail underneath yet still flexible and light, and her arms and abdomen were wrapped in decorative deep red bandages as well, leading down to an armoured skirt with additional syringes in stock on her waist and red-and-black gloves on her hands. From her skirt, the black jumpsuit led into red ankle-high boots wrapped in the same deep red bandages, and a pair of sharp blades attached to the top of each foot. Within the inside of the skirt and between some of the red bandages were myriad additional knives.
Toga smiled wryly, then looked at Komori. "Koko-chan, what do you think of villainous quirks?" She asked instead, getting a puzzled look from the mushroom heroine-in-training.
"I-I don't think its right! There's no such thing as a villain quirk! Everyone used to… used to make fun of me for my quirk, shroom, they called it weak and gross. When I used it on my bullies once, when I was a kid, they all ran away and called me a creepy villain… They asked me if I needed to eat dead bodies to fuel it, shroom, l-like a mushroom. S-so I won't judge yours!"
Toga smiled tightly, brows tensed. "Turn off your communicator, Koko-chan." Behind her heavy bangs Komori raised an eyebrow, but she complied.
"I… I can transform into people." She began, pulling a small throwing knife out from beneath some red bandages to toy with it in her hand, spinning it between her fingers. "I…" She took a breath. "Only Mezo-kun knows this. I have to… have to drink people's blood to do it." She glanced back at her friend, slitted amber pupils meeting crossed chocolate brown ones. "I… I hate drinking it. It's disgusting, but I have to f-for my quirk."
"W-wow…" Komori gasped. "T-that makes sense, I guess. I-I'm glad you told me. Do you… we should get to planning, huh?"
"Yeah." Toga smiled. "Turn your communicator back on. And I'm not going to use my quirk for this one." She frowned minutely, staring up at a window as the tape boy covered it up with his quirk. "Well, we spent all this time talking, so now they've got some traps up. We can plan around those." Tasked with breaking in to find her goal, her head readily slipped into that familiar headspace again, old instincts returning like they were never gone. ' Target weakpoints. Suss out the layout. Defense is known, that's an advantage. Points of entry…'
Komori pointed up at a window on the fifth floor, which was more shoddily covered with tape than the rest. "If we can climb up there, that whole floor is taped up, shroom. Think it's where the bomb is?" Toga squinted at it. "Probably. But… it's a trap."
"What? How can you tell?" She skeptically turned to Toga, who pointed back at the window, following her gaze to the shoddily-placed tape, she listened. "It's a little too perfect–too good to be true. What are the chances they just left a weak spot like that up there? They want us to see it." Komori hummed as the blonde continued. "If something is exactly what you want, never, ever trust it. There's always a catch."
"So what do we do?" Komori wondered. "We can't bust through the roof, unless you've still got Shouji-kun? And if we go through the bottom floor we'll waste loads of time like the last round!"
"We'll go in lower and bait them out." Toga responded. "I've got loads of super-cute knives, and I know Tokage-san's quirk, so I'll take her. You take Sero-kun, since you're both not really fighters."
"Gotcha, shroom!" Komori nodded enthusiastically. "But before we split 'em up, can you pin them down so I can unleash my shroomtastic little friends?" She let out a sadistic little high-pitched giggle that sounded fitting on her, far more than her shy demeanor. "My quirk is best for crowd control, so they'll get to meet all my cute little fungi!"
Toga met Kodai's sadistic grin with a wide, fanged one of her own. "Sounds like a plan, Koko-chan. Follow my lead, ok?"
Midoriya frowned in frustration as Toga and Komori's comms turned off, the two having a now-silent conversation on the screen in front of him. "She's really anxious about us figuring out her quirk, huh…?" he muttered under his breath. Beside him, the towering Shouji walked up. Midoriya glanced up at the boy, unable to read his expression behind the face mask.
"Don't ask about it, because I won't tell you." He said unprompted, startling the verdette. "O-oh, I wasn't going to!" he quickly responded. "I-I'm really curious but… I don't want to be rude. I know she's keeping it secret for her own reasons…"
Shouji nodded at him approvingly. "Good. I'd say we're friends, and I want to look out for her. Not that she needs it." He chuckled at that. "Remember when everyone was talking about experience earlier? About Tokage-san?" Midoriya nodded along. "If I had to make a bet, I'd say Toga-san has the most experience. I met her during the entrance exam, you know. She was… incredible, even before she transformed into me."
'You think she's the best fighter too then?" Pony inquired from the back of their little group. He shrugged. "Maybe. Knows her way around a knife for sure. I found her using scrap metal to tear through them like butter."
"She's twirling a knife right now." Tsuyu observed, watching the girl talk to her partner on the screen.
"So she has a bad matchup with Tokage-san then." Midoriya concluded. "If Tokage's quirk works the way I think it does, she almost certainly can avoid all cutting damage, and if she has to consciously split herself apart to avoid it she still has a leg up on knife users." He muttered, adding to his notes on Setsuna, Uraraka curiously peering over the oblivious boy's shoulder to see a half-filled sketch of Setsuna in her hero suit.
'That's a really cool drawing…' She thought, toying with the too-tight spandex of her costume. 'I wonder if he drew me… maybe I should ask him to draw me. No, that's stereotypical! Did he draw Tsu-chan..? I want to see that one too.'
The Tsu-chan in question watched the brunette standing on her tippy-toes to look over Midoriya's shoulder, enraptured in his scribbling. She smirked, croaking happily. 'I know what you are.'
Ashido, looking at a distance from the crowd mainly watching Setsuna's feed, watched the frog girl's wide mouth twitch up into a fond gaze as she watched the brunette and the verdette being close. 'I know what you are.'
All Might's gaze lingered on the trio as well. ' I'm so glad Young Midoriya's making friends!'
"Stay light on your feet. Our time begins in like ten seconds, and Tokage-san will probably send her eyes and ears out to scout for us." Toga ordered, tucking a few spare knives into more easily accessible positions. Komori, who'd been making last-minute checks on her moisture guns, stashed them away into her holsters and made a determined noise, fists clenched near her chest.
"GET TO IT! HEROES, YOU HAVE FIFTEEN MINUTES!" All Might's booming voice rang out as a buzzer sounded. Toga whipped forward, running past the front door and to the side of the building as Komori followed, the blonde making significantly lighter footfalls on the faux parking lot outside. Arriving at the base of the back of the building, Toga held out a hand.
"I watched the cameras in the last round, so this puts us farther from the staircase, which sucks, but they've probs got guards near that anyway." She whispered to the mushroom girl. Komori nodded, whipping out a moisture gun to give the wall that extra helpful puff. She restrained her usual gleeful cackling as her beautiful little fungi sprouted on the side of the building with little pops and thumps, forming handholds and ledges akin to a climbing gym.
Grabbing onto one of the mushrooms and testing its strength, Toga noted the odd, spongy yet firm porous texture of it. She flashed a fanged grin. "Follow right after me, Koko-chan!"
With a burst of speed she threw herself up the wall, limbs blurring as she almost glided up the surface, her hands and feet barely touching the next holds before she moved onto the next set. Komori struggled to keep up, making admirable work of the wall but following a fair bit behind.
With a grunt, Toga clambered up to the third-floor window and almost threw herself in before she stopped herself at a flash of white. She glanced at the ground, crisscrossing tape netted together and placed at the ground. She turned back to wave Komori up. The brunette climbed up as well, putting a knee on the ledge as Toga shifted aside. "They've trapped the floor. I could jump, but that would make loads and loads of noise. Any ideas, Koko-chan?"
Komori hummed, before whipping out her moisture gun and puffing it at the tape several times. She grinned again at Toga, mouthing 'Watch!' Little mushrooms covered the surface of the tape, and Kooriu descended safely to stand atop them, doing a little twirl and giving two thumbs up.
Shiozaki giggled at the sight. "Maybe she may yet see the light of the lord."
"Wait, shit!" Tsubaraba exclaimed, earning a dirty look from the vine-haired girl. "She just totally negated Sero's tape! This totally changes things!"
"Oh dear." Momo concurred. "Things seem to be going sideways rather quickly. Perhaps my predictions were presumptuous."
Manami patted the far taller ravenette on the side of her thigh, unable to reach higher. "Eh, you can only infer so much with an incomplete dataset."
Sero stood idly, swinging his arms back and forth, waiting for any signal from Setsuna as he had been for the past minute. Suddenly his earpiece crackled to life.
"I hear movement in the back right-hand corner room! I think that's where they are, head over and box them in! I'm on my way!"
"Gotcha!" He responded, hand on his ear as he was already moving, pulling down his tinted bubble visor to mask his face. Slamming his feet down hard, he turned a few corners and made his way to the door. "They're onto us, shroom!" he heard, and he skidded to a stop in front of a door, elbows already up. He briefly glanced inside - they had opened all the doors beforehand so Setsuna's eyes and ears could roam freely - and spotted a bright red and white dress, as well as Toga's blonde buns, before slamming the door shut and immediately firing tape out of his elbows.
Once, twice, three times he covered the door with overlapping layers of thick, white tape. "I got them! I've trapped them in the room!" He victoriously yelled, bracing against the door just in case. "How long before you get here?"
"Hald a minute, tops!" Setsuna answered. Sero smirked. "Then we got thi-"
With a BAM, the door lurched inwards. He re-braced himself, feeling another stronger slam against the door. "They're trying to break out!" Luckily, the combination of the tape and his weight held them back, and they relented. He thought her heard hurried mumbling behind the door before it suddenly quieted. 'What the hell are they doing in there..?'
"Sero! I'm here!" This time Setsuna's voice sounded from his right. He turned to see the lizard girl running over from the end of the long hall to the stairs, opening his mouth to say something before he saw a flash of brown in his peripheral vision.
Setsuna, running towards him, could only watch in abject confusion as a round brown mushroom the size of an airbag pomfed out from the door's taped-up surface, slamming into Sero's face and throwing him into the wall. A moment later, hundreds of tinier mushrooms sprouted alongside it on the door's surface, before a long, thin knife zipped up from between the door and its frame to slit the tape cleanly in two, and with a final BANG Toga tumbled out the door, Komori close behind her.
"You dummy! You forgot to seal the door!" The blonde taunted, Komori giggling dementedly right behind her. "How'd you like my mush-tacular Portobello Smash, Sero-kun?
Toga turned to the side. "Someone's-" she suddenly froze as her amber eyes landed on Setsuna.
Somehow, Setsuna didn't think it was from being caught in the exercise.
Somehow, Setsuna thought she'd seen those eyes before.
Sero, who'd since recovered, fired a shot of tape at Toga, who slashed it in two as it reached her, and the world started moving again. Setsuna shook her head and shot a fist at Komori, who shrieked as it slammed into her cheek full force and threw her back. Toga ran forward, face carefully blank, and grabbed the fist, but it simply split into separate parts and fell out from between her fingers like sand, returning to Setsuna once more.
Another shot of tape flew through the air, being quickly intercepted by a throwing knife. A second one embedded itself into Sero's shoulderpad. "We gotta get out of this hallway!" He yelled. Ducking under a right hook thrown by Komori, who'd advanced onto him. He kept her on her toes with a swing of his own, his taller stature and lanky build giving him much longer arms to work with. Shooting a leg out, he caught her with a kick to the gut, knocking the air out of her. Idly, he noted her breath smelled kinda earthy and musty, like mushrooms.
"I agree! Let's take this to the bomb room, hmm?" Toga smirked.
Then, with a sudden motion, Toga disappeared.
"What the hell?" Setsuna whipped her head around, but there was nothing. No sound, no whooshing air. It was as if Toga has slipped past her field of view and departed from the earth completely.
"Oh, that's the trick she mentioned!" Komori cheered, before squaring up against Sero again. She turned from the stunned, gaping boy to look back at Setsuna. "You gonna fight me too, shroom?"
Setsuna gritted her teeth. Every millisecond that passed felt wasted. "Change of plans!" She called out. "I can get back to the bomb quicker, you take Komori-san!" He nodded, and the messy-haired greenette split into pieces and flew out past Komori and the door, through the open window, and levitated upwards.
"The fuck?" Bakugou cussed. "Why are they just standing there? Fangs ran right fucking by you, dumbass!" A small crowd had formed around the screen showing the fours' brief fight, all baffled by what had just happened. One moment, Toga was standing there, the next she'd dashed and weaved around Setsuna in full view of everyone, yet every other person in the hallway just snapped their heads back and forth, gaping like fish as if they didn't see her leave.
"Spooky," Yanagi smirked, hands held up at their elbows and fingers pointing at the ground in her signature pose. "Like a ghost, she disappeared between the seams in the fabric of the living realm. A deception fooling the weak mortal flesh, twisting minds to suit its will."
"Wasn't her quirk transforming?" Bondo inquired, turning to All Might. He nodded. "She has chosen not to disclose any details, but what she is doing is indeed not the work of her quirk."
Hagakure watched the feed silently as Setsuna left and the remaining two began duking it out. "I wonder if she knows what it's like being invisible too…"
"Nah." Kendo responded, shocking the invisible girl out of her contemplation. "The cameras still picked it up. I'm not a stealth expert or anything but whatever she did, if it's not a quirk, must be technique. And it only works on people."
"That, or she told everyone that the wall behind them said gullible and booked it." Manga chuckled.
"Then though a powerful technique it may be, it is not applicable to any advanced infiltration into a building with a working surveillance system, or at last must be bolstered with additional measures." Intelli noted, sipping her tea from a thermos.
"I'm sure Setsuna-san'll figure out a workaround." Mawata assured a sulking Tsubaraba. "The Bakusquad's got this, you'll see."
"The fucking WHAT? " Bakugou fumed.
"Kirishima still got stomped in the first exercise though, so we took a loss there." The brunette boy grumbled.
"Yeah, but Kaminari won that one." The pinkette responded.
"Oh, right."
As Setsuna departed, Sero shot a ribbon of tape at the mushroom girl, followed by another, and another, elbows sore at the speed. "Alright! Not so tough now, are ya?" Komori ducked, dodged, weaved, and rolled around the ribbons, trying to find a way to make more distance between the two.
Suddenly, a flash of inspiration struck the tape boy. He fired another shot directly at her before immediately aiming for her feet, firing another and making a direct hit. "Score!" Komori cursed under her breath, grabbing the tape and trying to rip it off but just getting her hands stuck to it as well, struggling against the incredible adhesiveness of the quirk-created material. She placed a second foot against the stuff, ripping her hands off it and standing up straight - feet stuck together and palms red, raw from the torn skin. She turned up to the boy, a bangs receding as a malevolent glimmer entered her shadowed eyes.
"Oh shit, your hands!" Sero exclaimed, worriedly looking at her palms, one of which was bleeding.
" Heh heh heh …" She giggled, wincing slightly, rubbing the bruise on her cheek. "You're all alone with me now, Sero-kun. Are you ready to meet my sweet little shroomy friends?" Sero gulped, hitting her around the waist with his tape, wrapping around her and binding her arms to her sides, sticking the brunette against the wall. Undeterred, she continued. "Penny Bun! Chanterelle! Lion's Mane, King Trumpet, Oyster Shroom! Grow, grow, grow !"
Sero pointed his elbow up at the girl, firing again, only to be greeted with a sharp pain . Trying his other elbow, he was met with the same. Wincing, he wrenched his eyes open and grit his teeth, raising one for inspection. Wedged inside his tape-producing cylinders tiny mushrooms of all shapes and sizes, completely jamming the mechanism. Behind it, a scrunched and compressed roll of tape could barely be seen, stuck behind the fungal trap.
"Fuck! Holy shit, what?" He dug his hands into his elbows, gritting in pain, tearing the mushrooms out. A ribbon of tape limply spat itself out from that arm, falling to the ground, useless. He grabbed the other elbow and did the same, tearing up in pain. "Fuck! Fuck ! Goddamnit!" He lifted his first arm and fired again, and this time the pain hit him so hard he doubled over, falling onto his knees. Squinting, his eyes suddenly shot open in horror. The mushrooms had already regrown, and were continuing to grow. On both arms, starting from the mechanism, mushrooms of all shapes and sizes sprouted, growing wildly from his elbows up to his wrists and hands, down his arms and to his shoulders, before covering his chest.
"Grow! Grow, my pretties!" Komori cackled without a care in the world despite being taped to the wall. "I'm ain't rolling over just yet!" Charging forward as the mushrooms continued to spread down his chest, he slammed himself directly into her gut, cutting off her cackling with a pained yelp. The girl wheezed, flopping over limply and succumbing to the pain. Sero rubbed a hand against the wall, scraping the mushrooms off, before digging into his almost completely covered pocket to pull out his roll of capture tape, throwing it around the mushroom menace and closing the loop.
"KOMORI IS ELIMINATED!" All Might's voice echoed over the loudspeaker. "SIX MINUTES REMAIN!"
Komori groaned in disappointment, the growth of the mushrooms slowing and stopping. A moment passed. "Uhh.." Sero scratched the back of his neck with his free hand, picking a small mushroom off. "Can you… make these go away?"
Despite being bruised, battered, and gasping for air, Komori managed to lift her shaky head up to Sero's to meet him with a wicked grin. "Nope. They last for a few hours, shroom. Good game?"
"Whaddya mean?" the black-haired boy asked. "I'm gonna-" Turning around, he saw the entire doorway clogged, thick with layer upon layer of mushrooms he hadn't seen as his back was turned.
"Aw, shit."
"Holy shit, I don't wanna fight Komori-san." Manga gulped, Shiozaki and Jirou nodding behind him. Bondo brushed a hand over his head's seven holes. "I-If she hits me, I'm done… My glue only comes out of these holes…"
"I admit I do not fancy my own prospects against her." Iida chopped a hand anxiously. "My own engines would become quite the vulnerability against her, to the point I'd be crippled to below even the average person's walking ability."
"You know, the pupil of the eye is technically a hole." Shinsou added, everybody around him recoiling in abject disgust except for Hatsume, who was scribbling away on a notepad, Midoriya right behind her scribbling in his notebook. Intelli, for her part, sipped her thermos of tea and observed the monitors; thanks to her quirk's abilities, her memory was sufficient.
"Close range options needed… moisture guns are crap, range too short and weak, coverage too sparse… armour could be added?" The dreadlocked pinkette murmured, pencil blurring over her pages as sketch after sketch was thrown onto paper.
" Traversal through urban areas, though mushrooms cannot be dispelled at will… Striking specific areas necessary to quirks - blinding attacks? Reducing the range of motion? More sensitive areas could be irritated and obstructed… " The broccoli-haired greenette mused alongside her.
"So what you're saying is she should've grown her shrooms on Sero's nuts." Kamakiri snarked, Midoriya blushing and waving his hands around before a response had even formed. "W-w-w-what? What? What? No! Ew! No!"
Mawata snickered at his suffering, closing her eyes and raising a finger like a great sage of wisdom. "Much like mushroom, one mush strike where the sun does not shine. Sun Tzu, Art of War."
"True danger sprouts from the darkness." Kuroiro added. Shouji patted his shoulder. "Not quite what she meant, Kuroiro-kun."
"Heads up, guys! Toga's approaching the bomb room." Kendo interrupted, the dark room going silent once again as all heads turned to the screen in question. For a moment, nobody spoke.
"So if Komori-san can grow mushrooms anywhere -"
"Shut the fuck up, square eyes."
The myriad pieces of Setsuna had since converged into the bomb room. ' Kinda glad I left that one window badly taped…' she ruminated, arms crossed as she stood in the doorway. One eye pointed directly behind her own head, and the other stayed in its socket, giving the lizard girl a full three-hundred sixty degrees of vision. The effect would be disorienting, but for someone who'd been separating their eyes for fourteen years, it came as naturally as breathing. 'Hah! Let's see her find a way of sneaking past this!'
Setsuna heard nothing, but patiently waited for Toga to show up. Eventually, the blonde did. Appearing from around the corner, ducked, she almost seemed to blur away into nothing, beyond notice. Setsuna blinked, but the effect remained. It was disconcerting to the greenette, who was accustomed to a slightly higher bar in regards to her own sense, the animalistic aspects of her quirk heightening them. Every animal instinct in her now stubbornly insisted there was no girl stalking up to her along the wall, even though she could plainly be seen standing in the barren hallway.
"Toga-san! I can see you, and your dirty trick's not working on me! C'mon, let's see what you got!" Plastering a sharp, determined grin on her face, her other eye whizzed through the air and popped neatly back into its socket, both eyes now concentrated on the threat ahead of her. Toga cursed under her breath, frowning slightly. "Rats, I guess my disappearing trick's spoiled." She shook her head, before whipping a knife out and raising it towards the lizard girl, taking a step back and settling intp a fighting stance, poised to strike. "It's up for you, Ms. Villain. I don't wanna have to fight ya', so turn yourself in, okay?"
Setsuna loosened her shoulders, settling some of her weight back as she let the familiar loose feeling of her body beginning to separate permeate through her limbs. Toga wanted to roleplay the hero? Then she'd be the villain. "I'm gonna rip your guts out and string 'em through the rafters, Ms. Hero! I'm not scared of you!"
Toga flinched, the tentative heroic bravado from her act washing off her face. She sighed.
"You should be."
Toga pounced , ripping through the stale air of the hall as Setsuna braced for impact. Briefly, the thought came to her that she wished she had a more defensive or offensive quirk, instead of a technical one. She brushed it off, ripping it apart into its component pieces and stitching it together into something of tactical worth.
Setsuna was the only thing between her and the bomb. Splitting apart completely to dodge would grant Toga the win.
In the split second it took to reach that conclusion, Setsuna hesitated . Toga took full advantage, grabbing a shoulder and pirouetting around to stab her combat knife into it. The blade slipped in harmlessly. Setsuna yelped in surprise, the stab more akin to a mild discomfort than pain, and grabbed Toga by the hair in response.
A second knife was pulled out from the crimson fold of Toga's repertoire, digging itself into Setsuna's hand. She split it apart to get rid of it, her grip releasing on the hair, and as she did Toga yanked her combat knife through her arm completely, severing it in one go.
Shocked at the audacious move, Setsuna made no attempt to doge as Toga spun on her heel and slammed the greenette's own arm into her nose, cracking it as the arm burst apart into several pieces to lessen the impact. "FUCK!" She yelled, righting herself as Toga jumped back to assess the damage.
"Tsk. You don't take cutting damage, but you can take blunt damage, huh?"
Setsuna squared up in response. "Clever girl." She dashed forwards, feet slamming on the concrete, and leapt forwards in a flying kick aimed directly at the blonde's skull. She ducked, predictably, and made a rush for the bomb, before a stray foot that'd detached as she'd jumped slammed down onto her back, shoving Toga into the floor. Two hands shot towards her, holding capture tape, but Toga proved too slippery to be held and twisted on the ground with her dagger to shred the tape in two.
Undeterred, the hands flew around and grabbed either of Toga's wrists, throwing them back to the ground as the fanged girl tried to make another escape. Two feet dug into her on either side. Toga couldn't move, and her skin turned to magma. Sweat appeared on her back as her hackles rose, and everything itched. She couldn't move, turning her head to watch as Setsuna loomed above her, approaching cautiously. With her captive thrashing and kicking like a wild animal, Setsuna readied another roll of capture tape with her teeth, the left half of her jaw and teeth splitting off and floating opposite the other half to hold it.
Toga's thrashing only grew more frenzied and desperate as she gritted her teeth, eyes darting around wildly. Setsuna briefly paused at that, concerned. 'I can barely hear it… is she hyperventilating? She breathes so quietly I can't tell… All Might hasn't called it.'
Unable to say anything, her mouth unrolled the capture tape, trying to get it over with before the blonde slipped out. The tape whipped out, snapping in the air with a thwack! Slitted amber pupils contracted, and in a renewed burst of frantic strength Toga's head lashed forward as she doubled over and her fangs dug painlessly into Setsuna's hand.
Setsuna froze, her entire body going ice-cold. She blinked, but she couldn't get the amber eyes out of her sight. Goosebumps prickled at the back of her neck. Her mouth became bone-dry.
Taking advantage of the lull, Toga threw Setsuna's arms and feet off her, the limbs collapsing limply to the ground. She gulped, breathing shakily. "I'm… I'm sorry." She paused, hesitating, before she turned and dashed towards the bomb.
Watching Toga's back turn to her as the cat-eyed girl sprinted towards the inflatable target, the spell broke. Feeling returned to her as every detached piece snapped back into place as if magnetized, and Setsuna threw off her daze and lunged, arms shooting off to try and grab Toga's ankles. Her split second of hesitation, however, had cost her, as Toga slammed into and bounced off of the bomb and to the floor before her arms could reach it.
"BOMB CAPTURED! HERO TEAM WINS!"
Toga, sitting on the floor, miserably raised her head up at Setsuna. "I… I shouldn't have bit you." Setsuna let out a tense breath. In all honesty, something had felt seriously off in the moment, but now wasn't the time. "D-Dude, it's fine. I was the villain, right? Tried to, uh, blow up the city and all that jazz? Can't complain, kinda got what was comin' to me." She held a hand out to the sitting girl. "Friends?"
Something dark flashed in Toga's eyes. She frowned, the corners of her mouth twitching severely before reforming themselves into a smooth downward curve. Wordlessly, she picked herself up and stashed her knives back into her costume's folds, leaving the bomb room with soundless footsteps. The lizard girl watched her go, tense until she turned the corner and left her sight.
After the match, all four heroes-in-training were thankfully able to return to the viewing site, Komori having dealt with her and Sero's entrapment with a canister of anti-fungal spray stashed in her costume. All Might grinned at the four, them turned to the assorted others.
"Now then! Quite an action-packed match, wouldn't you say? I would say everybody had a strong showing, but there can only be one MVP! Would anyone like to guess who it is?"
Monoma raised his hand first, and All Might picked him. "It was quite obvious! The only contestant for the position of most valuable player is undoubtedly Tokage-san! Despite her team's loss, she concocted a multi-faceted plan and kept the entire building surveilled. She correctly deduced the best matchups against the enemy team and improvised when necessary, allowing her to nearly thwart Toga-san's childishly simple plan of running at the bomb!"
"But she still lost, kero." Tsuyu dryly noted. "Her plan failed. Komori-san deserves the MVP for making the route her team used up through the window and then disarming Sero-kun's trap, and when the two were caught by Tokage-san's roaming ears and locked in the room she outsmarted him and broke the two of them out, and then took Sero in a fight she nearly won, kero. Then when she lost she still managed to trick him by locking him into the room, preventing him from reinforcing the bomb room's defense and likely costing them the match. If she hadn't stopped him, he could've easily restrained Toga-san, kero."
A couple others nodded around her, Monoma scrunching his nose at the differing opinion. Shoda raised a hand, All Might pointing at the stocky teal-haired boy, who politely put his hand down.
"Honestly, I think it was Toga-san. She was the one who figured out Tokage-san's traps and the best point of entry into the building, and she was able to outwit Tokage-san in a fight despite the bad quirk matchup for her. She also put Tokage-san in the situation where she wasn't able to put herself and Sero-kun into good matchups by pressing the offensive, and she was able to find the bomb room incredibly easily through her deduction too."
'That wasn't deduction.' Midoriya thought. ' I saw her on the cameras sniffing around after Setsuna reformed in the bomb room. She smelled her. Could it be a vestigial cat mutation? Her other features seem to follow the same direction. Her striking golden eyes and her fangs when she smiled that big smile at me…'
"I can't leave my boy Sero-kun hanging like this!" Tsubaraba protested. "He set up like, every single trap in the building, and then her trapped the hero team in the room, and then when they broke out he fought Komori-san and won even as those mushrooms were totally ripping into his arm holes and everything! It was metal as hell!"
"Indeed, Young Tsubaraba, it was 'metal as hell'. All Might placated. "While this was quite the exceptional second round, I must give the title of MVP to Tokage-san. Monoma-kun is right that her planning was in-depth and almost airtight, which is hard to achieve for one's first battle trial! Aizawa showed me some older recordings and most of them devolved into slugfests! She expertly funneled the hero team into a set of given choices, and when those fell apart partway through she was able to think on her feet and trust her teammate to beat Young Komori, which was sound judgement on her part. Finally, she engaged and subdued Young Toga, but unfortunately choked right at the end. While the Hero team ultimately secured an impressive victory, their actions were reactive and very rarely kept the villains on the backfoot. I would encourage all of you going forward to seize the initiative in every fight!"
The great broad man turned to his tablet again, waking it up and randomizing the next matchups. "Ahem. The next match will be Kamakiri Togaru and Monoma Neito as the Heroes, versus Koda Kouji and Hatsume Mei as the Villains! Starting positions, everyone!"
As the next four made their way out of the observation room, Sero and Setsuna reconvened with the so-called 'Bakusquad' - Mawata and Tsubaraba were ribbing Bakugou, whose face turned red as he fumed at their antics. "Yo!" Sero called, rubbing his elbows. "Pretty close match, huh?"
"Damn right! You were awesome out there, man!" Tsubaraba exclaimed. "That was a freaky quirk to go against! Betcha glad you didn't have to fight her now, huh Tokage-san?" The lizard girl frowned, barely reacting to her name being called by the brunette boy. "Toga-san… she's got some sorta issue with me, and specifically with me. I don't know what…"
"Fuck's got issues alright. Can tell just by looking at her." Bakugou helpfully commented.
Mawata blinked. "Sure, man. Sure you're not just seeing things though? Could be first match jitters." She shrugged. "Or she didn't wanna hurt you?"
The greenette considered the pinkette's words. "Maybe, but I don't think that's it." Her musing was interrupted by Sero, who pointed at the door. "Hey, look who's back!" Entering were Kaminari and Kirishima, who were laughing at some joke, Kirishima supporting Kaminari with his shoulder. Behind the two, Aoyama twinkled along.
"Hey man, what did we miss?" Kirishima asked, beaming broadly. No hint of electrical burns remained on the boy, though he and Kaminari now sported their sports uniforms, as did Aoyama.
"Way better fuckin' match." Bakugou scoffed. Kaminari gave a face of mock sadness.
"The bomb." Mawata drawled. Kirishima accompanied Kaminari's pantomime.
"You guys are mean." He sulked. Setsuna patted his shoulder with a disembodied floating hand. "Eh, we hang around Bakugou. Maybe he's rubbing off on us."
"Or maybe we're rubbing off on him!" Kaminari brightened up. "Hey, Blasty! How was my match, huh? Wanna arm wrestle?"
"You lost, and fuck no." Bakugou responded.
"Someone's chicken." Kaminari snickered.
He then proceeded to lose so hard he was thrown onto the ground.
"Totes lit match, huh?" Intelli sighed as the cream-haired dullard approached her, waving lazily. Sipping her thermos, she felt her mind's capacity expand just a bit more, colours appearing crisper and everything moving at a slower, more manageable pace. Peace. She turned to face the source of her irritation.
"If you'd bother to speak in the same language as the rest of us perhaps you'd get an answer from me. As it stands, you'll get no recognition, no matter how surprisingly solid your performance may have been."
Another social interaction expertly manuevered through. Intelli patted herself on the back mentally, her increased brain capacity actually allowing her to feel the pat.
Camie smiled placidly. "So what I'm hearin' is GGs. Thanks, Intellibabe."
Intelli grit her teeth. "Do you have anything better to do than stand around simpering nonsense slang at people who don't want to listen?" Camie shrugged, picking at a nail. Perhaps she was shielded by her ignorance from the blows inflicted upon her by the intellectual titan she stood before. Intelli tried again. This time, the diplomatic approach.
"Could you just… refrain from calling me 'Intellibabe?' It comes off as derogatory and insulting, and frankly if you do not want to use my name do not speak to me." Intelli glared through her monocle, annoyance growing. ' Stupid, vacuous city girls, all the same.'
Surprisingly the cream-haired girl relented. "Aight, I can tell that wasn't it, Intelli. But I'm still gonna speak like I'm with it, catch?" Intelli sighed. "That's better, but your inane manner of speaking is still irritating to me." The monocled girl paused for a moment. Her vast knowledge afforded her plenty of time within each millisecond to calculate and determine the best course of action here. Like a delicate surgery, it would take small incisions to make the changes needed. 'First, the scalpel.'
"You know, Utsushimi-san, perhaps if you spoke in a more normal manner you'd be more well-liked amongst the student body."
Camie giggled. "Sounds like copium to me. Also, call me Camie, 'kay?"
Intelli huffed. "What on earth is 'copium?" The creamette stuffed her hands into her pockets, lazily shrugging. Truly an inane comfort mechanism for the lowest of sorts. Intelli sipped her tea again, the warm brew comforting her as she awaited her duly-deserved explanation for the madness. Camie delivered. "Copium. Cope. You're coping and seething, malding, kinda pepemad, capiche?"
A blood vessel felt like it burst in Intelli's head. 'The rapier then.'
"Oh, hush up! Honestly, it's a wonder you made it through the entrance exam!"
"Chat, is this real?" Camie further provoked. Intelli paused, gaping like a fish as her eye twitched and brow creased in fury. She sputtered, but no words came out. In her head, every process was whirring, but for once the genius girl was lost for words. What can a vast, superhuman bastian of knowledge do to combat the single-celled organism, who cares not for its complex calculations or vast wisdom but simply wishes to go about its primordial ways?
Camie giggled another airy giggle at the look on the light blue-haired girl's face, grinning lazily as she continued to flounder incoherently. "You're like, totes adorbs when you go all freakazoid, y'know?"
Intelli groaned. Perhaps no other living being in the world could understand her suffering.
Toga and Komori returned to their group of Shouji, Pony, Tsuyu, Iida, Uraraka, Shinsou, and Midoriya. Toga, though noticeably more sullen than usual, still had some measure of pep in her step. Komori, by contrast, was practically radiant.
"I got to grow my shrooms all over him! It was great! And my little babies made me so proud , shroom! My little penny bun made it all~ the way up to his tape rolls!" The short girl giggled from beneath her wide red spotted cap, skipping to a stop beside Uraraka.
"Yeah, that was intense, you're a great fighter!" Uraraka exclaimed, carding through her hair bashfully. "Honestly, I don't think mine will be all that great, haha."
"Aww, don't say that, Occhan!" Toga chirped. "I can see all those muscles under your costume! It's so tight! You could totally beat them all bloody and bruised!"
"Uh, y-yeah, thanks, Toga-san." The gravity girl responded, the blonde puffing her cheek up, accentuating the blush that'd returned to her face. "Don't call me that! That's what my mother called me, call me Toga-chan! Or Himi-chan!"
"Your mother called you by your family name?" Shouji inquired, receiving a shrug, "We weren't close." He nodded respectfully, before turning to the mushroom girl and raising an eyebrow. She didn't catch the hint, so he subtly tilted his head towards Toga, who was again accosting Uraraka. She nodded minutely. 'So she knows too.'
"Anyway, enough boring talk, Occhan!" Toga grabbed the brunette's arm, hugging her side and revelling in the warmth of the close contact, ignoring a cough from Tsuyu. "Oh, you're so warm!" Uraraka warmed further at the compliment, but the cat-eyed girl continued. "I was thinking, after all this and after you win your fight, wanna trade tips? I've got looooaaads of super-cute things I could teach you!"
"I-I guess, sure!" Uraraka's cheeks turned bright red as she stammered, averting her gaze and causing Toga to smirk further. "I do probably need training against people with weapons since I'm mostly hand-to-hand. Having parents in construction's good for lifting weights, but my dad doesn't really want to run at me with a knife for practice, heh." She turned her gaze back to Toga, squeaking under her golden eyes, fascination within. "S-Still! I don't know if I'm going to win, Toga-chan! You probably shouldn't assume that, everyone here's so strong!"
Toga simply giggled at her protests. "Oh, Occhan. You're so nice!" She flashed a pearly fanged grin, her feline canines bared for the world to see. Bunched up against one of her favourite people, she felt better than ever before. 'Isn't she, Izu-chan?"
Midoriya gulped, flushing slightly. "Yeah, she is." Uraraka met his eyes and the two of them turned scarlet. Toga detached from the brunette, humming contentedly. Tsuyu frowned, a heady cocktail of prey instincts, cautious apprehension, something unnameable, and… something else even less nameable flowed through her, letting an irritated croak escape out of instinct. She turned back to the cameras to tune into the hero team's planning.