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Chapter 30: Finale before Finals
🕑 Added 2024-07-16 15:05:33 +0000 UTCAs those two teams clashed in the final seconds of the battle, team Shinso and Bakugo were going at it nearby, facing a stalemate on their head as they found between Shiozaki's vines and Midoriya's fire, not even Bakugo could pierce their defenses. It wasn't helped that it took them too long to stop reacting to whatever Shinso said, as twice now, one of them had fallen for it, with Bakugo nearly falling to the ground the second time.
All this only boiled Bakugo's blood as he was in danger of being eliminated-eliminated before he could show off his power all because of two people he hated with a passion….well, that second one was a new hate, but that sleepless fucker was rising to the same level as the pyromaniac.
"Bakugo, you need to keep calm. They'll just take advantage of it again!" Tape yelled at him, which Eyebags was more than willing to insult him for.
"Oh yes, listen to your teammate since you're sure as hell not going to win without them." Shinso kept on mocking him, but Midoriya focused on a greater prize.
“We need to go for Monoma now, forget this!” Midoriya yelled, reminding them of the ever-decreasing time they had to finish on a high note.
“As difficult as that might be, he’s right. We don’t have the time to continue this fight!” Shishida replied, and Shinso nodded as they turned to leave.
"Hey, get back here. You still have our points!" Kirishima yelled at them as he charged forward, not even needing Bakugo to tell him so. However, they were met by a wall of thorny vines, and smoke poured in through it, making it hard to breathe as they tried to force their way through.
“One minute left on the clock!” Present Mic called out, only adding to the emotions on the field as team Shinso turned to leave as Mina and Bakugo melted and blasted through the mass of thorny vines that kept that back.
Line Break
As Bakugo barely held back his rage to think of a good plan of attack, teams Monoma and Todoroki remained locked in battle, a giant ice wall around them keeping the rest back, but despite the lack of retreat, the red and white haired boy was frustrated by the fact they still hadn’t managed to steal Monoma’s points.
“Man, team Monoma really knows how to play keep away; they've been boxed in and yet haven't yielded to team Todoroki once!” As Present Mic yelled the progress of their stalemate, Todoroki had his team move forward, but Monoma quickly responded by ordering his team back but keeping to Todoroki's left, something not lost on the recommendation student.
'He's figured out that my ice only comes from my right and is moving to keep out of its range. Even if I wanted to strike at them, Iida could get caught in the crossfire. We can't use Yaoyorozu's quirk because that support girl keeps an eye on her and would alert them to anything she tries.' Todoroki thought to himself, ignoring the voice that reminded him that he could quickly attack any side. He paid attention to Monoma and his team, who looked tiring after all the quirk moves they had to keep them away.
‘But we still have a chance. They can’t escape with Hatsume's boot damaged like that. Even if they tried, they'd be too slow and an easy target, so they're trying to run out the clock. Monoma seems to have a copy quirk, but he hasn't used any of his classmates' abilities, so he must have a limit of some kind, maybe space, maybe time, maybe both. That means he can only replicate what his current team can do; none can match our raw power or versatility.'
Todoroki knew they didn't have much time, but that could also be a boon. If they tried something unexpected, the window for a counterattack might be too small for Monoma or anyone else to act.
"Guys, prepare for plan C," Todoroki told his team, with all three nodding as Iida, the crucial part of that plan, crouched slightly, his engines gearing up while they held onto one another. They had just the one shot; they couldn't afford to waste it.
Line Break
With Present Mic's commentary on the dwindling time and the current top four teams, team Shinso focused on getting towards the ice barrier, keeping Todoroki and Monoma from them. Midoriya knew that a good fireball should be enough to break through in a single blow, one that could rush on through and use the confusion as well as Shinso's quirk to give Shiozaki a chance to snatch up their headbands, a solid enough plan.
But they didn't account for just the raw resilience from Bakugo as Bakugo managed to blast a hole through the vines they could see through. Still, with the distance between them and that pyromaniac, they'll never reach him on foot. They had already proven capable of intercepting him if he tried to launch himself at them. But that wasn't the only way he could get revenge against those two, as he didn't care enough to remember names; he did remember quirks and a plan started taking shape in his head, gaining more robust structure as he thought about it.
"Charge, full ahead!" Bakugo ordered, which his team thought was insane even if they followed it.
"Bakubro, they're too far ahead. We'll never catch them!" Kirishima tried to tell him, only for Bakugo to start hitting him over the head.
"Shut it! We're getting an undisputed victory! That means everyone one, especially eyebags and that pyromaniac!" Bakugo yelled back. "We're getting our points back, then you're going for the 5K and getting that too!" Bakugo declared, which sounded crazy, but one couldn't deny the passion in his voice, the raw conviction he held himself with, which convinced his team.
“High risk, high reward, that’s pretty manly! Alright, let’s do this!” Kirishima replied, running even faster along with Mina and Sero as they chased after team Shinso, who noticed them on their tail pretty fast.
“Shinso, Bakugo’s right behind us!” Shiozaki relayed to them, with Shinso looking back but seeing that there was still some distance between them. Besides, Shiozaki and Midoriya could easily block any ranged attacks.
“They’re too far back to worry about!” He stated, turning back to face the incoming ice wall.
“That’s what you think! Flat Face, tape!” Bakugo yelled as she lifted the one leg, giving his horse a clear line of sight.
“It’s Sero Hanta already!” Sero yelled but still did as ordered, firing off a long line of taps which, instead of attaching to anyone in team Shinso, perhaps to slow them down, snag some points or just knock them over, went to their side.
“What the? How’d he miss?” Midoriya asked.
“Wait a second…” Shinso suspected that there was something more, but what?
“Racoon eyes! Lay down a weak dissolving solution in the direction we’re going!” Bakugo lowered the one left but lifted the other. Still, Ashido wasn't as collected when it came to Bakugo's refusal to use her damn name after sharing a class with her for almost a month.
“My NAME is Ashido Mina!” She yelled back as she raised her hand and from it, a large stream of acid shot out directly in front of them, making the ground directly infront of them slippery.
"At the floor?" Shiozaki asked, were they afraid to harm them? Bakugo didn’t seem like the type that would put that much care into it, even if he did, surely his teammate wasn’t going to use a dangerously corrosive acid against them if not told otherwise.
With the two not able to focus too much on it and Shishida unable to see any of it, to begin with, it was only Shinso who saw the entire picture. When he saw Bakugo put his hands to his back, he realized their game. “Oh no-Midoriya!” Shinso yelled right as Bakugo set off a double explosion from his hands, which propelled them forward across the now low friction ground, their speed and aim helped by Sero reeling in his tape.
“I can’t aim that far back!” Midoriya replied, as he couldn't bend his neck far enough and could only respond by quickly trying to create a smokescreen. Still, he could only let out puffs of smoke.
“I’m on it!” Shiozaki tried to step up, her hair rising up and shooting to try and dissuade their attackers, but unlike before, where she had the time to erect barriers, she was countering. Bakugo could handle that as he swung his arms forward right as Ashido changed her aim so that her acid hit the vines, acid whose corrosiveness she increased, turning it into a super weed killer. That weakened vines proved no match for Bakugo, who fired off an explosion and cleared their way.
“Not this time!” Bakugo yelled as they charged past them, his hand grabbing two of Shinso’s stolen headbands and ripping them from his throat to the roar of the crowds.
“Bakugo is merciless! With seconds left on the clock, his team makes a surprise move and jumps to 3rd Place on the board! But then again, he’s a perfectionist!” Present Mic yelled as team Bakugo rose from the bottom with the rest of the 0-point teams to third with a score of 715.
“Shinso!” Midoriya yelled as Shinso checked his neck and saw that the stolen headbands were firmly theirs, which, along with their original, kept them in second place.
“He got two!” He yelled back, noting that the 130 and 585 headbands were gone, with the team being powerless to act as Bakugo and his team were already zipping away, Sero’s line pulling them towards where Todoroki and Monoma were.
“Dammit, we didn’t get out headband!” Mina yelled, but Bakugo didn’t care about that, not enough to jeopardize their chances of taking first!
"Forget it! Next is that half-and-half bastard and that fucking used car salesman!" Bakugo ordered as Mina redirected her acid ahead of them, decreasing friction and allowing Bakugo to blast them forward.
“Follow them! It’s do or die!" Midoriya yelled as his team raced to catch up. Shinso looked up and saw they had just 8 seconds left on the clock!
"We have just one chance at this, but with Bakugo and the others in the mix-!" Shiozaki hesitated, but Midoriya intervened.
"It'll work, it has to work!" He yelled as he wanted this; he wanted it so badly, and he wouldn't give up till the time ran out. Even if they had a second left, he would fight as his cheeks puffed up, a fireball cooking in his chest. At the same time, Shiozaki's vines were readied as they and team Bakugo were moments away from hitting the ice wall.
Line Break
With just 7 seconds left on the clock, Todoroki made the call. "Guys, prepare for plan C," Todoroki told his team, with all three nodding as Iida, the crucial part of that plan, crouched slightly, his engines gearing up while they held onto one another. They had just the one shot; they couldn't afford to waste it.
"Torque over—Reciproburst!" Iida started as his engines came to life with a vengeance. Jets of red and orange flames were replaced with pure blue, and the exhaust was so hot that his muffles started to glow.
"Iida's trying-!" Hatsume didn't even have time to warm her team before Iida shot forward, pulling his team like a bullet train; Todoroki, despite being told beforehand of this ability, was still caught off guard by its sheer speed. Still, he had just enough awareness and speed to reach for Monoma's vulnerable headband. In that exact moment, with both parties coming in close for a final assault, with seconds on the clock, the ice barrier keeping them separate from the rest exploded as the remains of an emerald flame ball died out from the mist and smoke, vines shot out towards them.
Over the barrier, Bakugo came blasting in, his eyes locked on the two. He could barely see the team Todoroki moving as they were moments away from getting the prized headband. 'Like hell, I'm letting HIM get it!' He set off an even stronger blast than before, rocketing towards the 3, now 4-war collision with seconds left on the clock. Monoma barely saw any of this, but he had already been on alert before Hatsume even started to speak and instinctively reached for Tsunotori's quirk; in those deciseconds, as his borrowed quirk activated and horns grew from his head, he kept his eye on what was in front of it.
This focus cost them, as neither team was prepared to handle the intrusion from Shiozaki or Bakugo, both moments away from crashing into them. All this came together in a massive clash that threw up a massive smoke cloud as the Bakugo explosion echoed through it. The dust and smoke blocked them from view as headbands were snatched or defended.
But then time seemed to return to normal for them. Yet, they didn't stop as they didn't even stop to see if they had been successful in defense of capturing more points, instead while still blinded by dust and smoke and with only vague ideas of where their targets where they went at it again. They hadn't even heard Present Mic as he counted the seconds, with only his final words breaking the intense concentration.
"Time's up!" With that wake-up call, they froze and, in Bakugo's case, fell face-first onto the ground. Both teams, Bakugo and Shinso, had just gotten through the ice barrier, the one needing to follow the other through the hole Midoriya had made in time to witness the smoke cloud. “That's the end of the second round, the calvary battle, and man, these kids put in the work in the final seconds! Let's hope they don't start doing that in class, as I hate getting 11:59pm submissions!” Present Mic yelled over the microphone as the crowd cheered for the exciting conclusion to the round.
“This coming from the guy that hands in faculty assignments at the 11th hour?" At Vlad's comment, Present Mic spluttered as he tried to explain himself. Still, on the field, the students were settling down after the round, with Monoma reaching for his head, having felt a change back then but having been too focused to know for sure. But when his hand touched his forehead, it was bear.
"They got it…they got our headband." He stated that he was demoralized and that they were still lost after all the effort and planning. He didn't even have another headband to show for it as the horns he shot out to try and snag one of Todoroki's had either missed or been intercepted by his ice. Meanwhile, Shiozaki retrieved what she had managed to snag in the confusion, but she and her frowned when she saw it wasn't what they wanted.
However, as points had been exchanged so fast right at the end, no one was sure what the scoreboard looked like now, but Present Mic was more than happy to clear things up. "Now, let's look at the top four teams!”
“In first place, with a score of 5,865, we have team Todoroki!” Despite their win, Todoroki didn't feel like they had won, mainly because, like Monoma, they had lost their main headband in that scuffle and three others to boot.
Yaoyorozu sighed, feeling relieved it was over. "We managed to grab the 5K headband but lost others in that scramble."
"Apologies. If I had been able to recover faster, we could have pulled back." Iida bowed to her, but she smiled at him to try to get him to not take it so personally.
"That's not true. If not for your speed, we wouldn't have managed to take first place at all," she told him.
“In second place with an impressive 1720 points, they’ve managed to hold onto their spot the entire time, team Shinso!” Shiozaki's vines held up not one, but two headbands as she couldn't target Monoma because he was too hot a target. Bakugo was too fast to target at all, she had focused entirely on Todoroki. She barely managed to snatch both the headband he had on his head and one of the ones he had managed to amass earlier, her vines still holding the 565 and 265 headbands, adding another 810 to their score.
“I wish that we could have acquired them through more honest means," Shiozaki noted with a frown, as it felt like she had stolen them like a bandit.
"It's unfortunate, but we do what we can with what we have. We can make up for it in the finals." Shishida replied as Shinso got down from his place, taking off the many headbands he had on his person. Midoriya was off to the side, gloomy.
“I can’t believe it, second place again…” He was muttering to himself, a dark cloud over him as his teammates looked on in slight worry.
"He was really invested in that top spot," Shinso noted, with Shiozaki and Shishida nodding along.
“Taking third with 750 points, they might have fallen from the top, but they’re still in this, team Monoma!” At Present Mic’s call, Monoma jolted up in shock.
"Wait, what?" For once, he wasn't smug or smiling but confused as Tsunotori giggled, nudging his side.
“You might have missed,” She started as she let him see two of her horns, having been hidden behind her back, and each carried a headband. "But you weren't the only one that tried to counter." She was the one that had a smug smile now, as she couldn’t defend against Todoroki taking their headband. Still, she sure as heck could go for theirs, and because of that, she snagged both the 395 and 355 headbands before he even realized they were gone.
“That….that was amazing, Tsunotori. Truly an exceptional move.”
“It was, though I was kinda flying blind there since I couldn’t see shit with all the smoke and stuff." She admitted in English as if she had been off with her aim or any more reckless than she had been, someone could have lost an eye, but they didn’t need to know that part.
“And coming in 4th place with 715 points, we have the ferocious team Bakugo!” Mina sighed at that.
“That was too close!” She complained, shaking her hands.
Sero shrugged. "We managed to qualify, so I'll take it." Sero, on the other hand, was calmer about it.
“You’ll be alone on that front,” Kirishima stated, their eyes on their defunct team leader who was snarling in rage, no doubt his ever-explosive temper triggered by their placement as the lowest of the teams that seemed to make it through.
“God fucking dammit!” Bakugo couldn't believe he got weaseled out of his rightful first place a second time!
“Now, before we can move on, let's take an hour's break to grab something to eat. Cool?” Present Mic informed the crowd as people started to get up to leave for the food courts and many stands set up outside.
“I could go for a bite." Vlad agreed with him. They heard both mics getting cut as the commentators left, with Midnight addressing the students on the field.
"The same goes for you all as well; take the time to make yourself eat your fill, as you'll need the energy later!" She snapped her whip with the students all nodding.
"Yes, mam!" With that, the rated-R heroine stepped off the small stage, leaving them to mingle as the students broke from their teams to join their friend groups and walked towards the exit.
"Guys," Midoriya's group, sans Shinso, who waved as he went to speak with his general studies friends, turned to see Kuroiro and Hiryu approaching them. "That was a little bit of a dirty trick, but we do have to respect it."
"It was a good plan, but it did feel like a little shady to just take them from you, even if that was the entire point," Midoriya replied before he felt someone tapping his back; when he turned, his face lit up when he saw it was Asui. "Tsu!" He cheered as he glomped her in a hug; the girl, long used to how physical Midoriya could be with his affection, just rubbed his back a few times while his classmates looked in confusion.
“(Kero) Congrats on making it to the finals. We managed to keep our points but couldn't steal any." She told him.
Holding his froggy friend close, he smiled so bright he might as well burst into flames. "That's still amazing. We're the only team in the top 4 that didn't lose their headbands near the end.”
“Pardon, but shouldn’t you put her down now?” Iida asked, as he, along with Uraraka, had joined them, and while he had been introduced to Asui's friend in their sister's class, a chance he used to congratulate him for his entrance exam performance, the boy was still an enigma to him.
Midoriya paused before he realized that, yes, people didn't tend to be this physical with each other, especially with just friends in public. “Oh, sorry about that.” He put her down, but Asui grasped his hand in her larger one, holding him close.
"I don't mind; he's warm," she said, making Midoriya's smile a little bigger. This made Uraraka and Shiozaki think that the two were just adorable together. No wonder they were friends!
“Thank you!” Midoriya said before turning to Iida. “Oh, and what was that move? One minute, Monoma was in the lead; the next, it was you." He animatedly asked, using his hands to display his point as he talked in a fashion unlike his senior.
Iida chopped his hand at him in response. "It was nothing special. Besides, it was the drawback of overheating my engines and stalling them. If the round had lasted any longer, we would have been sitting ducks."
Asui coughed to get their attention back on her as she pointed towards the exit. "I think we can discuss this in detail as we eat," she said.
Iida nodded. "That's a Good idea. It would be prudent to have our meals as soon as possible so that we have time to digest them." The class B students witnessed how…square Iida could be, though Midoriya was on equal footing with him.
"You're right. It's hard to work on a full stomach. It's even worse than an empty one; then you feel bloated and slow." Midoriya stated, recalling many times when he made the mistake of eating his breakfast or lunch late at the temple and how he felt like Fatgum looked afterwards. As they turned to leave the field, being some of the last to do so, Asui recalled something.
"(Kero) But how did you get their numbers yet?” She asked Midoriya, pointing towards her class A friends, who lit a lightbulb in Uraraka's head. She knew they had forgotten something the last time they spoke, but she couldn't put her finger on it till now.
"Oh, I don't think he did. Would you like them?" When she asked the question, she and Iida didn't expect Midoriya to freeze, as if he couldn't comprehend the question before his face burst out in an even brighter smile, his eyes glowing in joy as he looked close to jumping in happiness. Who could blame him? He had made more friends in the last couple of weeks than in the previous couple of months, and with 2 extra numbers on his phone…oh, he could hardly contain it!
Tokage, one of the other hold-outs on the field, stepped in before he exploded in joy…and flames. "Take that as a yes; he can get overly excited, Tokage Setsuna. I'm his mature guardian there to ensure his little naïve mind doesn't get in trouble."
Midoriya’s face went red with embarrassment as he rounded to her. “Tokage!”
Line Break
Later, the students had made their way to the cafeteria, with Asui, Uraraka, Shishida, Shiozaki, and Iida joining Midoriya's regular group. This meant that the table was cramped, but no one seemed to care, least of all Midoriya, who was soaking in being surrounded by friendly faces as he happily drank his miso soup in between bites of saba shioyaki. "So, how is your class, Asui?" Shishida asked Asui.
"Call me Tsu. All my friends do." The hairy student was caught off guard by how blunt Asui could be, with Midoriya’s heart fluttering at the implication that he and Tsu were friends. "As for my class, it's never boring, but we could do without some of its worst personalities."
“We already know Bakugo is one of them, anyone else?” Monoma asked, taking a break from eating to properly engage in the conversation.
"Well, he's not as bad as Bakugo, but Todoroki is far from sociable. He'll talk, but only in assignments or answering questions. Outside of that, he's standoffish and rude (kero). You can really tell he's Endeavour's son." Asui explained, though another reason those two were the ones she thought of as issues was that Bakugo was always picking fights when challenged or told to behave by either Iida or Yaoyorozu, but Todoroki barely gave him the time of day, which just seemed to anger him even more, to which Todoroki just ignored created an frustrating self-feeding loop.
"Yet he only uses ice. Maybe he wants to be different from dad." Uraraka added, catching the attention of the class B students.
“What, he can do more than that?” Kendo asked, as she swore he had done all that against them, including freezing her team's points and leaving them helpless.
“You didn’t notice?” Uraraka asked, and she explained it when they all shook their heads. “His quirk lets him make fire and ice, though he only uses the fire after an exercise, never during it.” She recalled their first hero class and how easily he overwhelmed Ojiro and Hagakure before he melted the iced-over building as fast as he froze it.
“He makes fire, too?!" Midoriya jumped to his feet, his eyes locked on Uraraka, who jumped back in fright but still nodded, which only made Midoriya all the more eager to hear an answer. “But why not use them? Fire’s great!”
As Kendo guided Midoriya back to his seat, Iida adjusted his glasses but frowned. "We're afraid we can't answer that. We didn't even know he could till our teacher mentioned it, and when Kaminari asked him about it, he rudely brushed him aside." He had thought that perhaps Todoroki didn't have that fine control over his flames, but that didn't hold up to even their first hero class, as he didn't even harm Hagakure despite her lack of a costume.
With lack of skill off the table, he, for his life, hadn't figured out a reason. He had even attempted to approach Todoroki as a fellow wealthy student from a hero family; it had worked in the past to get him to be more cooperative with the class in the past, but as soon as he mentioned fire, Todoroki ironically went cold and just ignored him with that glare of his.
The class-B students were just as confused and frustrated as he was, with Midoriya especially recalling what Vlad-sensei told him the first day, about how it was a sign of respect to his classmates that he would do his absolute best in and out of the classroom. The idea that Todoroki had decided that he was somehow so much better than them that he didn’t need to bother made his blood boil. "Well, that makes him sound like a…bad person." He struggled near the end, his shoulders still tense even though he couldn’t follow through.
Tokage pat his head like he was 5. "You can swear, you know."
“I don’t like to.” He shot back, knowing plenty of swear words had been used against him, more than a few, even if he factored out Kacchan. But it was because he knew what it was like to be called all those things that he refused to use them; he didn't want to hurt people like that.
Lucky for him, Shiozaki was in his corner. "Now should any of you?" Iida nodded along with that, with Asui remaining with a poker face while Kendo rolled her eyes at the antics of her classmates. On the other hand, Kendo did notice the strange meal choice that Midoriya made—not the four servings part, which was normal, but the fact that he went with just soup, water, and fish.
"By the way, Midoriya, I've meant to ask, but why are you eating that? I thought your favorite food was Katsudon." Midoriya looked at his plate and bowl, the final of the 4 servings he requested.
“It is,” He confirmed, taking a little bite of fish before continuing. “But I got used to eating fish I caught and cheap bulk foods while living at the temple. besides, it has plenty of nutritional benefits.”
“You spent time at a temple?” Uraraka asked, getting an enthusiastic smile from Midoriya.
“Hmm!” He nodded, more than happy to talk about his fun times and how relaxing it was to be able to just…be himself. "Almost a year, I found it in a state of disrepair during a…bad time for me and spent the time repairing it. I should visit when the festival's over, do any of you want to come with? It has great views of the mountains, and I know this great fishing spot." Uraraka and Iida were surprised by this, and so were Shishida and Shiozaki, but his regular friends weren't, as he had asked them if they wanted to go in the past.
"Let me think about it, but it does sound fun. Besides, I would love to see the place that got you to crossdress daily." Tokage teased him, getting him to blush just a little, but his smile remained.
"Crossdress?" Iida asked.
“Oh, my hero costume.” Midoriya guessed with Tokage nodding, giving context to his friends who nodded at it.
“Do you want to see it?” Tokage asked Uraraka, Asui, and Iida. When they nodded, she whipped out her phone and showed them a picture she snapped of Midoriya the day they went to the USJ. The picture showed his entire form as he boarded the bus, in deep conversation with Tsunotori and Kendo.
“Oh, you look pretty in it.” Asui complimented it, and Uraraka agreed with her.
"Thank you; it took a long time designing it." Midoriya looked a little shy about it, but he would need to get used to people seeing it. Besides, all his friends thought it was pretty cool, so why not let it be advertised? "Excuse me, I should get another serving before they run out!" Midoriya got up, his fourth serving of soup and fish gone. As he walked off, he heard Shishida mention it in disbelief.
"I must confess, I'm perplexed by the fact someone on his side can pack away that much food." Midoriya didn't pay any attention to it; he burned most of it when he used his quirk so he could eat quite a bit. Besides, by this point, the staff knew him enough that they didn't bat an eye when he would ask for seconds, or thirds, or, in this case, fifths. On his way, he did spot two people, one of whom he had met before.
“Oh, morning Yaoyorozu! Have you already finished your first meals?” He bounced over to the two girls, the purple-haired one with fascinating ear-jack-like lobes crooking an eyebrow at him.
“First meals?” She asked, but Yaoyorozu smiled at him, recalling him from the times the class reps had met one another.
"Not everyone eats as much as you, Midoriya. But yes, we've finished eating and are coming to collect Asui and Uraraka." She replied before looking around for their two missing girl classmates.
Midoriya felt a little curious about that. “Oh, may I ask why?”
"We need to get ready for our cheer battle in the afternoon," Yaoyorozu replied, nearly hand-waving his way, but that response only made him more confused, as his brow creased.
“Cheer battle? Like the finals?” He knew that U.A. liked to mix things up, but how did Yaoyorozu learn what the finals would be like before the rest of them. At his question, Yaoyorozu looked his way, also confused.
“No, we’re supposed to have a contest with the cheerleaders U.A. brought in.” She explained like it was common knowledge, but her frown grew when he continued to be puzzled by it. “Didn’t you hear about this? I was busy earlier.” She asked, finding it weird that Midoriya didn't know this as he seemed like the type that kept up with his duties exceptionally well, even if Kendo was class B's class rep.
"I have no clue what you're talking about, and Kendo didn't bring up anything like that at our table," Midoriya replied, which got the girl with Yaoyorozu to frown as the gears in her head started to move, and something she had first brushed aside as false started to make its way back to the forefront of her mind, and with it, her irritation and anger rose.
"That's strange-" Whatever Yaoyorozu was about to say was cut off by the second girl who placed a hand on her shoulder, stopping Yaoyorozu as the second girl took a step forward.
“Midoriya, right?” She asked, her gaze looking lazy, but Midoriya could easily tell she was far from lethargic in the moment, in fact she was alert and…angry? Why?
“Hmm, yes, Midoriya Izuku, mam.” He bowed as he introduced himself to her, with the girl rolling her eyes, but some of her ire seemed to fade.
"Dude, I'm your age. The name's Jiro Kyoka; use that. But onto other things. Do you think you can skip your…whatever number meal and help me prove something real quirk?" She started but gave up trying to figure out how much he ate. She'd take the fact that he seemed to be polite and leave it at that.
Midoriya felt that the request came out of nowhere, and he did want to make sure he was as full as she could be for the finals, but on the other hand, "Well…I guess I could. Heroes are meant to help, aren't they?" he asked, with Jiro smiling, though it was strained a little by whatever was making her angry.
“Sweet, think you can lead us to your table?” She got straight to the point, which Midoriya blinked before nodding, having suspected something more tiresome as a favor. He could help her and still have time to grab another serving.
"Oh, sure!" He turned on his heel and walked off, the two following in, though Yaoyorozu looked as lost as he was in the moment at Jiro's request. Regardless, he led them over, as with so many people moving about, the relatively short distance had enough obstacles in it that it would have taken the two girls much longer to find it. “Hey guys.” He waved as he approached.
"Back already? Wait, you didn't get any extra food." Tsunotori asked.
“Finally found a limit on your appetite, didn’t you?” Monoma asked, smirking his way as Midoriya huffed in response.
"Of course not, but Jiro wanted my help with something, and part of that was leading here, and Yaoyorozu was here," Midoriya explained, gesturing to the two who quickly introduced themselves to the table, with Tsunotori recalling Yaoyorozu quite well after that last round.
“What’s the issue, Yaoyorozu?” Asui asked, but Jiro was the one who stepped up and directed her gaze towards Kendo.
“Kendo, did you know about the cheerleaders?” Kendo, along with the rest of the table, was baffled by the question. Kendo turned to her vice rep, and Midoriya could only shrug his shoulders. Her pause seemingly only confirmed something Jiro was already thinking about.
"Well, yeah, kinda hard not to when you're not hiding yourself." Kendo pointed towards the side where the foreign girls were busy with their practice; apparently, they were going to perform later in some kind of half-time show.
Jiro frowned as she placed her hands on the table, leaning forward. “So you weren’t told by your teacher?”
"We haven't spoken with Vlad-sensei all day," Kendo replied, her face growing ever more puzzled along with the rest, and Yaoyorozu, who started to piece together what Jiro was implying, which made her shoulders drop the more she thought about it.
“So you didn’t hear anything about a cheer battle?” Jiro asked one final question, emphasizing that last bit with a bite to her words; her eye started to twitch from anger as Kendo raised her hands to appease whatever the class A student was angry about.
“Is…is that related to the finals or…” She asked the same question that Midoriya had, and that was enough for Jiro to turn around and punch a nearby dividing wall. It didn't matter that she bruised her knuckles on it; she needed an outlet, and sadly, the two things she really wanted to punch weren't within striking distance.
“Oh, those rat-assed perverts! I knew it sounded shady!” She still made her anger known as some others looked her way, wondering what she was pissed off or whatever the guilty party did to anger her, to begin with.
While Yaoyorozu fell to her knees in defeat, leaving a confused Uraraka and Asui to tend to her. At the same time, Jiro raged, Tetsutetsu said the quiet part out loud. "I'm sorry, but am I the only one lost here?"
"I got no clue what the hell they're talking about, too." Tsunotori nodded in agreement as Jiro took a deep breath and let it out, repeating that a couple of times before she took Midoriya's vacant seat, collapsing into it.
"Two of our classmates, Kaminari and Mineta, came and told us about." From there, she explained the entire thing: how they had nearly been tricked into walking back onto the field all dressed as cheerleaders, thinking it was for some sort of 'cheer battle'. And once she did, it was fair to say that she wasn't the only one angry with Kaminari and Mineta and sympathetic with them.
"Those delinquents! How dare they spread such falsehoods? As U.A. students, we should be nothing but honest!" Iida shot to his feet, ready to march off and give them a thorough dressing down.
"I can't believe I fell for it, too. I nearly used my quirk to make cheerleader costumes, too." Yaoyorozu bemoaned how she let herself be tricked like a child.
"Don't be sad, Yaoyorozu. You just trusted your classmates. It's not your fault they abused that trust." Midoriya, along with Asui and Uraraka, comforted her. However, he would be lying if he said he wasn't thinking of setting their pants on fire for tricking Yaoyorozu and Jiro like that.
“Yeah, and they had to be pretty confident when they told you, as a lie like that only works because, you know, could just have asked Iida about it after the fact because you could always see if they were lying; they figured you wouldn't." Monoma agreed with him, as while he could appreciate such a tactic, he didn't enjoy the target or the intended purpose.
Shiozaki got up as well, her face a storm of rage. "Regardless, it's extremely deplorable that they would not only manipulate your trust like that but to make it worse, it was to indulge in their desire to see you in such clothing. Where are they? I need to ensure they're probably punished."
“Wait a minute, Shiozaki.” Midoriya jumped up to block her and Iida from leaving. He didn't know too much about Iida, but he knew Shiozaki and knew that when she was done with both, they'd be hanging by their feet somewhere on campus.
"Midoriya, we know that you're not one for violence, but come on, we need to crack some skulls here." Tokage frowned, as angry as Shiozaki was, but Midoriya shook his head.
"I'm not trying to fight you on that. I just have an idea that would get back at them." He recalled the conversation they were having, and an idea started to form in his head.
“Oh?” Kendo raised an eyebrow.
Now, when Midoriya smiled, his face had a little more bite, his enlarged fangs showing as smoke escaped his mouth. “Well, they want to see people dressed like cheerleaders, right? So why don’t we give them that?”
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Trying a new thing where the author note that's normally at the top is moved down here, at least when I post on Patreon.
Oh yeah, Suicide Squad Isekai is just super funny; 3 episodes in, and I'm already going, 'Yeah, DC should have done this a long time ago.' Is it goofy? Yes, does it make sense? Not most of the time. Is the Waller going to become a tick-tock challenge? Most definitely, but dammit, is it entertaining.
But onto this, we finally finished with the second challenge of the Sports Festival, which is just weird for me, as its sister story basically skipped it and is much further along if you compare it to canon. But then again, it would have been hard to justify slowing things down for a festival where the only people Izuku knows who are in it are Bakugo. Even if I could justify it, it still would have been a waste of time narratively.
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And that is that! I so BADLY wanted to put Midoriya's scheme in this chapter. Still, the word limit is a rule I want to keep to, and I extended it from 6 to 7K sometime ago, so this was pushing it as is. Still, I want to clarify here: I DON'T think Hori had to BS Yaomomo into getting the girls to dress up for fan service. As the characters reasoned here, she simply trusted her classmates. On some level, she didn't think they'd tell such an easily disproven lie. Granted, the fact that neither Mineta nor Kaminari faced any consequence for this is weird, as Mineta is often made to pay.
As for Izuku and his cross-dressing hobby, I have to admit, I did not plan that when I set out to write this, but I'm enjoying it far too much to stop, and it seems that a lot of you agree with me. In fact, it's given me more ideas for future chapters and makes, a few of which are in the mid-planning stage, so hooray for that.
