Future Hero Academia

(1.11) Try Not to Get Schooled

[Image: "Ika-chan (Ika Sukippu)" by A. Ophelia]

The match between Nioubo and Heihomame, and Ayashima and Sukippu was over fairly quickly. As it turned out, Heihomame's quirk was pretty useful, and he did a decent job at confusing the hero team and getting them turned around so they had a hard time finding the 'bomb' until they found him, and Sukippu used her quirk on him.

It was the first chance Katsumi had to see what Sukippu's quirk was. She'd stuck her fingers in her mouth and pulled something out. It looked a bit like a microSD card, maybe some kind of computer chip, then Ayashima used her telekinesis to put the tiny chip into Heihomame's mouth while he was talking, and he swallowed it by accident, after that, rather than confusing them Heihomame started to lead them to where the bomb was, acting as though it had been his idea.

Nioubo put up a fight once they got to the 'bomb', but Ayashima overpowered him easily, sending both him and his partner out a window and lowering them onto the sidewalk while Sukippu secured the 'bomb'. Despite Ayashima's stupidly overpowered quirk, Katsumi thought that the boys could have stood a decent chance if they's decided to work together and try to capture the girls, rather than trying to waste their time until the exercise was over. In the end, the girls had been the ones who worked together to win, Ayashima helping make best use of Sukippu's quirk, and Sukippu making sure not to idle while her partner did the heavy lifting.

As far as Katsumi could tell, the two girls hadn't spoken to each other at all. They'd probably talked beforehand, but during the drill, they simply did what they had to do, silently carrying out their tasks, barely even looking at each other, but still, somehow, working together seamlessly. Katsumi had privately noticed that Sukippu didn't like to work with people, even though she acted nice, but it was a little odd to see Ayashima that way. Honestly, Katsumi was having a really hard time figuring that girl out. She seemed to act differently every time Katsumi observed her.

The next exercise had Ayumu and Okane as the 'villains', and Kusabana and Hiretsuna as the 'heroes'. Okane used her camouflage ability to sneak up on Kusabana and capture him within the first two minutes, but she couldn't seem to find Hiretsuna anywhere, even though the cameras showed that he walked past right in front of her. Okane and Ayumu talked for a moment, thinking up strategies to find Hiretsuna, whom they guessed had a similar quirk to Okane. (From Katsuki's outsider point of view, it seemed like his quirk only allowed him to be invisible to people, since the cameras showed him just fine, unlike Okane, who was much harder to spot on tape, though not impossible.)

In the end, Ayumu suggested using his Time-Out quirk to just pause time for the last five minutes, and executed that plan just moments before Hiretsuna secured the bomb. Unfortunately, his quirk timed-out just before the clock did, and Hiretsuna managed to capture the 'bomb' with seconds to spare. So far, that had been the closest match.

The last matchup was a three-on-three: Hexum, Kisho, and Omisha as the 'heroes' vs. Uchikatsu, Hansho, and Chirin as the 'villains'; the two groups Katsumi had been most interested in watching were up against each other.

Knowing that Hexum's quirk would allow him to determine where the 'bomb' was more or less right out of the gate, Hansho proposed that they all station themselves near the 'bomb' rather than spreading themselves too thin. Hansho and Hexum had rooms on the same floor, so Hansho had already made an effort to get to know his neighbor, and learned a lot about him.

Chirin used some of the invisible creatures that she summoned with her quirk to guard the 'bomb' directly, that way they wouldn't have to worry about it too much, and could focus on defeating the enemy in front of them. Hansho led the girls in stretches while they waited for the other team to reach the top floor. It took about two minutes with Hexum using his sonic quirk to find the 'bomb' as expected, and the instant the door to the room opened, it was full on battle mode.