Idol Hero | BNHA

Chapter 41

"Team Hiromi and Kirishima. Practical exam. Ready? Go!"

Kirishima and Noriko entered the arena and began running down the main street. As they were going first, they weren't given much time to come up with a plan. Noriko had spent the bus ride trying to think of how her quirk could fight against cement, but nothing was really coming to mind. Nothing that could let them beat Cementoss at least.

"So what do you think? We'll definitely get a higher score for fighting than running." Kirishima said as they jogged down the street.

Noriko narrowed her eyes, she could see Cementoss down the street and slowed her pace a bit, "I'm not too sure about that. Neither of our quirks are a good match for his. Ice can't do much against cement, not before I start freezing. And you'll run out of energy just trying to fight him head on too. Even if fighting will get us a higher score, it won't matter if we don't even pass."

"That makes sense," Kirishima muttered as they slowed to a walk. "So then what do we do?"

"If we're gonna fight, we don't want to do it on his terms. But I don't think there's a good chance of us winning if we fight. Even if we try to attack him from behind, all he needs to do is have space to put up one wall and then they will keep coming until we run out of stamina." Noriko explained. "Cementoss won't let us get anywhere near him, so our best bet is to go around him to the exit."

"So we can take the alleyways," Kirishima suggested, but he looked slightly unsure. "Although we don't know the layout so we could get lost."

"Then we'll get onto the rooftops," Noriko said as she led them down an alleyway so they were out of Cemetoss's view. Then she instructed Kirishima to stand next to her as she made a pillar of ice beneath them that rose until they made it to the top. The two stepped onto the building and the pillar of ice slowly began to melt as they made their way across the building top. Noriko made small ice bridges to get them from one building to another.

As they made it closer to Cementoss, Noriko peeked over the side of the building they were on to see Cementoss looking around.

"It looks like he noticed we're not coming back out of that alley," Kirishima pointed out.

Noriko nodded, "Yeah, let's keep moving behind he decides to block the exit."

"Good idea," Kirishima agreed.

The two moved away from the edge of the building and kept going from building to building. When they made it to the building closest to the exit, Noriko began to make a pillar of ice to take them off the building as Kirishima glanced over the side of the building.

"Uh, hey, Hiromi," Kirishima started uneasily. Noriko paused what she was doing and looked over at him. "I think we have a problem."

"What?" Noriko questioned, moving to stand beside him. Noriko saw what he was looking at and dread filled her. "Crap. We need to go. Now."

Cementoss had begun making his way to the exit and was incredibly close. Even if they made it down within a few seconds, he'd still be able to stop them.

"What are we supposed to do?" Kirishima asked with a worried look on his face.

Noriko grit her teeth, "I don't know. But we may have to fight him. I could make a few ice birds or something to try to distract him. If he makes walls between us and the exit, you can break through them."

"So we're still going to the exit?" Kirishima questioned as they stepped onto Noriko's ice pillar and it took them to the ground.

"Yeah," Noriko answered as she looked around the corner of the alleyway and to where Cementoss was making his way toward the exit. "He's heading toward us. He'll see us the second we step out and probably make a wall between us and the exit. So we just need to go."

"I'll break any walls in our way, just stay close to me so one doesn't pop up between us," Kirishima said. Noriko nodded and the two glanced at each other before running out of the alleyway toward the exit.

Noriko made an ice dragon that flew toward Cementoss as he put his hands on the ground and made a wall between him and the dragon. The ice dragon shattered before a wall appeared in front of Noriko and Kirishima. Kirishima used his quirk on his arms before busting a hole in the wall big enough for him and Noriko to get through. Noriko's heart raced as she created a few more flying ice creatures to try to send them at Cementoss to make things easier for them, but she wasn't sure it if was working.

Kirishima destroyed a few more walls before a buzzer went off. Noriko felt a sense of relief wash over her as a voice announced, "Team Hiromi and Kirishima have passed the practical exam."

"We did it!" Kirishima cheered, lifting his arms in the air.

Noriko smiled and high five Kirishima, "I got worried at the end, but we did it. We passed!"

"You two did well," Cementoss said as he walked up to Noriko and Kirishima. "I was expecting you to fight me directly, but I guess I underestimated you. Congratulations on passing."

* * *

When Noriko and Kirishima made it to the monitor room, they were congratulated by Midoriya and Uraraka, who were watching Tokoyami and Tsu's final on the screens. Noriko watched as Tsu and Tokoyami were able to get the handcuffs on Ectoplasm's leg before Iida and Ojiro started their exam.

Noriko stayed in the monitor room as a few of her classmates filtered in and out. She watched as Yaoyorozu and Todoroki were able to capture Aizawa and Uraraka and Aoyama seemed to get lucky with their win. Then Kaminari and Mina failed due to Nezu trapping them in the rubble of buildings. That devastating loss was followed by Koda and Jiro beating Present Mic by making bugs crawl up his legs. 

Then, after Shoji and Higakure managed to get past Snipe and Sero and Mineta just barely escaped Midnight, it was time for Bakugo and Midoriya's fight against All Might. Everyone in the monitor room knew just how badly the two boys interacted with each other. And Noriko wasn't surprised when their inability to communicate ended in their first interaction with All Might being a disaster. But she was impressed when the two of them seemed to get it together and were able to work together enough for Midoriya to carry Bakugo through the exit. And as he did that a voice announced, "Team Midoriya and Bakugo have passed the exam. All matches for the practical portion of Class 1-A's finals are now complete."

-Author Note-

I do not like this chapter. I don't like how I did Noriko's final. I couldn't figure out any other way to do it, but I don't like it. And then I needed to fill the chapter to make it not incredibly short and that's why there's a few paragraphs running through everyone else's finals. I didn't know what to do with that and I probably could've done it better, but I wanted something there that wasn't too long so this is what you get. Hopefully, things will be easier for me to write from here on out because this chapter took me forever to write simply because I knew it'd be bad. And I was right, but at least it's done.

Also, I wanted to let you all know that this story may switch to bi-weekly updates starting now. This is likely happen because writing this story has still been a bit slow, but we'll see. Obviously you guys will know if it switches to bi-weekly if there's an update or not next week. But I just wanted to let you know what's going on with that before I skip a week of updates.

But either way, hopefully things get better from now until the end of the story writing wise, which is approaching. So I hope you have a good day and prepare for whatever mess comes with the training camp arc.

-Starlight