Chapter 52: CHAPTER 051(Round 1-Second Half)

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CHAPTER START---

Sitting in the waiting room, Iida anxiously taps his foot, looking at the screen in the corner of the room.

"As expected from Bakugo," Iida says as he sees his classmate immediately blast Awase out of the arena, putting a quick end to their lackluster match. "I just hope I don't disappoint Tensei," he says while getting up and walking outside.

Thoughts dwelling on his brother, the number 19 Pro Hero Ingenium. He is fighting to live up to the hero his brother is, the hero his brother believes he will become.

He walks past Bakugo, paying no mind to the focused look on Bakugo's face as they pass each other in the tunnel to the arena. Standing at the edge of the doorway he takes a breath to calm himself, listing to the crowd cheering as Present Mid announces Kirishima.

And a moment later he is called to the arena, quickly walking onto the stage to stand opposite Kirishima, a friendly smile on the boy's faces as Iida just gives a small smile and a curt nod.

"BEGIN!" Midnight announces.

Iida immediately hops backward, putting nearly a dozen meters between him and Kirishima.

Kirishima just barely missed as he had lunged forward to grab Iida, not wanting him to get any distance to reach higher speeds.

Iida bursts into a sprint, the cheering crowd blocked out, only seeing himself and his opponent, another step toward the hero Ingenium, toward his brother.

The Engines in his calves kick into second gear, unable to reach 3rd gear without a full 30 meters. But it's enough, Kirishima can't react in time as Iida rushes past him and pivots, grabbing his shoulder and arm, feeling his skin like a rock beneath his fingers as he twists his body to throw Kirishima out of the arena.

CRACK!

"Huh?!" Iida feels Kirishima become entirely immovable, just barely turning to see a hardened fist flying toward his face.

"Ach!" Iida winces as he leaps back, putting 10 meters between them and softening the impact of Kirishima's punch, a massive gash spanning his entire cheek and leaving a bruise on his face.

"Kirishima anchored himself to the ring!" Present Mic announces as everyone notices one of his feet hardened and ankle-deep in the cement stage. "A genius move, who would have even thought of that!"

Iida relaxes slightly and evaluates the situation, knowing that attacking Kirishima head-on would likely hurt him more than his opponent, instead taking the time to breathe and let his engines cool down a bit.

"So you were paying attention earlier as well..." Iida says, baiting Kirishima into a conversation. The mics focused on the arena transmitting their voices to the stands and everyone watching at home.

"Yup!" Kirishima gives a dazzling smile. "I may not like the way he says things, but Horizon is a genius at pretty much everything, especially Quirks and fighting, so when he talks, I listen...and that includes earlier when he used me as an example of how to deal with people that want to knock us out of the ring...guess I got lucky huh," Kirishima chuckles, not at all ashamed to admit that this wasn't his strategy.

"I see, and I entirely agree with that sentiment," Iida says, backing up slightly and shifting down into a runner's stance, looking up and narrowing his eyes at Kirishima. "But as I recall, he said your strategy won't work if I can simply rip you out of the ground with pure power...right?"

Kirishima smiles, excited to test himself against Iida, hardening his fist and clanging them together, "bring it!"

"RECIPRO....BURST!" Blue flames burst out of Iida's exhausts on both legs, all twelve ports drawing the eyes of everyone as for the first time he shows off his Super Move, something developed for this tournament, to show his brother how far he's come on the path to being a hero.

The cement beneath Iida's feet cracks as he rockets forward, most of the crowd and even the Pro Heroes can barely recognize him as a blur, Kirishima premptively hardens as much of his body as he can, crossing his arms in front of his chest and bracing himself.

As Iida is about to make contact he finishes his charge with a leap, raising both his feet up to dropkick Kirishima directly against his arms.

"OVER TORQUE!" Iida screams as he draws out all the power he can from his engine.

The hardening on Kirishima's forearms is shattered as the cement around his foot is ripped apart.

He rockets out of the arena and slams into the far wall as Iida drops to his feet, taking deep breaths as his engines sputter out.

The entire arena is silent as most of the people try to understand what they just saw, or more likely, what they didn't see.

One moment Iida says Recipro Burst, and the next, the match was over...

"Iida wins!" Midnight announces, and the crowd takes that as the queue to go wild. Midnight looks over to Kirishima as he gets to his feet, the skin on his forearms missing along with a massive chunk of the reinforced wall missing where he hit, blood dripping to the grass at his feet. "Kirishima?"

"I'm ok!" He gladly announces, wincing in pain slightly as he raises his hand to give Iida a thumbs up, "that was awesome man! You've been holding out on us!"

Iida gives him a thumbs up and a smile, "you certainly were a worthy opponent!"

Even if he didn't win, many Pros in the stands make not of Eijiro Kirishima's manly spirit and tough Quirk, contributing greatly to the internship offers he would inevitably receive.

While Cementoss began working to fix the stage Iida and Kirishima made their exit, Iida only shared a polite nod with Uraraka as he returned to his locker room to make his way back to his class in the stands.

Normally he would have wished her good luck, but with how anxious and focused she was he didn't want to distract her in even the smallest way, and he can't blame her one bit for how she felt.

Everyone was listening in earlier when Horizon spoke about this matchup, Tokoyami is an intimidating foe...and Horizon says in this environment she can't win, Iida only hopes she will be able to find a path to victory that none of them have been able to see.

Iida makes it back to the locker room and takes out his phone, deciding to use the TV in the room to not miss any of the match that he surely wouldn't have seen walking back to the stands.

Dialing his brother's number he lifts the phone to his ear as the match begins, seeing Tokoyami give a polite bow to the girl as Midnight begins the match.

His brother's voice greets him, "you've reached Tensei Iida, sorry I can't come to the phone right now as I'm currently busy, but if you leave a voicema---" Iida hangs up.

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And at the same time Midnight calls the match "Tokoyami wins!"

Tokoyami bows politely as they both exit the arena, Uraraks looking thoroughly defeated even if she didn't take any direct hits.

Dark Shadow simply grappled her and lifted her off the ground to remove her leverage, tossed her out of the ring, defeated by ring-out.

"So quickly," Iida mutters, if he had decided to walk to the stands then he would have surely missed the entire match.

A moment later Momo enters the waiting room, looking nervous, caught off-guard by him still being there.

"Sorry, I'll leave you to prepare," he gives her a polite nod which she stiffly returns and exits the room.

Moments later Momo is walking out of the tunnel and up the stair to the ring.

"From class 1A, Momo Yaoyorozu!" the crowd goes wild as Momo gives a polite wave. "And her opponent, from class 1B, Juzo Honenuki!" Midnight gestures to the lanky ash blonde spiky-haired boy. Only an inch taller than Momo with large eyes and pale skin, his mouth lacking lips, exposing his blocky teeth entirely for everyone to see, much like Ectoplasm.

Both combatants give each other a polite yet serious nod before the match begins.

'I'll have to act first since I don't know his Quirk, I need defense and offense...maybe if I can knock him out I can win, otherwise, I'd likely have to---'

"BEGIN!" Midnight interrupts her thoughts.

Momo immediately creates a sword in her left hand and a metal shield on her left, rushing forward.

Juzo drops to the floor before she can even take a second step and slams both palms onto the ground.

The entire arena suddenly becomes soft causing both of them to sink into it. Momo sinks up to her neck in barely four seconds while Juzo only sinks to his knees, beads of sweat running down his face as he tries to catch his breath.

His control was still not perfect, otherwise, he could have simply used his Quirk to soften the cement under her feet alone, but because he wanted to make the ground as close to water to sink her as quickly as possible, he lost a bit of control with the affected area.

His Quirk, Softening, it allows him to make any inorganic material into soft mud, the viscosity of the mud is controlled by him of course, but he still hasn't fully mastered his Quirk yet.

The ground immediately hardens around Momo as Juzo steps out of it.

"Momo, can you move?" Midnight asks, seeing only the girl's head sticking out of the flow.

Momo scrunched up her face and shakes her head, unable to bring herself to say the words.

Midnight nods in sympathy, "Juzo wins!"

"Another near instant victory!" Mic announces as Cementoss fixes the stage and frees Momo. "As expected from one of our recommended students folks, don't let class 1As fame distract you from the talent of class 1B! We'll be back with the second round after a ten-minute snack break!"

Those words reach Momo's ears as she walks back to the locker room, and the moment she's alone the dam breaks.

Tears begin flowing freely down her cheeks as she sits on a bench in the locker room, quietly sobbing.

The mounting pressure being too much for her to take, now feeling as if the teachers agreed, that they saw her as so unworthy of being a Recommended Student that they simply forgot she was.

'How can I even blame them, of course, they think I'm unworthy...I'm so useless...I can't do anything right!' she berates herself, tears flowing more and more as the volume of her cries increases.

More thoughts constantly comparing herself to the other Recommended Students, to the other students in general, to HIM of all people.

And what feels like a moment later, he walks in, heading to his match with Shinso.

Horizon enters the room and quietly closes the door behind him, confidently walking toward the other door to enter the arena.

Momo stares at him, trying and failing to stop the tears, stifling her sobs, wanting nothing more than him, the person in UA she admires the most, her gold standard for being confident and capable, the person that has so quickly become somewhat of a hero to her, to reach out and extend a hand to her.

To lift her up, like any hero would when they see someone in need.

But instead, he walks right past her, not even sparing her a glance as he speaks, "don't cry about your problems, just work to fix them, get better so you don't repeat them...this is so fucking pathetic..."

Those words were all he needed to tell himself to pull himself together after losing his parents, but here, it only made Momo burst into loud sobs.

Being called pathetic by him of all people, it was more than her heart could take at the moment, even if later she would better understand what he really meant.

Her sobs continued even as Jiro entered to comfort her, and even as Mic announced the next match.

Horizon VS Hitoshi Shinso, Round 2 of the matches, the quarter-finals begins...

END CHAPTER---

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I really hope by now ya'll weren't expecting him to be nice just because its Momo.

Bakugo>Iida>Tokoyami, these are my personal fave 1A characters, finally got to give Iida some spotlight, made me really happy :)

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