Kenichi landed true hero style, three-point stance. His eyes darted as he stood up, moving confidently despite the fact that he had very possibly landed himself in trouble. Lysander, Sen, the two blonde girls (twintails and ahoge, he decided), and a white-haired boy he hadn't paid much attention to where all here, and he'd landed smack dab in the middle of them. Sen, especially, was bad news--but Kenichi had already filled up his air tank on the way here, and figured he could blitz the other boy before the gas mask came off. Also, as long as his allies were in the area, maybe he'd hesitate to use his Quirk so as not to catch them in it.
Ahoge was standing in front of him, in the center of this circle. Was she their tactician, then? She seemed smart--although everybody with glasses looks smart, right?
"You're surrounded. Don't move. Please, surrender, and we won't have to hurt you."
"Where would the fun in that be?" Kenichi grinned, and swept one arm around to indicate all of them. "Come on, let's see what you guys can do!" He chambered one fist at his hip and thrust the other out across his body, before bringing the arm up and over to the other side and reversing each hand's position--a classic Hero pose.
"READY!? FAI-TO!" He shouted in campy Engrish. The battle had begun! A single instant passed, and...and...annnnnnnnd...?
...Not good, not good, not good! She couldn't give him time to move, or else he'd find her out! Unless she did something fast, he'd definitely see through her trick! She wracked her brains in a single instant, and settled on the first thing she could think of. Sen had mentioned earlier that he and this boy knew each other, right? So, he'd understand what Sen's Quirk was, and considering how his own worked... She had to hope he'd panic and retreat.
"I don't want to fight you, but if you insist...!" She said, still moving her copy's lips as best she could in sync with her own, aiming to stall for time just long enough...! A crackle of lightning flashed down the farthest strands of her left braid, and her ahoge stood sharply on end, a faint pulse of unseen energy surging out of her gleaming green eyes and into the copy of Sen, which began removing its mask as she'd recorded the real Sen do about ten minutes prior. But, of course, someone with his speed wouldn't stand and just let her attack... She'd have to intercept him! Her own copy rushed forward without missing a beat as she remembered her earlier frantic dash towards the tree, then changed the memory out for a desperately thrown punch she'd launched at Haruka during one of their training sessions. Her own copy followed through with both movements, dashing headlong towards the blue-haired boy, drawing back her fist, and aiming a sharp right hook straight for his jaw.
...Yet even before she swung, she knew.
A flurry of black, raven hair dancing in the wind, gold eyes flashing as the figure she'd been swinging at seemed to vanish into thin air.A sudden burst of air that slammed outward in all directions, kicking up dust. Her copy's fist passed through empty space as the blue-haired blur darted to the side, heading, predictably, straight for Sen.
She'd been too slow. All she could do now was dismantle her illusion in the hopes of preserving the secret of her Quirk. The only option was to cut her losses and press on. So long as he didn't know the secret of her abilities, then maybe...! The glow of her eyes vanished as, just as her own attack had missed, the boy's own strike passed through nothing but empty air, and all four images of her team members disappeared into nothing. Her own copy hopped back into place in front of her, and she breathed a heavy sigh.
Kenichi landed somewhat awkwardly, as the image of Sen faded away. He looked down at his fist and pursed his lips. He hadn't felt any contact. He looked up at the girl, who was now alone and stressing out. Clearly she had some kind of illusion ability, but she had also tried to attack him--maybe it was like that teacher from before, only instead of duplicating herself she duplicated other people? Could she use the duplicates' Quirks? She had used four copies...but there were more than four people on Alpha team, so was that her limit? He shook his head; too much thinking, not enough doing!
"Why did you have to do that? Now you've gone and made things hard..." She whined. Her copy unconsciously mimed her own motions in the box as she began tugging at the ends of her hair, her antenna of hair drooping in dismay. He really was just as fast as Haruka? This was exactly what she'd been trying to avoid, so why did this person, of all people, having to be in this place, of all places?!
She had to think... There must have still been something, anything, she could do to follow through on her promise, right? She'd said she'd hold this point... She'd promised everyone and herself that she wouldn't be useless... So why?! Why couldn't she do something so simple as this?! This was what happened when she tried to act for herself... It would have been so much easier to take the path of least resistance, to just do what she was told knowing that nobody expected anything of her...
But then... If she didn't try her best... If she didn't give her all, could she really say she was living up to Haruka's dream? If this were Haruka in this situation, what would she do? Haruka always knew the right answer... So why couldn't she find it?! Why did everything have to be so hard...?!
"Hey, don't give up yet!" He called to her as he turned to face her, taking a brawler's stance. She seemed genuinely troubled, though if expulsion was on the line for this test he could understand that. But that was why he was here, wasn't it? "Makin' shadow clones is cool! Show me somethin' else!" A Quirk like that, creating something instead of enhancing an attribute, usually needed a charge up, right? So Kenichi struck another pose and extended one arm, giving her the Bruce Lee "come on!" gesture. "Aren't you the one that cheered with me? Let's Pass, right? Show me your spirit again!"
He couldn't make it too obvious that he was trying to give her a chance--she might take that as an insult, but L Guardian might also be watching from somewhere. So instead, with those lines that could just as easily be construed as a fight-happy challenge, he lunged forward. He covered the distance between them in the blink of an eye, then drew his arm back for a punch. But it was a haymaker, telegraphed from a mile away, and maybe by now between all his blustering she'd had time to come up with something.
He was coming again. Show him something new? How was she supposed to do that? Nothing she could create would have any effect! He was too fast... too strong... There was no way to win, was there? No matter what she tried to do, the difference between her power and his... it was too great! Her only advantage right now was that he didn't know how her Quirk worked... He didn't know... which meant it could have been anything, right? So long as she didn't show him the truth, so long as he thought that she was really out there fighting him in person, then she could at least hold him off!
But she couldn't get out of the box in order to create the signal, or else he'd discover her immediately... That meant she couldn't even call for help! Even if she did manage to send the signal for backup, then was there any guarantee she wouldn't be eliminated before help could arrive? Even if she'd said her goal was just to stall him... Did this mean she actually had to beat him or else risk total failure?
In the split second she was distracted, he suddenly sped across the distance between them, drawing back his fist and aiming a punch directly for the center of her copy. There was no time to dodge. If he hit, her copy would be utterly shattered by the force of the blow, and he'd realize that she wasn't really there to begin with. Reacting more on instinct than on conscious thought, she did the only thing she could: she closed her eyes. His wild swing shot forward and completely failed to connect with anything as his arm passed right through what he thought was Fumika, followed shortly by his body as her copy stepped through him. Fumika opened her eyes, projecting another self in front of him to block his view of the hole she was looking through, hoping he wouldn't catch a glimpse of the faint green glow in his peripheral vision before the image could take form.
...Or... wait... Did he realize? He still couldn't have known all the ins and outs of her Quirk. He'd asked her to show him something new, so then maybe...?
"I'm... I'm still going to pass!" She responded at last, trying her best to sound confident as she made her new clone parrot the act of speaking, as she had before.
"After all, no matter how fast you are, it doesn't matter if you can't hit me! My Quirk also lets me change places instantly with any clone I create! Even if you figure out which one's the real one, I can just escape! In fact... What makes you think you're talking to the real me right now?" Hoping to lend credence to her spur-of-the-moment deception, she focused once more on the original copy which was now behind him, which pivoted, raising its front leg to deliver a high roundhouse kick towards the side of his head. Of course, since she'd clued him in with her boasting to the fact that she was about to attack, she had no expectations that the attack would hit, but that also meant that she knew before he even did anything that he'd try to dodge and counter! If she just blinked the moment he started moving, whatever counterattack he attempted would go through her image, making it look like her Quirk really worked the way she said it did! If she could just fool him, then maybe...!
Kenichi's head whipped around when the girl in front of him implied she wasn't the one to worry about. Sure enough, her second clone threw out a kick, and the blue-hair barely had time to throw himself backward like he was playing a game of Limbo. As her kick passed over him, scraping his face just above one eye, he reached back to brace both hands on the ground and back flipped a short distance away to get out from between the two.
"Nice shot!" he said as he stood up, wiping the dust from his hands on the gym pants. "Although if it weren't for these tracksuits, it'd be nice pantsu instead, huh?" He gave her a prankster's grin.
But, being able to create duplicates and switch between them...that was a tough one, even if she couldn't match him blow for blow. He could keep going for a while, but he wasn't quite a marathon-runner yet. He would have to keep this from turning into a battle of attrition. So either figure out the real one...or take them both out at once!
"I'm guessing the phasing earlier was cause I either attacked the wrong one, or that was the moment of the switch. But you did it right before my punch, and with that Copy Sen earlier both clones moved at once when you went for an interception!" He lowered himself to the ground, again in that three point runner's stance, no doubt preparing for a charge at max speed. "So even though I'm faster, you're reading me and predicting where I'll be beforehand--trying to get into position before I've even kicked off." He grinned wolfishly. "That's great! You're either great at thinking on your feet, or you've got experience dealing with self-enhancers like me. But...that just means instead of racing you, I have to race your thoughts."
He started to suck in a deep breath, the vacuum whirring to life. This might be an excellent chance to attack, during his "charge up" sequence, but what if he saw that the wind wouldn't move her copies' hair or clothing? For someone with such long hair that'd be noticeable unless they were completely blind, and then he'd figure her out! And...racing her thoughts? The electrical impulses in the human brain did move at measurable speeds...could he really be
that fast?
It was fortunate for Fumika that, once created, her copies retained the physical properties of the original. Her images' hair was just as loose and free to move as her own was, even without her willing it to move in a specific way. When the shockwave was created, thus, there was no indicator of which one was real or not. However, this was as far as her luck went.
Kenichi finished his breathing, closing his mouth and drawing his head back--then instead of actually kicking off, he exhaled. It was loud, louder than his sneeze in the classroom, and aimed at the ground in front of him. It kicked up a dust cloud headed towards the two clones, loose dirt turning everything different shades of brown. But he hadn't blown hard enough to knock them over, or shoot any rocks or debris at them, so why--
He burst through the cloud from a completely different direction than the one she'd seen him in last, and while it wasn't literal thought-speed he was going
fast. With the clones still relatively close together, he had shot at them in a straight line, but both hands were extended. It wasn't a punch, but a grab--he was going to try and snatch each one of them by the arm as he shot through!
Whichever one is still in my grip after I shoot out the other side of the cloud is the real one! thought Kenichi.
Since she could no longer see anything except the vague outlines of her copies in the rapidly approaching dust cloud, she had no idea which direction the boy would attack from, or when he'd make his move. He'd correctly guessed that she wasn't reacting to his attacks, but rather was predicting when he'd swing and "dodging" accordingly. With no way to do that, once again her only option was to dismantle her copies, wait for the smoke to clear, and then create more. But this time, she hadn't thought quite fast enough. With his increased speed, he slammed into both her copies just as she gave the order to disintegrate them... which meant that he managed to catch hold of
both of them, and then they both disintegrated in his hands, breaking apart into faintly glowing "dust."
Speaking of dust, though, there was another factor she hadn't accounted for. The cloud was now washing directly over her hiding spot, forcing her to draw back from the hole and rub at her eyes to clear them. She found her breath momentarily choked by bits of dirt and debris, and then, she did the worst possible thing.
Without a single copy to mask her real location, she coughed, the sound echoing in the small storage crate.
In that moment, all her hopes fell.
She'd failed. He knew where she really was, and how her Quirk really worked.
There was no chance of winning anymore, or even of stalling him. She might as well have just given up. And yet, she couldn't bring herself to do so. Even knowing there was no chance of winning, still half-blinded by the dust, she did the only thing she could do.
She jumped to her feet, and charged straight into the unlatched back of the crate, swinging it open as she rushed out. She gave a wordless yell of desperation, leaping at her enemy from behind. She'd seen the stance he took when about to move - his Quirk could only boost his speed if he was allowed to properly balance himself out and work up to a sprint! If she could just knock him off his feet before he could accelerate, maybe she'd have a chance to keep him from dodging! Above all else... even if she was going to lose... Couldn't she at least hit him once?!
"Gotcha!" Kenichi shouted as he felt contact--with
both hands? He exited the dust cloud with a trail of what seemed like glitter falling from his hands, and looked down at his palms in confusion. They were both clones? Had the real one predicted him again, made a new copy and hidden? Or had they both been fake from the start? How far could she actually get from her copies?
Someone coughed inside that metal crate. Kenichi's brain was still racing, and his reaction to the sound was slow. He was turning as Fumika burst out, and because of that exhalation and that burst of speed his breathing was slightly off, his speed lowered for just long enough. Her seemingly delicate fist slammed into his jaw with a distinctive half-slap half-thud, knocking him two steps backwards as his brain rattled in its pan.
Then he steadied himself and looked up, blood trickling down his chin from a split lip. Once again that canine smile flashed.
"Yeah, bring it!" He stepped forward and brought his own fist to bear, a mix between a low uppercut and a body hook. But despite now going for a all-in brawl, Kenichi wasn't letting himself loose just yet. He had to hold back a bit to make sure he didn't severely hurt her, but if he could knock the breath out of her she'd go down for a little while. Hitting her in the face would risk breaking her glasses and cutting or blinding her, and he didn't want to try grappling her and accidentally break or dislocate something.
Despite his advantages, however, Fumika still had a chance--Kenichi wasn't a martial artist, he relied solely on instinct and natural strength. He punched when it made sense to punch and ducked when it made sense to duck--and he had a good "sense"--but there wasn't any real technique there and despite moving so fast when he fought it looked like he planted his feet, instead of bouncing like a boxer or Bruce Lee. Could she outwit him? Was she the better technical fighter, good enough to overcome raw power?
As she'd thought. Although his top speed might have been as fast as Haruka, unlike her, he couldn't accelerate instantly to his full velocity. Even if it only took him about a second to accelerate, he needed to balance himself very carefully first, instead of just leaping straight at her. That meant... That meant she had a decisive "tell" of when exactly he used his powers!
The green glow surrounding her eyes - something which all of her copies had very distinctly lacked, as she'd seen no need to replicate the tells of her own Quirk when she was specifically trying to mislead him - had since faded to a dull static hue as her powers went unused. The bar around her head had already faded almost a fourth of the way, however... She needed to find some way to end this before she drained herself completely. Even so, she knew one of his limits. She'd hit him once. She could do it again.
"Bring it." With those self-assured words, the blue-haired boy lunged at her again, but, with little distance between them, he couldn't make much use of his speed. She didn't like the way he spoke... It was as if, like herself, he realized he'd already won. So he knew she was useless in a fight, too... She could feel something burning in her chest. Something that she hadn't felt before, in as long as she remembered. This sensation didn't tell her how, or even why. But all she knew was that, for the first time since her arrival at Komei, she wanted something.
She wanted to
win.There wasn't time to think about it. She had to act. His violent blow whipped towards her gut from the side, and she could feel the air whistling around it. She definitely didn't want to be there when that landed. Her eyes flashed, and right in front of her, another one of herself took form, arms crossed over her body in a "blocking" stance, and feet firmly planted. It wouldn't be enough, of course. One punch like that, and her projection would shatter like glass. But, if it could just take the hit and then break harmlessly apart, his momentum would be spent! At the same moment, she shifted her weight onto her left foot, turning out of the way of his punch as she did so, then drawing back her right foot and bringing it up in a spinning kick straight for his gut, aiming to pass clear through the disintegrating copy right as his punch landed, arc under his upraised arm, and hit him dead on. Of the two of them, she was taller, and her legs were a lot longer than his arms could reach. Even if she didn't have any formal training, seeing Haruka use this exact same strategy against her had shown her its effectiveness. If she could just keep him at a short distance away from her, she could turn his attacks aside and counterattack from out of his range!
Kenichi's fist turned the newly made clone into another shimmering cloud, and he blinked reflexively even though the glittering dust didn't have a physical form to blind him. Fumika's kick hit him hard in the abdomen, and one of his feet slid backward just a few inches. He couldn't let her hammer his body--one good shot to the diaphragm and he wouldn't be able to control his Quirk! But he'd grown up knowing that, had flexed his core to harden muscles, and managed to power through her kick with a grunt.
Gotta press in, stop these kicks! And if I'm close enough the copies can't get between us!As her foot withdrew he stepped in, risking a fast left jab at her face--it might bloody her nose but hopefully wouldn't break the glasses. She might even dodge or block it, but the follow-up was what was important--another low right hook at her ribs. In between the blows he inhaled through his nose, whistling like a tea-kettle...
Overbalanced by her initial strike, Fumika stepped back, trying to regain her footing. Unfortunately, although she'd been able to copy Haruka's technique, she wasn't nearly as skilled with it, and nearly toppled herself just by landing her kick. Consequently, she hardly had so much as a second before her enemy, infinitely more used to taking hits than she herself was, lunged in with a one-two punch combo. Panicking, Fumika ducked, and the first blow went high, barely missing her head. However, stuck in a low crouch, there was no way for her to escape the second blow, and there wasn't enough space to project anything to stop it. With only one option left to her, she forced herself upward as fast as she could. If she could just tackle him before he could fully extend his arm, she could get in too close for him to hit her with any significant force! She leaped to her feet, and-
The air parted as his fist slammed headlong into her gut, far faster and harder than she'd expected. Still mid-leap, Fumika was picked bodily up off the ground and sent flying several feet backwards, her breath choking in her throat as the wind was forcibly pushed out of her lungs. She slammed down into the ground hard, rolling once, then twice, and then skidding to a stop. She uttered a quiet groan as she forced herself up on all fours, waves of pain radiating outward from her stomach and into her every extremity. In a daze, she looked around, but everything suddenly seemed blurred. Her glasses... They must have fallen off when she'd hit the ground. There was no time to look for them. Her dimming eyes flashed again, and a new pair appeared already on her face as she staggered to her feet, coughing several times as she tried to get the dust she'd unconsciously inhaled out of her throat.
No time... There was no time... He'd gotten a distance between them again! He could accelerate at will, and finish her off while her head was still spinning! She had to move, had to get away. He was going to hit her again, so she needed to run! Get some distance, escape, catch her breath, find something, anything! What could she even do against a power like that?! There had to be something she'd forgotten, something she was still missing! It hurt. She was scared. Why was she still fighting?! Why was she putting herself through this, even knowing it was hopeless?
Why was it that no matter how much it hurt, it still wasn't as painful as losing?
As she struggled to get her bearings back, her blurry vision could only make out the dark silhouette of her opponent even with the copy glasses. He started to crouch again, his breaths getting deeper...
Then he stood up and brushed something off against his gym jacket, before walking back towards her. As her senses finally came back into focus, Kenichi handed her the glasses she'd dropped.
"They're not broken, I don't think." He actually looked kind of worried. "You alright? I didn't wanna break bones or nothin', but when you run into it like that it's hard to pull back. Still though..." He shook his head with the kind of sigh someone makes when they can't believe what they've seen.
"Goddamn. I might be a bigger musclehead, but when it comes to a Hero's Courage you've got me beat!" He crossed his arms, standing Gunbuster style again, and smiled at her--not the big goofy grin, or the beastly one that made him frightening, but just a genuine smile. "Awesome job, Ahoge-chan! If you still wanna go, feel free to come at me!"
What even was this? She was wide open. He easily could have landed another hit then and there, and she'd have been down for the count. And yet, he was just stopping to chat? She'd known he wasn't taking her seriously, but this... It was obvious. He knew that he didn't need to rush to beat her, because he could do it at any time. It wasn't just that she wasn't a threat, but rather... she wasn't even on his radar!
"Come on, Fumi, are you even trying?"She reached out, snatching up her glasses even as the fakes she'd hastily created disappeared and sliding them back into place. He was right in his analysis of her, of course. There wasn't any way she could win. She wasn't as fast, wasn't as strong... the fact that she'd even hit him at all... what could she call that but a fluke?
"Give it your all! If you don't come at me with everything you've got, then you're letting yourself down!"He was right, so why... why did that make her feel so... so...!? She bit down hard on her lip, the breaths she'd struggled for a moment prior growing quicker as her eyes flashed, the green light within them shifting to crimson and sparking back to life with redoubled brilliance.
"I told them..." The rope of the crane, swaying in the wind. A particularly large crate standing up-ended off to one side of the large courtyard. A large wooden pallet, propped against a half-constructed wall. A set of steel support beams, lying scattered at the foot of the large crane. The red bar around her head faded a little further as her eyes darted back and forth, then shifted back to burning green.
"I told them I'd stay here. I told them they could count on me..." She tugged on her hair much more violently this time, unable so much as to stop her legs from shaking as she spoke.
"I was wrong... I was completely wrong... I even lied about my Quirk, because I knew that otherwise, I didn't have a chance..." Her hands clenched into fists, nearly ripping her hair from her scalp before she froze, slowly releasing her grip.
"I hate lying, but I lied to everyone. I hate not knowing what to do, but I chose anyway, knowing I was wrong..." The way she spoke, she sounded as if she was on the verge of tears, and yet, more than anything, she seemed... angry? No, it was more like she was furious at this point...!
Kenichi took a step back unconsciously; oh geez, he'd made her cry! He didn't mean to hit her that hard...or was it something he'd said or done? His brow furrowed with concern as he let his arms drop to his sides and listened to her. Lying? Wrong choices? He didn't really know this girl or her story, but he was starting to feel like he had done something wrong without knowing what, something that had inadvertently hurt her...
"But I still... I'm still going to pass..." She repeated her earlier "boast," rubbing her eyes with her sleeve. Whatever tears she might have shed were gone now, replaced by a glare of burning determination.
"I'll beat you here, and pass!" With these words, the pain in her stomach seemed to fade, replaced by a burning fire in her chest. Her Quirk wasn't useful in a fight. She herself wasn't super fast, or super strong, or anything of the sort. Her only advantage was the ability to use others' power to cover for her own weakness. And yet, if she did that here... What would be the point?! She wasn't here to watch other heroes in action, but rather... She raised a single fist and pointed to the sky, a pose no-doubt familiar to the boy who had just done the same in his speech earlier that day.
"A fake won't beat you. Nobody else's power is going to win this fight. The only one who's going to defeat you... is me!"Kenichi looked at her seriously. He wasn't trying to give her a mean glare, or a dumb grin of encouragement. He decided that maybe all the things he'd said that he thought were encouraging, maybe she took them another way. Maybe by giving her time to show off her Quirk, by holding back, he'd done something to insult her. Maybe she thought he was looking down on her. He wanted to tell her that he thought her power was really cool, that just cause she wasn't some brute like him that didn't mean she didn't belong here. He wanted to tell her that there was no need to feel so badly about things even if she lost; they weren't supposed to be fighting for their lives, here. But he didn't say any of that, because this girl was serious, and she had something that she needed to prove to herself.
So he looked at her seriously, took a brawler's stance with fists raised. He sucked air through his nose with that high pitched whistling, like a small-scale jet engine revving up. His skin flushed, red veins standing out against pink muscle. When he spoke, his voice wasn't as loud and energetic as before.
"Okay. Let's give it our all!"
Logically speaking, she had no chance. Without copying the powers of others and hiding behind them, all she had to rely on was her own memories the objects at her disposal. But she still wanted to win. So it was that at some point, Fumika lost sight of her original objective, replaced by one singular goal.
She would win this fight, and she'd win it with her own power.
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