15 Battle Training (3/3)

"The MVP in this battle was Iida!" All Might announced to Iida's shock.

Tsuyu put a finger to her lips, wondering, "Not Ochaco or Midoriya? Even though the Hero team won?"

All Might grinned before asking challengingly, "I wonder why? Does anyone know?"

Both Momo and I raised our hands at the same time, "I do, All-Might sensei."

We looked at each other in surprise before I put my hand down, "Ah, pardon me. Go ahead, Momo."

She gave a grateful smile and continued, "It's because Iida was the most able to adapt to the scenario. As Yasuo had pointed out as well, Bakugo was clearly motivated by an obvious personal grudge which clouded his judgement and led to him using a very destructive attack indoors. Not only did he fail to communicate with Iida, Bakugo also ignored the Villain team's objectives which ultimately led to the Hero team securing the nuclear weapon."

"Midoriya was similarly too focused on clashing Bakugo and as All Might-sensei said, destroying the building was a foolish move. Whereas Uraraka lost focus halfway through, treating this as a game rather than a realistic battle simulation like it was supposed to be. Plus, her final attack was far too haphazard. Had the nuclear weapon be real, such an attack would have been unthinkable."

"On the other hand, Iida was actually able to plan for countermeasures ahead of time, making full use of the 5 minutes of preparation time the Villain team was granted. He was only too late in reacting in the end. The Hero team only won because this was a training exercise with very exploitable constraints." She concluded, to which the rest of the class could only look in silent admiration.

All Might shakily gave a thumbs up. Looks like he was also impressed with her reasoning. "I'd add that Iida was also a little too stiff, but yes… you're correct!"

Momo put her hands on her hips and huffed, "We've got to start from the bottom and work our way up! If we don't earnestly cheer each other on and help each other to grow, we'll never be top heroes!"

I quirked my brows. What she said made sense, but the way she put it also made her come across just slightly haughty… And from how the others reacted, I could tell I wasn't the only one who had that thought.

She nudged me with her elbow, "Anything else to add, Yasuo?"

I cleared my throat and added, "Well, just a point for Iida to consider; when Uraraka found him and the nuclear weapon, instead of remaining static and waiting for the Heroes to act, with his superior speed he could have also moved the nuclear weapon away to another part of the building. And if the heroes found him again, he could've repeated it. Kind of like a kiting strategy. Keeping an enemy chasing you and wasting their time. Remaining static goes against the strength of his quirk, after all."

Iida looked like he took my suggestion in stride, "So I could've done that as well. Mm, thank you for your feedback, Momo and Yasuo."

Seeing that no one else had anything to add, All Might moved on, pulling out the next set of balls that would determine which teams would battle each other.

"Next up, we have… Team B will be the Heroes, Team I will be the Villains!"

I eyed the competing pairs. Mezo's quirk and physique was ideal for close quarters combat, whereas Todoroki was good at mid-long range. On the other team, Toru would be effective only if she managed to sneak up on the two. Which would be unlikely unless Todoroki and Mezo got really careless.

Mashirao had on a martial artist's gi, which might indicate his proficiency in hand to hand to tail combat. Whether or not he could match Mezo and Todoroki, however, remains to be seen. If there were no surprises, Team B would likely cinch the win this time.

Their battle commenced, and true to my prediction, Team B won. Todoroki surprised all of us when he managed to freeze the entire building, leaving with able to saunter into the building and securing the nuclear weapon with ease. He did seem a tad bit too overconfident, though with his powerful quirk and mastery over it, his attitude did not seem misplaced. He was even recognized as the MVP as well.

Right after them, however, was my turn. All Might drew Team C and team G – it was Momo and I as the Villains, while Denki and Kyoka were the Heroes.

Momo and I were sent in to the building first, given 5 minutes to plan our defense before Denki and Kyoka would attempt to infiltrate.

(General POV)

Kyoka plugged her earphone jack into the wall and closed her eyes to listen intently. She channelled the sound of her heartbeat into wall which allowed her to hear minuscule sounds and vibrations from her surroundings.

After a few moments, she took it out with a strange expression, "I… can't hear anything."

Denki looked confused, "Huh? What does that mean?"

She shook her head, "I'm not sure. I should be able to hear them if they were moving around or even if any part of their bodies is touching the ground. If I can't hear anything, that it either means they are not in the building…"

"Or they're not touching the ground?" Denki concluded.

Kyoka nodded, "That guy Yasuo can fly. If Momo is not touching the ground as well, then it could be that Yasuo is using his quirk to levitate Momo. She must have told him about my quirk…"

"That means we're going in blind… Hah, just our luck to have draw Yasuo as our opponents. With his quirk, he could just launch projectiles at us Momo creates for him. How are we supposed to do this?" Denki dejectedly remarked.

However, Kyoka had not lost hope yet, "Don't give up yet. In my costume request, I asked for a way to focus my sound in one direction. My earphone jacks can amplify my heartbeat to explosive levels. With my boots, I can blast them with it if we can catch them off guard."

Seeing her still holding on hope, Denki figured that he could not just give up right now, otherwise he would look totally lame in front of her.

"Alright then, let's go!"

The two of them snuck in through a window, cautious looking around to spot any traps or signs of their enemies. Before they proceeded, however, Kyoka plugged her earphone jack into the wall again.

But after a few moments, she plugged it out and shook her head, "Still nothing."

Denki gave her a comforting smile, remembering All Might's words about how smiling would ease other heroes' pressure and trick the fear within him, "It's alright, we can do this!"

Kyoka smiled back, surprised that the boy could be so cheerful after his previously glum expression.

"Momo has the Creation quirk. Assuming they know about your Electrification quirk as well, she would undoubtedly have created insulating materials to protect them. But that won't be effective against explosive soundwaves, so let me take the lead."

They continued through the first floor of the building with Kyoka taking the lead, occasionally plugging in her earphone jack into the wall to see if she could catch a sound, But they found nothing and had no choice but to proceed upwards.

Like this, they went all the way up to the fifth floor and after searching through every other room in the building, they encountered what had to be the only room left that held their objectives and enemies.

They turned to each other and nodded, indicating their readiness.

Kyoka plugged in her earphone jack in to the specially made stereo boots and channelled her heartbeat into it. The boots amplified her heartbeat and she fired off large soundwaves to blast down the door.

CRASH! The door was blown off its hinges. Immediately after, Kyoka hid behind the wall and Denki slipped in through the dust. As he was about to unleash his super move, Indiscriminate Shock 1.3 Million Volts to shock everyone in the room, however, he noticed something peculiar.

"…There's no one here?"

Kyoka stepped in, and her eyes widened. The room was completely empty, devoid of the nuclear weapon nor the villains.

"What in the world…?"

After a few more minutes of frantic searching, the game finally ended when All Might called the victory for the Villain team.

Kyoka and Denki came out of the building in disbelief having not been able to find a single trace of the villains. Were they in the wrong building the entire time? What the hell just happened?

Their questions were answered when a shadow appeared from above them. Floating down with the nuclear weapon and Momo Yaoyorozu was Yasuo who had Psychokinetically levitated them down.

"Where the hell were you guys!?" Denki demanded, but confused beyond all measure.

Momo and Yasuo exchanged a sly smile and pointed up in the air, "The only place you didn't look – the roof."

As Denki still looked bewildered, Kyoka figured out what they had missed, "You went up to the roof from the very moment the game began, right? And then Yasuo kept the both of you as well as the nuclear weapon floating in mid-air so I couldn't find you with my quirk."

Yasuo grinned, "Yep. It was all Momo's plan."

Momo nodded, "That's right. I noticed that there wasn't any way to access the roof from the top floor, so I suggested to Yasuo that he could just move us to the roof top and wait it out while the two of you frantically tried to find us. He called it a kiting strategy, right?"

"I initially wanted Momo to just cover us with insulation material and let me blast with you Psychokinetic energy. But why fight when we could just run out the clock, she said." Yasuo explained.

Denki and Kyoka dejectedly looked at each other and sighed, "You got us."

Truth be told, if Yasuo had wanted to, he could have ended the battle from the very second it started. Using his Psychic Sense, he could have found Kyoka and Denki's location and then knock them unconscious with his Phantom Hands.

However, he didn't want to overshadow Momo's contribution to the team. He wanted her to like him after all, and a proud person like her would have been miffed if he took all the credit. Furthermore, he wanted to hide his Psychic Sense ability for now as well.

Additionally, while Yasuo truly was surprised when Momo suggested they hide instead of fight, he didn't himself too highly to follow her plans. He was aware that he would eventually encounter situations where he could not just smash through with brute force, where sometimes trickery and deception would be more suitable.

Learning the intricacies of strategies like this was also a good learning experience for the Psychokinesis quirk user. He was here at U.A. to learn after all, he did not feel it necessary to showcase for the world to see just how much he could do with his quirk. He already did that in the Entrance Exam, no need to show off too much like Todoroki did.

Back in the Observation Room, the class had been watching them with fascination the entire time.

"Sensei, isn't that considered cheating? I mean, weren't the villains supposed to be hiding the nuclear weapon in the hideout?" Eijiro asked, feeling that avoiding battle was simply unmanly.

All Might shook his head, "I never said that the villains had to stay in the hideout the entire time. Instead of an uncertain clash against heroes, the villains decided to circumvent the battle and run out the clock instead. That is way more practical strategy than fighting head on, wouldn't you agree? And if you think it's unfair, well…"

"Villains never play fair. Isn't that right, All Might?" Todoroki finished.

He smiled, "That's exactly right, Shoto. In that sense, Yasuo and Momo embodied the villain spirit perfectly."

Momo received the MVP award for thinking up the strategy, which Yasuo did not mind one bit if she would look at him more fondly afterwards. It wasn't as if he needed that title so much he had to show off just how badass he was with his almighty quirk.

The class also realized that while Momo took the MVP position, the plan would not have been possible without Yasuo's quirk. Kyoka and Denki had quirks that could be offensively devastating – in the end, their classmates also concluded that although hiding rather than fighting seemed cowardly, it was also the most practical strategy.

After the other teams had their battles as well, the Indoor Anti-Personnel Battle Training came to a close.

---------

We returned to class after battle training, everyone naturally being pumped after the adrenaline-filled morning. Bakugo seemed strangely out of it, however. I guess he just couldn't wrap his head around having lost to Izuku. Even delinquents had fragile egos, huh?

Although we got back to class cheerily discussing each others' quirks and how we had used them in battle, our excitement very quickly got dashed since we still had to go through regular school lessons in the afternoon.

After school that day, while we were still hanging out in class chatting.

"Honestly, I'm impressed you were able to hold yourself back from just charging in and taking down the Hero team. I saw you taking out that zero-pointer. We all know how strong your quirk is. If you wanted to, you could probably have ended your battle within a minute huh?" Eijiro said.

A few of my classmate were gathered around my table, as well as Momo's who was sitting right behind me. We had been going through each team's battle training scenario, pointing out areas of improvement as well as things we found impressive.

"Sure, but we figured that our plan would be the most efficient way to complete the objective." I replied, looking at Momo who had been listening to our conversation and occasionally adding her two cents.

"But don't you want to show off your quirk? I mean, we had to refrain from using them for so long, now that we are finally in a Hero Academy, isn't it finally time to go all out? If I was you, I would have just blasted Denki and Jiro away like a KAPOW!" Eijiro excitedly exclaimed.

Denki sneered, "You wouldn't be able to blast away a fart if it was you."

I chuckled at that, "Well, as cliché as it sounds, with great power comes great responsibility, no? We have to understand that using our quirks aren't always able the solution. Sometimes we need to use our brains too."

"You're surprisingly mature aren't you, Yasuo?" Momo remarked.

I turned to her, looking jokingly affronted, "And why is that a surprise?"

She giggled, "Because you can sometimes be pretty childish too."

"Well, I'm still a child at heart, heh."

At that moment, Midoriya opened the classroom door and entered.

"Oh, Midoriya's here! Welcome back man!" Eijiro immediately greeted.

A few others went to him, excitedly praising him for how he managed to do so well against the crazy Bakugo.

I too approached him after seeing his arm in a sling, "Hey, Izuku. How're you feeling? All better?"

He looked rather taken aback by the sudden attention, and embarrassedly replied, "Oh, yeah! Recovery Girl took care of my broken arm, but it's still pretty sore, so I have to keep it in a sling for the day. But other than that, I'm all better!"

"Looks like your costume is all scorched up too. You could get it to the support department. They should be able to fix it up real quick." I suggested.

"Oh! Right, thanks for letting me know."

I eyed his arm, "So, you have trouble controlling your quirk, huh?"

He flinched before looking downcast, "Well… I still can't regulate its output, so whenever I use All- I mean, my quirk, my body has to bear the brunt of the recoil."

I placed a hand on his shoulder, "Hey, listen. I used to have problems controlling my quirk too. It took me a long time before I learned how to control it. So I get what you're going through."

Everyone looked surprised at that.

"Really, you had trouble controlling your quirk?" Mina asked in disbelief, "But it didn't seem like you were having difficulties."

I shrugged and divulged, "That came with practice. I started learning how to control my quirk since I was five. I used to accidentally crush things when I first got my quirk. My mom was so worried I had to be taken out of preschool and was sent to a Quirk Assessment Centre to learn how to control my quirk."

"Woahh, that seems extreme!" Rikido remarked.

I laughed, "Well, it ultimately paid off." I then looked at Izuku, "What I want to say is, just keep at it, Izuku. It might seem hard now, but if you never give up, even if it takes months or years, I am confident you will be able to get your quirk under control eventually!"

"I also couldn't control my quirk when I first got it, Izuku." Eijiro added, "You see this scar above my eye?" He gestured to it, "I accidentally cut myself with my quirk when I was three. So… y'know, it happens to everyone."

Rikido Sato agreed, "Yeah, my quirk activates when I consume sugar. My mom used to tell me that when I was a kid, I loved to sneak into the cookie jar and then I would get out of control after that. She still holds how many TVs and kitchen appliances I broke when I was a kid over me, haha!"

"See? Everyone has had difficulty controlling their quirk at some point, so don't get discouraged!" I concluded.

Izuku beamed, looking beyond grateful that everyone was so supportive of him. He nodded with conviction and some tears in his eyes, "Mm! Thanks, Yasuo! Thanks, everyone"

I grinned at him, "We're friends, Izuku! No need for thanks between friends!"

He teared up even more after that and we all teased him for how emotional he looked. Poor kid, did he never receive any positive affirmation from his friends until now?

Walking back to my desk after talking with Midoriya, I saw that Momo had been watching the entire interaction with a pleasant look on her face.

"You're kind." She observed with a smile.

I blinked, before roguishly grinning and rubbing the back of my head, "What's with that suddenly? You are trying to flirt with me aren't you?"

However, I was surprised by her reply.

"Maybe." She said with a coquettish smirk on her face.

Ah, the butterflies are back again.