Melting Acid

Needless to say, it was an intense battle.

There were many explosions, and Midoriya used his Quirk, practically making a hole in the building.

From the Villain Team's end, there was no communication—although Iida stayed in character, unlike Bakugo who let personal matters interfere.

But in the end, Midoriya's team won only because the time ran out, devastating Bakugo.

Both were injured, but Midoriya needed a nurse...again and Uraraka was also on the ground holding her hands to her mouth to stop from puking.

Some classmates noted this, the losers being untouched and the heroes being on the ground.

A boy who had the head of a bird spoke up, "How does the old saying go? They may have lost the battle, but they won the war."

I nodded, "Yes, I'd say that suits the situation well."

"This class is intense," the frog-like girl commented.

All Might left the room for a moment, I watched as Bakugo didn't even move.

It's probably like his whole universe got turned upside down. The impossible became possible. He got a bit of a reality check. It seems like he's used to being the best, but there are strong quirks here, it won't be so easy to be better than everyone now.

It's strange for me too, I've never been to a school with Quirks that were even close to being on par with mine, or stronger. But I see it as being more exhilarating, perhaps it's because we think of weakness and strength in a different way.

I frowned with worry as he started to hyperventilate.

"More like...his reality has been completely shattered," I whispered.

Everyone sees him terribly because of the fight—and I don't condone bullying—but...right now, all I see is a confused kid who thinks he's been lied to all this time, mocked on purpose by the one that was supposed to be weaker than him. He could possibly doubt his own strength now.

I think there's more to him than just being the angry, egotistical boy he seems to be. His...thought process seems to be so complex.

All Might was quick to calm him with a hand engulfing his shoulder.

They made it back to the monitoring room, "Well, despite the results. The MVP of this exercise is Young Iida!"

Some of the class were surprised by the answer, thinking it should've been one of the heroes.

But no. And it makes sense, Midoriya might as well of destroyed half the building and injured himself making him unable to do anything else. The plan wasn't thought out beforehand, other than predicting moves.

Uraraka put the dummy nuclear bomb at risk by batting it with a column, which would be deadly if it was real—I'm not even going to get into the part of letting her guard down.

And Bakugo...for obvious reasons wouldn't have been MVP, going incognito on his partner, letting a grudge get in the way, and so forth.

This left Iida, who stayed in character—even though it was a bit stiff—and despite his teammate not working with him, did his best to protect the weapon.

All Might decided to use this and teach his students, "Why didn't I choose one of those two? Who has a guess?"

"Sir! I can tell you why!" ponytail girl raised her hand, "Iida embraced this challenge. He was the only one who truly adapted to his assigned role. I'll explain. Bakugo's judgment was clouded by a personal grudge against Midoriya. As you pointed out earlier, launching a large-scale attack indoors was a foolish move. It could've been disastrous. Similarly, Midoriya's plan was also poorly thought out, considering the amount of damage that he received. He rendered himself helpless. Not smart. As for Uraraka...she let her guard down mid-battle, and her final attack was far too reckless given the hypothetical stakes. If she'd treated the fake weapon as though it were real, she never would've risked using such an imprecise move."

She looked at Iida, "Iida was fully prepared for his opponent's arrival. Had a strategy, and never lost sight of his mission to protect the dummy weapon, even if he was foiled in the end."

Iida placed a hand on his chest, shaking, he seemed to be touched by the praise.

"Technically, the hero team won, yes, but they took advantage of the fact that this was training. They didn't respect the spirit of the trial," she finished.

I chuckled to myself, she said what I thought...just with much more detail...

I noticed All Might shaking from the pure detail of what she said, until he spoke, "Yes...Well, you overlooked a few things. Young Iida could've relaxed a little bit in the exercise, but...otherwise, you nailed it!"

Now, the next teams would be chosen, they would fight in Battle Building B since Midoriya destroyed the first one.

Team B (the boy with half-colored hair and Shoji) would be the heroes, Team I (an invisible girl and the boy with the lion tail) the villains. The invisible girl took off her gloves and shoes to be completely unseen, which is startling to know she's naked.

The buzzer blared for the battle to begin.

Shoji spread his arms out, almost like wings, and turned the tip of his tentacles into ears...which became a mouth to report to his other teammate.

And without warning, Half and Half Creamer froze the whole building, freezing the opposing team's feet to the ground.

Which also affected us, fortunately, my bodysuit emitted heat, which made me just fine.

While everyone but the other heat user, Bakugo, and I—due to thinking ahead with my costume—were cold.

"He incapacitated them without compromising the weapon or his teammate. Take close note of his technique, students," All-Might said with chattering teeth.

The ice-user took his time, his footsteps crunching on the ice as he moved to retrieve the weapon.

Despite being frozen to the ground, the lion boy took a defensive stance, trying to escape.

"Pry yourself up if you want, but it might be hard to fight me with no skin on the bottom of your feet," Halfy strides past, touching the dummy explosive.

"Quite the Quirk. The battle was essentially over before it even began," I observed.

I glance at Bakugo, he was absolutely horrified.

Once again, someone shattered his reality of being the best, it seems.

"The hero team wins!"

Steam emitted from Halfy's hands as the ice melted away.

I gasped, "A Quirk with dual abilities?"

Like me? I mean, the other half of my Quirk isn't as showy as my first...

This class...is gonna be interesting!

Hot water dripped into the room the three students stood in.

"It's not your fault," the ice user assured, "We're just playing on different levels."

In the monitoring room, he intimidated most, some praised his skills.

Me? I want to fight him.

We moved to Battle Building C.

A boy with a tape Quirk and Kirishima (Team J) were the Villains this round, the bird boy from before, and the frog-like girl (Team H) were the heroes.

Then the next battle, the smart girl with the ponytail and the grape boy, the Villains (Team C) (he seemed very pleased), a girl with an earphone jack Quirk and Kaminari were the Heroes (Team G), she stabbed it into the wall to direct where they were for Kaminari to use his electricity Quirk.

A muscular boy with plump lips and another muscular boy that seemed to be much quieter (Team F) were the Villains, shiny boy and the pink-haired girl were the Heroes (Team E).

Then, it was my turn, All Might gestured for me to step forward.

"Now, Young Hitsuji! To take you out of your comfort zone, you will be a Villain."

I think he might remember me from when I was 12...now, I could honestly care less about what role I'll play.

"All right, Mr. Might."

He sighed at the name, who knows why it annoyed him to be called that by me.

He spoke up louder (not that there was much difference in this form), "Now, who would like to join her for her match?"

The pink-haired girl rose her hand, a competitive smile on her face, "I wanna be on the opposing team! Sounds fun!"

A voice spoke up, it seemed the invisible girl wanted to join the hero team as well, and that just left a person for my team.

What I didn't expect, was for the ice-user to raise his hand.

Which made pink hair horrified.

"Seems like the teams are formed! Villain team, Hero team, let's go!"

As we walked I smiled at Hubba Bubba as we were more toward the back, "Cheer up! Don't lose your confidence so quickly. I look forward to fighting you."

"Thanks...I'm Mina, by the way, Mina Ashido."

"Nice to meet you! I'm Daitan'na Hitsuji, I'm sure with All Might's loud voice you know by now. But you can call me by my first if you want if that makes you feel more comfortable."

"You're really nice!"

I chuckled, "Yeah, my features often make people think I'm super serious."

"What's your Quirk? It's only fair since you saw mine!"

"Matter and Energy Control. I can manipulate matter and energy internally and externally, that's the short version."

Her eyes widened, "That seems pretty simple. Is it really powerful?"

I giggled, "Well, not for me. There are so many things possible with it, but I'll never know all of them. And there are plenty of things I can't do despite my Quirk having vast capabilities."

"Ah! That makes my Quirk sound so simple now!"

I smiled, "Actually, I think your Quirk is pretty cool. It's very useful, so don't look down on it, Ashido-san."

I was called by All Might, I waved to Ashido before jogging to catch up to my partner who was already standing in front of him, and I put on my mask.

"Here are your earpieces, maps, and capture tape!"

We put in our earpieces first, before we left off to the building.

As we did so, I observed the map, "Oh, that's easy to memorize—l'm Daitan'na Hitsuji, by the way."

He glanced over, only for a second, "Shoto Todoroki—I'll freeze the ground, just make sure to get out of the way when I-"

I scoffed, "No way. We're a team, we're doing this together."

"It's easiest—"

"That plan isn't going to work. Think about it, Ashido-san has an acid Quirk, which works against your ice. Even if it's thick, she can still melt it despite you freezing the floor. And since she can melt it, you can't stop that girl with the invisibility Quirk as easily as you did before."

"So, what would you suggest we do, then?" he hesitated to ask after finishing glancing at his own map.

"Briefly tell me your capabilities."

He met my gaze, "I can freeze anything with my right hand, essentially."

"What about the second half of your Quirk?"

He looked away, "I don't use that."

Why wouldn't he? Well, whatever, I'm sure he has a reason.

"All right. I can work with that. With my two parts of a Quirk, I can control matter and energy, so similarly to your Quirk, there isn't really a definitive range other than drawbacks."

"Two parts?"

I grin, "Yeah, twinsies, huh?"

Getting serious again, I give him a brief rundown of them, "So, for one, I can amplify most Quirks, but in this case, we can't freeze Ground Beta as a whole, so that wouldn't be wise. I can also absorb the energy of another person or from the atmosphere around me with the Energy part of my Quirk, but I don't use it a lot...As for the matter half, I can evaporate Ashido's acid and consider her Quirk useless. Do you think you can distract the invisible girl for me to set her in a trap and capture her?"

"Yes."

"Then here's my plan..."

 ‿̩͙‿ ༺ ♰ ༻ ‿̩͙‿U͓̽N͓̽D͓̽E͓̽R͓̽T͓̽A͓̽K͓̽E͓̽  ‿̩͙‿ ༺ ♰ ༻ ‿̩͙‿

"All right, go ahead, Todoroki," I spoke into the earpiece.

"Got it."

Within the last minute of our planning time, I leapt to the 8th floor, where I stored the 'Nuclear Bomb'.

I patiently waited to hear them and when I did, I calmly felt for the electromagnetic pulses their bodies gave off.

I feel them quickly get to the 3rd floor.

Todoroki was on the fourth.

I tap my earpiece, "They're on the floor below you."

"Alright."

Todoroki's mission was to distract the invisible girl and 'let' Ashido get past him since his Quirk wouldn't be as effective, leading her to me. I had a trap on the fourth floor they were currently on for the teammate left behind, all he had to do was deliberately attack her to get her there.

I watched as my plan played out, Todoroki focused on the invisible girl, who told Ashido to go ahead.

When Ashido ran past the spot, moving to the next floor, I activated my ice box, invisible just like the person it was set for.

Todoroki attacked her with sharp ice attacks, making her run away from him, as her foot hit the icebox, I snapped and she froze in place.

She could hear, but she couldn't move or speak, she was temporarily paralyzed.

"What did she do?" Todoroki wondered aloud.

I tapped the earpiece again to answer him, "I told you, Ice-box. I can freeze someone's atoms if they stand in whatever spot I choose. I don't use this a lot, though, so it's not perfected. Once you tie her up with capture tape, I'll let her go so she doesn't get too traumatized."

He quickly took my suggestion.

We heard on the announcement, "One of the heroes has been captured!"

I smiled as Ashido got closer until finally, she walked into the doorway.

"I've got you now!"

I smirked, "Oh? Do you really think so?"

She shot acid toward the ground below me, surely to make me fall.

"Evap."

And her acid evaporated mid-air before her eyes.

"Wha—How?!"

I will admit the chuckle that came out of my mouth sounded kind of evil behind my mask (probably looked evil, too).

She attempted to shoot more acid, only for me to do the same thing.

Which made her physically come for me.

I blocked a punch, before ducking under another and punching her in the stomach.

I winced, I could tell that probably hurt, Ashido, sorry, but I must play my role.

It took her a second to recoup before she came for me again.

We exchanged a few more blows before I landed a few hits, blasting her back on the last with Matter Blast—but not hard enough to make her fly out the building and through most of the buildings behind her—just a large crater in the wall that made the building shake.

"Villain Team Wins!"

I could hear our class in the monitoring room in confusion as to how I won.

"What? When did this get on me?!" Mina finally noticed the capture tape binding her wrists together.

I walked over to her, my titanium soles lightly clinking, before I leaned over her body, "In the last second that I hit you, I wrapped your wrists with capture tape. Pretty fast, right?"

Her eyes widened in what I assumed was awe.

  ‿̩͙‿ ༺ ♰ ༻ ‿̩͙‿U͓̽N͓̽D͓̽E͓̽R͓̽T͓̽A͓̽K͓̽E͓̽  ‿̩͙‿ ༺ ♰ ༻ ‿̩͙‿

As we exit the building I lift my fist to Todoroki.

Which confused him.

I giggled, "Not a fist bump person?"

"I don't know what that is."

"Just what it sounds like, we bump our fists together. It's a celebratory gesture."

Still very confused, he lifted his fist and looked at mine.

I gently bumped our fists together, with a wide grin, "There, now you know what is fist bump is. You did a good job, thanks for working with me! I can tell it isn't your thing."

He stared at our hands before he walked off.

Todoroki...why does that name sound familiar?