My Hero Automata

Summary: Another set of matches! Some predictable, others unexpected, and one that makes hundreds of thousands of people wince!

Chapter 22: Heroics Tournament Day 3 (Round 2)

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The first round of the Heroics 1 vs 1 tournament had produced quite a few more upsets than most students expected. Matches like Fukidashi vs Honenuki and Bondo vs Kuroiro had proven that luck was a factor that should never be dismissed, no matter who you were. Fukidashi had essentially sent depth charges into the concrete and got lucky when Honenuki ran face-first into one. While Bondo had gotten similarly lucky when he simply started hosing down every shadow with his glue right from the whip crack, catching Kuroiro by more-or-less blind chance.

Meanwhile, their earlier discussion about withdrawals and mutual eliminations had proven accurate, as Sato and Kendo had battered each other so badly that, despite winning, Kendo had been deemed unable to continue. Similarly, the high-mobility pair of Ashido vs Uraraka had ended in victory for Mina…but left her sufficiently exhausted from the tooth-and-nail fight Ochaco had put up that Ashido had ended up withdrawing. Mineta had withdrawn by his own choice, claiming he'd pushed his Quirk too far, and Kaminari had been talked into doing the same by Midnight after his victory against Monoma. While Kaminari had done incredibly well, Monoma had done quite a lot of damage to Kaminari's equipment with his well-chosen set of copied Quirks. Midnight's strong suggestion he withdraw had been the result of combat damage having destroyed contact points for his new energy-siphon system. The damage had resulted in him nearly reaching his wattage limit against Monoma. Now that everyone was aware such overage could be avoided, the staff was reluctant to let him risk the possible long-term consequences when it wasn't necessary. He'd grumbled more than any of the others, but had been pleased enough with how well he'd done so far that he'd ultimately allowed himself to be convinced.

With those eliminations and withdrawals, the field had been paired down to a 16-student bracket. Group B, in particular, was actually quite pleased that their numbers had matched up to Group A's by the time the new brackets were announced. Their pride had been a bit stung by both their First Day performances and none of their students being bracketed into initial fights with Group A's powerhouses. Much more surprising than the regained equilibrium between the Groups, was how little shifting had needed to be done to line the Round 2 brackets up properly. Though perhaps it shouldn't have been a surprise, given the whole point of the seed system UA used was to balance the fights without completely discounting chance. Pleased with their performance or not, even most of those previously eliminated were in attendance as the new brackets were displayed.

Bracket 1

Tokoyami Fumikage vs Yaoyorozu Momo

Jiro Kyoka vs Hagakure Toru

Kinoko Komori vs Iida Tenya

Awase Yosetsu vs Bondo Kojiro

Bracket 2

Asui Tsuyu vs Midoriya Izumi

Fukidashi Manga vs Tsunotori Pony

Sero Hanta vs Shoji Mezo

Kamakiri vs Yanagi Reiko

Most of the new matches seemed fairly balanced, though those who knew them had quickly noticed Tokoyami and Asui pale a bit. Neither were the type to show it much, even if absolutely no one would have blamed them in this case. But both of them knew they were pretty much screwed, though neither looked ready to back down from the challenge despite that fact…

- 20 minutes and two matches later-

Tsuyu half croaked and half groaned as she rolled her head sideways to look at the next bed over from her own spot in the infirmary, where a whimpering Dark Shadow was hiding under a thick blanket as Fumikage attempted to comfort the Quirk.

"We should have backed down and forfeited, huh?"

Her fellow student slumped and reluctantly admitted the truth.

"Verily. We both seem to have fallen to forgetfulness, disregarding our opponents' dark tendency for overkill."

Tsuyu whimpered, her tongue thankfully feeling better after being healed. She had not enjoyed Izumi attempting to mimic Midnight's whip movements using Tsuyu and her tongue as her testing device. She would not be agreeing with her fellow greenette about that being a great 'combination move' for them! Though at least she hadn't been blinded by half a million lumens of high-powered flood lights. Poor Dark Shadow couldn't be healed by Recovery Girl, after all. Though said healing had at least restored Tokoyami's vision…

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Jirou's eyes narrowed and she lashed out with another burst from her sonic canon. A squeak informed her of a near-miss and she grumbled. This was proving to be very good training, given just how stupidly good Hagakure apparently was at stealth, but both of them knew the match was all but over the moment it started. Jirou was one of the only people Hagakure would have failed to sneak up on even before her upgrades. With her Sonic Bubble, which she still needed a better name for, that chance had dropped to zero. Hagakure's only ranged options involved concentrating light, and without something like a laser to do that from, the best she could really do was blinding flashes to disorient. Since Jirou had started the match by closing her eyes, even that wasn't really going to do much. It made this entire match more an exercise in displaying their respective stealth and tracking abilities. Which, she supposed, was actually probably a good thing to show off, but…there!

With one last blast, at higher power so that it punched through the thin wall Hagakure had been hiding behind, the match was over. Hopefully, the rain of concrete that had knocked the invisible girl out hadn't hurt her too badly…

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Everyone watched in shock as Pony did a victory dance over Manga's downed form. The match had seemed fairly even at first…until one of Pony's dodged horns had flipped around and stabbed Manga in the ass. Literally in the ass. Like any good costume, his was proof against being pierced easily. But having a horn stab you in the ass was still painful and Pony had capitalized on his moment of distraction with a vicious horns-down charge, speed boosted by horns latched onto her own costume in what had to be the start of a very solid super move. Manga had managed to slow her a little with a simple *wham* onomatopoeia. But he'd had to practically wheeze it out as he'd howled in pain at the butt-stab. Needless to say, he'd been leveled by the charge despite his desperate attempt, then knocked out with a hoof stomp a moment later. The collective sentiment of most of the male students was carried through the silence of the observation room by the hushed whisper of Yosetsu.

"Why are all the adorable ones in our year the most terrifying?! I'm going to end up with a complex!"

Many eyes drifted to where Izumi was quietly cheering for Pony, next to her amused girlfriend. Unconsciously, nearly everyone present nodded acknowledgment of his wise words. Iida, if he hadn't been in his prep room already, might have suddenly been a great deal more worried about his own opponent if he'd heard the remark…

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Tenya was immensely grateful for the armor his family had spent multiple generations refining. As much as it galled him, he knew said armor was the only thing that had kept him in this match past his opponents opening dodge. He'd nearly had the short brunette with his opening rush, but she'd just barely managed to fling herself over his head with a rapidly grown mushroom. She was, he had to admit, remarkably agile. Gymnast training, combined with some sort of dance, if he wasn't mistaken. Added to the obstacles limiting his straight-line speed, she'd managed to avoid him long enough to turn the stage into mushroom hell. They were growing everywhere, and only the extremely high-quality air filters built into his armor had kept her from disabling him outright. As it was, they had crippled his movement to little better than a regular athlete…and his air intakes were gummed up enough that he wasn't going to last much longer. Grimacing, he threw everything into one last gamble.

"Recipro Spin!"

The move was an adaptation of his brother's Corkscrew maneuver, where he used angled thrust from his engines mid-air to enter into a rapid spin for momentum. Tenya's version was far less refined, and not just from lack of use. His leg engines simply weren't capable of the same level of fine control. What they were was powerful, and he fought his dizziness as he was turned into a blindingly fast top, aimed loosely in Komori-san's direction. He tore brutally through the mushroom forest…and made contact. Unfortunately, the contact was with the concrete pillar that Komari had desperately darted behind. His armor lessened the impact enough that his leg didn't break, but he was stopped in place with his leg buried in the pillar. Unmoving for those few moments, he was quickly buried alive in a sea of mushrooms…

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Shoji grimaced as he was forced to rip off another of his own arms, to rid himself of the tape his foe had managed to wrap around it. Thankfully, Hanta seemed to be rapidly running out of steam. He'd managed to force his classmate to continually run and dodge amongst the obstacles, having decided from the onset that his own greater stamina and the inability of Sero to fully open the range in the contained space, made an endurance match his best bet. It paid off a minute later as he managed to catch the now much slower-to-launch tape of his opponent's Quirk and pull him in close. Sero surrendered quickly after the flood of punches started to land…

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"GLUE SQUALL!"

…

…

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"Awase, can you move?"

There was a muffled noise coming from the block of Cemedine that absolutely covered Awase Yosetsu. Somehow, despite being completely incomprehensible, it sounded foul enough that the broadcaster for the public stream of the fight instinctively bleeped it.

"Right. I'll take that as a 'no.' Bondo-san wins!"

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Hundreds of thousands of people across Japan winced as, once again, the reason telekinetic Quirks were feared above nearly any other type was demonstrated on live broadcast. The sound Kamakiri had made when given an atomic wedgie by his emotionless looking foe on national television would haunt the dreams of many for weeks. The experience would haunt Kamakiri himself for even longer. The cheerful thumbs up Izumi gave her fellow telekinetic when the other girl reappeared would haunt the nightmares of her classmates even longer than that, as they considered what Izumi's far more brute-force telekinesis would do in the same situation. Several people in both Group A and B swore solemn vows in their heart of hearts to never genuinely anger either of them…

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A/N: Poor Kamakiri. Seriously, people never seem to realize how broken telekinesis is...