Blossoms of the Dark

CVIII Shouto: Massage

Trigger Warnings:

- slight blood

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We return to the stadium just seconds before the next match.

Tokoyami beats Ashido.

Bakugou defeats Kirishima.

This means that for Round Three, I'll be facing Hanada-chan.

In fact, ours will be the first battle.

It's time to make good on our declaration of war.

I'm about to tell her as such, but she excuses herself. "Wait! Where are you going?" I call after her.

"To bargain for more milk. My thermos is empty," she responds.

I give her the Are-you-being-serious? look, and ask her, "Tell me something, Hanada-chan? Is drinking milk a requirement for your quirk?"

"Well, no. Not in that sense. It's just, I become quite hungry when I have to use my quirk for a prolonged amount of time. It's not related to my arthritis in any way."

"You're a glutton, you know that?" She grins sheepishly, and I sigh, "Even I love food, but not to that extent. But I'll come with. After all, you don't want to be robbed by that elderly lunch lady again, do you?"

She shakes her head vigorously as if the idea frightens her, much to my amusement.

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We part ways when it's time to begin. I enter the arena from one gate and she from the other, unsurprisingly with her thermos. As Present Mic-sensei gives his very biased introduction, I contemplate.

Hanada-chan plays her game more subtly. Like a seemingly asleep snake, she lets her opponent drop their guard before striking. And when she strikes, all she needs is one shot. That one shot is conspicuous and flamboyant. Her opponent doesn't even realize what has happened until moments later.

In her last two matches, she wooed the crowd with her striking blow. First with roses, then with a rainbow. She's creative, so I wonder what she'll come up this time when she wins. If she wins.

How can I beat her at her own game?

Midnight-sensei announces for the battle to begin.

I blast my ice in her direction to trap her. It doesn't work. She levitates herself above the ice and settles on top of it, giving me the I-know-you-can-do-better-than-this smirk. And she's right. I'm not giving it my all, and I don't just mean my left side. This move has become too predictable. Against someone whose quirk is an arsenal of quirks, it's a terrible move. With a few finger traces on her hips, she counteracts my ice with blue flames. All the ice melts into water, which she promptly vanishes.

Right. That's the real threat. Most people use their quirks with visible hand movements. They become predictable when you study those movements and their results long enough. That is not the case with Hanada-chan. If you're not looking closely, you won't be able to tell when she's using her quirk. And even then, it's impossible to discern what hand motion does what. She's unpredictable, even after all this time.

I could win this match by taking advantage of her disability, but that's low, and I won't stoop that far. I promised to play fairly and treat her as an equal, and that is exactly how I will spar.

When she doesn't launch an offense, I do. I summon a ring of ice around her, confining her. Then the ice towers domes over her. But when it reaches its peak, another set of searing blue flames melt it. I know she doesn't mean to, but the sight of the fire stings like salt rubbed into a wound. After all, fire is the subject of most of my arguments with Endeavor. I ignore the pain.