The Couples of Class 1-A

LCO | Ch. 43: Wanted but Unsaid

-Team Red-

"Hey, Deku! It's been twenty minutes, yeah!?"

Glancing down from his perch overhead, Midoriya found Kaminari staring wide-eyed back at him with his hands cupped around his mouth. Just around one of the many corners, he heard the agitated yells of Bakugo's team as they lost sight of them—due to some quick thinking on Kaminari and Ashido's part. Honestly, that fact still had Midoriya impressed. Ashido and Kaminari had never been particularly quick-witted in the past, but perhaps their humiliating loss against principal Nezu had taught them a few things.

"Yes! Time to regroup!" Midoriya announced, swinging down from his place to land next to Kaminari. Ashido joined them a second later, flying out from some unknown crevice on the sidelines. Once together, they broke off into a sprint, "Ingenium and Grape Juice should be making their way to the meet-up spot any minute now! Did you both keep track of how many points were scored off of you?"

"I didn't get hit!" Ashido grinned, giving him a thumb's up, "Slipped away just before Kirishima could land one!"

"And you, Chargebolt?"

Kaminari grimaced, not initially saying anything. Midoriya continued to stare expectantly at him though, so eventually he had no choice but to reveal what'd happened. "Guuuh, fine, I got hit once. I got cocky after luring out Sero, and the next thing I knew, I had a ball hucked into my face by Tuyu! Like seriously—where'd she even come from...?"

Looks like some of our classmates have already mastered their ultimate moves, Midoriya processed, tensing his lower lip, Wasn't Asui practicing some sort of camouflage technique? I've never seen her use it in person, but there's been a few rumors of her suddenly disappearing during training.

Distracted, Midoriya shook his head, At any rate, let's get out of here before Kacchan finds us. I can tell from all the way over here that he wasn't happy with being ambushed...

"(GET BACK HERE DEKU AND FIGHT ME!)" Midoriya suddenly heard from the distance. The sound of him sent an unsettling chill down his spine.

Meanwhile, in a separate part of the dodgeball arena, Iida and Mineta were crouched behind a pipe to keep a distant eye on a scuffle currently unfolding before them. Vests of the green and yellow teams were going at it against one other—particularly Uraraka and Koda, versus Shoji and Aoyama. Both sides seemed to be relatively short on dodgeballs, and Shoji's vest was in the middle of a cooldown. Uraraka and Koda were eyeing their opponents with ferocity, paused in an intense stalemate.

"(Looks like team yellow beat us to the punch,)" Iida grunted, "(Team green doesn't seem to be doing too well because of it.)"

"(In that case, now's a good time to get in a sneak-attack!)" Mineta whispered back, "(Let's steal our chance before they nail each other, and flee during their cooldowns!)"

Mineta started to creep out of their hiding spot, but Iida was quick to throw out his arm to stop him, "(No, we need to be careful. Team yellow has Koda; meaning that at any given moment, one of his animal compatriots might find us and leak our location. Whenever we choose to act, it has to be under the cover of a distraction, or we'll be spotted.)"

Mineta clicked his tongue impatiently at that, "(So? They're busy with each other, aren't they? They're not gonna run after us even if we peek out now, right?)"

To this, Iida gave him a very serious look—though the effect was partially lost behind his helmet, "(If we draw attention to ourselves now, we'd be at a severe disadvantage!)" he made a chop to secure his point, "(Uraraka alone is difficult to deal with, and if Koda, Aoyama, and Shoji decide to band against us, we'd be outnumbered. Remember, we're a defensive team, not an offensive one; meaning we're supposed to keep some our team's points safeguarded while Deku's group—)"