The Exchange Student

Chapter 3: Tournament

Just as the tournament battles were announced, Ojiro and Shoda withdrew and replaced by Tetsutetsu and Shiozaki. Since Azalea's team was in last place, they would participate a bit differently. Two of them will be selected randomly and fight against each other, and the two left will be randomly put up against a winner from the first round. Mara thought it was a bit funny when she and Azalea would be the ones facing each other.

After that brief pause, the recreational events continue. Azalea happily participates in some of the events before taking a break to rest up for the tournament. She spends her time talking with a few friends. While passing some girls from general ed., she overhears one of them say, "...I don't know who it was, but it sounded like they hadn't eaten at all. It almost seemed as if they were forcing themselves. disgusting how someone like that would even try to study here..." The girls quieted down as they realized Azalea was listening and quickly walked away. Azalea had mixed feelings about what they said since she didn't disagree entirely but was also curious about who it was to find a way to help them.

Mara spent her time outside, away from the people. While walking outside, she found Tokoyami in a tree but decided to leave him alone. As she continued her walk, she saw Todoroki sitting and seemingly thinking to himself. Once again, she decided to leave him alone, not really in the mood to be bothering anyone. Though she was kind of annoyed that everywhere she went to relax, there was already someone there. In the end, she couldn't find a place for herself and ended up walking around before going back inside.

Soon after going back in, the tournament began. The first to fight were Midoriya and Shinsou. Mara already knew of Shinsou's quirk thanks to Hiroka, and she was pretty interested in the battle between the two. Just as the match started, Midoriya was frozen in place. 'Well, that was shorter than expected. I would've thought Ojiro already told him. Though Shinsou knows how to press his buttons,' Mara thinks as she watches the supposed fight.

Midoriya approaches the edge, but he suddenly stops before he is out of bounds. Mara leans over a bit more to watch closely, and she's able to see that two of Midoriya's fingers are broken. He proceeds to turn around and head towards Shinsou, who is now trying to get him to say something. The two started fighting, but it didn't last long since Midoriya was stronger than Shinsou. Soon Shinsou was on the floor with his feet out of bounds. With the battle over the two left, many in the crowd were amazed.

It didn't take long before the next match was up, with Midoriya coming back just in time. The match was between Sero and Todoroki, but who would win was pretty obvious. Sero quickly wrapped up Todoroki in his tape, but this didn't do much since he used his ice in the next moment. This froze Sero and created a huge pillar taller than the stage. Everyone was surprised at the immense power he had displayed, which even impressed Mara. Her mouth practically fell to the floor before she quickly covered up her face. Todoroki also freed himself, and he was declared the winner by half-frozen Midnight. Todoroki then started melting the ice with his left hand, causing a lot of steam to form and making the heat worse.

The match between Kaminari and Shiozaki was embarrassingly quick, with Shiozaki being the victor. Next up were Iida and Hatsume, and both were wearing support items. After Iida explained why he was wearing the support items, Mara thought, 'He's so gullible, take note.' The supposed match between the two was no more than Hatsume showing off and explaining her inventions to possible investors. Mara chuckled once in a while as the two moved around. The match finally ends when she walks out of bounds, but Iida wasn't too pleased about being used. 

The next match between Aoyama and Ashido didn't last long since she caused his belt to malfunction and quickly knocked him out afterward. Tokoyami then beat Yaoyorozo by striking first and preventing her from using anything she created. Kirishima and Tetsutetsu are fighting each other though it's hard to tell who will win since their quirks are pretty similar. In the end, the match is considered a draw, and the winner would be determined by arm-wrestling.

The next match would certainly prove interesting. Mara knew of Bakugou's abilities but was more interested in Uraraka's plan to defeat him if she could. She carefully paid attention to Uraraka's movements and was able to see her strategy. It was a good strategy, but Bakugou has fast reflexes, a strong quirk, and intelligence. He quickly caught on to her plan and blasted away the rocks. She tried to continue the match but promptly fell over; she had reached her weight limit. Bakugou won the match, but it seemed everyone was more concerned with Uraraka.

Mara and Azalea both headed down for their match. They had to wait a bit since the area was being rebuilt. While waiting, Mara noticed a flower crown adorning Azalea's head. 'She must've eaten seeds earlier and will try to strike first and immobilize me,' she thought as she twirled the end of her braid. Azalea just tried to ignore Mara's eyes on her and only thought of how she should've asked about her quirk before fighting. Soon the two went outside for their match and were finally face to face.

After hearing the familiar "Start!" from Midnight, Azalea immediately made the flowers on her head grow and quickly head towards Mara. That is, until she suddenly froze, making the crowd wonder what had happened. They started whispering and wondering if Mara's quirk was something like Shinsou's. Everyone was curious since no one knew what Mara was capable of. Some observant viewers noted that her eyes had changed from the intimidating, dark red to an unsettling black.

With a disturbing grin, Mara tilted her head to the side and teased, "You scared?" She chuckled slightly before the grin completely disappeared and turned into a menacing glare. Azalea started trembling, and Mara started running towards her. Everyone was surprised at the incredible speed she possessed; they could barely see as she moved in a zig-zag manner towards Azalea. When Mara was finally close to her, she lifted her left leg and swung it around to hit Azalea on the side. The force was enough to knock Azalea entirely out of bounds and onto a wall. Mara took a deep breath, and her eyes were finally back to normal as she was declared the winner. Meanwhile, Azalea was quickly taken to Recovery Girl.

Quirk: Intimidation

Intimidation causes intense fear in the target, rendering them immobile. Meanwhile, the user's strength and speed are increased incredibly, and it depends more on the person's ability to control the quirk rather than their base strength. For it to work, the user has to see their target and can still work if they can see a part of their target or through windows. If the target's willpower is stronger than the user's, they'll be able to break out.

Fun Fact: Mara can determine the amount of fear that she causes upon someone, so they don't always end up completely immobile. Also, if she is feeling strong emotions, her quirk may go haywire and generate an uncomfortable or unsettling atmosphere around her.

There's a lot of murmuring in the crowd as Mara heads back inside. She stayed there for a while, waiting for Kirishima and Tetsutetsu to finish their tie-breaker. When the two finished, with Kirishima victorious, she started walking back to where her class was. Kirishima caught up to her and started walking alongside her on the way there. "Hey, congrats on winning! That was amazing!" he cheered with a huge grin. Mara was taken aback and didn't know how to react. She sat in her seat while he went over to be with the rest of their classmates.

"Um, thanks..." she quietly murmured to herself, still quite confused. 'That was, um, yeah...' were her thoughts as she tried to make sense of what had just happened.

"The previous members from the last place team will now fight against two randomly selected opponents. The first match will be Todoroki Shoto against Todoroki Hiroka, and the second will be Bakugou against Mara," Midnight announced.

Mara could hear Bakugou grumbling as their names were mentioned. The crowd was primarily surprised at the first match, the match between the two siblings. Almost everyone already knew of Shoto, but no one expected them to fight each other. Well, no one expected Hiroka to get that far. Endeavor was just a bit surprised that she had gotten that far but thought it happened because she was clinging to others. He only thought that the match was useless since Shoto would win because, to him, Hiroka was quirkless.