Chapter 56: CHAPTER 053(Quarter-Finals)
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CHAPTER START---
Standing in one of the bathrooms of the stadium Horizon is leaning forward, both hands down on the counter.
This was one of the bathrooms only accessible to students on the upper levels, and he was currently using it to get some control of himself.
From beneath his visor he stared into the mirror, but instead of seeing the visor starting back. He saw Law Matani, face bare, pacing around shouting and screaming.
All the emotions he felt when Todoroki began running his mouth.
Insulting his family.
Making his insane assumptions.
'He needs to pay,' the reflection says, his voice in a low growl as it stands in front of the sink, glaring at Horizon. 'People need to learn not to make assumptions about our family, not to talk about them...'
"Yeah...I'll educate him," Horizon says in response, and they both nod at that.
Logic and reason gone the moment someone mentions his parents in such a way.
"Kaminari is frozen in place!" Mic's voice echoes through the halls and into the bathroom. "That means Todoroki advances to the semi-finals, and his next opponent will be Horizon!"
Horizon stands up properly, smiling at the announcement, a smile shared by his reflection, his inner voice.
"Looks like I'll get my chance..." he mutters before leaving the room.
Normally he'd just warp back to his seat instead of taking the short walk, but at the moment he couldn't.
One of the few times he's vulnerable is when preparing for an operation, such as right now.
Normally he'd be safe in a private room with his patient, make contact once, find what he wants to extract, then gather the energy to make it happen.
But this was different, he didn't have the luxury of keeping in contact with his next patient. He simply had to make contact for barely a few seconds, locate his target, then break contact and begin focusing his energy.
And right now he was still entirely focused on Todoroki who was walking through the locker room.
Using another technique would disrupt this and restart the process, and he'd rather not take the chance, he also wouldn't recover any of this spent energy or the sum used to keep open a room that could span nearly half the stadium to keep them both inside it.
Most notably thus far he used this technique to extract the drugs from the son of a patient in Dubai.
He's so focused that he doesn't respond while passing by Tokoyami, just giving his classmate a polite nod as he heads to his waiting room.
And he pays no attention to Iida's phone conversation, but at a glance he sees tears rolling down the boy's face, a petrified expression seizing him. Immediately shoving that to the back of his mind, it was simply not his problem.
Arriving back to where his class was seated he stands at the back almost against the wall, noticing Momo and Jiro sitting at the front. Jiro turns around to shoot him a dirty look while Momo doesn't respond to his return.
'What the hell is her problem?' he wonders, genuinely not understanding how his words weren't seen as encouragement. It's how he's always been raised to think after all.
Horizon remains at the back with his arms folded across his chest, everyone could somehow feel the subtle anger radiating off him, wisely deciding not to bother him for idle chatter.
And a moment later Tokoyami and Juzo take the stage.
"And now for the last bout of the quarter-finals!" Midnight announces, catching everyone off guard. "Unfortunately Tenya Iida had to leave early for a family emergency, so after this match, Bakugo automatically advances to the next round!"
Bakugo gets visibly enraged at that, not having the full challenge he wanted to prove that he's the undisputed best.
Now if he wins people would be able to doubt his victory because of this free pass to the semi-finals.
Horizon also sees Deku sitting with Uraraka, she takes out her phone immediately, likely to text Iida. Deku had both his hands in casts, his right arm as well. And both his legs were covered in bandages, along with his torso.
'The pennies are adding up...' Horizon thinks, noticing the scars and newly crooked fingers on Deku's right hand as the girl walks past him, phone to her ear to call Iida.
"Now onto the match!" Midnight gestures to Tokoyami. "Class 1As dark samurai himself, Tokoyami, and his seemingly invincible Quirk, Dark Shadow! Versus..." she gestures to Juzo. "Class 1Bs leading star, Juzo Honenuki, and his versatile Quirk, Softening! Are you ready?!"
Both boys nod, staring blankly at each other.
"BEGIN!"
"Da--argh!" before Tokoyami can even summon Dark Shadow Juzo slams both palms into the ground, using his super move.
"Muddy Swamp!" Juzo yells out.
"A super move!" Mic's shocked voice electrifies the audience. "Looks like the recommended student is here to show out!"
Before Tokoyami could even summon his Quirk Juzo had already softened the entire stage, causing the bird boy to sink up to his neck into the softened cement before making it thick enough to completely trap him, exactly like he did to defeat Momo.
Juzo pants a few times, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead, still standing ankle-deep on the softened floor. "Done, you're immobilized!"
"Class 1B is here to show out too!" Mic screams, echoed by the crowd.
Seeing Tokoyami breaking out into a cold sweat, his expression changing to one of pain and terror in a heartbeat, Midnight moves to end the match. "Tok---"
"NO!" Tokoyami interrupts her, drawing all eyes to him as the stadium and Juzo silently wait to see what he does. "Too much Darkness...can't control... DARK SHADOW! STOP!"
The softened cement around Tokoyami ripples, Juzo immediately slams his palms into the floor and hardens it into solid cement once more, trapping Tokoyami and his own ankles in the floor.
But Tokoyami keeps struggling, "it's too much! DARK SHADOW! NO!"
The entire arena cracks and begins breaking apart as Juzo looks down horrified, feeling something moving below, shaking the entire stage.
"R̸̟̗̰̠͕̜̊R̶̜͉͍̥͖̉͆̾́͋̀R̴̖̯̔̈̊R̴͓͎̥͆͒̉̕͜R̷̡̝̺̈́̈͛̿̅͘R̵̹̱̆A̸͎̣͌́̂A̶̠̮̱̅A̵̩͎̻̜͗Å̷̡̼̱̺͆R̶̫̊́̄̇G̴̮̪̲̘̐G̸̖̬̀̂̿͆̉̆H̴̩͂́̌͑͑̉H̶̡̼͕̄̀!̶̢̦̱̯̹̅͊̏̕!̵̯̱̫͎͐̇̒!̵̭̫̗̪̒́̇͌!̶̧̨̫̙͍̝͛"
An explosion of cement and dust shakes the entire arena, a gust of wind much smaller than Deku's finger flicks rushes past the crowd in every direction.
The ten-meter-tall outline of Tokoyami's shadow monster Quirk manifests for all to see, screaming and roaring in a way that made most of the attending Pro Heroes recoil in fear.
Blood curling and throats drying up, sweating profusely at the terrifying aura of destructive force.
A moment later the dust is cleared up and everyone gets a glimpse at the massive shadow demon before the sunlight beats it back into submission, causing it to shrink back into the docile Dark Shadow.
"I'm sorry Fumi," it politely says, shyly kneading its hands together as the boy is on his hands and knees on the completely destroyed stage trying to catch his break.
"Juzo?!" Tokoyami yells, looking around for his opponent, terrified at the idea of hurting him while everyone just stared in shock.
Off a fair distance away, he sees the walkway leading to the stage ripple and a hand comes out, Juzo crawls out as if it were a swimming pool with a small bruise on his face, and stands up.
"I'm ok! I softened the ground before I hit!" he announces happily. "That's one serious Quirk!"
"I'll say," Midnight says, causing all eyes to move to her as she pushes some rubble off herself, pieces of her Hero Costume torn to show off some of the bruises that attack gave her. "Juzo is out of bounds! Tokoyami advances to the next round!"
The crowd erupts into cheers, but cutting through it all were the words of Pro Heroes considering everything they just saw.
'Those kids are amazing.'
'Did you see how strong that bird guy was, I bet he'll be a top pro once he can control his Quirk.'
'Yeah no kidding, he's already stronger than me!'
'That mud kid was amazing too, his instincts are insane.'
'And he reacts Quickly too, I guess both classes are good huh, not just 1A.'
'Yeah well he is a recommended student, what do you really expect?'
the chatter goes on and on and Midnight announces the short intermission for Cementoss to repair the arena...again.
'Strong in darkness and weak in light,' Horizon thinks as he considers what he just saw. 'Tokoyami said that he's here to learn to control his Quirk, but from the way he speaks it's all mental, his Quirk isn't really the type that you can train to increase the power...so he's all mastery and equipment to change the variables at play...I wonder if he sleeps with all the light on to----'
"Hey Horizon," Kendo snaps him out of his thoughts by tapping his shoulder, leaning up slightly to get in his face.
"Kendo, what's up?" he asks, putting aside his anger for the moment.
"Just here to congratulate you, well more like congratulate your class. Juzo was our last chance to win a medal, but I guess it's all Class 1A from here," she shrugs.
"I guess that's one way to look at things," he says. "Our four strongest are in the semi-finals, but it looks like I'll be beating Bakugo in the finals..."
"That confident huh."
"My Quirk lets me see the future," he says casually.
"Really?!"
"No, but that's part of the benefit of my Quirk, yuou've got no idea what I can do," he shrugs.
Kendo blushes slightly, not from any infatuation at all, but from falling for his simple trick. "Well if you can warp, heal, make electricity, and use Telekinesis...foresight really isn't that big of a leap in logic."
"I suppose that's a fair conclusion with the information you have, I should get to the waiting room, time for my big debut."
"Oh, right, good luck, we're all rooting for you," she enlarges her fist to give him a thumbs up.
"If I win do I get a giant cookie?"
"Well, Yui thinks you're cool...I think, kinda hard to tell since she doesn't really talk, but Shiozaki says she thinks that...I'm sure she won't mind," Kendo says with a slightly nervous smile.
"I'll look forward to it..."
Making his way to the temporary locker room ten minutes early Horizon feels his surgery preparation complete, now freeing him up to use other techniques without resetting his progress.
Breathing a sigh of relief he no longer feels restricted, always hating that feeling of having limits put on him.
Eventually, he rounds the final corner sees the locker room at the end of the hallway, and sees his ideal internship choice standing right in front of it. Too bad it was also the person his parents were assumed to act like.
Endeavor turns to look directly at Horizon, seeing the boy walking toward him visor unreadable, and Endeavor's expression matching it entirely.
With flames on his shoulders, boots, arms, and face to form his mask, only leaving his red hair exposed and his body covered by a dark blue skin-tight suit.
His hulking 6ft5 -195cm- figure was actually taller than Horizon, if barely. Weighing 260lbs -118kg- of muscle, clearly defined by his body suit, truly an intimidating vision and presence.
The man with the world record for incidents resolved, far surpassing even that of All Might, someone so useful that despite his coarse manner of speaking to others he's still risen to being the number 2 hero.
With only pure effort and usefulness...Horizon's gold standard for heroes.
"Horizon," Endeavor says. "Since you're the boy's next oppone---"
Endeavor suddenly finds himself outside the stadium under a few trees. Warped away without him noticing any movement at all from Horizon.
"Tch, that truly is as annoying as I expected..." he mutters while angrily making his way back to the stadium.
'But if anyone can truly push Shoto to his limits...it's him, his greatest obstacle to be the undisputed strongest hero, Horizon...'
END CHAPTER---
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