章 96: Battle Trial, Conclusion

(Undertale OST 76, Bergentrückung, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YivzBeEwzWI. Yes, just plain old raw Bergentrückung without Asgores theme)

Akane started playing that theme, she didn't know why, but she had a feeling that she should play it, but it didn't feel good, because she knew that this was just a fractured theme, an incomplete piece, the opening without the episode.

She started playing and the nano bots started shaping a huge humanoid form. It stood proudly in front of her, seeming like a proud father that would always try to protect her, but Akane knew that this wasn't enough to stop Shoto's finishing move.

Just playing the prelude wasn't enough in this case, but she just didn't know the main piece, she didn't know what to play...

...so, she had to improvise.

(In the Hall of the Mountain King by Edvard Grieg, Symphonic Metal Cover by Falkkone, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gS9oAX1bnE, didn't expect me to whip out a classical music piece, eh? Btw, just start it around 1:28 when the beat drops)

She chose to play a piece with a similar name and theme, a classical piece that every human knew. Sadly, that pieces didn't really had any other similarities than that though, this theme was about of a mountain king that exuded a certain pride, pride about his accomplishments, he is showing you his hall, flaunting his wealth and riches, head held high.

The fight you would have had with him would have been a fight where you couldn't defeat him to win, simply because he is so much more powerful than you, he is toying with you.

Something that the other mountain king just wasn't. Yes, he was much stronger than you, yes if he were serious you wouldn't really have a change against him, but that king just wasn't like that. He just wasn't and that was reflected within his theme, even if it just was the intro.

He was a man that regretted his very actions,

his son and daughter died by the hands of man,

in a fit of anger, he swore revenge against them,

for taking their kinds hope away,

for sealing them away in a deep mountain.

His wife gone because of his choice,

Alone he shouldered the hope of his kind.

Upholding the promise, he regretted.

But at the end he lived for his people,

the promise to move the mountain stayed.

Bergentrückung.

That was the nature, the very being that was the king of the underground. ASGORE DREEMUR, but as it seems she currently couldn't ask any of her former lives friends for help, no matter how much she tried.

Akane chuckled, she still had to unlock so much inside of her soul. But now wasn't the time to get sentimental. She used the 'In the Hall of a Mountain King' in tandem with 'Bergentrückung' to form an image of the king of the underground, out of the nano bots.

The image wasn't even the slightest bit clear, but that had to be enough for now.

The image of the king of the underground stood tall in front of her. With his chest held high he faced the ice beam that was freezing air as if it were nothing to fear, for a moment it felt like Akane could really see him. Him, a proud father protecting his daughter with everything he has.

The image lifted his weapon, that probably was a trident and faced the ice beam. He slammed the trident into the beam, at first getting pushed back by it a little bit, but suddenly the tip of the weapon ignited, creating a spark that turned into a burning tornado.

Akane played her instrument more furiously trying to get more power out of it, but that turned out to be incredibly difficult if you aren't using the right theme.

The clash continued, the burning maelstrom against the subzero ice beam, none of them wanted to give in, none of them wanted to lose, both of them pushed forward once again in the hope of defeating the other.

This situation continued for what seemed like an eternity for everyone, but the first one that gave in was Akanes puppet, slowly cracks started to appear on it, even though it was made out of nano bots, slowly the fire was dying out, slowly the image got hazier.

Akane sighed. Well, she guessed that would happen, she was a normal human girl despite everything. How the hell should she go against such powerful quirks like that?

She chuckled, well at least she managed to eliminate one of them.

The trident cracked at the miniature robots scattered all over the place. Akane was tired and her body still hurt from getting hit by a glacier, she deserved her break now.

She closed her eyes again like always and dived down. She did her best and this was a friendly spar, she didn't have to take things to seriously. She waited for the ice beam to hit her, but it never happened.

She got out of her realm again to see what happened and she couldn't believe what happened. The image moved on its own in front of her and protected her with its body. She didn't know what this feeling in her chest was, she didn't know why she suddenly felt that feeling, she didn't know why she felt like crying, but she know that she had to say these words.

"Thank you for protecting me, father..."

These words weren't heard by anybody, but one person, on this day. The drones malfunctioned after that intense clash so no of her classmates or teachers could hear it, but the person that these words were meant for received them.

The King of the Underground smile after he received these words. He was happy that instead of erasing a young flame he got to protect one this time around.

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Shoto gasped, he did it. The trump card, the 'Absolute Zero', hit her.

But how was it possible for him to create such an attack? Well, coldness, or freezing, is nothing but the lack of movement on an atomic level.

Though, his quirk wasn't like that at a younger age. In the past his quirk Half-Cold Half-Hot could only create coldness and hotness through ice and fire, but after a quirk evolution that changed, and some restriction were lifted.

Those were, that as long as he had enough time to prepare, he could use his ice or fire to affect the atomic movement of elementary particles, well only the cold side though.

The reason was that he despised his hot half and wished that it wouldn't exist it the first place, thus he welcomed that only one half of his quirk evolved.

For as why his quirk evolved? He didn't remember which song it was, or which artist played it, but in his childhood Shoto once heard a song that just resonated with him. After hearing it, for the first time in his life, Shoto felt he shouldn't give up, no matter the circumstances.

But still, his quirk evolution and nature of his trump card had a big detriment, no matter how much he wanted to deny it, but he had to use the other half of his quirk to offset it.

He couldn't feel the left side of his body anymore, simply because it was literally almost frozen solid. He grits his teeth, he felt ashamed about what he was about to do, but he knew that he had to do that, else the left side of his body would undergo necrosis.

He grits his teeth again, he really didn't want to use it, concentrating, Shot called the last reserves of his body out, just so he could activate that ability he was so ashamed of.

"aaaaaaAaaAAaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

He screamed, using the last of his power to activate the other half of his quirk. A fire pillar rose to the sky that day.

"What kind of shit show is this? Making me use 'his' quirk."

After he said what he wanted to say, he fell unconscious, he really felt ashamed right now for being so thoroughly defeated that he had to resort to this.

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"Sensei, what happened?"

"Yeah, we want to see the conclusion of this battle!"

"Now, now calm down, the broadcast will be back in a couple of seconds."

Yagi started to sweat intensely. This wasn't supposed to happen at all! He remembered how the company advertised these drones.

'Long battery life, auto projectile dodge function, sturdy hull that is nigh indestructible, resistant against heat and cold, high quality images, and the ability to repair itself.'

The company promised that these drones won't break in a mere fight under students, even professional heroes had difficulties actually damaging it, but now the record was cut off! What kind of powerful attacks did the two just release that each drone in the vicinity around them short circuited?

Suddenly the recording of the ground returned, and everyone could see the results of the clash that happened.

Akane, Shoto and Mezo were lying on the floor, all of them were out of commission.

"If everyone here is unconscious, how should the winner be determined?"

Denki was hit in the back of his head by Kyoka.

"Idiot, did you already forget? If the time runs out the winner will be the villain team."

"Oh yeah, right. I forgot!"

Everyone sighed as he said that. But still wasn't this conclusion of this awesome battle to boring? Suddenly Mashirao appeared out of the building.

"Hey, what is Ojiro doing there?"

"Yeah, shouldn't he take care of the bomb inside the building?"

"Maybe Akane and Toru hid the bomb, and he couldn't find it."

"So, he came out, after eliminating Toru, in the hope that Shoji and Todoroki took care of Akane?"

"If that's the case isn't the hero team the victor here, if he now captures Seigi?"

"You are right...!"

The class was whispering excited under each other. At the end it was a close victory for the hero team again, how surprising. Akane did her best and even defeated two people with quirks, but at the end that was all she managed to do before collapsing, but still, that was still an impressive feat to do and the class started truly respecting her for that.

"Toru, good job. Now finish this for us, will you?"

Everyone turned around as they heard her voice suddenly came out of the recordings.

She looked towards the direction of Mashiroa, giving a thump up with a smile. 'How strong is the will of that girl', was the first question everyone asked themself.

"Wait, Toru?"

In that moment Mashiroa fell over, revealing...

...a pair of floating gloves and a pair of shoes on the ground!

"No problem, Akane! Thanks to your advice I managed to take Ojiro out, thank you so much!"

Everyone was looking at Ojiro on a screen in this moment, just to see him cowering on the floor, holding his crotch. Each boy felt how pitiful he was in this moment.

At the end Toru walked to each boy and capturing each of them with the tape they were given.

It was the villain teams victory.

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Mezo and Todoroki were brought to the infirmary after the fight, while Akane just changed into more comfortable clothing after it.

Everyone told her to go to recovery girl after that, but she just insisted that she was fine, so everyone just started accepted it after a while.

"Ahem, enough about that. Well, I am sure everyone knows who the MVP is in this round, but still. Does anyone know why I am thinking so?"

And again, Momo was the one who lifted her hand up first.

"To iterate, Todoroki planned to freeze the building, ending the battle early by incapacitating everyone that was in the building. That would have probably even worked successfully, really ending the battle early, if Seigi wasn't there. She ran out of the safety of the building, stopping Todoroki from his attack. Afterwards she threw him away from the location, so she didn't have to deal with him when dealing with Shoji. If she were a second faster, Shoji would have been unconscious, making it easier to deal with things now that team B would have lost their shield, but luckily Ojiro was there to save him, alongside with Todoroki. Now Seigi was caught up in a 3 vs. 1 against the hero team. But despite that she wasn't scared about the odds and slowly but surely she weakened each three of these two. Mid battle Team B send Ojiro into the building to deal with the bomb, but that was probably part of her plan to ease the burden of fight for her a bit. At the end she took out Todoroki and Mezo and Toru dealt with Ojiro."

Yagi nodded at that analysis, as the previous one it was almost flawless.

"Well, to put it into a shorter sentence. I stopped their plan a, engaged the enemy in battle, lured one into a trap, making my partner in this fight deal with that person and took on the other two. But seriously, that fight was risky. One wrong move and I would have been out of commission, letting my cute, defenseless partner deal with three strong opponents. This could have ended completely different for all I know. Especially considering that Todoroki can just freeze everything around him to defeat her and Mezo can tract her. Well, I made sure that they would only send Ojiro in, so I guess that ended well, huh?"

Everyone looked at Akane. They got the feeling that everyone just went according to her plan in that battle.

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Date:

Akane walked directly to Toru, wanting to talk to her.

"Oh hey, Akane. What do you want?"

"Go on a date with me."

The entirety of class 1A just went silent after they heard that. They all turned around to confirm if what they heard was right.

"What?"

"Well, I don't really know why, but my heart is beating faster whenever I am around you without a clear reason. Going through various literature and sources I've read in the past I concluded that I most definitely want to spend more time with you.

"So, so you want to say..."

"That I might be probably in love with you? Maybe? You know that I am not good with the entire feeling business, considering that most of the time I mostly feel the emotions of others and when I am completely alone I just feel restlessness. So, you want to go on a date with me?"

Everyone had the feeling that Akane just went other something very concerning very casually, but they paid no attention to it, after all everyone rooted for Toru.

Still, Toru intensely blush after being invited to a date with her. Steam was rising out of her head, already thinking about what to wear for their date.

Hehe, the first time I am doing this. Well, onto the second reason why I didn't evolve Shotos other half of the quirk is.

How do you imagine how INFINITE HEAT SCIENTIFICALLY looks like?

Seriously, just how in the nine hells do you imagine absolute heat would look like on an elementary level? Are the atoms supposed to rush through space on light speed? Holy cow, that kind of heat could evaporate the sun!