章節 7: Battle Trials

-Narrator POV-

...

The students gather around and wait for All Might's instructions. The air is filled with a mix of emotions as some are hapilly ignorant to what's to come while others are anxious for they know what this trial will ask of them. The Battle trial consistes in teams of two going up against one another in certain scenarios of Heroes against Villains. Either the heroes win via completing the objective or neutralizing the threat or the Villains shall tryumph.

Kaminari is well aware of that, his face denounces how nervous he is, not even the confidence of his new attained hero costume can make up for the agitation of his mind. Only the voice of All Might made him escape from his own thoughts.

All Might gather the students around to pick the teams. Kaminari wonders who he will be partners with, he wishes to be with those whose friendship he may have already obtained. All Might draws, the teams are set.

"What a coincidence, eh?" Kaminari speaks as he walks over to Jiro, her chosen partner. "Yeah... Your hero costume is awfully casual to be called a costume, y'know?" Jiro bluntness is not lost around Kaminari.

"I could say the same, yours looks like you're ready to go to a Rock concert." Kaminari's bounces back with pettiness. "It fits my theme so it's good enough." Jiro's tone sounds of annoyance at Kaminari's response.

"So does mine." Kaminari wishes to change subject so this doesn't become awkard. "Would you prefer to wait to know what act are we going to play before laying a plan?"

"Nah, in my case it won't change much. We can do it now." Jiro seemed happy at the change of subject. "My quirk allows me to hear certain vibrations and frequencies on surfaces I connect with them, I could also damage objects by canalizing my heartbeat vibrations." Jiro quick explanation surprises Kaminari. "Yours is related to electricity, right?"

"Indeed. I can generate and control electricity emmited by my own body." Kaminari still keeps the details of his quirk to a minimum. "Could be very useful, how are we going to work?" And so both of them started to devise a makeshift plan, more of a base to what role each would play. All Might once again gets the attention as he reveals the brackett.

Kaminari avidly looks for his letter.

"Team G vs Team C, we're against Yaoyorozu and Mineta then." Both look over to Team C and they do the same. Mineta shows visible signs of fear, maybe at the thought of facing Kaminari. Momo can't help but sigh at the sight of such cowardness.

All Might finally direct the students to the monitoring room as the first battle is about to begin. "Midoriya vs Bakugo, I expect Bakugo to make easy work of the guy." Jiro says with heavy certainty as if she could see the outcome already. "Don't underestimate the Midoriya guy, he may appear weak, but appereances are deceiving." Kaminari answers, remembering the giant robot Midoriya took down with one punch.

The trial begins.

...

-Kaminari POV-

...

Once again, Midoriya proves everyone wrong, I wish I had placed a bet. His ingenuity saved his team from failure, I'm still wondering if he deliberately got smacked around just to lure Bakugo into a false sense of security.

"I told you to not underestimate the guy, Jiro." Felt good to rub this one on her face, she's an alright girl but her demeanor is bad. "The amount of damage he took doesn't exactly make this a decisive victory, it's pyrrhic at best." She ain't the one to admit defeat... I chuckle and we keep watching.

...

With the others teams done, now it's our turn. As we head out I look over to Jiro, she's calm headed and focused, I'm trying to keep the same face but on the inside I'm freaking out. It's great that we got to be the Heroes, meaning we can do this without necessarily engaging, but nonetheless it can happen.

We are at the entrance, waiting for the green light. Our plan is done, she's recon, I'm muscle, she locates the bomb and the "villains" and I do my thing. Easier said than done but there's no going back now.

The green light signals the test has begun, we enter the building.

As we enter, I notice something. "Stop. Look at this."

Jiro sees the same thing. Somehow, The floor of the building were covered in rubber. "Yaoyorozu, I assume. She negated my speed beautifuly." I say as I'm once again surprised as look at the walls. "And the walls are covered in the weird balls that Mineta produces of his head, they thought even about the possibility of me using the wall as momentum." They negged me hard, as expected of Yaoyorozu.

I look at Jiro and nod for her to do her bid. Her lobes extend and she pierces the wall. As she concetrantes I'm thinking about how many other contraptions they made for me.

"They're in the main room with the bomb." she says as the lobe gets out of the wall. " All floors are laminated with insulator material, they closed themselves in the room which is too insulated, even the windows. They really aren't worried about me." I felt the disappointment in her voice.

"That will be their mistake. Since there's none blocking us from the main room, let's head to there." The reasuring thoughts have to be said, I don't think Jiro is only useful for recon.

...

Here we are, the entrance is barred with a door of purple balls.

"Are you ready to test your hypothesis?"

"Just be sure your move works, we will be vulnerable."

Jiro proceeds to attach her lobes into the makeshift door as I charge my hands with electricity. The entire wall proceeds to vibrate as I prepare my new move I created once by accident.

Jiro's effort is noticeable, she's starting to struggle as she adds more power to the vibrations, feels like the entire building is vibrating. "With the output I have, this shall be enough for one small-" My muttering is interrupted by Jiro's protest "Hurry, I can't keep this up forever."

Soon, the purple balls were bouncing off the walls, the door was crumbling, she was right, excessive amounts of vibration may weaken the adhesive properties of the balls. "I'm ready Jiro, get behind me!"

...

-Yaoyorozu POV-

Our plan gave us time. By insulating the building we negated Kaminari-san greatest weapon: His speed. With the floor insulated and the walls full of Mineta's pop-off balls, he can't properly use his quirk.

I place the last sheet of insulate material when I hear the squirms of Mineta. He's bleeding, apparently the overusage of his quirk causes his scalp to bleed.

"I hope you're right, this will hurt for a week!" He says failing to hold back tears.

"It has to suffice, we don't have many ways to fight against him, so by nullifying his quirk usage and the lack of offensive capabilities of Jiro Kyoka, we can just wait until the timer runs out." I'm sure this plan can succeed.

Soon the walls start to vibrate.

"WHAT IS THIS? IS IT HIM?" Mineta shouts as he jumps, startled by the commotion.

What could be all this? This is not what I expected, I didn't know he could control vibrati-

Oh no... He can't, but Jiro Kyoka may, I was so worried about Kaminari-san I didn't took her quirk into full account.

"THE SHIELD IS CRUMBLING!" Mineta snapped me back into reality by pointing at the shield he made, it was indeed breaking down!

"What do I do? Do we fight?!" Once again Mineta is desperate from an answer.

"Calm down! Even if they go through the door, this entire room is insulated, we can stop-"

*THUNDER CRACK*

...

My eardrums are in pain, the shockwave sent me flying against the wall though the rubber helped to cushion the impact. Mineta was knocked out, I can't hear my own voice even if I shouted. I'm deaf, only the agonizing sound of tinnitus is what I can hear.

But how? How did he generated electricty?! I studied him since the QAT, how could he?

They've entered the room, Jiro-chan is looking at us, she looks... Annoyed? Little by little I'm hearing again, from the muffled sounds I can hear her complaining to him "... too loud... Really?... in closed quarters?..." She walks towards the bomb, I have to stop her. I get up as fast as I can but I can't keep myself straight. My eardrums... of course, they've been ruptured, my balance is compromised.

I would've fallen face first into the floor hadn't been for Kaminari-san grabbing me at the last second. He lays me on the ground as I'm unable to stop Jiro-chan from retrieving the bomb... I know I failed as All Might announces on the speaker.

"HERO TEAM G WINS!"

...

-Narrator POV-

Kaminari looks over to Mineta after laying Yaoyorozu on the floor, he's indeed knocked out. "I hurted them... Damn it."

All are removed from the premisses, Kaminari's thoughts will have to wait as Jiro comes to him, her face clearly showing signs of annoyance.

"When you told me you could other things besides electricity you could at least warn me about it being a literal thunder."'

"Sorry about that, Jiro, I hope I didn't hurt you." Kaminari answered with a pint of shame.

After a moment of silence, she answered. "Aside from the mild tinnitus it's nothing to worry abo-"

"No, Jiro, really, If I injured you I have to make up for it!" His interruption caught Jiro off guard. "How about a snack? What food do you like?"

"Uh... I like pizza..."

"Awesome, what do you think about we grabbing one after class then?" Kaminari awaite her response avidly.

"It's fine I gue-..." Her abrupt stop mid comment made Kaminari look at her face which is normally pale is now turning red quickly. He understands too late that this kind of approach is not interpreted the same as it was back home, this may suggest a date...

She froze in her words, she couldn't do anything but walk faster and hit her earphone jacks against one another.

"Of course, we could see if the guys want to come with us as well." Kaminari breaks the awkward silence.

Her agreement nod meant that the confusion was settled, no second intentions and get to eat pizza with friends, it's a win win situation for Kaminari who happily smiles. "I will call the guys and you see to it about the girls, I'll message you. See ya!" Kaminari concludes the talk after exchanging numbers with Jiro, whose redness came again as she rapidly went to the monitoring room ahead.

...

As soon as they walked into the room, the swarm of amazed classmates surrounded them, eager to ask about mostly Kaminari's power. All Might was closely watching.

"So your quirk gives you lightning powers too?!" Sero Hanta curiously leans towards Kaminari as Kirishima followed "The way you made sure Yaoyorozu didn't hit the ground hard was so manly like!" ending with All Might himself "Young Kaminari, your classmate, the same as I, are curious about your new developing! Please, enlighten us!" His confident smile made impossible to not answer, the feeling of timidness vanishing.

"Well, Since Team C masterfuly negated my use of electricty, it was a Hypothesis we've thought about, a non-lethal way to neutralize a potential enemy from a distance, and since lightning is too dangerous -and hard- to launch, I had to look for other alternatives."

Most of the class are listening closely, even those at the distance are too paying attention for indeed it was ingenious thinking. He continued.

"That's when thunder came into consideration, it's heated air expanding thus creating a sonic shockwave, so I basically created a lightining bolt by clapping my hands and directing the shockwave foward, though it needs work on intensity since it went everywhere also."

He wasn't lying, the thunderclap shattered nearby windows and the sound could heard even outside U.A. by the nearby town.

"But I could only do it because Jiro was decisive into formulate a counter for Mineta's adhesive balls. She was adamant that vibration made from her quirk could loose the structural integrity of the adhesive properties and she was right!"

Jiro could do nothing but flick her earphones against one another. It turned into anxiety as the class went to swarm her instead. While so, Kaminari went to All Might.

"Professor, how's Team C condition? Please, be honest about it."

All Might hesitated at first, but he saw that sugarcoating it wasn't gonna cut it for him.

"All right, young Kaminari, in all honesty it could be worse if you didn't held back." Kaminari was shocked, All Might saw through his facade on a whim, he was indeed holding back even if the collar restricted the full power cap.

"Young Yaoyorozu had ruptured eardrums and mild headaches, but young Mineta held the full force of the shockwave, aside from the earing damage, the concussive damage made him lose counciousness and have a concussion."

Kaminari was devastated, even after so much trouble he still injured his classmates. "But they will be okay, Recovery Girl has already took care of them and soon they will be joining you." it served little to confort Kaminari. All Might placed his hand on Kaminari's shoulder. "You expect much too soon, young one. You're here to tame and control your marvelous power. Fear not, worry not, you will overcome this obstacle, I assure you of it."

Kaminari wanted to hug All Might, whether he's doing on purpose on not, he's indeed a father figure, All Might's ability to inspire trust and confidence gives reassurance.

"Thank you, Professor." Kaminari smiled as he walked back to his classmates.

...