God of Heroics: Comicman!

The crowd was still buzzing about the confession when the second match ended.

It wasn't much of a match.

Todoroki Shoto raised one foot, pressed it to the ground, and a glacier ate the arena. It happened in the span of a single breath. Ice climbed in every direction, a tidal wave of frozen spikes that covered the concrete stage and kept growing, pushing outward and upward until it had consumed the ring, the grass border, and most of Sero Hanta's tape in a single crystalline eruption that left the entire stadium in stunned silence.

Sero hung from the ice like a fly caught in amber, his tape frozen mid-swing, his body wrapped in frost from the waist down.

"I... I give up," he said through chattering teeth.

Todoroki thawed him immediately. He apologized about it.

"TODOROKI SHOTO WINS! AND HE DIDN'T EVEN BREAK A SWEAT! THAT'S THE POWER OF THE SON OF THE NUMBER TWO HERO, FOLKS!" Present Mic screamed.

“A bit much, I’d say." Aizawa said.

Up in the stands, Honenuki watched the ice melt with his chin resting on his fist. His eyes tracked the water as it ran off the edges of the stage in thin streams.

If I win my match, I fight whoever wins between Kendo and Yaoyorozu in the quarters. But Manga fights Todoroki. He looked at the glacier's remains. That's going to be fun to watch.

"Match three!" Present Mic announced. "Neito Monoma the elegant prince of Class 1-B versus Ibara Shiozaki! Class B’s assassin! Every something-or-other has its thorns right?!"

Monoma walked out of the east tunnel with his hands in his pockets. The blue PE uniform looked ordinary on everyone else. On him, somehow, it looked like a costume anyway. His blond hair was neat, parted to the right, and his half-lidded eyes swept the crowd with a handsome look.

He had nothing.

No copied quirk. No stored ability. Copy was only as strong as what he could steal, and right now his hands were empty.

Shiozaki emerged from the west tunnel like a saint walking to the altar. Her vine-hair swayed behind her, the thorns catching the light. The PE uniform couldn't diminish her. The way she carried herself, back straight, hands clasped, vines trailing like a living veil, turned gym clothes into vestments. Her eyes were closed and her lips were moving, a prayer too quiet for the microphones.

She opened her eyes when she reached the stage. Dark green, calm, absolutely certain.

The two of them faced each other at center ring. Ten meters apart.

“Pardon my objection, but what exactly did you mean by assassin? I have come this far merely seeking victory.” Shiozaki quickly corrected Present Mic.

“S-Sorry about that!” Present Mic apologized.

Monoma smiled. He took his hands out of his pockets and walked toward her.

"Shiozaki-san."

She watched him approach. Her vines shifted slightly, a rustle like wind through a garden, but she didn't raise them.

"Before we begin," Monoma said. He extended his hand. "I'd like to wish you a fair fight. Win or lose, I want you to know I respect your abilities."

Present Mic leaned into his mic. "Ooh! A show of sportsmanship before the match! You love to see it!"

Shiozaki looked at his hand.

She knew what his quirk was. Everyone in Class 1-B knew. Copy required physical contact. A handshake would give him her Vines. She understood this completely.

But refusing a gesture of goodwill before an honest contest was beneath her. It would be cowardly, suspicious, and faithless. If he wanted her quirk, let him have it. Her vines were an extension of her will, and her will was stronger than his. Borrowed thorns were still thorns, but they belonged to the borrower's conviction, not the original's.

She took his hand.

"May God watch over this battle. And may the righteous prevail." She said.

Monoma felt it the instant their palms connected. The quirk factor flooding in, warm and alive, the genetic blueprint of Vines copying itself into his body. His scalp tingled. He could feel phantom roots where there were none, the ghost-sensation of vines that didn't exist yet pressing against the inside of his skull like thoughts waiting to be spoken.

He let go. Stepped back to his starting position. Five minutes. That was his window. He started counting in his head.

"Thank you, Shiozaki-san."

His smile hadn't changed. But something behind it had.

"START!!!"

Shiozaki moved first.

Her vines erupted from her scalp in a green flood, dozens of them uncoiling at once, shooting across the concrete like striking serpents. They covered the ground, climbed the air, split into forks and branches until the space between her and Monoma was a wall of living thorns ten meters wide and growing.

The arena was swallowed in vines.

Monoma jumped back. The first vine snapped past his ankle close enough to scratch his sneaker. A second curled around from his left and he twisted sideways. A third came from above, arcing down like a whip, and he rolled under it, the thorns raking the concrete where his shoulder had been.

He was fast. The two weeks of 2x gravity training under Manga's quirk had done more than build muscle. It had carved response time into his bones. Where his body used to hesitate, it now fired. Where he used to think before moving, he now moved before thinking.

But Shiozaki was faster with her vines.

A tendril caught his forearm. He ripped it free, skin scratching against the thorns, blood beading along a thin line on his wrist. Two more wrapped his left ankle and yanked. He hit the concrete hard, air leaving his lungs.

"Do not resist," Shiozaki said. Her voice was soft, her expression serene. "Your body will not be harmed if you yield."

"I appreciate the mercy." Monoma planted both palms on the ground. "But I'm afraid I have to decline."

Vines erupted from his head.

They were thinner than hers. Lighter in color, a pale green instead of her deep forest tone, and slower to grow. But they came in a sudden burst that caught even Shiozaki off guard, a spray of copied thorns that slapped the vines off his ankle and spread across the concrete in front of him like roots finding soil.

The stadium noise spiked.

"HE COPIED HER QUIRK!" Present Mic shouted. "MONOMA HAS VINES! THE PHANTOM THIEF STRIKES AGAIN!"

Shiozaki's eyes widened. She'd known this was coming the moment she took his hand. But knowing it and seeing it were different things. Her own power, her own gift from God, growing from the skull of a boy who'd asked for a handshake and turned her blessing into a weapon.

Something cold settled in her chest.

"You deceived me…" she said.

Monoma stood up. His copied vines curled around his arms and coiled at his feet, a pale imitation of her own.

"I asked for a handshake, and you gave me one," he said. "Everything that happens next is just a fight."

"You asked in bad faith."

"I asked politely."

Her jaw set. The cross-shaped vine wrapped around her forehead tightened, a physical tell of anger she couldn't suppress. Her vines surged.

What had been a wall became a flood. Every vine she had, every inch of growth her body could produce, rushed toward Monoma in a wave that turned the arena into a green sea. They came from the ground, from the air, from behind him where earlier vines had rooted and grown and were now whipping inward. The thorns caught the sunlight and glittered.

Monoma met them with his own.

His vines shot upward, catching the downward strikes. His roots dug into the concrete at his feet, anchoring him. He pushed back against her flood with everything the copied quirk had, and for three seconds the arena was a clash of green against green, thorns tearing at thorns, the sound of wood cracking and snapping filling the stadium like a thunderstorm in a forest.

He was losing.

Her vines were thicker, faster, more numerous. Every one of his got overgrown by two of hers. Every root he planted was uprooted by three of her tendrils digging under it. She had years of practice shaping vines. He'd had the quirk for less than sixty seconds.

A vine punched through his vines and hit him in the chest. He staggered. Two more wrapped his right arm and wrenched it sideways. A fourth coiled around his waist and lifted him off the ground.

"Crucifixion." Shiozaki said.

The vines began to form a cocoon. Layers wrapping over layers, thorns facing inward, a sphere of green closing around Monoma like a fist. The match would be over once the ball sealed.

In the stands, Kendo gripped the railing. "Come on, Monoma..."

"He's done. He should’ve tried to copy my quirk before the match or something." Kamakiri said.

"He's not done, yet." Manga mentioned.

Everyone looked at him.

His head showed a popcorn bucket. “Just keep watching.” He told them.

Inside the closing cocoon, Monoma could feel the vines tightening. Thorns pressed into his PE uniform, pricked through the fabric, bit into his skin. The light was disappearing as the layers thickened. He had maybe two seconds before it sealed completely.

He grabbed a vine with his bare hand and pulled.

The vine snapped.

Shiozaki felt it. A tremor through the network, a signal that shouldn't exist. One of her vines, thick enough to restrain a grown adult, snapped in a student's grip.

He grabbed another. Snapped it. Then a third. His arms flexed and the PE uniform's sleeves strained across biceps that had no business being on a fifteen-year-old with an initial 1/5 power rating. Two weeks of 2x gravity. Push-ups, pull-ups, squats, sparring, all of it done under a weight that made every movement twice as hard and every muscle twice as dense by the end.

The cocoon cracked open.

Monoma ripped his way out of Crucifixion with his bare hands, shredded vines falling around him like green confetti, blood running from a dozen thorn-scratches across his arms and chest. His uniform was torn at both shoulders. His hair was a mess. His expression was wild, alive, and grinning so hard it looked like it hurt.

"MONOMA BREAKS FREE!" Present Mic was on his feet. "HE JUST RIPPED HIS WAY OUT OF HER ULTIMATE MOVE WITH RAW STRENGTH! SINCE WHEN IS THIS KID THAT STRONG?!"

"I wonder if it has to do with that secret training of Class B." Aizawa wondered.

Shiozaki recoiled in shock. Why was he trying so hard? Why was he willing to harm himself so badly to win? Wasn’t it just a friendly competition between classmates?

Monoma dashed forward.

No vines. No quirk tricks. He just ran at her.

She sent a wall of thorns to meet him. He zigged and zagged, closing the distance.

Shiozaki stepped back and threw vines from both sides. He ducked under the left, his copied vines catching the right and holding it just long enough for him to slip past. She threw more. He tanked one across the chest, grunted, kept moving. Another caught his leg and he tore it loose without stopping.

He was three meters away. Two. One.

Her vines surged up between them, a final desperate barricade, and Monoma's copied vines met them head-on, wrapping and pulling and buying him a single half-second of open space.

He grabbed her by the shoulders.

She froze from the shock of being touched. No one had ever gotten this close during a fight. Her entire style was built on keeping people away. The vines were her space, her wall, her sanctuary.

And he was inside it.

He pushed. Hard. His legs drove into the concrete and his gravity-trained body threw everything it had into the shove, and Shiozaki, who weighed less than he did and had never trained for close-quarters grappling, went backward. Her feet scraped the concrete. Her vines thrashed around them both, cutting his arms, his sides, his face, but he didn't let go.

She hit the edge of the ring.

One more step.

"Forgive me, Shiozaki. Even a side character like me needs moments where he has to look cool." Monoma gave a sad smile.

He pushed.

Her heel crossed the line. The vines went slack.

"Shiozaki is out of bounds!" Midnight announced. "Monoma wins!"

The crowd's reaction was split. Cheers from some. Confused murmuring from others. It hadn't been easy. It hadn't been flashy. A boy had shaken a girl's hand, stolen her power, and then muscled his way through everything she threw at him until he could shove her out of bounds.

It was ugly. It was dirty. It was reprehensible.

But it was the only way someone like him could have won.

He stood at the edge of the ring, breathing hard, blood running from at least fifteen thorn cuts. His PE uniform was shredded. His hair was a mess. The copied vines on his scalp were already withering, the quirk fading as his body rejected what wasn't his.

Shiozaki stood on the grass just beyond the boundary line. Her vines hung still at her sides. Her face was composed, but her eyes were burning.

"You asked me for a handshake… You looked me in the eye and asked me to wish you well. And you used that to steal from me." She said.

"I did."

"That was sinful, Monoma-kun."

"It was."

He stepped off the stage and walked to where she stood. The cameras followed him. Forty thousand people watched.

He bowed. A deep bow, his back parallel to the ground, his torn uniform hanging off his shoulders, blood dripping from his forehead onto the grass.

"I would have lost nine times out of ten against you in a fair fight," he said, still bowed. "Your quirk is stronger than mine will ever be. Your conviction is something I don't have. I used a dirty trick because it was the only way I could win, and I'm sorry."

Silence from the arena. Present Mic, for once, didn't fill it.

"I'll make it up to you," Monoma continued. "However you want. Whatever penance you ask. I'll do it. I'm not asking you to forgive me right now. I'm asking you to let me earn it."

Shiozaki looked down at the top of his head. The blond hair matted with sweat and blood. The ruined uniform. The posture of genuine remorse from a boy who spent most of his waking hours being anything but genuine.

She didn't forgive him. The sting was too fresh and the principle too important. He had used her faith against her. He had turned her honesty into a vulnerability. That was not something that could be erased with a bow and pretty words.

But he wasn't asking her to erase it. He was asking to work for it. And that, at least, was something she could respect.

"Rise, Monoma-kun." she said.

He straightened.

"I will pray for you. Not because you deserve it. Because you need it." She said. Her voice was steady and her eyes were clear.

She turned and walked toward the exit tunnel. Her vines trailed behind her like a bride's train, and not a single thorn was out of place.

Monoma watched her go. He could feel the quirk fading, the five-minute window closing. The copied vines fell from his head in a dry, withered heap at his feet.

He touched his forehead where the blood was still running and looked at his red fingers.

"Fair enough." he said quietly. He was just glad she didn’t hate his guts and they could still be friends.

In the stands, Class B cheered and clapped for the both of them.

Ida's match against Mei Hatsume lasted ten minutes and contained zero actual fighting. Mei used every second of it to advertise her support items on national television, running circles around Ida while narrating the specifications of each device to the cameras. When she'd showcased everything she wanted to showcase, she stepped out of the ring voluntarily.

Ida stood in the center of the stage with his fists clenched and his glasses fogged and the expression of a man who had just been used as a prop in someone else's commercial.

"I FEEL SO VIOLATED!" he announced to the stadium.

Class 1-B collectively cringed in sympathy.

"That sucked, haha." Awase said. "Not a single punch thrown and he still lost."

"He didn't lose. He won by default." Kendo pointed out.

"He looked like an idiot out there."

"Fair."

"Match five!" Present Mic's energy hadn't flagged one degree. "Honenuki Juzo from the hero course versus Ashido Mina, also from the hero course! Class B's recommendation student against Class A's dancing queen! This one's gonna be wild!"

Honenuki walked out in his PE uniform. The skull-like face with its lipless teeth and angular eyes caught a few gasps from the crowd, people who hadn't seen him up close before. He didn't smile, because smiling with that face tended to make children cry, but he made sure to look positive as best as he could.

Ashido bounced out of the opposite tunnel. Literally bounced. Her feet left the ground with every step, her pink hair bobbing, her horns catching the sun, her smile so wide it could have been its own quirk. She waved to the crowd with both hands and they loved her for it. The cheers that met her were warm and immediate.

"She's popular…" Honenuki noted to himself. She got way more applause than he did.

"ARE WE READY FOR ROUND FIVE?!" Present Mic asked a question he already knew the answer to. 

They squared up. Ten meters apart. Ashido's feet were already dripping a thin film of acid onto the concrete, prepping her slides. Honenuki crouched slightly, his fingers twitching, ready to palm the ground.

"START!!!"

Ashido attacked first. She leaped, spinning in the air with a dancer's grace, and a spray of acid bullets rained down from above in a wide arc. The drops sizzled on impact, hissing against the concrete, each one a marble-sized pocket of corrosion that ate into the surface and left smoking pockmarks.

Honenuki slapped the ground.

The concrete beneath his palm turned to mud in a widening circle. He sank to his waist in half a second and kept sinking, pulling himself under like a man diving into a pool. The acid shots that would've hit him splattered against mud instead, dissolving the softened material into nothing.

He was gone. The arena floor rippled where he'd vanished, then went still.

"HE'S UNDERGROUND!" Present Mic shouted. "HONENUKI DIVES INTO HIS OWN MUD AND DISAPPEARS! ASHIDO, WATCH YOUR FEET!"

Ashido landed on the concrete and immediately started sliding. Acid seeped beneath her feet, a slick non-corrosive film that carried her across the arena at a fast speed. She couldn't see him. She couldn't hear him. The ground beneath her was solid, for now, but she knew that could change at any second.

The concrete to her left went soft.

She felt it before she saw it. A slight give in the surface beneath her acid trail, the firmness vanishing, her slide wobbling as the ground turned to soup. She kicked off hard and launched herself to the right, landing on solid concrete just as the spot she'd left collapsed into a muddy crater.

Honenuki's hand emerged from the mud, reaching for her ankle. He missed by centimeters.

"Nope!" Ashido fired an acid shot at the hand and it retreated. The acid hit the mud and dissolved it, eating a hole clean through the softened material. Where there had been soft ground he could swim through, there was now nothing. A gap. A void.

Honenuki felt it from below. His swimming lane, gone. Corroded out of existence by her acid. He'd softened that section specifically as an approach route, and she'd deleted it.

So that's how it works, he thought, pulling himself through the remaining mud toward the other side of the arena. Her acid doesn't just sit on softened ground. It eats it. She's burning away my terrain.

He surfaced twenty feet from where he'd submerged, pulling himself out of the mud near the arena's edge. His PE uniform was coated in brown sludge. He wiped his face and looked at the arena floor.

It was already changing. The spots he'd softened were being eaten by acid residue. The spots Ashido had coated in acid were dissolving under their own corrosion. Between the two of them, the arena was becoming a patchwork of holes, puddles, and crumbling concrete.

Ashido saw him surface and charged. She slid across the remaining solid ground like she was ice skating, her body low, her arms out for balance, closing the distance with a speed that most people couldn't match on foot.

He softened the ground in front of her.

She melted through it without slowing down. Her acid trail ate a channel through the mud and she slid across the channel's surface like a boat on rapids, the acid creating its own path. She came out the other side without losing a step.

Damn. He softened more. A wider patch, three meters across.

She acid-slid across the edge of it, eating the perimeter as she went, leaving a crescent-shaped hole in what used to be his trap.

He dove under again. Surfaced behind her. Reached for her ankle.

She spun, and her foot whipped around with acid trailing off it like a comet's tail. The burning liquid splashed across his forearm and hissed. He pulled back.

She planted one foot, poured acid beneath it, and spun. Fast. The acid sprayed outward in a spiral, coating the arena in a wide ring of corrosive liquid that ate into everything it touched. Concrete, mud, softened ground, all of it sizzling and dissolving.

Honenuki jumped back. Then looked down.

The arena was disappearing.

Huge swaths of the concrete stage were gone. Not just softened or cracked. Gone. Eaten through by acid, collapsed into mud, dissolved into nothing. The flat, featureless square they'd started on now looked like something a giant had taken bites out of. Craters and holes and thin bridges of remaining concrete connected by shrinking islands of solid ground.

"The arena is getting DESTROYED!" Present Mic was grinning so hard his jaw ached. "These two are eating the stage alive! Ashido's acid is melting everything Honenuki softens, and Honenuki's softening is sinking everything Ashido doesn't melt! At this rate there won't be a ring LEFT!"

"They're canceling each other out," Aizawa observed. "Ashido's acid dissolves softened material. But Honenuki's softening removes the solid ground Ashido needs for her sliding. Neither quirk can gain an advantage because both are consuming the same resource: the arena itself."

In the 1-B section, Manga was leaning forward. The popcorn emoji in his bubble had been replaced by a magnifying glass.

"Honenuki's going to figure her out." Kaibara was confident.

"Figure out what?" Tetsutetsu asked.

"That he can’t rely on his quirk to beat her."

On the arena, Honenuki arrived at the same conclusion.

He looked at what was left of the stage. Maybe forty percent of the original concrete remained, scattered in uneven patches. Every time he softened something, Ashido ate it. Every time she acid-coated something, the surface degraded past the point of being useful for either of them. If he kept going, they'd both be standing on nothing.

He planted his feet on the largest remaining patch and didn't move.

Ashido circled him on a shrinking acid-trail, looking for an opening. Her yellow eyes were sharp against her black sclera. She'd noticed the same thing he had. The arena was dying. Quirk versus quirk was a stalemate that would leave them both standing on air.

"Looks like we ran out of floor!" she called out, grinning.

"Looks like it."

"So what now, scary-face?"

"Now we fight the old fashioned way."

“Are you really willing to hit a girl on live television?” Ashido made a cute pose.

“There will be girl villains I have to deal with in the future. Might as well get experience now, you know?” Honenuki rubbed the back of his head.

“What?! Not even a second to reconsider?!” She rushed in fast.

Ashido was a dancer. Her body moved in ways that didn't follow the straight lines most fighters operated on. She came at angles, her hips leading, her shoulders rolling, her feet placing themselves in positions that made her next movement unpredictable. A hook that started from her left somehow arrived from below. A kick that looked aimed at his ribs redirected to his knee.

Honenuki blocked the hook with his forearm. The impact was light, she wasn't abnormally strong, but her follow-up came so unexpectedly he barely caught it. A spinning backfist, her elbow leading, her horns whipping past his face close enough to graze.

He swung back. A straight right, nothing fancy, just the simple punch of someone who'd spent two weeks relearning how to use their own body under double the weight.

It connected with her shoulder.

Ashido's eyes went wide. The punch hit like a truck. This was the punch of someone whose muscles had been compressed and rebuilt under forces she'd never experienced, and the sheer weight behind it knocked her sideways, her slide faltering as her feet left the acid-trail and hit dry concrete.

"Ow!" She caught herself, rolling with the impact, coming up in a crouch. Her left arm hung slightly. Not injured. Shocked. "That really freaking hurt, dude!"

"Sorry. I’ll try to be quick." He closed the distance. 

Ashido danced back, her reflexes keeping her ahead, but the arena was shrinking. Every dodge took her closer to an edge or a hole. She feinted left and threw an acid-coated palm strike at his chest. He caught it on his forearm, the acid hissing against his sleeve, and answered with a body shot that caught her below the ribs and folded her forward.

She coughed. Spun away. Fired an acid shot at his face from close range.

He tilted his head backward. The acid splashed against the concrete behind him.

"You're faster than me in mobility," he said, pressing forward. "But this ring is too small for mobility to matter."

She knew he was right. The arena was a graveyard of its former self. The largest remaining patch of solid ground was maybe five meters across, and they were both on it. No room to build speed. No room to dance. Just two people, close quarters, trading blows.

Ashido dropped low and swept his legs. He jumped it cleanly, the 2x gravity training having turned his vertical leap into something almost comical for his frame. He came down with an elbow drop that she rolled under. She popped up with an uppercut that grazed his chin and he ate it and kept swinging.

A right cross caught her on the cheek. She stumbled, caught herself on the edge of a crater, and fired back with a rapid combination. Most of them landed. None of them had the power to stop him.

His did.

A jab caught her nose. Blood mixed with the permanent pink of her skin. She blinked hard, tears of reflex blurring her vision, and in that half-second his fist found her gut again and buried itself.

She flew backward. Hit the ground sliding. Her back crossed the edge of a melted crater and she scrambled for footing on the crumbling rim, acid from her own earlier attacks eating the concrete out from under her fingers.

Honenuki was already there.

He didn't hit her again. He pressed his palm to the concrete beneath her and softened it. Just that one patch. Just enough to swallow her legs to the knees.

Then he touched it again. The concrete re-solidified.

Ashido's legs were trapped from mid-thigh down in solid concrete. She pulled. Twisted. Her acid could melt through it, given time, but the match wouldn't wait.

"Ashido Mina is immobilized!" Midnight called. "Honenuki wins!"

Ashido slumped. Breathed. Then laughed.

"Okay, that was pretty smart." She tapped the concrete encasing her legs. "Can you get me out of this, though? I think my shoes are fused to the floor."

Honenuki walked over and softened the concrete around her legs. She pulled free, wobbled, and sat down on the ruined arena floor. Her PE uniform was splattered with mud and her own residual acid. Blood dripped from her nose. Her pink cheeks were flushed a deeper shade from exertion.

"You hit way harder than you look, dude. Couldn’t even go easy on a lady like me?!" she playfully glared at him.

"Sorry. I’ve been working out."

"Rematch sometime?" She smiled at him.

His lipless mouth stretched into what was technically a smile. On his skull-like face it looked slightly terrifying, but Ashido had spent two minutes throwing hands with him and wasn't scared of his face anymore.

"Anytime." he said.

He offered her a hand. She took it and he pulled her to her feet.

Present Mic surveyed the damage. The arena, the pristine concrete square that had hosted five matches, was gone. Craters, acid scars, melted holes, and muddy patches covered what remained. The maintenance crew was going to have words with someone.

"HONENUKI JUZO TAKES IT! AND WOULD CEMENTOSS PLEASE REBUILD THE RING, BECAUSE I THINK THE ARENA NEEDS TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL!"

“I’m on it. I’m on it.” Cementoss came over from the other side of the field.

Down in the waiting room, Manga heard the results through the walls. Monoma advanced. Honenuki advanced. The bracket was filling in.

His next fight was Todoroki.

A fire and ice emoji appeared in his bubble, side by side.

He took a sip of water.

Then he started stretching.

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