God of Heroics: Comicman!

"Quarterfinal match two!" Present Mic announced. "Monoma Neito of Class B versus Ida Tenya of Class A! The Copycat against the Engine! This one's gonna be FAST, folks! If you know what I mean."

"Monoma's quirk can copy those of his opponents. Ida's quirk gives him superhuman speed. Getting close enough to touch someone that fast is the fundamental problem Monoma has to solve." Aizawa pointed out.

Monoma walked out of the east tunnel.

In the 1-B section, Manga's bubble displayed a thinking emoji.

"He's going in without a quirk again. I don’t know why he’s being so stubborn!" Pony felt annoyed on his behalf.

"He could've touched anyone before the match," Komori said. "Tetsutetsu, Manga, Kamakiri. Why doesn't he just load up?"

"Because that's not the point of this." Tetsutetsu shook his head. “A real man shouldn’t have to always rely on others!”

Ida walked out of the west tunnel. Back straight. Chin up. Arms swinging in perfect perpendicular arcs. His blue hair was cropped short and his glasses caught the light. Everything about him was proper and earnest.

They faced each other across the ring.

"Monoma-kun, I look forward to a fair fight." Ida said, adjusting his glasses.

"If you were in Class B, I’d agree." Monoma waved him off. "BUT DO YOU THINK I GIVE A DAMN ABOUT WHAT SOME CLASS A SCUM LOOKS FORWARD TO?!"

"E-Excuse me?!" Ida was flabbergasted.

"I don’t need to repeat myself. Just prepare to be embarrassed in front of millions of people as I show the superiority of Class B!" He cackled maniacally.

"START!!!"

Ida made a decision in the first instant. He would not drag this out. He would not toy with an opponent who had insulted his class and his honor. He would end it with everything he had, in one blow. As a sign of respect.

"Recipro Burst!"

His engines roared. The calves of his legs erupted with blue exhaust and he crossed the ten-meter gap in less than a second. His right leg came up in a flying kick aimed at Monoma's chest, the type of blow that would end the fight in one hit.

Monoma couldn’t dodge.

Ida was too fast. But the training with Fukidashi had changed his body in ways that weren't visible from the stands. His reflexes fired a fraction of a second faster than they should have. His core tightened. His arms came up in a cross guard and his feet dug into the concrete and he braced.

The kick hit him like a car.

His guard buckled. The impact drove him backward, his sneakers tearing furrows in the stage, his forearms screaming where the kick had connected. The shockwave of displaced air snapped his hair back. Blood burst from his nose where his own crossed arms had been driven into his face.

He didn't fall.

His feet stayed under him. His knees bent but didn't buckle. The concrete cracked beneath his heels where the force had transferred through his body into the ground. He slid four meters and stopped.

The crowd noise spiked.

"HE TOOK IT!" Present Mic screamed. "MONOMA JUST ATE A FULL-SPEED KICK FROM IDA AND STAYED ON HIS FEET!"

Monoma's arms dropped from his guard. They were shaking. His nose was pouring blood and his vision was swimming. That kick had scrambled something behind his eyes. Everything was slightly sideways.

But his right hand, the one that had been on the outside of his guard, the one that had touched Ida's calf for a fraction of a second when the kick connected, was tingling.

Engine copied.

He felt it flood in. The blueprint of Ida's quirk settling into his body, the phantom sensation of exhaust ports that was forming in his calves, the sudden awareness of an internal combustion process that his muscles had never performed but now instinctively understood how to activate.

Monoma grinned. Blood on his teeth.

"Got you."

His engines ignited.

Exhaust erupted from his calves, identical to Ida's, and Monoma shot forward at a speed that made the crowd gasp. It wasn't as skillful as Ida's movement. His trajectory was slightly off-center. He'd never used Engine before and his body was learning in real time, the instinctive knowledge from Copy giving him the basics while his muscles adapted to keep up.

But he was fast.

He closed the distance and threw a punch. Ida blocked it and countered with a roundhouse kick that Monoma barely ducked under, his copied engines firing to pull him sideways. Ida pursued. Monoma retreated. They blurred across the arena in a high-speed exchange that the cameras struggled to track, two figures trailing blue exhaust, one polished and the other ragged, colliding and separating and colliding again.

"THEY'RE BOTH USING ENGINE!" Present Mic was losing his mind. "MONOMA COPIED IDA'S QUIRK AND NOW WE'VE GOT TWO SPEEDSTERS GOING AT IT! I CAN BARELY SEE THEM!"

"Monoma's technique is sloppy. He's running on instinct from the copy, not experience. Ida's had this quirk his entire life. The difference in handling is obvious." Aizawa said.

It was. Ida's turns were sharp. Monoma's were wide. Ida's kicks came from trained muscle memory. Monoma's came from desperation and adrenaline. When they clashed at speed, Ida landed two hits for every one of Monoma's.

A kick caught Monoma in the ribs. He coughed, staggered, fired his engines to create distance. Ida was already there, a second kick slamming into his shoulder, spinning him. Monoma threw an elbow that grazed Ida's jaw, more luck than skill, and used the opening to boost away.

Five seconds since the copy.

Monoma was bleeding from his mouth, his nose, a cut above his eye. His ribs ached. His shoulder was numb. Ida was pressing him with a combination of speed kicks that came from angles he couldn't predict because he didn't have the years of training to predict it.

A kick hit his thigh. His leg buckled. He stumbled. Ida's follow-up caught him across the back and sent him sprawling.

Seven seconds.

Monoma hit the concrete face-first. Tasted blood and dust. His engines sputtered. Ida was standing over him, not even breathing hard, one leg raised for the finishing blow.

"You fought admirably, Monoma-kun. But this is-"

Monoma rolled. The kick cracked concrete where his body had been. He fired his engines from the ground and launched himself sideways, scrambling to his feet, spitting blood.

Eight seconds.

Ida pursued. Another kick. Monoma caught it on his forearms, the impact driving him back. Another. He twisted sideways, the kick grazing his hip. Another. This one hit his stomach and he lurched, all the air leaving his lungs.

Nine seconds.

Monoma was on his knees. His vision was dark at the edges. His body was telling him to stop, to stay down, to give up. Every nerve was screaming.

He looked up at Ida through the blood in his eyes.

Ida's engines coughed.

Then stalled.

The blue exhaust sputtered, choked, and died. Ida's legs locked. His momentum carried him one more step forward before his calves seized completely, the engines overheating exactly the way they had during the cavalry battle when he'd used Recipro Burst to try to steal Manga's headband.

Ten seconds.

Ida's eyes went wide behind his glasses.

Monoma stood up.

It took everything he had. His legs were shaking. His ribs were cracked. His face was a mask of blood. But his copied Engine was still running, fresh and unfatigued, the five-minute timer nowhere close to expiring.

He smiled.

Wide, bloody, and completely unhinged. A smile that formed because someone bet everything on a single card and watched it flip.

"I saw what happened to your quirk during the cavalry battle." His voice was hoarse, almost a whisper, but the arena mics caught every word. "Ten seconds of your ultimate move. Then your engines stall. I just had to survive ten seconds."

Ida tried to move. His legs wouldn't respond. The engines were dead.

"Looks like Class B wins this time again!" Monoma cackled like a maniac. The laugh of a side character who'd just beaten a main character at his own game. An impossibility in his eyes.

He reared back and kicked Ida in the chest.

It was thrown by a boy who'd never thrown a proper kick in his life. But Ida weighed eighty kilos and his legs were locked and he had no way to brace or dodge or do anything except take it.

He flew backward. Crossed the line. Hit the grass.

"Ida is out of bounds! Monoma wins!"

The 1-B section erupted.

Monoma stood at the edge of the ring swaying on his feet, bleeding from everywhere, laughing at the sky. His copied engines sputtered and died as the adrenaline faded, and for a moment it looked like he was going to collapse.

He didn't. He stayed standing through sheer force of ego.

"MONOMA NEITO ADVANCES!" Present Mic shouted. "AND HE DID IT BY OUT-THINKING ONE OF THE FASTEST STUDENTS IN THE ENTIRE FIRST YEAR! THAT KID IS TERRIFYING!"

"He's analytical but also reckless. He watched Ida's Recipro Burst stall during the cavalry battle and built his entire strategy around that ten-second window. But, it paid off." Aizawa said.

On the grass, Ida sat up. His engines were already cooling, the stall fading. He looked at Monoma, still standing at the edge of the ring, still bleeding, still grinning.

"You planned this from the beginning," Ida said.

"From the moment I saw your engines die in the cavalry battle. I would’ve shared that information with whoever fought you from Class B." Monoma wiped blood from his chin. "It was nothing personal, Class A. I would’ve fought the same no matter who you were."

Ida was quiet for a moment. Then he stood, adjusted his glasses, and bowed.

"I underestimated you."

"Most people do. It's a side character’s greatest weapon." Monoma's grin widened.

He walked off the stage slowly and painfully toward Recovery Girl’s lecturing stare.

In the stands, Manga's bubble had shifted from a thinking emoji to a grinning one.

His semi-final opponent was decided.

"Quarterfinal match three!" Present Mic announced. "Honenuki Juzo versus Kendo Itsuka! Class B's recommended brain against Class B's president! ANOTHER CIVIL WAR!"

Honenuki walked out to a surprising number of cheers and boos. Some not liking how badly he roughed up the cute Ashido. He took it with good faith. He and Ashido were cool. Plus he knew as a hero, you couldn’t exactly pull your punches against female villains.

Kendo walked out. Her ponytail swung behind her. Her face was determined. She knew what she was walking into. She'd trained alongside Honenuki for months. She knew exactly what Softening could do.

She also knew she didn't have a good answer for it.

"START!!!"

Kendo charged.

She had one chance and she knew it. If she could close the distance before Honenuki touched the ground, if she could land one Big Fist hit before the arena turned to quicksand, the fight was hers. Her enlarged right fist swelled to full size as she ran, three times its normal mass, fingers like tree trunks, knuckles like boulders.

Honenuki crouched and pressed both palms to the concrete.

The arena floor went soft in a circle that spread outward from his hands like a ripple in a pond. Fast. Faster than Kendo could close the distance. The concrete beneath her feet turned to mud mid-stride and her forward momentum died instantly.

She sank to her ankles. Then her shins. Then her knees.

"No!" She swung her enlarged fist at the air in front of her, trying to reach Honenuki, but he was five meters away and she was waist-deep in liquefied concrete. Her Big Fist hit nothing but air.

Honenuki was already sinking into his own terrain, pulling himself under like someone diving into a swimming pool. He disappeared beneath the surface.

Kendo tried to pull herself free. Her enlarged hands gripped the edge of the soft zone and pulled, but the material gave her nothing. She was sinking deeper. The mud was at her waist now.

"Honenuki has the advantage. Kendo's quirk is one of the strongest close-range quirks among the first years, but she needs solid ground to properly use that power. Without footing, she can't swing." Aizawa shared.

Honenuki surfaced behind her. Just his head and shoulders, rising from the mud like a crocodile.

"Sorry, Kendo." He meant it.

He pressed his hand to the softened concrete around her legs. It hardened.

Kendo gasped. The material locked around her from the waist down, solid as stone, trapping her in place. She swung her enlarged fist over her shoulder, twisting at the waist, trying to reach him. Her knuckles grazed the air an inch from his face. He didn't flinch.

He sank back under.

Surfaced in front of her. Softened the concrete around her arms. Let them sink to the elbows. Hardened it again.

Now she couldn't swing at all.

"Kendo is immobilized!" Midnight called. "Honenuki wins!"

The fight had lasted less than forty seconds.

Kendo hung her head in frustration. She'd known this was coming. She'd known from the moment the bracket was posted that Honenuki was her worst possible matchup, and there hadn't been a single thing she could do about it.

Honenuki softened the concrete around her and helped her out. She stood on the ruined arena floor, mud coating her PE uniform from the waist down, her ponytail plastered to her neck.

"I hate your quirk." she pouted.

"I’m sorry." He chuckled.

"Rematch on solid ground sometime?"

He gave her that skull-face smile. "No thanks. I’d probably lose."

"You definitely would." She felt a little bit better after hearing that.

They walked off together chatting and joking with each other.

Cementoss repaired the arena. Again.

"AND THE FINAL QUARTERFINAL!" Present Mic's voice hit a register that suggested he'd been saving energy for this one. "BAKUGO KATSUKI VERSUS TETSUTETSU TETSUTETSU! EXPLOSIONS AGAINST STEEL! AN UNSTOPPABLE FORCE MEETS AN IMMOVABLE OBJECT!"

"BAKUGO!" Tetsutetsu pointed at him across the ring. "GIVE ME EVERYTHING YOU GOT AND MORE!"

"Shut up, Metal-for-Brains."

"START!!!"

They both charged.

Bakugo opened with an explosion aimed at Tetsutetsu's face. The blast hit steel and Tetsutetsu walked through it. The metal surface scorched but didn't dent. He swung a right hook that Bakugo barely ducked under, the fist cutting the air above his head with a sound like a wrecking ball on a chain.

Bakugo blasted upward, using his explosions to launch himself over Tetsutetsu's head, then fired down at his back. The explosion hit between the shoulder blades. Tetsutetsu stumbled forward one step. Turned around. Grinned.

"That all you got, Fireworks?" Tetsutetsu laughed.

Bakugo growled.

What followed was a fight that tested every ounce of creativity Bakugo possessed.

He couldn't overpower Tetsutetsu. Not with standard explosions. The steel body absorbed the blasts, dissipated the heat, and kept coming. Tetsutetsu wasn't fast enough to catch Bakugo in the air, but every time Bakugo landed, every time his feet touched concrete, Tetsutetsu was there, swinging, forcing him to boost away or take a hit that would ring his bones.

Bakugo hit him from the left. Tetsutetsu shrugged it off.

Hit him from above. Shrugged it off.

Hit him with three rapid-fire blasts to the chest. The metal dented slightly, then popped back into shape.

"YOUR LITTLE FIREWORKS FEEL LIKE NOTHING!" Tetsutetsu screamed. He was having the time of his life.

Bakugo was not.

He landed on the concrete and Tetsutetsu was on him immediately, a steel fist the size of a dinner plate swinging for his head. Bakugo ducked. The fist clipped his shoulder and pain shot down his arm. That hit would've shattered a normal person's collarbone.

He blasted backward. Created distance. Studied Tetsutetsu's body as the steel boy charged again.

His armor is tough. Same thickness everywhere. Standard explosions won't crack it. But if I hit the same spot over and over...

Bakugo changed tactics.

He stopped moving randomly. He stopped hitting different spots. He picked one point, the center of Tetsutetsu's chest, right over the sternum, and he started hammering it.

Explosion. Same spot.

Explosion. Same spot.

Explosion. Same. Damn. Spot.

Tetsutetsu noticed. "You think hitting the same place is gonna work?!"

"Shut the hell up, you extra!"

Tetsutetsu charged. Bakugo blasted sideways, circled, and fired at his chest again. Same spot. Tetsutetsu lunged. Bakugo dodged, boosted overhead, came down behind him and nearly fired at his back. But he circled again and hit the chest. Same spot.

Tetsutetsu was getting frustrated. He was swinging at air. Bakugo was faster, more mobile, and he kept targeting the same area like a woodpecker on a tree. Each individual hit wasn't enough to crack steel. But the cumulative damage was building.

A hairline fracture appeared on Tetsutetsu's sternum.

Tetsutetsu felt it.

"Tch." He covered his chest with both arms and charged, protecting the weak point.

Bakugo saw the guard change and bared his teeth with joy.

He feinted left. Tetsutetsu shifted his guard. Bakugo blasted right, got behind him, and fired at his chest from the side, angling the explosion so it hit the fracture point from a new direction.

The crack widened.

Tetsutetsu spun and threw a wild haymaker. Bakugo ducked it and answered with a point-blank explosion to the sternum. The metal spider-webbed.

"JUST ONE HIT!" Tetsutetsu swung again. Bakugo caught the fist with an explosion that redirected it, then drove his palm into the cracked steel and detonated everything he had.

The steel shattered.

A chunk of Tetsutetsu's chest armor broke apart like a plate hitting the floor. Fragments of metal flew outward. Beneath the broken shell was skin, pink and human and completely unprotected.

Tetsutetsu's eyes went wide.

Bakugo's palm was already pressed against the exposed skin.

"This is gonna fucking hurt."

The explosion was the biggest one he'd produced all day. It detonated against bare flesh and Tetsutetsu's body left the ground. He flew backward, chest smoking, the broken edges of his remaining steel armor glowing orange from the heat. He hit the concrete ten meters away and bounced, rolled, and came to a stop face-down.

He didn't get up.

"Tetsutetsu is unable to continue! Bakugo wins!"

The crowd cheered.

Bakugo stood in the center of the ring. His hands were smoking. His swollen eye was completely shut now. His broken nose had bled again during the fight and the lower half of his face was painted red. His shoulder, where Tetsutetsu had clipped him, was already bruising purple.

He'd won three fights today. He looked like he'd lost all of them.

Recovery Girl was already attending to Tetsutetsu. The steel had deactivated when he lost consciousness, leaving him as a regular boy with a smoking hole in his PE uniform and burns across his chest. He was breathing. He'd be fine.

Bakugo waited for his turn. Once he was healed up he turned and walked toward the tunnel, his fists clenched, his jaw set, smoke trailing from his palms.

In the 1-B section, the mood was mixed. Pride for Tetsutetsu's fight. Disappointment that he'd lost. Anger at how Bakugo had broken through his steel like it was nothing.

"He figured it out too fast." Kamakiri said.

"Bakugo isn’t as stupid as he looks." Monoma pointed out.

“Lucky me, I get to face my worst matchup now.” Honenuki sighed.

“Fair is fair, don’t you think?” Kendo giggled.

“Yeah, yeah, I guess that’s true.” He chuckled. “Got no choice but to do my best. I didn’t spend those two weeks training for nothing. Might as well show everything I got even against my worst enemy.” Honenuki decided.

“Plus Ultra!” The others cheered him on.

“Plus Ultra…” He exhaled.

The bracket updated on the big screen.

Semi-finals: Manga vs Monoma, Honenuki vs Bakugo

The air still smelled like smoke and ozone and the faint chemical tang of nitroglycerin.

The tournament was narrowing.

Four fighters left. Three more matches.

And at the end of it, one name at the top.

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