That night, Yashiro lay in his bed, constantly thinking about what Ichisuda told him earlier that day. He couldn't figure out how else to use his powers. So he decided he would go see Ichisuda to hear what he had to say.
He looked at his phone 'Friday, 2:45am'. [They're probably sleeping] he thought, referring to his friends. He dropped off his bed and did a couple of push ups to tire himself out before trying to fall asleep again.
He woke up to the sound of a loud knock on his door.
"Hey, Yashiro. Wake up. Combat training starts soon" It sounded like Rando.
He stretched into a yawn and checked his phone again, '10:30 am'. Combat training usually started at 11am. Which meant he had 30 minutes to get ready. [I overslept again, damn] he thought, before responding to the knock.
"I'll be down in 15 to 20 minutes Rando. I just woke up"
Rando laughed, "Don't be late"
25 minutes later, Yashiro hurried downstairs. Majority of the students were already at the skyline arena. Ichisuda walked in two minutes later with Izume strolling behind him.
"Okay" she said, in a loud and authoritative voice. "Combat training time. Get your names on the sign in sheet if you haven't already and lets get this started. The activity today is pretty interesting. Instead of combat involving simulations, you will be going against each other". Izume sounded just as excited as some of the students were. She loved seeing them use their abilities and was secretly wishing they academy would have another 'students vs teachers' event.
"Just to clarify" she continued, "this isn't some tournament. Based on all the information we have on you all and your various abilities. We will be putting you guys against people you might have a hard time with. We want to see how well your adaptability is"
The students all looked at each other, they were all excited. However, Ichisuda noticed something he found slightly odd. Yashiro didn't look confident at all. he was being very reclusive.
[Maybe I should not have had that conversation with him yesterday. He really doesn't look like himself today] Ichisuda thought before he and Izume started creating a "battle" list for the students based on their powers. As he got further down the sign in sheet he noticed Yashiro's name, despite the lack of confidence he was showing. [hmm] he thought, [who should I pair him with?]
As the students waited excitedly for the teachers to finish, the first two names were called out by Izume.
"Shihata Saki and Aibuto Choreo. Get in the ring please and prepare for combat. The rules are simple as always, get your opponent off the ring, make them surrender or win by ko."
Shihata turned to Minako and smiled. "Wish me luck, Ice queen"
Minako laughed in response, "don't overdo it in there"
"Why those two?" Ichisuda asked in a hushed tone
"Shihata's moves are very calculated. She uses her foresight well but she lacks striking power. I want to see how she will adapt to fighting someone who can take multiple hard hits from me.
During the entrance examination, though he tried to figure out my shooting patterns first, he and Takegai rushed head first to an opponent they didn't quite understand. He's shown elements of that same behaviour these past few weeks. I want to see how he will handle someone who knows what his next move is."
Ichisuda laughed."What's funny?" She asked.
"Oh, nothing. I just didn't picture you as someone who gave things a lot of thought"
She rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the students who looked like they were ready.
Izume smiled as she gave the command to begin.
Aibuto immediately crouched and touched the floor to mimic it's soft concrete nature. To everyone's surprise, Shihata was already sprinting at him, she jumped and planted both of her feet into his chest. Causing him to fall backwards on his back, preventing him from successfully mimicking the soft concrete floor.
As Rani saw this, she thought [that's not her fighting style, what's she planning?]
Not giving him a chance to get to his feet, Shihata ran at him again, threw a punch at him but just as it was about to connect with his face, she opened her hand, causing her palm to connect with his face instead.
Her eyes glowed as she activated her power and smirked.
She stepped back, as Aibuto angrily charged forward. He spun and attempted to kick her but she already knew he was going to that.
She ducked early and swiped his standing leg, causing him to fall on his back again. Her eyes, still glowing.
She waited for him to try and stand up before sliding beside him and wrapping her arm around his neck in an attempt to make him tap out/ surrender. By this point, her eyes had stopped glowing.
She wrapped her legs around his torso and leaned backwards, with her arm firmly gripping his neck.
As she witnessed this, Izume smiled wildly, Ichisuda's expression remained calm.
A few seconds had passed and Aibuto was going pale. Just as Shihata believed Aibuto was about to tap out, he placed a hand firmly on the floor, activating his power and making his body turn into soft concrete.
With his now hardened hand, he grabbed Shihata's arm and closed his fist, causing her to wince and loosen her grip. Still holding her hand, he got up with her, while she tried to pry his arm off, picked her up and threw her over his shoulder, and out of the ring.
"Good match." Izume said, "Aibuto wins."
She paused for a few seconds as Aibuto stepped off the ring and walked towards Shihata.
"Hey, you okay?"
She laughed and grabbed his outstretched hand and he pulled her to her feet, "Yeah, I'm fine. That was fun"
"do you need to see Dr Hirime, Shihata?" Ichisuda asked.
"No, I'm okay, thank you" As she said this, she returned to where Minako and Rani were. Who noticed immediately that even though she was putting on a brave face, she really wanted to prove to everyone that she could win. So they tried to reassure her.
As they were doing this, Izume spoke again, "Okay, next. Hirase and Koda. Up on the ring please."
Rezu punched her brother's arm. "Make sure you win" She said.
As they got into the ring and prepared themselves, Ichisuda said to Izume, "This one is pretty self explanatory" Izume nodded in agreement before giving the signal for the boys to begin.
Koda stamped his foot and started with a much improved version of his 'rock prison'. 4 concrete walls forming a tight cube rose around Hirase, confining him in a small space and preventing the movement of his arms.
Koda smiled confidently, before feeling heavy vibrations beneath his feet. The intensity of the vibrations increased until the 'rock prison' crumbled.
Koda stamped his foot again and lifted his arms, causing a pillar of concrete to shoot out from where Hirase was standing.
He leapt forward, towards Koda to avoid the pillar and simultaneously close the distance between the both of them. Before he could get close enough, a rock wall, greater than him in height was erected in front of him, and as he landed, Koda shot the wall forward at an alarming speed. It slammed into Hirase, causing him to fly backwards.
Koda pressed on. He didn't let his opponent land before making his next move. He divided the floor where Hirase was going to land and closed it up when his back hit the floor. All that remained above ground was Hirase's head.
Koda stamped his foot again, removing a large portion of the floor in a spherical shape and holding it above Hirase's head.
"Concede" He said
Suddenly, the floor beneath him shattered, unsettling his footing and causing him to drop the boulder. Hirase broke free and with his power activated in one hand, shattered the now falling boulder above his head by sending a wave of tremors into it.
With a more serious expression on his face, Hirase crouched and placed both hands on the floor, took a deep breath, and the whole room vibrated.
The ground beneath Koda was very unstable as the intensity of the vibrations increased, causing him to lose his balance.
[I can't make a solid structure with all these vibrations] he thought, as he tried to figure out what to do.
He didn't get a chance to as the ground beneath him crumbled and he found himself buried under the rubble. Hirase had destroyed a large portion of the room, including the ring where they fought but the portion where his classmates stood was still intact.
He didn't stop the vibrations until Koda, who was desperately trying to free himself, surrendered.
Rezu laughed, as her brother clawed his way out from beneath the floor and dusted himself.
On the wall opposite where the students stood, on the other end of the room, a metallic door opened as Izume began to speak again.
"Hirase wins. Well that was certainly a battle. Can we all proceed to Arena B. Hirase really did a number on this arena. Also, If any of you need to see doctor Hirime, go do so now"
"I'm good" Koda said, scowling at his sister
"so am I" Hirase added. Shortly after that, the students and the two teachers both made their way to arena B, which was completely identical to the first one.
"Okay, new rules" Izume said, pressing a button which collapsed the ring, making the floor level. "You can only win by KO or your opponent conceding. We can't have you guys destroying every ring here." A few seconds later, she spoke again, "Minako and Sando get ready. You're up next"
Sando had a puzzled look on his face. "Why you making me fight a girl?" He asked Izume, who just laughed and told him to get ready.
Minako shook her head as she heard the question.
"Fire vs Ice huh?" Ichisuda said, scratching his chin.
"I'm gonna make you eat those words Sando" Minako said, as she took her stance.
Sando chuckled, "we'll see"
As Izume gave the go ahead, Sando leapt into the air, spinning as he did so and launching several fireballs at her. Which she blocked easily by creating a wall of ice in front of her.
As each fireball hit the wall, it got weaker, so much so that the last fireball destroyed the wall of ice.
The wall Minako created obstructed her vision so she didn't notice that immediately after he finished launching the fireballs, Sando changed direction mid air by shooting a jet of flames from his hands and feet to propel himself forward.
So as the ice wall crumbled, she was surprised to see Sando right in front of her. Who, a split second later, planted both of his flaming feet into her chest.
She flew back several metres before crashing and rolling several times, nearly falling off the ring in the process"
"I hope you didn't think I'd go easy " He said, as he walked triumphantly towards his opponent who was still on the floor.
He coated his hand in flames, crouched and dragged his hand along the floor towards Minako creating a wave of fire that travelled along the floor.
Minako managed to roll out of the way though she was breathing heavily.
Sando was already next to her again, not giving her any chance to catch her breath. This time his fist was coated in flames but as he punched her, she caught his hand which was coated in her power also, lightly freezing his hand and extending it to his arm.
He groaned in pain, jumping backwards as he did so.
The tables had turned. Not wasting any time Minako pressed her front foot forward, releasing a large body of ice that hit Sando directly, entrapping him in ice.
"Checkmate" She said, finally getting a chance to catch her breath.
"seems like ice wo-" before Ichisuda could finish his sentence and much to everyone's surprise, Sando had released a huge blast of flames from his entire body, melting the ice which held him bound.
Minako jumped backwards but it was too late. He grabbed her by the hair and slammed her back into the floor hard. He let go and jumped backwards because he realised she was about to freeze his arm again.
As she slowly got to her feet, something had changed. Her facial expression was one of pure rage and her eyes had a deep blue glow to them. She crouched and placed her hand on the floor which caused Sando to take several steps back as he anticipated something big coming his way.
"Oh dear" Ichisuda said, taking off two of the rings on his fingers as the area around Minako started to freeze. "Izume, stop them", but before she could even speak, Minako released a colossal blast of ice, several times larger than the one she used on the mechanical creatures during the entrance examination.
Sando froze as the 6 metre high blast of ice speedily approached him.
Much to his luck, Ichisuda stepped in front of him, seemingly appearing out of thin air. As his fist connected with the blast, it created a very loud explosion as the ice completely shattered, sending fragments all around the room and creating enough wind pressure to knock Minako backwards.
As shards of ice flew around the room, Dota, with one hand in his pocket stretched out his other arm, creating a wall of air and preventing the shards from hitting his classmates.
The only person not behind the air wall was Rani who was a few metres from Minako with a pinkish gas coming out of her hands and gathering around Minako's face, who was now in a deep sleep.
After everything had calmed down, Ichisuda put his rings back on and asked, "nicely done Dota. Is everyone okay?" The students all nodded, most of them still shocked at what just happened. Ichisuda also noticed that Yashiro appeared even less confident then when he entered the arena.
Izume spoke up. "Okay, I think that's enough for today" she looked over at Rani, who was sitting on the floor, with Minako's head on her lap stroking her hair.
"Rani are you okay?"
Rani nodded, even though a few of the shards had hit her, they didn't do much damage to her.
"Okay but I still want you to check in with Dr Hirime. Hayasato can you help? "
Hayasato nodded before opening a large portal leading to the doctors office.
He carried Minako as he Rani both walked through the portal, which closed a second later.
Immediately after this, Sando angrily left the room, without saying a word.
"everyone else, take the day off. You may go do whatever" She said, before turning to Ichisuda to lecture him about how dangerous his intervention was.
There was loud chatter as the students all excitedly left the arena. Rando looked for Yashiro to talk about what just happened but couldn't find him but instead noticed Mika and walked up to her.
"When are you going to stop acting like you don't care about anyone or anything Mika?" He asked.
She stopped walking, and turned around to see who was talking to her. She said nothing.
"I saw you back there" he said, with a welcoming smile on his face "you activated your powers right before Mr Ichisuda intervened. You were about to help Sando because you knew how dangerous Minako's attack was. You see I think you're actually nice, but you just want people to believe you're cold and unlikeable. I also noticed your aura isn't as hostile anymore."
She shook her head, turned around she said, "do not assume you know me because of some incorrect observations you made. Mind your business and fuck off" before walking off.
Rando sighed and thought, [I wonder what's up with Yashiro. He really didn't look like himself today. I'll check on him later I guess]
As Yashiro walked back to his room he realised his confidence had taken a huge hit as he reflected on everything that had happened in the past two days. From Takeyomi helping him, to Ichisuda's words of warning and now to his classmates fighting. Everything confirmed a fear he had before starting the Academy.
Everyone in the Academy was way above his league and he was severely outclassed. He couldn't see himself beating someone like Minako or Sando who had ranged attacks and could beat him before he got near them.