Chapter 94: Sports Festival (8)
—
"Washroom took you too long, the match ended already."
Momo said to Neji while pointing her finger at the arena where Todoroki had frozen Shinso's body entirely except for his face.
Neji sat down beside her and sighed exaggeratedly.
"Haaiyah, that's sad."
Momo gave him a dead stare before turning her head to the arena again.
"He is super strong, and he even challenged you before the start. Seems like in the next match, if you win against Midoriya, you'd be against him." She turned to Neji and stared at his eyes curiously. "What would you do, I wonder."
Neji gave her a small grin but said nothing.
As Momo shook her head and looked the other way, Neji gave Uraraka a glance from the corner of his eyes.
After talking to her for a few minutes, he told her to return first and then waited a few more minutes before returning himself. This way, nobody would be suspicious. Nobody except Todoroki…
Looking at the half-hot half-cold boy walking back to the tunnel he came through, Neji hummed softly.
The room Neji and Ochako were in minutes ago was the student waiting room. Anyone from Class 1-A who had their match next would go there to wait for their call. Todoroki did so too and was about to enter the room that Neji and Uraraka were in when they were hugging, but he didn't enter upon hearing Uraraka's sobs.
That was commendable, even if he wasn't being considerate and was just trying to avoid any hassle. In Neji's view, Todoroki was probably the most chill dude here. The only problem was his angst, which wasn't really a problem.
Neji planned to make Todoroki use his left side from the moment he got the quest. That's one way he'd be able to truly get the overwhelming victory that the quest required him of.
In the process, if Todoroki loses a bit of his angst… that's not a bad deal either.
"Well," Momo turned to Neji again, smiling. "Guess it's your match, Mr Charming. Go break a leg!"
—★—
Izuku Midoriya cut the call as his mother's voice stopped flowing out of the phone. He clenched the phone in his right hand while his left hand trembled along with a crazy grin on his face.
Izuku Midoriya was sure Neji saw him in his Astral Form in the USJ incident. But his master said otherwise.
Firstly, only All For One could see Izuku's astral body, but that's because All For One didn't use his eyes to see, as he didn't even have eyes. Instead, he used one of his quirks. Meaning, to see Izuku's astral body, Neji needed an eye-related quirk too, which if he truly had would have been registered in the school's document about him.
But from the copy of the documents that the school spy delivered, that didn't seem to be the case.
Secondly, assuming Neji could somehow see him, then why is he not telling the teachers about him? Izuku was clearly acting suspicious in his astral body, and unless Neji was blind, he should have seen through it. Then why?
All this convinced All For One to believe Neji didn't see Izuku, but the latter had different thoughts.
Izuku would bet his soul against a rat's tail that his eyes met Neji's.
And maybe there was indeed something special about his blue eyes. When their eyes met, there was a red tinge in his blue eyes, but Izuku had dismissed it as blood from the fight since they were too far from each other. But if it really was because of a quirk…
["And now, coming through the left entrance iiiss Izuku Midiroya!!"]
He stopped his thoughts and walked outside the dark tunnel. Immediately cheers surrounded him and Izuku gave a half-hearted smile.
When he stepped into the arena, he found Neji already standing opposite to him. He had his hands in his pockets and his smile was as wide as the sky and as bright as the sun itself.
Izuku smiled too and cracked his fingers.
"Good luck on the match."
He said to his opponent who gave a graceful nod.
"I believe you should be the one in need of luck, though."
Izuku chuckled under his breath and waited for Midnight to start the match.
Izuku couldn't use his Astral Repulsion technique without coming in contact with the target's body, so he planned to get closer to Neji and just touch him somehow, which will draw the end of the match.
Izuku all of a sudden regretted showing that technique in the last match, but Ida was an opponent who needed to be finished asap if he wanted to win, so he didn't have any other choice. Because of that, Neji would be prepared, but that didn't mean Izuku would lose.
"Alright, kids." Midnight said. "The match begins!!"
Immediately, Izuku ran towards Neji at a fast pace. He reached out his widened palm at him and then clasped it at a fast motion.
As if something clicked in space, Izuku got hold of Neji's 'aura'. He then yanked his hand back and Neji flung towards him in a fast motion.
Neji flew towards him as Izuku prepared to shove a palm on his midsection.
That palm will decide the game. If it comes in contact with his body, Neji's consciousness will be cast out. If not…
Neji's body reached Izuku's range in less than a second, and that's why no wonder Neji hadn't reacted yet. Because he couldn't.
Izuku's palm flung upwards, going at Neji's abdomen… but shockingly, it stopped mid-air.
An invisible force had caught his arm.
Neji still flew at him at a terrible speed, but midway, he simply blasted his leg once to get a hold of his poise as his feet touched Izuku's forehead.
Fury filled Izuku in an instant as Neji looked down on his face with his cold but bright blue eyes.
Then his lips moved.
"Boom."
A terrible force, as if being punched by All Might himself, hit Izuku in the forehead as his body flung and flew back metre behind, out of the arena, as his back hit the wall at the far end.
"..."
Midnight was about to announce the winner, but Izuku kicked the air and dashed back to the arena before his feet could land on the ground.
Frowning, Midnight exchanged some words in her earpiece and nodded to the two students as they continued.
Izuku took the defensive this time and waited for Neji to move instead.
Seeing this, Neji crouched down in his spot and placed his palm on the ground as a white half-transparent sphere appeared around his palm. He pushed his palm on the ground once… and with a deafening crack, the ground split and broke into multiple pieces.
Izuku lost his foothold for a second and before he could regain it, Neji's fingers started to dance in the air.
The pieces of the shattered ground lifted from the ground as if controlled by an outer force, and just as Neji shoved his fingers in Izuku's direction, they all leapt forward and hit Izuku who had yet to regain his composure in the chest.
With a loud impact, Izuku simply flew out of the arena and landed on his back. This time, fully eliminated.
Midnight gave Neji a smile, which he ignored, and announced, "With that, the winner is Neji Hado!!"
A loud cheer covered the stadium as Neji gave them a small smile.
—★—
"Who taught you to show off like that?" Momo asked Neji in the waiting room, as her match was up next.
"Oh, why? Are you impressed? Did you get goosebumps?"
"Maybe~"
Neji pulled her by the waist as she wrapped her hands around his neck.
"You know, Inasa is a strong opponent."
At his words, Momo scowled. "Why are you trying to scare me?"
Neji shrugged. "I am not."
He was just trying to prepare her mind for the inevitable loss coming in minutes. Momo didn't have the… weak mindset like Uraraka, but it was good to make her realise her limits.
'She'd win if this wasn't bound by the tournament rules, though.'
Her quirk was limited by those rules a lot. If not for the rules, she could just make a TNT and then launch it at Inasa via a cannon, which would guarantee her a win.
Then again, Momo had a Hero Complex, so maybe it couldn't be helped even in that scenario.
"Good luck with the match."
Neji said and placed his lips on her mouth and moved his tongue inside her. She moaned softly but said nothing to protest.
"A-alright."
After the kiss ended, Momo wiped the saliva from her lips and turned around to leave.
"See you soon!"
With that, she went to her inevitable defeat.
—★—
Midnight swung her arm downwards.
"Start!"
Immediately as the match started, Inasa simply floated up in the air, leaving Momo with the option of long-range attacks only.
Meaning guns.
Momo could indeed create actual revolvers, something that would piece people's skulls at a shot. But she couldn't create such a thing here since that would be dangerous for Inasa.
Her training with shooting was pretty basic, and since Inasa had strong wind swirling around him like a vortex, there was no way the bullet she would fire would hit the place she wanted it to.
She feared that if she targeted his shoulders, the bullet would hit his head instead.
Momo didn't want to hurt people, let alone kill them. So she dismissed the idea of actual bullets, and instead, she formed rubber bullets.
She observed the tornado of wind surrounding Inasa as she targeted his head with her hands firm… and then shot her gun.
Bang!
The bullets hit Inasa, but not where she aimed, as she had expected.
It hit his chest.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
She kept shooting in fast succession and soon her muzzles ran empty.
Barely scratched, Inasa simply looked down at her from the sky with his arms crossed.
None of his vitals was hurt, and so he was fine even after a barrage of her attacks.
Sighing, Momo decided to make a cannon.
She unchained her shirt, revealing her black sports bra, as a huge cannon head started to peek out of her abdomen.
Frowning, Inasa finally made his first move.
With a swing of his arm, a strong gust of wind came crashing into Momo.
It attempted to push Momo away, but Momo's feet were pinned on the ground via spikes coming out of her shoes.
With a grunt, she held on against the wind as the canon finally came out of her body, exhausting her quite a lot.
But after she had taken the Tier Potion from Neji, the ratio of her calorie and creation has changed. She can now create more things with a lot fewer calories.
So she was still good enough to make a lighter and light the cannon, pointing at the flying Inasa.
With a loud bang, the cannonball left the beak of the cannon.
Inasa hesitated for a second before deciding to take the ball head-on.
The ball, reaching Inasa, hit him in the chest, pushing him back in the air as he held it back with his arms while Momo went below him with an AK47 in her hand.
It was loaded with rubber bullets.
As she pointed the gun at Inasa, she thinned her lips.
Momo could tell why Inasa didn't just finish her off with a single push from the get-go. If he did that, nobody would have been impressed, as the wind wasn't as flashy as Todoroki's Ice – unless he made a tornado.
So he was allowing Momo to attack first, showing the Heroes up there his defensive capacities, but Momo was able to successfully exploit that.
Now, she just needed to fire him down.
With a nod to herself, from below Inasa, Momo started to fire her gun. The recoil should have been too much for her frail body, but she had made this gun not for killing but for merely injuring an opponent, so it wasn't as bad as the real deal.
The bullets hit Inasa all over his body, and even as he was successfully able to push the cannonball away, the bullets made him unable to move.
Inasa grunted in pain just as Momo was getting excited.
She might actually win.
That dream soon came crashing into her as her bullets ended and she started to reload.
Inasa roared in the sky and the wind around the arena went ballistic.
Momo easily lost her footing this time, since she had moved from her previous spot by absorbing the spikes into calories again, and forgot to make them again.
With a big dusty tornado, Momo was flung out of the arena, landing on her back softly.
The gun dropped to the ground and she breathed heavily.
"Well…" she took a deep breath. "At least I was able to showcase my powers a bit."
She sighed and closed her eyes as the crowd cheered aloud.
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