The black-haired girl from Ketsubutsu, Sei, looked at her companions and said discontentedly about the description of Accelerator.
"Did you all hear that?"
"This guy actually described my Quirk like that!! No one has ever dared to look down on me like this since I was a child!"
"Don't think you can be so arrogant just because you defeated Maiya!"
Sei aimed her special gun at her rear again, and with the familiar sound of gunfire, the friction she could control was converted into propulsion, and her speed increased to an astonishing level.
She charged towards Accelerator.
About nine hundred meters away in a building, someone was watching the battle between Accelerator and the Ketsubutsu team through binoculars.
The brown-haired boy with headphones sighed and said.
"Wow, the black-haired girl in the Ketsubutsu team is really fast."
"But, of course, not as fast as me."
From his self-talk, it was clear that this person had absolute confidence in his speed.
Then the boy seemed to think of something and let out a slight sigh of relief.
"Phew, that was really close."
This observer's name was Nice.
He was the ace of the first-year students at Seiai Academy and the only one who escaped Ketsubutsu's clutches, the last fighting force of Seiai Academy.
Nice was able to avoid the queen's [Mental Control] thanks to his extraordinary vigilance and his Quirk.
The [Primate's Fastest Steps] Quirk allowed him to enter a state just below the speed of sound, which was physically indistinguishable from pure sonic speed.
However, the secondary physical phenomena such as air pressure, resistance, and sonic booms that normal objects experience when breaking the sound barrier did not occur under his special Quirk. (The limit is 1.75 times the speed of sound.)
So his Quirk had many limitations, mainly a lack of attack power.
In simple game terms, he had maxed out his speed stat, but his attack power couldn't benefit from the speed boost.
Of course, his hero costume and daily training at Seiai Academy focused on increasing his attack power.
Besides wearing headphones to concentrate his mind when activating his Quirk, his hero costume's attack enhancements were mainly on his arm and leg equipment.
Nice was the leader of the Seiai [Team] and also served as the reconnaissance captain. They communicated through the built-in voice system of their hero costumes.
Seiai Academy's tradition was that the weaker must obey the strongest.
When Nice, moving in pseudo-sonic speed, encountered the Ketsubutsu team, he immediately warned his team.
However, he underestimated Ketsubutsu's strength this year.
When Nice discovered Tokiwadai, Shokuhou's [Bird's Eye Control] also spotted the Seiai Academy team.
Just [Atomic Decay] Maiya Tsumori alone defeated most of the Seiai Academy team.
Even those few Seiai students who could rely on their [Quirks] and temporarily avoid Atomic Decay's attention were controlled by the invisible [Mental Control] the moment they stepped into a certain range.
In Nice's view, "Psychological Control" was far more terrifying than "Atomic Decay." If he weren't the reconnaissance captain and didn't happen to possess such a Quirk, he feared that no amount of caution would keep him out of the "Queen's" influence.
By cleverly using speed and skill to conceal his presence, Nice carefully observed Ketsubutsu subjugate several other school teams, turning them into a servant army, and roughly estimated the Ketsubutsu "Queen's" influence to be about seven hundred meters.
However, Nice, being a meticulous thinker, didn't plan to rely solely on the safety distance of seven hundred meters, even with his hero combat gear fully equipped.
So, he kept a distance of about nine hundred meters, leaving the remaining two hundred meters as a safety margin to activate his "Fastest Primate" Quirk.
The strength of mental Quirks lies in the fact that if one cannot fully grasp the above information, battling a mental Quirk user is like groping one's way across a river by feeling for stones; the true power of mental Quirks is in their unpredictability, with the unknown being their greatest weapon.
"Good thing I didn't try to take down the 'Queen' all by myself."
In fact, before Ketsubutsu's team made contact with the U.A. team, under his constant observation, Nice noticed several defensive lapses in the Ketsubutsu team. But now, thinking about it, those might have been traps deliberately left by Shokuhou to target him.
"Indeed, the 'Queen' has specific countermeasures for speed-type Quirk users like me. I'm glad I resisted the impulse just now."
Although Nice had absolute confidence in the speed granted by his "Fastest Step of the Primate" Quirk.
But now, Seiai Academy only had him left as a sole survivor.
If a moment of impulsiveness led to an accident, causing a crash in the first round of the Festival, not even securing a top-four position.
His partner, Murasaki, would definitely give him an earful.
It might even affect his evaluation score in Murasaki's mind.
It was a completely unprofitable plan. As a lone wolf, he only needed to patiently wait for the outcome of the clash between U.A. and Ketsubutsu before seeking an opportunity to fish in troubled waters.
He knew the saying, "A cornered Aoyama is not afraid of running out of firewood." If he got cocky over small victories like Shiketsu and underestimated his opponent, only to be humiliatingly swept away in one fell swoop, that would be truly embarrassing.
This Festival was different from the sports festivals at their respective schools; it was broadcast live! Such humiliation would certainly be remembered.
He didn't want to be remembered as a negative example by the juniors at his school.
Speaking of which, when he was focusing his gaze on Accelerator through the telescope just now, a chilling scene occurred.
Despite being nine hundred meters apart, Accelerator, while clashing with the Ketsubutsu gang, looked in his direction with an inexplicably knowing gaze and even smiled slightly.
Even by reading lips, it seemed like Accelerator was saying something to him.
Nice, who could read lips, broke out in a cold sweat as he forced himself to think and came up with an answer.
"What are you peeping at? Hiding in the corner like a little mouse."
"Are this year's Ketsubutsu and U.A. both monsters?"
On one hand, Nice was shocked that Accelerator, the so-called "Great Demon Lord," could completely ignore the influence of Ketsubutsu's "Queen of Psychological Control."
On the other hand, after easily defeating "Atomic Decay" in a one-on-one fight, Accelerator showed no signs of stopping. It seemed he intended to take on the entire Ketsubutsu and its servant army alone, including the controlled U.A. team and most of the other school contestants in the arena.
"Having the strongest psychic Quirk in superhero history, the 'Queen' Shokuhou Misaki, is one thing," they said.
"But the aura emanating from that U.A. guy, Accelerator... it's dangerously intense."
"It's like he's a human weapon. Even from here, I can sense the scent of blood on him."
"Big Bad Accelerator, huh? Truly lives up to his name..."
On the battlefield, Shokuhou_Misaki, well-protected within layers, noticed Kiyoshi's movements. The starry-eyed girl, who knew her subordinates inside out, telepathically sent instructions to another subordinate.
"Naru, be ready to back up at any moment."
A short-haired girl with lace headwear from Ketsubutsu stepped forward consciously, and as she did, her teammates naturally spread out about ten meters to give her space to use her Quirk.
The short-haired girl cheekily nodded at Shokuhou_Misaki in response.
"Clang clang, the Queen's orders received loud and clear."
"And so—Naru-chan's transformation begins!"
"Now, under the spotlight, it's my time to shine!"
This girl named Naru, her Quirk involves using paper as a medium for her psychic powers.
With a joyful cheer, her hero costume dissolved into sheets of paper that swiftly reassembled into a large bear-shaped plush suit.
Underestimating this mischievous girl in her adorable bear plush suit would be a grave mistake.
Her Quirk allows the paper medium to become as hard as metal or as soft as cotton under her control.
After transforming, Naru laughed happily.
"Alright, let's see how I'm doing today."
Saying so, the cute bear plush suit's seemingly soft paws stepped on the ground.
The ground let out a Todoroki-like groan, and then the surface cracked and scattered in a radius of about seven or eight meters.
Naru licked her lips playfully and chuckled.
"Uh-huh—feeling pretty good!"
A girl in the Ketsubutsu team complained.
"Naru, you always do this!"
"It's super dangerous, you know! Can't you control yourself a bit?"
"I'm definitely fine! But it's troublesome if the others get even a little affected! Be more considerate! Don't just grow your chest and not your brain!"
The one speaking was Momo Yaoyorozu from the Ketsubutsu team, also a vanguard. She's a seemingly docile high school girl with a mini stature, wearing an orange hood and shoulder-length brown hair.
But in reality, she's the ace of the team, having taken a leading role among the vanguards through real combat training.
Her name is Momo Yaoyorozu, and she's very conscious of her lack of chest size.
So she often targets Naru, who is the same age and also a Ketsubutsu vanguard but is exceptionally well-developed.
The black-haired girl, Sei, thought she had cleverly circled around Accelerator, then with her hand, drew a perfectly standard circle with him at the center.
At this moment, immersed in her speed, Kiyoshi didn't notice the Great Demon Lord's interested smile.
Sei looked somewhat proudly at the black circle on the ground and said.
"Hehe, humans can't move in a place without friction, right?"
Thinking she had cleverly blocked Accelerator's means of dodging long-range attacks, she continued to remind him.
"Trying to break through from the sky? That's even more impossible!"
"Don't believe me? Look up at the sky!"
Accelerator had, of course, already seen that this time the U.A. team and Ketsubutsu's long-range troops had concentrated all their attacks above him, as if these people were firing simultaneously, waiting for him to take off.
It goes without saying that these were done under the control of Shokuhou Misaki's "Mind Control."
It was like battling a well-trained army.
Among the puzzled expressions of the Ketsubutsu crowd, it was Accelerator who revealed a smile.
It was a gaze filled with murderous intent and madness, a twisted smile as if despairing of the world, and a terrifying laugh.
"Hahahaha."
"Do I need to specially award you dancers with something like a 'Best Effort Prize'?"
"To thank you for your delightful dance?"
Accelerator continued to sneer at the black-lined circle drawn on the ground.
"Mortals, can't move in a place without friction?"
"Sorry, but I'm going to have to disappoint you."
Saying this, Accelerator simply walked out of the Quirk blockade that the black-haired girl had painstakingly created, under her horrified gaze.
He stretched his limbs a bit and looked up at the long-range attacks about to fall from the sky, muttering to himself.
"It looks like those fireworks in the sky need some handling too."
"Hahaha, let's take care of them all at once."
Accelerator tapped the ground rhythmically twice.
Everyone in the area felt a violent tremor beneath their feet.
They instinctively looked down, then were surprised to find their shadows had suddenly disappeared.
No, not disappeared.
Rather, the sun from the angle of the Ketsubutsu team was completely obscured by the massive shadow of something.
And Nice, observing secretly from a distance with a telescope, exclaimed.
"What the heck?! What is this thing!"
It was a giant hand made of mud and dirt, bursting forth from the ground, so huge it was beyond people's imagination.
Under this earthen wrist, the colorful variety of long-range attacks truly seemed like fireworks.
Targeting such a thing was asking too much, wasn't it?
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