My Hero Automata

Summary: Shockingly, it's the second set of finals matches! Who would have guessed that?!

Chapter 41: Finals Matches (Set 2)

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With every battle zone and every test proctor being different, it didn't take long for the next set of students to be called. The various heroes, aside from Midnight, had already vanished. But Dean Nedzu's voice came over the speakers in the gathering area to call the Asui Tsuyu/Kaminari Denki pair to one testing site, and the Uraraka Ochaco/Kirishima Eijrio pair to a fourth. The first pair was surprisingly calm, while the second pair was unsurprisingly pumped up. It also readily established a pattern, as everyone realized they were being called up in the order they'd originally been listed.

Neither team were particularly inclined toward using their full preparation this time. Most likely, it was a combination of having already had time to discuss while the first set of tests played out, and the relatively gung-ho nature of three of the students. Of the four, only Asui could be called remotely calm. Uraraka's bubbly personality often fooled those who were just meeting her into believing she was the same. But no one in Group A still held delusions about that any longer. The reality was that Uraraka was likely the second most competitive person in Group A, behind only Bakugo. She was just friendlier about it than the blonde bomber.

That competitive spirit would only be egged on by her partner, in this case, so it wasn't exactly a shock to see her and Kirishima charging out of the prep area barely a minute after they'd reached it. Despite that…for the moment, they didn't seem to actually have an opponent. Which left the remaining members of the class to swing their gaze to the other main monitor when Asui and Kaminari left their own prep zone. Those two immediately drew interest as they made a major departure from the tactics used thus far. Kaminari went airborne, skimming the rooftops down one side of a street, while Asui lept to a rooftop across that same street and began roof-hopping smoothly from one building to the next. The two were very obviously going for an aerial advantage. A smart move…but one that their opponent had to have seen coming, given these two students were known to have high mobility.

That quickly proved to be the case as, instead of focusing on the crowds…Gunhead stepped out from behind a hidden little alcove on one roof and opened fire. Kaminari had just passed him, and that fire was very precisely aimed…to utterly shred Denki's jetpack. Kaminari shouted as the support gear went wild for a moment, then shorted. In the next moments, only his instructors insisting he trained for its possible failure saw him through as he recovered by instinct, firing out two of his wire arrow cables to snag a building as he went spiraling downward. Unfortunately, he would be a least a minute getting oriented and ditching the jetpack, let alone returning to the rooftops, and Gunhead knew it. He'd chosen his hiding spot maliciously, picking out a four-way intersection that was busy with civilian bots. He'd also waited for Asui to have already crossed, just as Denki had been in the process of doing, leaving her on a diagonal rooftop across the intersection she couldn't possibly cover in one leap. All of which meant he had an unobstructed, unopposed line of fire to begin raking all the civilian bots below with his Quirk, riddling them with bullets.

Both students responded as fast as they could, Asui backtracking to her previous building with a leap, even as Kaminari counterintuitively dropped to street level. The move proved to be the right one, however, as a pair of cables drug him into place between Gunhead's line of fire and another set of civilian bots. Two more wire arrows, long sense updated so he could use them as additional appendages, detached from his body as he arrived. These two carried a new piece of Hatsume support gear none of them had seen him use just yet, circular plates that had been a bit less than a foot in diameter in compact mode spiraling open to reveal metal shields easily three feet across. The first set of shields were joined by another set as his first set of cables retrieved their own set of plates, with all four placing themselves as a bulwark that protected the bots from Gunhead's fire. Moments later Asui was on top of Gunhead and he was forced to engage her, instead of targeting the bots. Even as Denki dropped two of the plates to launch his cables toward the building, intent of moving to join the fight, someone gasped and pointed to the other screen.

Uraraka and Kirishima's opponent had finally revealed themselves…by sneaking up on the pair and binding both of them in a Lacquered Chain Prison! Kamui Woods lifted them both into the air, even as he was very careful to fling Uraraka's Devil Kanabō as far away as he could. Which, given that she hadn't had a chance to shift its gravity, was actually pretty far. Unfortunately, his admittedly very legitimate concern about the weapon, which most of them had become properly terrified of, cost him. Kirishima managed to sharpen his hardening enough to cut an arm free from the binding move and threw a flash grenade. It was an addition he'd been reluctant about, initially. But Izumi and Momo had hammered on him about the idea that he needed something that gave him ranged ability. He'd proven to be an absolutely terrible shot, in addition to having a strong dislike for guns, so a few varieties of throwable objects had been the compromise they'd talked him into.

That paid off now, as Kamui Woods hadn't ever seen him use them, the hero crying out in pain as the flash blinded him. Worse, as his super move acted like an extension of his arms, his instinct to cover his eyes compromised the binding and both students managed to slip free. Uraraka didn't bother running for her weapon, instead darting to tap Kirishima, then spinning with her partner to fling him like a missile toward their opponent. The Home Run maneuver might even have worked if she'd been just a bit stronger. As it was, Kamui Woods managed to recover his vision just enough to use his Quirk to dodge. From there, the fight was on, as both students he faced predictably went into attack mode…

Both sets of fights turned to close quarters combat, with Gunhead managing to throw his opponents around while Woods, less trained for that, was hard-pressed to keep dodging the aggressive duo. There were several near defeats for both students and Pros over the next several minutes, with Denki actually getting knocked out by Gunhead. And then time ran out. Both Pros still looked relatively fresh, where all three of the conscious students were clearly on their last legs. Though they had, at least, managed a bit better on the score front.

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Team C: Asui Tsuyu & Kaminari Denki – Score: 75

Team D: Uraraka Ochaco & Kirishima Eijrio – Score: 89

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There were a few murmurs at that, with everyone taking note of how much of a difference it had made that Kamui Woods hadn't managed to engage with the Civilian Bots more than incidentally. Midnight took that as her cue to chime in.

"That, students, is why we put so much emphasis on response time. As a general rule, the faster you can engage a villain, even if only as a distraction, the lower the chance they have to go wild in a crowd. On the other hand, I can't say this one was skill so much as luck. Their opponent is a capture specialist who went for an instant win they managed to slip out of. As both of them still lack a lot in mobility, they would have been in a lot more trouble if he'd gone for the bots rather than targeting them."

There were nods all around. Kamui Woods had been a good counter for two people who lacked even midrange options. But when the flash grenade had unexpectedly given the duo a chance to close the range, things had turned against him. Even if he'd still pressed them hard.

"Regardless, they've passed. Ojiro, Bakugo, Koda and Tokoyami, you're up. Head to prep areas five and six."

The mentioned students nodded and headed off with their respective teammates…