The enormous tal gate slamd shut behind them.
The interior was exactly what you'd expect from an urban combat simulation. Narrow corridors, concrete columns, industrial staircases, multiple access routes, and enough blind spots to turn any encounter into a tactical problem.
Once the sound of the gate faded, Momo finally spoke again.
"Why did you say that?"
Reiji moved forward calmly, observing his surroundings.
"What?"
"That you only used my plan..."
The response took a few seconds. More than the ssage itself, Reiji carefully chose his words to avoid sounding too serious.
"Your Quirk converts knowledge into resources. The more you understand a situation, the more tools you have to resolve it," Reiji stated directly. "If I make the plan, I'll force you into sothing I don't fully understand, which will hurt the team."
Momo remained silent.
"A strategy without coordination is just a bunch of good ideas fighting each other," she reminded him of what she herself had said about Iida and Sero's fight. "So, we'll use your plan and coordination for that."
Reiji turned his head slightly.
"And besides, I think you can co up with sothing much better than without any trouble." Momo lowered her gaze for a mont.
She already understood where he was going with this.
"Do you trust ?"
"Yes, it's that simple." A small smile appeared on Reiji's face. She sumd up quite well what he wanted to say. "You don't need to tell you how to win, you must have sothing planned, right?"
Silence returned.
Momo took several steps without answering.
"What if I'm wrong?" she finally asked.
Reiji shrugged.
"Then we're both wrong."
The answer was as if it were the most normal thing in the world; he wasn't particularly interested in losing. It was part of the process, though she wouldn't allow it easily.
"But if we're right..." Momo looked up. "...then victory will be yours."
***
lissa checked the paraters on her support glove. The digital map of the building unfolded in a blue projection before her eyes. This would be her first test under All Might's supervision; she simply couldn't fail.
She took a deep breath to focus her mind. Her partner, however, didn't seem to need it.
Shoto Todoroki stood firmly to one side, his gaze fixed ahead. They had already exchanged a few ideas, but they would make the final decision when they took their positions on the stage.
"We have fifteen minutes to capture the 'villains' or secure the 'core,'" lissa comnted, gently breaking the ice. "If we divide the area into two zones, I can cover the side entrances with remote sensors, and you can press in from the front."
Shoto nodded slowly, without looking at her.
"Understood."
lissa tilted her head.
"Do you have a preferred route or movent pattern? Or do you want to improvise based on what I detect?"
"Do what you think is best," he replied curtly, though without malice. "Once the patrol begins, I'll cover the area in ice. I don't think it will stop them, but it will distract them. From then on, we can act according to your strategy."
The young woman swallowed, maintaining her composure. She pressed a button on her glove. A series of micro-drones floated into the air and dispersed along the corridor. They activated silently, almost as an extension of her thoughts.
"Okay, that sounds like a plan. If you can't catch them, it'll give us an advantage against Reiji." The only real threat to both of them was the boy who had achieved first place in both the entrance exams and the tests within U.A. itself.
If there was anyone he had to overco, it was precisely him. As for Momo, they both believed that with their own explosive power they could neutralize her.
The alarm sounded, marking the start of the confrontation.
In the next instant, a thin layer of frost spread across the floor as if the building had inhaled winter. Todoroki lowered his hand without visible emotion; the entire hallway, from the center to the upper stairs, was partially sealed by a mixture of ice and steam.
"That'll do," the boy muttered, an icy breath escaping his lips. He knew Reiji wouldn't stay trapped there, but it would limit his escape routes.
lissa didn't respond. She had already deployed her real-ti 3D map. The drones detected faint activity on the middle floor: a heat reading and a faint electromagnetic signal.
However, when they tried to trace the exact source, the signal abruptly cut out.
"Did they disable the signal?" she whispered, surprised.
Todoroki glanced sideways.
"Momo?"
"Yeah, that was much faster than I expected. Anyway, they're on the fourth floor; the bomb should be with them." Todoroki nodded and imdiately headed for the stairs, lissa following closely behind.
Both of them relying on their own strength to suppress Reiji together.
The second floor was silent. lissa tried using her devices again, but the signal was still cut off. Clicking her tongue, she glanced out one of the windows and then at the stairs.
"They've probably set this place up..." she reasoned, seeing how her tools had been disabled. She had talked quite a bit with Momo about her own suit, and it had backfired.
So, to confuse Reiji, they would have to do sothing he didn't expect.
"How about we take a walk around outside?" the girl whispered to Todoroki, who understood her suggestion perfectly. His foot extended on ice, and before lissa could say anything else, they both quickly exited the building through a window and began climbing the exterior to the fourth floor.
"I've got you." Reiji's voice echoed in their ears as he jumped from a fifth-floor window, a gun in his hand, directly toward them.
"What…?" lissa gasped as Reiji pulled the trigger twice, and with pinpoint accuracy, two deployable nets shot out at the two 'heroes'.
The girl was the first to react, using her Quirk to create a powerful gust of wind as she punched the air. Not only were the nets flung to the side, but Reiji was also forced to use his blood to cling to the structure to avoid being blown away.
The ice beneath the pair also shattered easily from the force of the impact, sending them plumting to the ground. Todoroki reacted quickly, using another column of ice to brace himself and escape through a third-floor window.
lissa rolled across the floor as she landed on the third floor, her left arm landing with a thud. She got up quickly, ignoring the burning sensation. Todoroki was already standing, his breath thick with the ice he had just generated.
"Are you alright?" he asked without looking at her.
"Yeah, that was pretty surprising..." lissa said, quickly getting back to her feet while clutching her shoulder with a grimace. Before Todoroki could speak, two hollow sounds echoed from above.
BOOM!
CRACK!
The third-floor ceiling exploded violently, showering lissa and Todoroki with concrete, dust, and tal. The boy's ice barely ford a thin wall before the impact forced them backward.
lissa rolled to the side, her arm hitting the ground hard again as a dense cloud enveloped them.
"Are you okay?!" she asked, getting to her feet with a grimace.
"Yeah," Todoroki replied, getting up from the rubble.
Visibility was almost zero. All they could hear was the crunch of dust settling and the distant hiss of a gust of wind...
"Back off!" Todoroki scread, just as a figure plumted down through the hole in the ceiling.
Reiji.
With a net in one hand and a solid blood blade in the other, he descended like a sharp shadow. His suit allowed him to close the distance unnoticed, just enough to be in the attack zone the mont they spotted him.
lissa raised her arm and released a blast of compressed air. Reiji dodged it with an elegant spin, landing on the ground to launch his net directly at Todoroki.
The ice reacted reflexively, freezing the net in mid-air.
From the left corner, another figure erged running.
"Now!" Momo shouted, throwing a flash grenade that exploded in the middle of the corridor.
lissa closed her eyes just in ti, but the flash disoriented her enough for Momo to gain a better position. She had co down through another entrance and circled around them with precision.
Reiji didn't waste the mont and advanced, heading straight for a direct confrontation with the duo of 'Heroes'. When lissa regained her senses, she saw Reiji's fist hurtling towards her face.
'Shit...' she managed to think as she activated OFA throughout her body and barely dodged Reiji's blow. The boy didn't flinch and spun around with extraordinary speed and flexibility, delivering a powerful kick to lissa's badly injured shoulder.
Her body was thrown backward, slamming into a steel desk that shattered beneath her weight. A groan escaped her lips as pain shot through her left arm like an electric shock.
"Tsk..." she groaned, forcing herself to her feet as her vision blurred.
Reiji didn't stop. He advanced rcilessly, throwing two vials of crimson liquid towards Todoroki, who was standing between him and lissa.
A wave of ice swept through the area, halting both blood vials, which shattered instantly, scattering their contents across the field.
Reiji leaped onto the ice hurtling toward him, using his blood to anchor himself to the ceiling and propel himself directly toward Todoroki.
"Can't you be normal?" Todoroki muttered, barely managing to block a thrust. He used his ice again to create a wall between himself, Reiji, and lissa. He could feel his body beginning to go numb, and the need to regulate his body temperature increased.
But as the fight intensified, Momo hadn't stopped. From a side corridor, she kept moving, leaving small capsules and devices at strategic points, building the true battlefield.
"We won't defeat them head-on, Reiji. We just need to separate them," she whispered to herself, taking out another capsule.
lissa noticed. Seeing her vision obscured, she turned her head and observed what Momo was doing.
"She's preparing sothing! Todoroki!"
But the boy turned his head and instantly understood the warning; his body reacted imdiately.
"I don't think so."
Reiji, even without seeing her, stirred the blood in the vials he had previously thrown. Tiny crimson fibers entangled Todoroki's ankles, tightly binding them and causing Shoto to lose his balance.
lissa gritted her teeth and sprinted toward Momo, not even trying to help Shoto. If they both fell into the trap, they would lose.
"You're not going to set another trap!" Her body moved at incredible speed thanks to AFO, arriving just ters away from Momo in a flash.
Momo saw her coming and stepped back, her expression not one of haste... but of certainty.
"Too late," the girl said with a wide smile. Each capsule around her released a projectile aid at lissa's position, blocking her path of attack and forcing her to dodge.
Only one of the projectiles struck lissa directly, causing a dark cloud of dust to spread, obscuring her vision. As her eyes searched for an escape route through the black smoke, she didn't have ti to react when she felt a tal bar hurtling straight toward her head.
The blow was precise, sending lissa stumbling back a couple of steps from the shock. When she finally regained consciousness, her body was gripped by so kind of rope that wrapped around her with incredible force.
Reiji's vibrant red blood clung to her body like a living whip, dragging her along in an unstoppable montum.
"What...?!" was all she managed to say before crashing into Todoroki's side.
They both fell hard, skidding across the ground amidst shards of cracked ice and debris.
Todoroki gasped in pain, his chest rising and falling with difficulty. His skin, on both sides, was covered in frostbite and steam; he had pushed his Quirk too far, he was at his limit.
lissa struggled to her feet; her shoulder was dislocated, and blood trickled down her forehead, adding to the scrapes and bruises from the earlier exchange.
The blonde looked up just in ti to see Reiji walking slowly toward them, unhurried, his expression cold.
"You've lost..." Reiji said matter-of-factly, pointing directly at both of their wrists and noticing the handcuffs already in place.
'When...?' lissa hadn't even noticed when the handcuffs had been put on; she'd barely had ti to react. Everything had happened so fast that her mind couldn't keep up, not because she lacked the ability, but rather because she'd never forced herself to think so much in such a short amount of ti.
She watched Reiji, who was still standing in front of them, his expression serious. Reiji barely had a few scratches on his clothes, but his body was completely unhard. His movents had been on another level, and not even lissa, with her One For All at a low percentage, could match him, nor could Todoroki, who only managed to defend himself with his ice.
Behind them, Momo also advanced, her body composed, another capsule in hand, in case the final attack hadn't quite worked. Her face wore a smile as she watched them both handcuffed, more out of pride than anything else.
lissa simply sighed and accepted her defeat, as did Todoroki the mont Reiji withdrew the blood that had been pressing on them.
"VILLAINS WIN! SPLENDID FIGHT, REIJI AND MOMO!" All Might's unmistakable voice echoed through the arena.
Momo, her heart still pounding, dropped the capsule and let out a joyful exclamation, jumping up and down.
"We did it!" She exclaid, turning to Reiji, her eyes shining.
He simply looked at her and gave her a calm smile, without a trace of exhaustion, as if he had known from the beginning that this was how it would all end.
"You did it. I just carried out your ideas," he said matter-of-factly, without false modesty.
Momo observed him for a few seconds, surprised by his sincerity, and then nodded with a mixture of gratitude and pride.
A few feet away, lissa forced herself to her feet, wincing in pain, while Todoroki sat silently, his breath still ragged.
lissa pressed her lips together, processing everything. It hadn't just been one trap after another. It had been a precise reading of their decisions, a sequence that had led them, step by step, exactly where Momo wanted.
Even the final confrontation was rely the conclusion of a ga already decided.
And yet… she didn't feel defeated. Just outmatched.
She glanced over at Momo and Reiji, who were celebrating silently, their complicity unspoken.
'They knew how to work as a team from the very beginning…' she thought. 'We never stood a chance.'
A jolt of reality hit her, and she looked at her own hand with a mixture of bewildernt that quickly turned into conviction.
'I have to get stronger.'
***
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