Test of Strength

Fujin was shocked by what he heard. Not by the content itself, but who it was coming from because unlike every other student his first impression of Otohime happened earlier and was much different. The woman standing before him now was nothing like the person he meant earlier. That person was kind and had eyes that shown with wisdom. This woman seemed whimsical and apathetic. "What is she thinking? Why is she acting like this? Was the Otohime I met before just an act? Regardless, for the sake of my family I can't afford to lose," Fujin thought as he sat back down.

"The rules are simple. If you pass out you lose. Remember, you are fighting for your dreams and life so give it everything you've got. Without further ado I will announce the matches of the first round. When I am done the contestants of the first match will walk down to Ground Beta with me while the rest will stay here with Hoori. The first match will be between Haiiro Kousei and Tenken Suzuno. The second match is between Fūjin Nakano and Miku Sora. The third is Norio Kin and Anri Nadeshiko. Everyone here talks big so let's see if you have what it takes and back it up by crushing the hopes and dreams of your peers for the sake of your own goals. Good luck. You will need it," Otohime said.

## Round One

### Haiiro Kousei and Tenken Suzuno

"Uhh um." Haiiro stated staring at his opponent across the arena. "Th-this is a bad idea...i-it's not safe." He stammered, glancing around to see his teachers watching them from a balcony above. Miku was nowhere to be seen, off in her own fight. *"After all this you're gonna quit on the first day, what a fucking coward."* The voice loomed over his mind. *"How the hell did you even get here? If it was me, I'd have been all over the news by now."* "Stop please." He whispered softly to himself. Finally eyeing his opponent.

Tenken notices Haiiro eyeing him while he was stretching for abit. "The name is Tenken, if you've forgotten." He picks up his large sword and walks up to a nearby tower. "How about a little chat before we start?" he yells out to Haiiro before swinging his large sword into a pillar and breaking them down to a few large boulders and fist sized rock. "Let's start with sharing info about our quirk? how about that?" he asked as the boulders start slowly floating upwards.

Haiiro looked at the kid blankly. He just stared back at his hands and sighed. He didn't want to speak to him. He didn't want to do any of this. Why was this whole damn tournament even a thing. Any further words by Tenken were blocked out by Haiiro's own thoughts.

Tenken sighs as he notices Haiiro ignoring him, "Well I'll start I guess..." the stones and boulders start orbiting around Tenken at a remarkably fast speed, he slams his sword into the ground, tip first, and yells "Here I come!" The a few orbiting boulders are flung straight towards Haiiro at great speeds.

*"Rocks, he's throwing rocks?"* Haiiro thought, diving to the side as the rocks soared over him. He quickly stood up. *"Maybe he can't use his sword."* He thought to himself, unsure why the boy was throwing rocks like a child. He kept his distance though, if the kid was just gonna throw rock, it would be much simpler to just stay back and dodge them. *"I think I'm better at long range for this, if I can't use my quirk maybe I can tire him out?"* He thought.

Tenkens continues the barrage as he notices his opponent dodging constantly. He yells out at him "Bad idea wasting your energy to dodge you know, my quirk might use a fair amount to activate but to keep it up takes close to no energy." Static charges start to build up around the blade as the stone vortex continues to swirl, Tenken turn to look at his blade and continues, "Plus letting me have more prep time is probably gonna be the end of you and please don't make this fight boring."

### Fūjin Nakano and Miku Sora

Looking around the vast expanses of Ground Beta, Miku *almost* had lost the feeling that this was a terrible idea. Placing children in battles against each other before their first test, or even before the standard Quirk apprehension test she found a constant in every school. Sighing as she observed her opponent, noticing that it would appear that he did indeed wish to fight. However, it would appear that her own personal fight was not what she was worried about, atleast, not to the extent that it was visible. "...We're all heroes in training right? Surely someone won't just put down a fellow classmate if they didn't use their Quirk, right?", she thought to herself, hoping to gain the validation of her own mind. Fully hydrated, Miku observed her opponent's equipment, immediately noticing that it would appear he had some sort of gear, a lance of sorts to utilize in combat. Having nothing but her own student uniform and her Quirk, Miku took a deep breath and readied herself.

With his Gale Lance resting atop his right shoulder, Fūjin's mind was still buzzing with questions. Otohime's attitude seemed off to him not only because he was sure she knew how dangerous this was, but because of how cruel the tournament is. It wasn't like the Otohime Fūjin knew to be this cruel and stupid. Perhaps this Otohime was an act, perhaps the Otohime he met earlier was an act. He simply did not know. Fūjin let out a soft lazy sigh and said aloud more to himself than to his opponent, "There is no getting out of this is there?" After speaking he lifted his lance off his shoulder and entered a defensive stance to make it clear that he had not intention of making the first move.

"...Doesn't seem so?" Miku shortly replied. Noting her opponent's defensive stance, Miku created a cloud underneath her feet, hovering slightly above the ground. Breaking apart small portions of her cloud, Miku created several fist-sized balls of nephalous matter, innocuous in size. Regardless, these balls were tremendously dense, having shown the ability to easily rip through solid metal in the entrance examinations, as if being condensed and heavy despite their size. In addition, these balls travelled towards Fujin at remarkable speed, projecting them outwards at her opponent from multiple angles, converging themselves onto his location. Despite the offensive nature of the attack, Miku used this as naught but both as a test and a first maneuver, seemingly in an attempt to overwhelm him while out of the immediate range of her opponent's lance.

"Why must everything require effort," Fūjin muttered to himself as he began to dodge the projectiles thanks to his enhanced reflexes. For the most part he was successful in dodging the attacks except for one of them that barely grazed his right shoulder. His movements her small, subtle, and lazy to avoid expending too much energy since he didn't have a lot of stamina to spare. When the last one was sent his way he reached out to the air around it with his mind in order to use the air currents around it and since its high density made it solid he was able to telekinetically throw it right back at his opponent as a way to test her control over her quirk and her reflexes.

### Norio Kin and Anri Nadeshiko

While Norio was not unexcited about the fights ahead, he could not help but notice each of the students were missing something. "Um, hero lady teacher?" he started clearly not remembering the name of his professor. "I was told by this time, we would have our hero suits present. Will we not be utilizing them during this exercise?" Norio questioned.

Otohime gave the student a very unsettling smile that almost looked like a sneer. There was a hint of amusement in her eyes that showed revealed how amusing that question was to her. "Nope, there is no use in giving everyone suits when the majority of you will have to give them back when you are expelled," Otohime replied. After speaking she turned around and walked out of Ground Beta while announcing, "You may begin."

Anri is extremely pumped for this battle. "Wow, my first school fight lets hope its nothing like a middle school fight, too much hair pulling not enough punching". She says clenching her fists tightly with fire in her eyes. She picks up her feet pulling what looks like a piece of metal from the bottom soles of her feet. "Time to get started, come at me Norio". She clenches her fist around the metal as a blue scanning light flows through it the flowing through her body. She is now braced for attack.

"It's Mr. Kin to you, mongrel." Norio spoke, demonstrating his lack of respect for his opponent. "Even as enemies, address your superiors with respect!" he told her. Rather than listening to his classmate, he waited for her to attack first, as he doesn't take orders from commoners.

"Who are you calling a fucking mongrel". Anri said vein popping out of her head with anger. She then continued on to say."And how the fuck are you my superior, your fucking shorter than me you runt". She said holding up the middle finger an laughing at Norio. "i couldn't give a fuck what your name is, for all im concerned that name that suits you most is runt, looks like your mommy left you here by an accident". She says laughing while bending down slightly as if talking to a child.