Chapter 25: Victory

"Fight!" Midnight announces the start of their fight. The two acted quickly with Denki sweeping away Araki's hand and sending a hook with the other. Araki, on the other hand, uses his free hand to block the incoming hook.

As a counter, he grabs the arm and with a pull, he sends a knee to Denki's abdomen. This knee strike send Denki a couple of steps away but he didn't fall. He also has his hand to reduce the force of Araki's attack.

With a pause, they took their previous stance again. With no word, they once again spur into action with Araki taking the first move by using pushing and pulling his arm giving space for an elbow strike which Denki defends.

He then sends a kick to follow and Denki defends by using his foot. He pushes Araki's foot to the ground but he felt himself being pulled again. But this time, Araki grabbed his shirt, pulls him, and proceeds to clothesline him, pushing him away again.

Seeing that he lost two times in two exchanges, Denki pauses. He takes a bit of a breather before asking.

"Should we use our quirks now?" He asks to which Araki replies with a shrug, meaning yes. With the two engages in a fight once again but this time, there seemed to be a difference – they were faster. Not necessarily faster that they look like a blur, but faster in the sense that they are attacking faster.

The two continue to send a flurry of blows to each other and unlike what happened earlier, Denki wasn't defeated in a short time. Even with the massive skill advantage of Araki, he was able to keep up. However, to him, it was pretty different. Not only can he feel every blow and attack of Araki, but he was also tiring faster than his opponent.

It wasn't a long-lasting pain, at least for now, but the force of punch or push of the elbow was heavy. Given their orthodox, it became easy for many to follow aside from their fast attacking. Right hook, front kick, left punches, and all types of attacks. Parry after parry, counter after counter, each and every attack were getting faster and faster.

Now, despite their simple and efficient use of their movements, it was becoming too fast for the audience to see. But then, Denki suddenly came tumbling to the side – he was in the shoulders but because of a moment of relaxation, he wasn't able to defend causing him to lose his footing.

He immediately stand-up to recover and seeing that Araki didn't move to follow with an attack, he decided to rest.

"You're enhancing your brain's information processing to be faster by using your quirk? Good application." Araki compliments him.

"Even when you can't see it, you know? Does your quirk do that too? I haven't landed a solid hit on you even once. I've been experimenting with this for days or weeks now after you told me the idea. At first, I was scared. But then, seeing the effects for one time… I've seen what I can do. And I want to improve more, man. I wanna get stronger too." Denki said as he smiles.

Araki just looks at him but he was able to see the acute tremble in his body movement – probably due to the mix of excitement and nervousness.

"Do you really want to? But you seem to be on your limit." Araki teases.

"Maybe? But I can't be afraid again. At least not now. I'm not only facing my friend but also… someone I admire."

"Then let me respond to that enthusiasm," Araki said before running to him.

But instead of directly attacking, he jumps up vertically. This made Denki jump back and when the latter landed with a punch, it was cracked. He then rolls to the front and spins to send a kick making Denki defend with both his arms but then was pushed by the force.

After being pushed, he opens his defenses which catches him again off-guard, as a cloud of dust hits his eyes making him flinch. Fortunately, it didn't hit the insides to devoid him of his sight.

For the next half a minute, the audience watches as Denki gets overwhelmed by Araki's moves. He was able to gain his footing to be able to at least think.

'I need to pull it off! I also need to increase the output to match his speed! Even if I risk a short-circuit!' Denki thought to himself.

With a few more flurry of attacks, Denki finally sees an opening as Araki did a spinning heel kick. Denki increases the output to his brain making everything seem a bit slower. He also applies a small portion to his arm to speed it up.

This enables him to catch it and push it back hard. This push causes Araki to spin again to face him and when he did, Denki appears on a low stance.

At this moment, Denki applies a ton of his electricity to his muscle and sends a punch to Araki's chest. A simple but powerful move as suddenly, as fast as anyone can see, Araki was sent flying.

*BOOM!*

Not just a couple of steps away from where they were, but to the walls of the stadium. The impact of his body hitting made a cloud of dust and a crack in the wall. The audience all watch in anticipation as the dust slowly settles, showing a conscious Araki cracking his arms and fingers.

However, one of the audience decides to look at the winner and was shocked.

"Look! His right arm was bleeding!" The camera then pans up to Denki who has a pained expression and a full-on bleeding arm. His face was also twitching. The focus on the bleeding arm reminds many of the audience of a similar injury two fights ago, which was on the green-haired boy facing the ice-quirk boy.

Before they can talk more about it, Midnight steps in and announces the winner.

"The winner… is Denki Kaminari!"

This distracts the audience into cheering for him making Denki almost forget about the painful injury in his arm.

"Did I… really win?" Doubting his victory, he looks over the stadium to where his friend is. There, despite the distance, he was able to see Araki raise a thumbs up. Seeing this, he all of a sudden got an urge to scream loudly but the only cheer that came out of his mouth was…

"YEEEAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY!!!!!"