Chapter 87: LE POUVOIR DE L'AMITIÉ
"AGH, CAN YOU BE QUIET FOR ONE SECOND!" The shouting words from the normally reclusive, bubbly girl shut Aoyama up, letting her get a moment of respite.
"What kind of heroes hide? You two don't deserve the title." Thirteen's voice could be heard from whatever corner she was currently behind.
Still, the two U.A. students kept quiet, getting their breathing under control as they crouched behind one of the various rocks in the Rocky Zone, hoping their lack of sight would obstruct the absurd quirk, Black Hole.
'THINK OCHACO, What would someone like Iida, Momo, or Shimizu do in this situation?'
Amidst her classmate's panic as he tried to keep tears from bursting in his eyes, either scared or distressed that a part of his hero suit was lost to the ever-gluttonous black hole, Ochaco tried to stay calm.
'ANALYZE! Okay, let's analyze. We're in a test designed by the teachers, meaning there has to be some way out. Currently, we're trapped behind the rocks, as Thirteen's quirk is too powerful. With her increasing the suction in whatever direction she finds us in, we can't just make a mad dash towards the doors.'
The situation was looking bleaker by the second as she actually thought it out, but the girl, still never losing her cheeriness and optimism, something she was told by her parents that nobody could ever take from her as the family of three lost their house, continued to think.
'We're high up on a mountain, meaning we're stuck, but inversely, Thirteen is stuck with us.'
As if a lightbulb went off in her mind, Ochaco looked at her scared partner, who momentarily stopped his scared look, not liking the look in the girl's eyes.
"Yuga, I have a plan, but you're probably not going to like it."
.
.
.
"NO!"
The loud shout from an area she hadn't checked caught the pro's attention, and a quick usage of their quirk, increasing the suction in relation to that area, revealed the elusive duo.
"AHHHH."
The louder one shouted as a large chunk of the rock they were hiding under got sucked towards her before entering her quirk's manifestation.
"You two done hiding like rats? Heroes need to be bold and courageous, something you've failed to demonstrate so far."
Thirteen watched them, keeping her chosen villain persona as the eyes of an observer washed over the two forms.
Confidence shone from the girl's eyes, whereas nervous yet resigned behavior came from the boy.
Good.
'A duo chosen for their personalities, one optimistic to a tee, being put together with one that has hidden insecurities. Can they work together to pass the test as one hinders the other? Can she move forward without having to carry an extra burden? Can he get over himself to help the collective team?'
Her eyes under the mask shone as the Pro Hero watched the two, studying their movements for even the faintest twitch.
'Show me, prove me right that people can change, Uraraka.'
"You want courage, huh? My friends taught me a little about that, so I'll show you what I've learned."
The pro-villain watched as the girl recklessly ran towards the hero, abandoning her hiding strategy and her previous post.
'Good idea, though; they're the ones on a time limit, not me. If they wait too long, time's going to run out, and they'll fail.'
She ignored the lack of Aoyama's sight, attributing that to the boy's more cowardly nature; he was inconsequential after all.
Instead, she directed her sight towards the girl who made headlines after the Sports Festival, watching as she performed her famed move, grabbing a bunch of petals before throwing them in her direction.
"Cute, but heroes need to understand when to give up, when the difference between opponents is too big. Let me show you Absolute Power."
She was lying.
The pro knew it, and if she still remembered, she hoped the girl knew it as well.
Absolute Power? How when a few weeks ago, she got beat by her own power, defeated, and rendered incapacitated because of her previous fear of her own quirk.
'Ridiculous.'
It was a ridiculous notion, but still, that was the fact: 'But not anymore.'
Day and night, as soon as she was discharged from the hospital, she practiced her quirk, trying to better herself so that she'd never again be a danger to herself or her allies.
Truthfully, she shouldn't be here right now, the hospital is not exactly giving her the green light to go straight back to work.
Nezu himself, along with Recovery Girl, had advised against it, but Thirteen's own insistence was why he was here.
'Truthfully, it was her.'
Watching that girl, someone who was previously paralyzed in the face of a villain, come so far to nearly beat Katsuki Bakugo, it lit a fire inside of the teacher.
How could he sit back and watch as his students strive for greater?
The Pro looked ahead, watching as the onslaught of rocks were aimed slightly above him before suddenly they started heading down towards him, losing their weightless effects.
'Like a Cluster of Asteroids.' He said in his own mind.
Still, the pro kept eye contact with the girl as he sang inside his own mind, 'I hope you caught my bluff and can understand my unspoken words. Uraraka, Nezu, students, let me show you how far a Hero can come.'
With his words, simultaneously, his quirk activated, no longer having to be activated but instead being simply willed into existence.
On the tip of his finger, a black hole, the bane of his fear for a large portion of his life, sat; only this time, the orb of black murky death didn't terrify him.
'Let's show them the extent of our power.' He sang to herself, to his mind, and to his quirk.
The hole of eternal confinement seemed to defy gravity as, with his hands, it rose up until it was at his head.
Then, as if fed by some nonexistent force, it increased, increasing its size until it was as big as a basketball.
Once that size was reached, the asteroidoids arrived, yet they were unable to obstruct the pro as they harmlessly fell into the black hole.
Though Uraraka couldn't see it, the Pro raised a provocative eyebrow.
After finishing its meal, the quirk changed, increasing its suction power, which was enough to cause the girl's feet to start skidding towards her.
"This is Absolute Power."
'This is the effort of a Hero's Determination.'
Thirteen watched as the girl was helplessly dragged towards her, struggling like the others she'd tried her quirk on.
Then, perhaps as a surprise to herself, the girl did the most unexpected thing she could do in this situation.
She tapped herself.
Gravity became a suggestion as, with her weightlessness, Uraraka was inevitably and uncontrollably pulled into Thirteen herself.
'Disappointing.' The pro internally shook her head.
Still, he watched the body fly towards him, taking a look at the resigned expression—
It wasn't there.
The expected resigned expression wasn't on the girl's face; instead, an expected, turbulent one rested on her features as she tilted her body forward, now facing and parallel to the ground!
Thirteen tried to test her; he tried to keep her resolve as long as possible as Uraraka flew towards him, yet even as the girl's eyes were hidden from view, he could still feel the resolve oozing out of her.
At the last second, before her head could be swallowed, he closed the black hole, saving the girl's life.
Looking down at the girl, who was now at the height of her chest and rapidly rising, he grabbed onto her and asked,
"Why did you do it? Are heroes these days this foolish?" The pro said so as his free hand directed a finger towards his left, swallowing up a familiar Naval Beam of light.
Still, with a confident smile on her face, Uraraka replied with a grin, "Heroes also need to know how to judge a situation and respond accordingly, regardless of the risk."
"Like you did." Such words were left unspoken, yet they were heard all the same.
As she said so, Uraraka released her control over her quirk, dragging Thirteen's arm down as she fell to the ground.
"Like THIS!"
Like before, as he witnessed it, the Pro felt gravity become a suggestion as he was uncontrollably lifted into the air.
Before he could direct a finger towards the girl below, he saw a faster, stronger beam of light coming towards his position.
"LE POUVOIR DE L'AMITIÉ"
He ignored the foreign French words as the teacher quickly directed a hand to his head, absorbing the power of light that was coming for his life.
'Cheeky.'
He looked up, watching as the girl dragged her tied body to the cliff of the ledge, slapping both herself and her classmate with her powers.
Then, as she jumped and ascended into the air within the range of his powers, he watched as the bubbly girl spun around mid-air…
And stuck her tongue out at him before reactivating her quirk, plummeting down, dragging the attached Aoyama with her away from his quirk's range.
Though the bitter feeling of being bested was there, the Pro's thoughts weren't centered on such feelings as before.
Instead, he had one concurrent thought, "Seems I need more training?" He said it through a smile hidden underneath his black astronaut mask.