72

Chapter Text

Kirishima smiled as he stepped up onto the platform across from Matsumura Kasumi. Out of the corner of his eye, Kirishima had watched Tetsutetsu return from Recovery Girl's temporary office inside the stadium. He was kind of glad Tetsutetsu had gotten back as quickly as he had. He needed to get revenge for his bro! Well, sort of. That was the joke they were all going with, at least.

In reality, Kirishima was man enough to admit that he really wanted to keep Class 1-A's win streak going. There was more than a little competitiveness drumming up inside of him. He got what Midoriya had said, that it wasn't the point of the event. He really did. But still, there was a small part of him, he'd claim smaller than it was, that really enjoyed winning. Who didn't?

Kirishima put his hands up as he and his opponent took their positions. Smile on his face, he told Matsumura good luck. The woman blinked for a second, seemingly trying to figure out if there was some kind of ulterior motive. Deciding there was none, the young woman gave Kirishima a small surprised smile and wished him the same.

The whistle blew, and Matsumura wasted no time moving forward, grabbing at Kirishima. He stepped forward instead of back, surprising the woman. Locking at the shoulders, he pressured the shoulder joints, locking her in the bind with him. They danced, or Kirishima supposed it was a kind of dance. His foot slipped forward, trying to catch her leg before both slid away from his own. With a quick movement, Matsumura snapped out, trying to catch him out of place.

A few moments of this and Kirishima hissed. Matsumura's hands were rapidly cooling against his skin.

…

Kirishima breathed deeply, his hands on his knees. Groaning, he rolled out sore joints, staring balefully at the ceiling. Midoriya had been training him to rapidly respond to incoming threats during their one-on-one sessions. As he had explained it, they could drill the "proper" way to handle a fight into their heads, so much so that it would be automatic in a true fight.

How to throw a punch, how to disarm, disengage, entrap, any technique they could imagine. But they, the students, would have to be the ones to adapt that knowledge for themselves. Kirishima's biggest issue, they had found, wasn't adapting that knowledge.

He was quite good at fighting in hand-to-hand, in fact, a natural compared to some of his classmates. His quirk let him be far more aggressive than any of the other students. He could shrug off strikes that would put normal people on their asses and keep slugging, a bruiser fighting style that only worked because he had such a highly valued, by Midoriya at least, defensive quirk. His problem lay in his stamina.

After a few minutes of fighting with his quirk at max, he started to struggle. Ten, twenty? He was practically gassed. The mental fatigue, and the physical toll, were heavy on his body. Something that would work just fine in quick engagements, like those in their first year, wouldn't necessarily work during longer field assignments. Kirishima had wanted to argue, instinctively so, but the USJ was too fresh in his mind to formulate one. The worst had happened, hadn't it?

Midoriya breathed out as he put down the latest weapons that he had been striking at Kirishima with. It was Kirishima's job to respond to the threat. That was it. Where would Midoriya strike? With what? How hard? Bladed? Blunt? How much of his quirk did he need to channel? Where did he need to channel it?

Midoriya had given him a couple of training choices, a few paths that Kirishima could decide on. Midoriya welcomed him to make suggestions. This was one method of using his quirk that Kirishima had found interesting. Localized activation at the time of threat. It wasn't always viable, of course. Midoriya had explained that in plenty of other situations, Kirishima wouldn't be able to risk this kind of activation method.

The other problem lay in exactly what was happening. Kirishima had struggled at first to figure out what he was being struck with, to recognize how intensely he needed to activate his quirk, to activate his quirk in time at all. He was getting better, a lot better if the praise from Midoriya was to be believed. He certainly didn't have nearly the number of bruises he'd started out with. He'd even managed to start trying for counterattacks!

"How are you with hot and cold? Have you ever tested your defenses against temperatures, Kirishima?"

Sweat dripped down Kirishima's spine as he looked down from the ceiling to Midoriya, who was fishing around in a polystyrene container with a gloved hand. "I mean, I've never gone out of my way to test it. But I seem to do alright when Todoroki throws ice at me. Why?"

Midoriya snorted as he retracted his hand with a brick of ice in it. "There are all sorts of quirks out there. If the rumors are true, then Baba Yaga in Siberia can snap her fingers and cover an entire city in ice. You need to know how you do against the elements. Considering that…"

Kirishima eyed the brick in Midoriya's hand, which was frosting over the glove even as he picked up a blow torch in his other hand and ignited it. "Let's test how you do with temperature."

…

Kirishima flared his quirk under his singlet with a hiss. The temperature problem felt mitigated for the moment but, with a grimace, Kirishima felt himself having to put more and more into his quirk to stave off the rapidly decreasing temperature on his shoulders.

Knowing that he wouldn't be able to keep up with this forever, Kirishima decided to do something that he didn't want to do against someone smaller than himself. Ironically, it was Kaminari's words that echoed in his ears. Who cares if she's smaller than you man? Lay her ass out, or she's gonna do it to you.

Kirishima let up his grip on Matsumura's shoulders and snapped his arms out, one hand wrapped around the back of her head while the other cupped her chin. Kirishima grasped and pulled down, dragging her down into a front headlock. Shoulders pinching, hand on her chin, Kirishima pulled into her armpit before hurling her down onto the wrestling mat.

Pushing down on Matsumura's upper back and pulling down with his hold on her head, Kirishima shuffled around until he was pinning Matsumura as well as he could. The whistle blew, and they reset.

…

Tetsutetsu cheered as he watched Kirishima pin the woman who had beaten him. It was a mixed feeling. Part of him wanted Kirishima to win this. He was cheering for the dude, after all! But part of him wanted Matsumura to go as far as possible, if only to validate his early knockout a little more.

When he looked to the side, Class 1-A was grinning and cheering, too. Well, 1-A aside from Midoriya, who was standing off to the side, leaning against their seating. He had returned but had yet to sit back down. "Looks like Kirishima can certainly handle the cold!"

Midoriya glanced over at Tetsutetsu before responding. "Hmm? How so?"

Tetsutetsu shook slightly with an overly theatrical brr sound. "That chick's got one hell of a cold quirk. I thought I was good with the cold, but even my quirk just seemed to make it worse. Kirishima is fucking manly! Just bearing through it."

Midoriya frowned but said after a moment, "Kirishima is manly, certainly, but something isn't quite right. She's fighting differently in this match than she did against you, and not in the 'oh, new opponent, new strategy' kind of way, but the 'my entire fighting style has changed' kind of way."

Tetsutetsu looked up at Midoriya, confused, before glancing at Kirishima, rolling his shoulders uncomfortably. Kirishima reached up to touch something on his shoulder before jerking away and flicking his hand. "So?"

"I'm wondering what precisely Matsumura has planned. You don't just suddenly decide to try and go toe-to-toe with someone nearly half a foot taller and at least a hundred pounds heavier than you for no reason. I'm also wondering if she accomplished it already."

…

Kirishima couldn't seem to get the burning cold in his shoulders to go away, even as he squared off with his opponent. Once again, the woman went for his arms, and once again, Kirishima stepped forward into the woman. This time, however, Matsumura went low, slapping her hands hard against either side of Kirishima's chest, directly on his ribs. He yelped as he felt the sudden impact, cringing as the same burning sensation took up residence in his rib cage.

A quick glance down had him grunting in frustration. He had found them on his arms after the first round, too, but they had been too cold for him to remove. Now, two thin strips of silk were adhered by frost to his singlet, searing him through the thin fabric as he brought his quirk up over his ribs. A quick grab towards Matsumura had him grasping at air as she nimbly dipped backward.

Kirishima advanced carefully towards Matsumura as the two of them looked for openings. Kirishima lunged forward at an apparent opening, having to push himself through the motion when his instincts urged him to draw back. He blinked stupidly as Matsumura brought her gaze up and locked eyes with him. He watched as the colors seemed to shift and morph, first red, then brown? Green? Gold?

Matsumura managed to dip past him, but before Kirishima could turn, he yelped as he was dragged from his feet.

…

Midoriya stood up straight from where he'd been leaned. Matsumura had slipped past Kirishima. Nothing special, it tended to happen when chasing someone around the ring. She'd get a warning if she kept that behavior up. What made Midoriya stand up was what occurred to him as she moved past Kirishima.

Two thin cords of silk manifested themselves,, starting at Kirishima's shoulders and ending at Matsumura's hands. The woman grasped them in her two hands before moving, slamming the length of her back into Kirishima and twisting.

"Holy-"

"Shit!"

Sero echoed Shoji's original sentiment with feeling as the whole of 1A stared on in abrupt shock. Midoriya blinked. Well, shit. That was impressive. He's not light. It is shocking that his singlet held during that, though. Matsumura had leveraged Kirishima up and over her shoulders by using his shoulders and two cords of silk.

…

The reset whistle had blown in the moments that Kirishima had laid on the ground reeling, and he grimaced as he stood back up to retake his place. Okay, so a little mortifying, but this is fine. And hey, the burning is gone from my shoulders now. Kirishima's brain clicked over a second later as he realized why his shoulders had stopped burning. Matsumura had thrown him by the silk attached to him, and it had detached. Or she had removed it. Either way, Kirishima still had two more strands burning at his ribs.

Could she manifest directly from them? Had she touched him as she'd passed him? Had the silk manifested starting at her and connected to him in the time it took her to dodge past? Regardless, when the whistle blew, Kirishima made a split-second decision to end this before Matsumura had time to use the two pieces still attached to him, or before his quirk slipped and he actually got injured.

Kirishima blitzed forward, herding Matsumura towards the edge of the ring. Matsumura stepped left, and Kirishima felt his instinct tell him to charge where she had been. Matsumura stepped back the other way, beginning to manifest the silk cord connected to the opposite side of Kirishima to where she'd first stepped. The plan was to use Kirishima's own momentum to spin him off of his feet.

Matsumura was brought up short, however, when Kirishima met her in the middle, his head plowing into her gut at full speed as she backstepped. The air was driven out of her as her back impacted the mat, her body making a distinct thud as it hit the ground. In a single instance of training-driven instinct, Matsumura wrapped her legs around Kirishima's neck in an attempt to cut off the man's airway, a futile one, she realized, when Kirishima lifted her and dropped her back onto the ground again.

Matsumura reached down, beginning to manifest silk on what skin she could reach when the final whistle blew. She went lax as she sprawled on the mat, a ragged, exhausted sigh leaving her lungs. Kirishima groaned and sprawled out next to her. Both competitors looked at each other with similarly worn expressions. "Don't suppose you can take these off? They're a bit cold."

Maybe it was the deadpan way that Kirishima had delivered the line. Maybe it was the way he'd gestured at subzero silk all but cold-welded to his frosted ribs, but Matsumura couldn't help but laugh, which caused Kirishima to snort before laughing himself. Both competitors lay there for a moment, giggling, and staring up at the flying blimp announcing which of them would go onto the next round.

Notes:

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