The Apex Hero: Bioterror

Chapter 16

Uraraka stood opposite Bakugou while Present Mic did their introductions for the crowd, fidgeting with her fingers. 'I really hope this works. Midoriya, if I die because of this plan, I will haunt you.'

When the start of the round officially started, she waited a second to look at Bakugou before enacting the plan. 'Midoriya was right. Even though he's usually super aggressive he knows my quirk only works if I touch him, so he's hanging back.' She takes a breath to steady herself before charging at him. "So how's it feel to lose so hard twice in a row?"

Bakugou's eye twitched at that as he sent off an explosion to counter her. "The fuck did you just say?!"
Uraraka momentarily nullifies her own gravity and launches herself back several feet before deactivating her quirk all within a single moment, a move that Midoriya had actually come up with and officially dubbed as The Moon Walk. 'Wow, Midoriya was right. Usually using my quirk on myself makes me really sick, but only doing it for a second so I can dodge works a lot better than floating for a while.'

Out of the line of fire and feeling a bit more confident, Uraraka fires back with more intensity. "I said you're an actual FUCKING loser! I mean, coming third and then second?" She mockingly winces. "That's just sad."
That finally seemed to spur Bakugou into action, launching forward through the use of his explosions. "I never lose!"

Uraraka charges right back at him, but just before he can attack she negates her own gravity and does a kind of flippy move Midoriya gave her that was actually inspired by a similar move Bakugou used during the battle trials.

Thanks to the laws of momentum, it took Bakugou a second to stop and turn around, and when he did he saw the dark blue of a sports uniform coming through the smoke and dust his explosions had kicked up. This triggered his first and only instinct. Attack.

Of course it was just Uraraka's jacket that she'd thrown as a distraction. At the same time she threw her jacket, she also scooped up a handful of dust and debris, courtesy of Bakugou's explosions and threw it directly into his eyes, making his step back and rubbing at his face while cursing.

Uraraka took the opportunity to back up as far as she could physically manage and knew this was when she had to lay out the really personal stuff that Midoriya said would really get to Bakugou. "You're shaping up to be the next Endeavour, Mr Second Place. Have you even touched me yet? You have to be some kind of useless Deku to be fucking up this bad. I sparred with Midoriya and he is just so much BETTER than you."

When the smoke cleared, Bakugou had given up on clearing his vision, the dust turning Ochako into a vaguely humanoid blob that he chose to glare at with bulging veins and bloodshot eyes before charging at her one last time. "DON'T COMPARE ME TO DEKU!"

As the walking bombshell drew nearer, Uraraka waited for the exact moment Midoriya told her to wait for. And that moment came, with Bakugou swinging his arm in a right hook. A right hook that Uraraka ducked under, and even as the resulting explosion from the attack stung her back, she grabbed Bakugou by the forearm, negating his gravity before lifting him up over her head and slamming into the ground on the opposite side of her.

Bakugou, ever the relentless one, didn't stop to question why she immediately turned off her quirk after that move and simply stood back up and prepared to go back to fighting her when Midnight announced the end of the round.

Looking down, Bakugou saw the boundary of the arena. Uraraka had positioned herself so that body throw move would send him out of the ring. "How? How the fuck did you plan this?!"
"Uh, actually Midoriya gave me the plan and told me what to say, he even told me about that right hook you used." When Bakugou's face went blank at her explanation, a nervous sweat drop reappeared on her face. "I'm just gonna... go."

While she walked away, Bakugou turned his gaze to the crowd, falling on Midoriya himself. 'He predicted my moves... before the fight even started? How is that even possible?!' The worst part isn't even what he did. It's how he looked after he did it.

Back when they were kids, before Deku had red eyes and didn't look like a corpse, before the... incident people told him about after he got out of the hospital, he was always excited when a hero was taking down a villain, even if it was some random D lister that no one knew the name of.

But right now, he looked bored. Not even smug, like he probably should have been, or even proud. He looked like someone who'd seen the same movie a hundred times and didn't care about the twists anymore. Like Bakugou LOSING was the only way this could have ended. Half the arena was rubble and he was leaning against the railing with a face that looked like he was watching paint dry.

Then he simply... walked away and disappeared in the cheering crowd. Like Bakugou losing, his plan working, like all these things that just happened didn't mean anything important. And Bakugou just knew, deep in his gut, that this... THING, whatever it was, it wasn't Deku.

Deku always had something to say when Bakugou got in a fight, whether he was praising him for taking out some upperclassmen that were giving him trouble or trying to step to him for knocking some extras down a peg, he always had something going on with his face or his voice.

Deku didn't walk away, Deku clung to people like a parasite, always following him around. Whatever this thing was, it wasn't Deku. He didn't know what it was. But he'd wait for it to slip up, and then he'd blow it to hell and back again for thinking it could get away with wearing the nerd's face.