This Thing A Quiet Madness Made

Chapter 6

The crowd went silent.

Midnight blew her whistle.

"That's it!" she yelled, raising both hands.

He stopped abruptly and snapped his head towards her in confusion. "What the hell?" he growled, brows frowning.

He turned his eyes back to Naoko who now stood a distance away, still smiling like a dumbass and...

Standing behind the boundary line.

"What's this?! Ito Naoko has suddenly stepped out of the ring?!" Present Mic shouted, even louder than before, "Which must mean the winner is Bakugo Katsuki from class 1-A! That was disappointing!"

The stadium was quiet enough to hear a pin drop.

"Hey! What was that?"

"That was no fun!"

"We want a real battle!"

"That's no hero!"

The whispers and groans from the audience quickly grew into shouts and obscenities, and soon the entire stadium was on their feet, hurling indistinct cries at the pair below.

"What the fuck was that?!" Bakugo demanded furiously. His burning eyes snapped to Naoko and his hands clenched so hard that his knuckles paled instantly.

Through the jeers of the thousands of dissatisfied onlookers, Naoko just smiled at him.

"Hey! Answer me!" he shouted, kicking off the ground. He charged at her, shouting in frustration as he leapt high into the air. With one hand bracing the other, red in his vision, he furiously unleashed an enormous blast directly at her.

The ground shook as three walls of concrete shot up in front of him, shattering with a boom as they took the full impact of the deafening explosion.

"That's enough! The match is over!" Cementoss shouted, but he could barely hear him through the blood pulsing in his ears.

"Fuck!" he screamed, slamming a fist into the ground as he trembled with frustration. He didn't seem to notice the concrete shattering beneath him or the blood running down his knuckles as he whipped around and ran back into the tunnel leading out of the arena.

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"Hey! Stop!" Bakugo shouted.

Naoko paused in the middle of the bright white hallway and turned around curiously.

"Oh, Bakugo," she smiled, raising a friendly wave as he ran up to her. His enraged sneer caught her off guard.

"What's your fucking deal?!"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"Don't play dumb, fucking shithead! What the hell was that?!"

"Oh, you mean the match? Right, sorry! I didn't mean to step out of bounds- it was just an accident."

"Like hell it was! We weren't even close to the edge! Not even you're dumb enough to accidentally jump ten damn feet away!"

"Bakugo, maybe we should talk somewhere else," she smiled in concern as she moved to take a step forward.

"Don't you dare run away!" His hand clamped down on her wrist in a vice grip, forcefully yanking her back towards him.