★ ★ ★ ┊𝙱𝙰𝚃𝚃𝙻𝙴 𝙲𝙴𝙽𝚃𝙴𝚁!
❪☯︎︎❫ ━━━━ ❪ CHPT THREE ❫
AKANE WAS SURE BEING HIT TEN TIMES OVER BY A FULL-SPEED train would be better than the position she was in right now. Only a few steps ahead of her stood the ashy-blond she had grown to strongly dislike over the years. And yet, she couldn't have an ounce of luck to at least have Izuku by her side? She tried focusing on the bright side, at least that uptight boy she sat next to, and that way too enthusiastic girl that she had met in front of UA weren't in her battle center. That meant she only had to worry about one person getting on her nerves. Too bad it happened to be the one person that was good at doing that.
She messed with the cuffs of her jacket. She wore a simply blue tracksuit, though her scarf was still wrapped around her neck, and she knew Inko would have to practically rip it off her to wash it.
"Tch." Her childhood friend, if she could even call him that, walked up to her, hands stuffed into his pockets and kicking rocks, "You cut your hair?" He pointed out, though that weird scowl that Akane always had a distaste for stayed on his face.
Bakugo spoke matter-of-factly, and Akane didn't quite know why he did, she was sure he has to have known she knew her hair was cut down to shoulder length, no longer reaching her hip as it did back in junior high.
"Yes." Akane looked up at him, he wasn't much taller, only two inches, yet she still had to slightly tilt her head up to make any eye contact, "I am surprised you noticed, Bakugo."
"Not like I care!" Bakugo clenched his fist, his usual aggressive personality recharging, catching the attention of other students, "I think you look stupid either way, freak."
Akane held back an eye roll at the stupid childhood nickname, and curtly nodded, "Oh," she muttered softly, tilting her head to the side slowly, "ok then." She shrugged and walked away from Bakugo, who was fuming. If there was one thing out of the millions he hated about Akane, was how nonchalant she'd always been. Whenever he'd throw an insult her way, she'd politely dismiss it and walk away, never giving him a real reaction. However, whenever he would make a jab at Izuku, she was the first to be by his side, that's when she would beat some sense into him. Why did she care about dumb Deku so much?
"This is nuts." She heard one student gasp as she began walking through the crowd of students so she could get closer to the gate, "It's, like, a whole city. Ribbit."
"Alright let's start!" Present Mic's voice boomed as Akane finally made it to the front row of students that were staring straight at the gate, "Get moving! There are no countdowns in real battles. Run, run, run, listeners! You're wasting airtime here."
Although a majority of the kids were still standing in shock, Akane along with a couple of other determined students were already running inside at their fullest speed. She broke off from the crowd quickly, running into a separate alleyway that led to a different, less crowded area in the battle center.
Akane was a lot more shocked than she expected to be when the first faux villain emerged from behind the building she was standing in front of. They were bigger than she thought they'd be, but it was nothing she nor any other prepared student couldn't handle. Akane shook her head and began her first attack. She showed her capability of multitasking while using her abilities, as she simultaneously held it back with a stream of scarlet energy from one hand while using her other hand to cleave the robot into pieces. She began running again, not paying attention to how many points she had earned from destroying that last robot.
Facing her palms to the ground, a blast of psionic energy expelled from her hands onto the ground to propel herself up in the air. With a second blast used to slow her momentum, she approached the ground, landing safely in front of three faux villains. They each looked different, so Akane guessed she was about to make six easy points.
Akane focused, arrows narrowed down on the middle robot. She used her psionic energy to affect and control the molecules and particles around the droids, allowing her to fully control matter and energy. She put a stop to the robot's moving before tearing apart and ripping out the central processors from each one.
Staying in her fighting stance, Akane looked over her shoulder at the other examinees. Some were frozen. Some were actually defeating these things with ease. "This might be harder than I thought." Akane sighed, already feeling a faint pang in the back of her head, as well as her energy being drained from her slowly.
She continued to examine the students as she slowly tried to regain her energy. 'Pathetic,' she thought to herself, 'I have barely used my power and I already am feeling weak.' She brushed away her negative thoughts and took note of the fighting
There was a girl with green hair using her tongue to fling the robots in the air, they would then break once they landed on the ground. A boy with white hair seemed to be breaking through the robots, and as Akane further inspected, his arms seemed to be turned to steel. Much like the first girl had, another student was throwing the robots into the air and watching them crash down, but this time, instead of a tongue flinging them, it seemed to be tape. A ginger girl with an enlarged fist was smashing and squeezing the robots. Of course, there was Bakugo, yelling warcries while using his explosion to break the robots. She also noticed a boy with indigo hair leaning against one of the buildings. He had his hands stuffed in his pockets, a scowl on his face as he too watched his fellow examinees instead of actually fighting. This peaked Akane's interest, and maybe she would've even gone up to him if it weren't for the sound of an unknown voice calling for help.
She whipped her head to the source of the voice and spotted a black-haired boy struggling underneath a three-pointer that she assumed he had taken down. He had seemed to calculate things wrong because although the robot was now immobilized, the strain he was putting on himself was obvious as he tried to lift the heavy metals off him. His hardened skin looked like it was beginning to crack under the pressure of the robots, his body was visibly shaking, and he was clenching his jaw, showcasing his sharp shark-like teeth.
Akane sighed as she watched students run past him, either glancing his way and ignoring him to score more points, or simply not taking notice of him at all, too pumped up on adrenaline to focus on their surroundings.
The strawberry blonde jogged past a robot who was then defeated by another student, who looked at her like she was an idiot for not taking the points. As she now stood in front of the struggling boy, she extended her arms and watched as the scarlet energy hues wrapped around her hands and the robot. The robot was lifted into the air and heavily set down behind the trembling boy, who had finally opened his eyes and looked up at the stoic girl.
"Are you ok?" Akane asked awkwardly, watching as the unnamed boy's skin unhardened and returned to its regular form.
"That was so manly..." The boy caught his breath, taking Akane's outstretched hand to help himself from the ground. "Thank you!" The boy bowed stiffly, the smallest hint of a blush on his cheeks at the fact that he had to be saved, it was bad enough he didn't have a flashy quirk, but now he can barely protect himself?
Confused, Akane softly bumped his shoulder with her fist, "Don't do that," She muttered, motioning him to stand up straight, "I'm not one for formalities."
"Right." The boy stammered, sheepishly smiling at her with his unique set of teeth on display. "I'm Kiri--"
Before he could finish his sentence, a loud boom! was heard from behind them, causing them to turn around abruptly. Bakugo was propelled high in the air by the explosions the sweat on his hands produced, having just finished taking down a three-pointer that was racking up behind the duo. "Keep slacking, freak!" Bakugo yelled at Akane with that manic smile on his face before navigating through the air towards another set of robots.
She scowled at Bakugo, and with one last nod towards the boy she had just saved, she used her quirk to levitate forward, ready to take down a couple more robots and pass this exam.
𝐀/𝐍 !!!
a chapter without izuku 😱😱
ok but yes i have a kirishima
bias i just love him so so much
and i am going to definitely
be giving them the bestest
friendship