『Hakari Kotaro』
Shortly after, all top 16, including me drew lots, I was rather hilariously ranked number 1. My luck probably decided it was funny or something. And then Midnight pointed at the screen with her whip that started shuffling the names of everyone before creating a tournament bracket.
"This is the bracket based on the drawing! Let's see..."
Round 1 - Minoru Mineta vs Neito Monoma
Round 2 - Yaoyorozu Momo vs Fumigake Tokoyami
Round 3 - Hagakure Toru vs Mina Ashido
Round 4 - Izuku Midoriya vs Tenya Ida
Round 5 - Katsuki Bakugou vs Hakari Kotaro
Round 6 - Toga Himiko vs Shoto Todoroki
Round 7 - Kirishima Eijiro vs Shiozaki Ibara
Round 8 - Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu vs Ochako Uraraka
Looking at the matchups on the screen I couldn't help but pull up the gacha interface and open the description of my trait before glaring at it with venomous eyes.
[Four Leaf Clover]
|Uncommon Trait|
You are pretty lucky, not to the point where it's blatantly supernatural but the scales of fate are skewed towards you.(Does not affect Gacha)
Why the fuck are you are lying?
What the FUCK do you mean I have to face Bakugou first? Bakugou, the second-hardest matchup for me, as the first round, and then, right after I had to face Todoroki himself, then I had to face one of the 4 on the other bracket, and then after that, I had to face Izuku.
No offense to Toga, but she was not beating Todoroki. She may be my girl, but I had to be realistic here.
This was a fucking gauntlet and a half.
For the first time, I was actually feeling a bit apprehensive towards this whole thing. Could I last the whole gauntlet? I did have Regenerator and incredible stamina, but that did not mean exhaustion could not creep up on me. And I could not shrug off injuries in that short of an amount of time. Injuries and exhaustion would compound.
Toga let out a sigh as she read the board while Bakugou gave me a feral glare and walked towards me with a confident gait. He looked as if being matched with me was an early Christmas gift for him.
"Yo, Hakari." I think that's the first time he has actually used my name. "I'm glad I get to face you first so that I can prove I'm better than you first things first!"
I met his challenging smirk with my own impassive one with my hands in my pockets.
"You mean you're devastated that you're going to get eliminated so early."
He barked out a laugh.
"Hah! Let's see you hold that attitude when I stomp you to the ground!"
Not bothering to hear my reply he walked away, and Todoroki passed by me too, speaking a quick word as he walked.
"Don't lose to him before you lose to me."
Haaa, kids these days.
I had no intention of losing to anyone here. They were simply preaching to the choir.
⚀—⚁⚂⚃—⚄—•⚅•—⚄—⚃⚂⚁—⚀
The recreational events passed without anything major going on, it was mostly stuff like sprints, basketball, capture the flag, whatever. I thought about joining in and crushing some events to earn tickets but decided against it, instead opting to take naps using Hypnos' Sleeping mask to recover as much energy as I could.
It would be a tragedy and a half if I participated in these and lost to Bakugou or Todoroki because I didn't have enough energy to fight them off.
After the recreational events where the girls spent the time doing a cheerleader choreography under the lead of Toga, the tournament itself finally started. Each class got their own area in the stands with the best view of the arena so that they could watch properly.
The first round was Mineta vs Copy Man, truly, I was surprised that Mineta even managed to make it to all the way to this round, but his luck ran out with copy man since he went in with a quirk already copied, and unfortunately for lil' Grape Man, that Quirk was those annoying Horn Cannons that Mineta had no way of defending himself against before he was pushed off the stage. He did manage to put on a decent performance though, sticking Momona a few times and forcing people come and help dig him out of the arena.
The second round was Momo vs Tokoyami, and unfortunately, I remembered what happened in canon-
Momo won pretty handily.
Even I was surprised at the result of the fight, instead of freezing up or using generic options, Momo started by creating a visor and throwing a series of flashbangs at Dark Shadow, severely weakening it before she rushed Tokoyami and created a case of oil and threw it at his feet before throwing blinding powder at his eyes and tackling him out of the arena.
It was an impressive performance, I myself was not sure I could have handled Tokoyami so easily if I had her quirk. After the round and the cheers that followed, she came to the viewing stand with an excited smile on her face.
"Hakari-san! I did it! I beat Tokoyami-kun by following your advice, thank you very much!"
Seeing Momo bounce so excitedly made my lips curl into a smile, and not because of her Momos bouncing alongside her. Seeing her improve so much thanks to me helping realize her potential felt satisfying.
"That was all you Momo-chan, good job."
She all but preened under my praise while Mineta grumbled on the side.
"I wish I got to face Tokoyami, at least then I would have gotten to show off a little."
Momo crossed her arms and shook her head.
"I think you did quite well with what you were given, Mineta-kun, the Pros will definitely be impressed with how long you managed to last against such a counter."
To my surprise, Mineta just blushed slightly and scratched the back of his neck instead of making a perverted remark or trying his luck. He clearly wanted to, don't get me wrong, but he seemed to manage to force the urge down and just nod instead.
"T-thanks."
Good going little man, good going.
The next round's outcome was unfortunately rather obvious, Toru stood no chance against Mina who started her fight with area denial so that the naked Toru could not approach her, at which point Toru was forced to forfeit. I had to soothe her ego when she came to the stands and cuddle her in place of Toga on my lap when the next match started.
And that was my man Izuku vs Ida, and Ida lost quite hard. His engines were fast, but not fast enough to overwhelm Izuku who after a bit of analyzing Ida's patterns managed to intercept him and put him in a grapple just like I had taught him, forcing Ida to forfeit.
My man.
Now, after that was my round, against Katsuki Bakugou.
"Ganbare Hakari-kun!"
"Good luck!"
The girls shouted behind me as I walked out of the stands and into the preparation room, Bakugou had left already, leaving me alone to prepare.
After some light stretching I walked out into the stadium to the massive cheers of the crowd greeting me, and Bakugou walked out on the opposite side, our expressions practically mirroring each other. That being grim determination.
""Two Showstoppers from class 1-A! The Explosive boy, Katsuki Bakugou!!! Versus! The Miracle Boy, Hakari Kotaro!!! Put your morals and ethics aside and duke it out! Anything non-life threatening goes!""
We both stepped onto the stage, Bakugou cracked his fingers with a feral grin while I cracked my own neck.
Current Abilities
•Greater Hemokinesis
•Iron Flesh
•Polarity
"Just watch, I'm much stronger than I was back then."
"So am I."
""And... START!!!""
Despite the words being yelled out, neither me or Bakugou jumped into action, instead we circled each other slowly, his hands crackled like firecrackers while glowing a dangerous yellow and I activated Flowing Red Scale.
What's my best bet? Probably restraining his hands, if I manage to put my hands on him, I could potentially use Greater Hemokinesis to cut off blood flow to his hands and stop his quirk. But he would not let me, he will probably guard his hands the most out of anything. I could try covering them in blood, but he can explode his hands faster than I can cover them.
I can't maintain Supernova with his explosions firing off in all cylinders, too much AOE. Piercing Blood has a chance to hit the audience due to its sheer range, and it is too lethal. And if possible, I'd like to keep it in my pocket. My best bet is closing the range with Iron Flesh and putting him a chokehold with his hands pointed away.
"If you won't come... then I will!!!"
Boom!
With a quick move, Bakugou put his hands behind him and blasted forward, he was definitely faster than before, faster than I could move, but not so fast that I couldn't react.
"Stun Grenade!"
I was briefly taken by surprise as instead of going with a massive blast, he put his hands together and created an explosion so loud and bright that my vision went white, but instead of panicking, I let blood exit my body and stretched out my hands in a clawing motion.
"Red Claw!"
Swinging my hands, I let out 5 lines of pressurized blood towards where Katsuki was, making it incredibly difficult to dodge due to the large range, forcing him to blast in front of himself to avoid getting hit. And I took that time to recover my vision and went in.
'Iron Flesh!'
Concentrating Iron Flesh, I went for a grapple, but just before my arms connected with his waist, he pointed his palms down and let off an explosion that sent him flying up. He blasted once more to position himself above me and pointed a glowing hand at me.
"Die!"
'Assign!'
Assigning (+) polarity to my feet and the ground, I made it repel each other and shot myself towards Bakugou and grabbed his wrist before slamming my fist into his stomach, but to my surprise, instead of passing out, he held on and turned his wrist to face me before hitting me with a giant blast.
"Guh!"
The weight and heat felt like a truck on fire hitting me as I was ragdolled across the stage, I let out a tendril of blood to dig into the stage and stop myself as I faced Bakugou who cradled his wrist with an expression of equal pain and rage. With that much force in such poor positioning, he definitely sprained or broke his wrist.
Not that I was faring that much better, I didn't expect him to pull off something that big that suddenly. My side is burnt and my head hurts from the stun. I need to reevaluate how I handle this. I needed to end this quickly before I accumulated more injuries. I needed a ring out.
I have enough blood for a convergence, I could try using a Piercing Blood to disable one of his shoulders. But I still need to save some trump cards for Shoto.
And a thought came to mind when my eyes focused on his wrist that was wounded from the recoil.
...Got it.
Without waiting anymore, I rushed forward, using Polarity on the ground behind me to boost my speed. Bakugou looked ecstatic at my approach as he put his hands together in a different motion than before, his good hand forward while his broken wristed hand formed almost a funnel in front of it. The hands then glowed a dangerous orange.
"Think you're so durable!? Well take this! AP SHOT!"
When I managed to reach within 2 meters of him, he formed his attack and I felt the world almost slow down.
It's going to be an exchange.
My blood rushed out of my wrist and formed into two tendrils, one piercing the ground below Bakugou and the other tagging his waist. At the same time I channeled both Assign and Iron Flesh at max.
BOOOMMM!!!
My vision went white as immense force hit my centre of mass point blood, I felt blood pool into my mouth and my muscles get abused, but I stood my ground, Iron Flesh helped me tank the attack and...
Using Assign I had assigned me, Bakugou, and the ground below him (+) polarity and activated the ability at its maximum, causing him to be unable to brace and be repelled from me at the same time while getting hit by the recoil of his blast. All of this combined resulted in...
THUD!
"Kuak!!!"
Bakugou's back impacted the wall of the stadium as he was flung away like a sling from all of the combined forces, going well out of bounds.
""WOW! I didn't get what happened at all but despite Hakari being the one that got hit... Katsuki Bakugou is out! Hakari Kotaro wins!!!"
Sweet victory.
...On second thought, the sweet taste may be the blood in my mouth.
Feat Achieved! Defeat Bakugou in the Sports Festival
+1x Platinum Ability Gacha Ticket
A/N: That is... a rough tournament matchup for sure. This tournament is brutal. Far more so than canon, and Hakari's butterfly wing flaps are already making waves, Mineta and Monoma both got into the tournament, and so did Toru. And not only that, Momo actually clutched a win from canon loss by actually using her quirk creatively instead of a steel kite shield.
Hakari vs Bakugou went down much different than last time for sure, because of Hakari, Bakugou grew faster than he did in canon due to spite, that AP Shot would have been a knockout if Hakari did not use Iron Flesh(Renamed Iron Skin) and Hakari had to conserve his tricks for the oncoming fight. Overall, it was a real struggle. What did you guys think about this chapter? I'd love to know.
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