Takara leans against the wall, catching her breath before exiting the hallway into the student seating. Recovery Girl's quirk healed her stomach wound, but it also expended quite a bit of her stamina. As a result, she ends up missing the next few fights.

She rubs the bleariness from her eyes with her bandaged hands and walks out to the stands.

The audience cries out in shock.

In the arena, two students from Class 1-B are suspended in the air in a blur of wings and limbs. The ground is coated in red. Takara leans against the handrail to keep her knees from buckling.

Hayate Ito—the student Takara had been warned about—has sprouted feathery wings. Their feet, now large talons with claws like steel, hold a pinkette by her horns as they ascend higher and higher. The winged student lets go with one foot to claw at their classmate's face.

One of the girl's eyes is swollen shut, her skin riddled with cuts and scratches. The crowd cries out with every strike of their foot.

"What's happening‽" Takara gasps, stumbling down the stairs to Aiya. The pixie just watches silently with her hands covering her mouth.

"I told you," a dreamy voice calls out from across the aisle. The Class B stands are separated by just a metal railing; Rosebud's idea to make for ease of trash talking.

Takara looks over to see Chika holding her in place with her blank eyes. The rest of the class watches the fight in discomfort, but they don't seem at all surprised. "Ito's quirk makes it so that their monster, Valkyrie, takes over. She rarely lets Ito have control of their body during a fight. And she won't hold back on anyone. There's sadly nothing to do now except hope Kita passes out quickly."

The girl with tentacles for hair peeks out from beside Chika. "It's sad, but true," she adds. "Valkyrie sees everyone else as an enemy she needs to defeat. Which is unfortunate, since I've never known Kita to give up."

Indeed, the girl with the ram mutation seems to fight even harder. She painstakingly pries Valkyrie's talons from her gleaming golden horns and yanks herself up to headbutt the monster in the gut. Valkyrie flares her wings in shock, allowing Kita to drop from her grasp.

The winged student dives to grab Kita by her ankle, then throws her skyward. She continues to toy with the pinkette, despite the girl's best efforts.

With a final wind, Kita summons all her strength to pull herself up and kick Valkyrie. But the monster is too quick. Mid-attack, Kita is caught in the stomach with a massive clawed foot.

The stands go silent as Kita plummets to the ground in a free-fall. Her bloody and torn uniform trails in her wake. Everyone holds their breath.

"She's out!" Chemex cries through the silent descent. A blue ray of light catches the student from the sidelines as Kumarēza uses his quirk to cushion her and slow the impact. As she's lowered to the ground, Chemex continues in a voice lacking much of her usual enthusiasm, "Yukimura fell unconscious mid-air. Ito has won this round."

The winged student falls from the air to the slick red concrete as the end of their legs morph from talons to bare feet. Their wings wither and crumble to a cloud of black dust as they stumble forward. Takara notices their eyes flaring an angry red as they trip over their own feet and let out another ear-piercing shriek like a knife on metal.

Their ashen face contorts with effort as they fight the monster inside for control. The red glow of their eyes fades to the warm brown they were before. The student places their hands on their knees to catch their breath then runs to Kita's side.

Though the crowd is too far away to hear them, the most keen-eared spectators can hear the student mumbling, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," as they use their own jacket to wipe the blood from Kita's face and lift her into their arms. They leap from the elevated arena and take off across the grass, hurrying her to the nurse.

"There will be a brief intermission in the schedule to prepare the arena for the next fight," Kumarēza announces, getting down from his stand to go confer with Chemex.

"That was...something," Takara mumbles, unable to take her eyes away from the field.

Aiya tugs at her sleeve, shifting in her seat. "I didn't realize this would get so intense."

"Me neither." The brunette picks at the gauze on her hands. "So what happened in the other matches?"

With great effort, Aiya tears her gaze away from the bloody arena. "Umm, well, Ozaki lost his match."

"What‽"

"Yeah, it was weird. He was up against this guy from 1-B, who I guess you'll be up against next. He had some sort of light quirk." She lowers her voice, glancing covertly at Ozaki as he sulks in the back of the class' box. "I've never seen him hesitate like that. The match started, and he just kinda fumbled over his first attack. He looked distracted."

"By what?"

Aiya shrugs, glancing back once more. "No clue, but the 1-B guy was using lasers or something from a distance and burning his skin. Ozaki tried to fire seeds at the guy but kept missing. Eventually, he just tried to rush him, but he was slower than usual and got flung out of the arena really easily."

Takara's brow furrows. "Lasers? Maybe his quirk has some sort of other effect. Hopefully, my jade will protect against it."

"I thought he had it in the bag. He's one of our best one-on-one fighters," the pixie laments.

"We'll just have to see how this plays out. 1-B is strong."

"No joke," Aiya laughs. Gazing down at the arena, her expression sobers. "And then for the other fights, Ohara was up against Ikeda from 1-B who kept breathing these orange clouds out. She made like five copies of Ozaki to fight him. He kept hitting them out of bounds, but obviously they're not his opponent, so they just ran back in. It took a lot out of her to make that many, but they still got him out pretty fast."

Takara recalls her fight with Ikeda in the second round. Even if those fumes weren't inhibiting the copies, then he'd still have crazy strength, but five Ozaki's? At least the boy got a semblance of a win.

"And then there was Endo and Hirose..." Aiya shifts in her seat as she trails off. "She didn't want to fight him. She was about ready to forfeit before it even started. But we convinced her to at least try. I mean, she's made of shadow, right? He shouldn't be able to hurt her."

"Right," Takara affirms.

"Well, that's what I thought, but the moment the match started, Hirose smashed his arm to pieces. And when those hit her, it looked like her light sorta...snapped? It was like cutting through threads. Her shadows just started pouring out, and she forfeited the match. She ran out of the arena and hasn't come back."

A thought dawns in Takara's mind. "When we did that initial combat training, the reason Hirose could send shards through her was because it wasn't her. It was one of Ohara's copies! He probably figured it wouldn't hurt her real body either."

"Well, now we know..."

The girls sit in thoughtful silence, somberly watching a team of workers clean up and reset the arena.

"I hope she's okay," Aiya whispers.

Takara turns to give her a hopeful smile. "She will be. Recovery Girl will get her fixed up in no time."

"This competition is...more cutthroat than I thought it'd be."

The brunette nods, knowing the fights are only going to get more crazy. But the thought excites her. She begins silently strategizing for her next battle.

Chemex resumes her place on the podium and makes an announcement. "Alright folks, let's bring out our next competitors! This is the last fight of the first set of one-on-one battles, so let's hear it for them!"

A thunderous roar arises as Araya and Morita take the field. Aiya stands and brushes out the creases in her uniform. "That's my cue, I guess."

"Oh, right! You're in the first battle of the quarter finals!"

"Yeah," she mumbles, tugging at the hem of her jacket.

"You'll do great!" Takara exclaims with a cheerful smile.

Aiya tries her best to muster one in return, but it's at this moment that Kaede stands, drawing her attention. She takes a deep breath and follows her sister out of the spectator box.

•°•☆•°•

The pixie twins walk on opposite sides of the hallway down to the preparation rooms. Both were planning on leaving before the other, to avoid any awkwardness, but now they're caught in silence.

The thought crosses both their minds to just fly ahead, but what if the other has the same idea at the same time? Not to mention, as much as they'd deny it, they were both glad to be walking beside each other. Even though things have been rocky between them, it brings enough familiarity to them to calm their nerves.

Back when they trained in their backyard, they never truly hurt each other. This fact alone is enough to ease their minds. For Aiya, it's because she knows her sister won't hurt her. And for Kaede, it's because she knows she's the only one who won't hold back.

•°•☆•°•

Takara watches from the edge of her seat as Araya finally knocks Morita out of bounds. His golden fur has been seared in patches. His singed whiskers smoke where he stands. The giant lion collapses, pink tongue lolling from his mouth. Araya doesn't even have time to revert to his human form before he passes out.

The infirmary robots take the stage to load him onto a gurney as he slowly shrinks back to his usual lanky frame. Morita stumbles over, hitching a ride with him. She coughs violently as the gurney gets rushed off.

As her teachers announce the beginning of the quarter finals, Takara takes a look around her. Endo still hasn't returned, and the rest of her friends are either on the field or in the infirmary. Her round is next, so she knows she should be preparing, but she can't help her interest in the battle between the pixie twins.

"Just for a minute," she mumbles to herself, settling into her seat.

"If it takes that long," Ohara says gravely behind her.

Takara's hands clench the arms of her chair. She turns to look up at her classmate. "What?"

Ohara stares down at the arena with her electric blue eyes. "You have a sibling?" Takara nods. "They know each other's weaknesses, how to rile each other up. And I wouldn't put it past them to take some cheap shots."

Takara is quick to defend her friends. "They wouldn't do that."

Ohara merely raises an eyebrow. "Wouldn't they?"

A chill goes down Takara's spine as the twins take the stage.

And my lovely friend sd1229 has offered me another OC to play with! I'm so sorry that Kita got beat up! I had set up the bracket with a randomizer wheel, and this was just an unfortunate pairing. But if you guys want to see Kita actually kick some butt, go ahead to Shelby's profile and read her various stories featuring the lovely ram gal in action!

Featured Character: Kita Yukimura
Quirk: Ram
Likes: Salmon Filled Onigiri