Inside the surveillance room, the students were quietly observing the display of skill from their classmates on the surveillance screens.
Tokoyami commented,
"He made a feint and used his explosion at the last moment to displace himself midair, positioning himself to his advantage. He never struck me as the smart type, but those were some impressive moves he pulled out there.”
Mina approached Yaoyorozu and asked her a question which was bothering her for a while now.
"Yaoyorozu, you often talk with Arata, right? Do you know what his quirk is or what exactly it does?”
Before she could answer, Kaminari answered instead,
"His quirk?! I think I heard him say something about Invisible Black Matter, but I don't know anything else!" He replied instead.
"Invisible Black Matter?" Mina asked again
"Invisible, Hmm… I don't know what his quirk is or what exactly it does, but it's definitely more than what we've seen!” Yaoyorozu answered before continuing,
“I mean, look at Uraraka. It has been sometimes since she has moved; it appears she has been frozen in place.”
At those words, everyone present turned to the monitor, seeing their classmates standing still.
“Whoa, you're right. She isn't moving at all. How is he doing that!!”Mina said, voicing the surprise and incomprehension of everyone present, All Might included.
A moment later, Kirishima could be heard yelling at All Might, fearing what was going to happen.
"Sensei! You have to stop them, they are going to kill each other!!"
Bringing the microphone near his mouth, All Might began to open his mouth, ready to announce the end of the match.
But Arata's voice stopped him in his tracks.
A few minutes later, we were back in the observation room.
Midoriya was sent to the infirmary, so his injuries could be treated by Recovery Girl. When we went back, Uraraka was trembling, still shaken by the experience of being frozen in place without knowing how.
Bakugo, previously full of rage, was now standing quietly at the side, murmuring to himself in surprise and disbelief.
"You're telling me... that... from the beginning..."
"Congratulations on your victory! I can say that this match's MVP goes to young Arata here. Can anybody explain why?” All Might turned to the students and said, his words not surprising anyone in the room.
"Sensei, It's because Arata was the one who adapted the most to the situation,
He devised a counter-strategy against his opponent, and he kept his focus on victory. Not allowing Uraraka to come near the bomb. He was even fast enough to stun her before she could know. He was also able to put an end to the battle by catching both Bakugo and Midoriya before their fight could escalate and cause harm to either of them. Bakugou's behavior, on the other hand, was clearly driven by some personal grudge and thus totally out of line.” Tokoyami said, with others agreeing with him.
"Good, does anyone want to add anything else?" All Might asked, waiting for the students to respond, and Ida raised his hand. He let him talk.
“All Might sensei, as Tokoyami had pointed out, Bakugo was clearly motivated by an obvious personal grudge which clouded his judgement and led to him using a very destructive attack indoors. Bakugo also ignored the Villain team's objectives, considering there wasn't any teamwork between him and Arata; he didn't try to win. On the other hand, Arata was actually able to plan for countermeasures ahead of time; he did everything right at the moment the battle began. He stopped Uraraka so easily because she had too little information on her opponent. He made it so Uraraka couldn't do anything.”
"Despite the other team losing, Midoriya was able to take on Bakugo; despite him being stronger, he was able to keep him distracted, unfortunately Midoriya's quirk was unreliable, which led to his state," Kirishima said, with everyone else nodding at his words.
"Well said, young ones, those are all correct answers you have given."
At his side, Bakugo seemed to have come to a realization. He approached me before asking.
"Why did you interfere?! I could beat him on my own! You should have done what I told you too!" Bakugou said as he looked down at the ground while gritting his teeth.
‘ It seems that my trapping both of them still infuriates him. Not that I care for his mental state.
"I see, you still don't get it. You told me to stay back; I did exactly that. I let you go first.”
“You could have defeated both of them, all on your own. You didn't; instead, you decided to focus on one person. You completely forgot about everything else, like I said you would. You assumed that I couldn't stop you.”
“How did that work out for you?”
“You probably thought the reason I could catch you the first time was that I took you by surprise, when in fact I can do so at any moment. I already said I don't like losing, and if what stands between me and victory is you, we are going to have a problem." I said to Bakugo
“ Now stand aside; the others are about to begin their match. I don't want to miss it.”
Taking a breath, I looked at Bakugo. After that, I returned my focus to All Might.
"Remember, young ones! There will be times when you'll face a villain that has a power to counter yours, or you don't understand. So you can expect to be doing more training that helps you face situations like this!"
After that, the exercise went back to normal as the next teams went up.
All Might moved on, pulling out the next set that would determine which teams would battle each other.
"Next up, we have… Team C will be the Heroes, Team D will be the Villains!"
After the other teams had their battles as well, the Indoor Anti-Personnel Battle Training came to a close.
All Might had quickly dismissed the class and told us to change and had left, saying he would go and check on Midoriya, but I knew he had reached his time limit, and if he stayed any longer, the class would've known his biggest secret.
We returned to class after battle training; everyone had naturally been pumped after the adrenaline-filled test. Bakugo seemed out of it, however. I guess he just couldn't wrap his head around the event.
‘ Seems like delinquents had fragile egos, who could have thought? I'm sure he will be back to his usual personality soon anyway.’
Although we got back to class cheerily discussing each other's quirks and how we had used them in battle, with some of my classmates hounding me regarding my quirk and me staying vague just to mess them, the excitement very quickly got dashed since we still had to go through regular school lessons for the rest of the day.
After school that day, while I was still hanging out in class chatting.
A few of my classmates were gathered around my table, as well as Momo, who was sitting right behind me.
‘ Well, it seems I'm not getting out of this one; better give them something.’
At that moment, Midoriya opened the classroom door and entered.
"Oh, Midoriya's here! Welcome back, man!" Kirishima immediately greeted him.
A few others went to him, excitedly praising him for how he managed to do so well against the crazy Bakugo.
"Hey Midoriya, you came at the right time. We were just about to discuss Arata’s quirk!”
"Looks like your costume is all scorched up too. You should probably go to the support department. They should be able to fix it up real quick." I suggested.
"Oh! Right, thanks for letting me know."
“Hey, don't try to distract us with something else; tell us how your quirk works.”
“Sigh, ok. How do I explain this to you without making it confusing? Let me see…”
‘ More like how to say it while revealing the least amount of information.’
“Ahh, that's right, my quirk is similar to Tokoyami's. The difference between both of them is that mine is not only invisible, it is also not directly connected to me.”
My classmates were stunned to hear about my quirk.
“So that's how you did it. Since your quirk is not connected to you and you seem to be able to control it even at a distance, you used it to sneak up on Uraraka and us, but how did you freeze her?” Midoriya asked me in return.
“Ahh, that's just something I can do; just think of it as part of my quirk.”
“How long can the paralysis last?”
“How far can it go?”
“Does it have other abilities?”
“How strong is it?”
“Does it also grow stronger in the dark?
“How do you fly?”
My classmates started bombarding me with tons of questions.
“Hey, hey, can't a guy have some secrets over here?”
‘ There's no way I am answering all those questions.’