Ch.31
Shota and Oboro took their places in the arena, then when Sensei Night declared the start Oboro rushed Shota. Shota had already canceled Oboro's quirk as he stared at him, they then began to fight each other in close combat. It would seem they are evenly matched in terms of skill, though Oboro was able to punch Shota in the face stunning him and breaking his eye contact. Oboro immediately used that to create his quirk, covering the arena in a dense fog that obscured everyone's vision of what was happening. My eyes however let me see through the dense fog just fine and I could see Oboro slowly overwhelming Shota. The fight ended when Oboro was able to knock out Shota and was declared the winner. Shota was taken to recovery girl, as Oboro came back into the stands to watch the next fight.
"Ok next fight is Rumi Usagiyama verses Ryuko Tatsuma!" Sensei Night says after Shota and Oboro leave the arena.
"Good luck Rumi, don't lose. Especially if you want our fight," I say to her with a small smirk.
"No will beat me, not even you!" Rumi says with a determined smile and then walks to the arena.
Once Rumi and Ryuko take their positions in the arena, Sensei Night signals the fight to begin. Ryuko immediately transforms into her dragon form, while Rumi rushed her during her transformation and landed a few hits on her. Ryuko already looked somewhat injured by the time she transformed, while Rumi was jumping around the arena with extreme speed and agility. I could already tell that Rumi has won this fight, as she was slowly overwhelming Ryuko through her superior agility. Ryuko was unable to land any hits on her, while Rumi was slowly beating her down landing heavy kicks every few seconds. Rumi won the fight with a kick placed on Ryuko's head knocking her out cold and making her revert her transformation. Ryuko was taken to recovery girl and Hizashi already went there to see Shota, now the girl he likes will be arriving soon.
"Told you so!" Rumi says after walking over to me and sitting down next to me. I just let a small smile form on my face, before it quickly disappears.
"Who knows you might just be the person to force me to use my quirk," I say with a chuckle as I walk down to the arena since Sensei Night said the next fight was between me and Keigo. Rumi just gives me a smile as I walk away.
Once I arrive in the arena, I stand across from Keigo who is giving me a glare. Seems I have upset him for whatever reason, I just ignore him waiting until Sensei Night starts the fight. She starts the fight, I do not feel like playing around and decide to end the fight as quickly as possible. I rush to Keigo who has flown up into the sky right before I reached him, and he immediately uses his red feathers to try to cut me up as he did with Yu. I contemplate whether or not to bring my wings out just to end the fight quicker, but part of me, my pride in being far superior, tells me otherwise. During this compilation, his feathers try to cut me while I easily dodge through them. After about twenty minutes of me easily dodging his feathers I can see he is becoming fatigued since most of his feathers are gone and he is struggling to stay in the air.
He eventually lands on the ground but uses all his feathers to try to strike me while keeping a distance. Having enough of this battle and a part of me enjoying the look of desperation on his face, I end the fight. I rush through his feathers as they attempt to cut me which they unsuccessfully don't, I spartan kick him out of the arena and he gets slammed into the wall unconscious. A teacher takes him to recovery girl as I make my way back to the stands.
"You better go all out in our fight!" Rumi says to me as she passed me into the arena since the semi-finals are here full now. Her fight will decide who is in the last fight, her opponent is Oboro which would make my fight with Shinji Nishiya another classmate of ours. Shinji Nishiya is a very quiet boy in our class, but he seems like the serious type too.
Rumi's fight ends very quickly with Rumi as the winner, even though Oboro was able to obscure the arena. Rumi seems to have heightened senses as well, making her able to find him even in that environment. Now it was me versus Shinji and once again I stood across from him in the arena as we waited for Sensi Night to start the fight.
"This battle will determine who fights in the finials! Shinji Nishiya verses Akihiko Yagi!" Sensei Night says just like she did with Rumi's last fight. She then signals the fight to start.
Shinji makes his arms turn into giant trees, while the arena becomes covered in his arm's branches. These branches seem to wiggle around and attempt to capture me, there are hundreds of branches attacking me. I let the golden fire inside me loose a bit surrounding me, this seems to take the crowd by surprise as no one has seen me use fire before until now. The golden fire burns the branches as I will it too, the branches all pull back as I hear Shinji scream in pain. Seems the branches are connected to him, he then sees the golden fire surrounding me and surrenders surprising me. There is a ten minute break for them to clean the arena and prepare for the last fight between Rumi and me.
"Why did you surrender?" I ask Shinji as we walk back to the stands waiting for them to declare the last fight of the day.
"I know when I'm beaten, plus I've trained myself to resist fire and heat as much as possible. The fire that you control burned so much worse than any other fire I've faced before, I knew no matter what I'd lose," Shinji says to me with a slightly defeated face, but I just silently nod my head. As he walks away I wait down by the arena entrance for the fight and I hear Rumi run up behind me.
"Damn I'm kinda jealous! He was the one who made you use your quirk!" Rumi says to me as she stands next to me with a pouting face.
"The fire is just part of my quirk, not really my whole quirk. I still haven't shown what I'm completely capable of," I say with a smirk and see her ears perk up, while she looks at me with the same very determined look.
Then as we just stand next to each other in comfortable silence, Sensei Night announces the last fight. Rumi and I walk out together, then stand across from one another in the arena.
"Here we have the last two contestants! The number one and two of the sports festival these last few rounds! Who will be the one to come out on top?!" Sensei Night says hyping up the crowd who is now cheering in excitement, Rumi gives me an excited smile too.
As soon as Sensei Night signals the beginning of the fight, Rumi immediately launches herself at me in an attempt to kick my head. Just like Rumi, she doesn't hold back and uses all her strength in that kick. I grab her foot right as it is a few inches from my face, though she turns her body to kick me with her other leg. I can tell from me grabbing her foot that her power is just slightly less than my Uncle going all out. This power surprises me, as she might just be the one to force me to show my quirk. Her other foot connects with my head as I'm compilating this and it actually makes me stumble back a few feet from the impact. She lands back on her two feet giving me a battle crazed smile, that I replicate back as my Uncle is the only person who has ever pushed me this far.
She launches herself around the arena in an attempt to confuse me as her speed is getting faster and faster each time she moves around. Though my eyesight is something that has always been extremely superior compared to anyone else I know, even thoughts with quirks that enhance their eyesight. I am able to track her movements just fine and my body should be able to respond due to it being very enhanced. She then launches an attack at me from behind me, an axe kick directed towards my head. I sidestep the strike at the last possible second and punch her in the stomach sending her flying back almost out of the rink, but she caught herself in time. I used all my power behind that punch in my base form and I can see she is in extreme pain, but still pushes herself through it. The battle crazed smile never left her face, but only increased.
"Finally someone who can push me to my limits!" Rumi says to me with extreme excitement in her voice and launches at me again.
Rumi then uses all her abilities to try to strike me and each strike seems to slowly get more power and speed behind it somehow. I would guess her adrenaline and excitement for getting to go all out is pushing her past her current limits. Though the battle excitement for me is increasing too, as I enjoy fighting someone like her. After what feels like hours of me dodging almost all of her hits with some being able to hit me. Rumi is now slowly losing her momentum due to exhausting herself, seeing that she is going to lose and hasn't made me use my quirk I just smirk at her. She seems to understand my smirk, glaring at me and it reignites her passion which only lasts for a few more seconds. I then end the fight by grabbing her legs and throwing her out of the rink, much to her annoyance as she tried to catch herself, but was too tired to resist.
"WE HAVE A WINNER! AKIHIKO YAGI!" Sensei Night yells in excitement as the crowd cheers alongside her. Though I ignore them, as I help Rumi to her feet as she gives me a sad look that quickly disappears to a determined look once again.
"I'm gonna get stronger and then only day I will make you use your quirk completely!" Rumi says as I help her up.
"I'll be waiting then," I say to her with a smile that she returns back to me. Then we top three go stand on the podium to receive our medals. I received the gold medal for first, Rumi silver for second, and surprisingly Shinji Nishiya was able to receive third place getting a bronze medal.
Then the day ended with us all heading home after everyone congratulated us top three. Though I could see Keigo was still mad at me for whatever reason. As we all headed home for the day, Shota seemed to want to talk but waited until it was just him and me.
"Do you like Rumi?" Shota asks me as we walk home together.
"Yeah, she is fun and seems like a good friend, why you don't?" I say to him confused about what he means.
"I meant do you like her romantically, even before... before the event? You never seemed to be interested in girls like you are with Rumi. All I'm saying is you act differently around her and smile more around her. Maybe you do have a crush on her," Shota says to me surprising me as what he says does seem to make sense, but I'm not a hundred percent sure.
"I…..I don't know. It's just I get a weird feeling around her and seeing her smile or laugh makes me happy. I feel this connection to her and she doesn't look at me like the other girls do, so maybe that's why," I say explaining how I feel and Shota stares at me with a neutral expression, before sighing and shaking his head.
"Seems to me you like her romantically. You obviously don't need to do anything right now, but I think you two would be good together," Shota says to me giving me a surprisingly knowing smile, that makes me get red faced and he laughs.