THE CURSED GAMER

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Chapter 96: Sports Festival (10)

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Things were clearly going great for Neji, but that didn’t just last within the circle of the stadium.

“...Gold Dragon’s Dance?” Rumi muttered softly with her arms around the couch. “My, Ryukyu. I didn't know you two were this close."

At her words, the receiver, Ryukyu, only gave a soft laugh as she watched the monitor where Neji walked towards the exit tunnel.

"You are misunderstanding." Ryukyu said, biting on a stick of french fry. "There are no such things between us~ Unlike how you are suspecting, I doubt he made the technique based on me. Though if he did… that's sweet of him."

Seeing her smiling softly, Rumi raised an amused eyebrow “Ryukyu, are you certain you don’t have feelings for the boy?”

At the rabbit’s question, a tinge of crimson formed on Ryukyu's cheeks. “Well… As I said, our age difference is too much."

"So you are not denying?"

"..."

Rumi giggled and shook her head at this.

"Though I recall you telling me he didn't use his quirk much in his battle against Muscular? You said he only defeated him with only his physical strength." Rumi said, to which Ryukyu nodded. 

"I have seen it with my own two eyes, there is no doubt. It just seems his Quirk is as great as his physique."

Rumi turned her head to the monitor at this. "Oh? Then I hope he shows a bit of his physical powers in the final round. I have seen enough of his quirk."

Ryukyu raised an eyebrow at her, but Rumi didn't meet her gaze. "Hmm? Has he finally got your interest?"

Rumi simply smiled as she watched the screen replay the fight, her eyes narrowed on the part where the arena was obliterated under the golden vortex.

"...Perhaps." 

Perhaps he did.

—★—

When Neji returned to the gathering of Class-1, he was surrounded by many awe-filled compliments.

"Phewww! Guess it was the luckiest decision of my life to have surrendered, huh?" Kendo said while releasing an exaggerated sigh.

"Congratulations. That was an outstanding show." Ochako said, smiling lightly. Her eyes were still a bit red from crying too much, but her smile was genuine.

"Dude, you really went all out!! But I guess you haddta do that when he came to challenge you by himself!"

It was Kirishima who rubbed his knuckles together. 

"Man, I wonder if I will be able to take on that Dragon's Dance thing."

Neji only gave them a slight smile while from the corner of his eyes he saw Bakugo walk to the waiting room with a dissatisfied grunt. The next match was his and Inasa's, but Inasa had already gone to the waiting room at left, whilst Bakugo was going to the right one.

"Anyway guys, focus on the next match." Neji waved them off as Momo finally sighed from beside him at the (relatively) peaceful silence.

"At this rate, you'll get your own fan club," Momo said as Neji sat beside her. "Guess your attention-whore side would love it a lot, huh."

"Tch, tch, such harsh words even though I just came back from a life-n-death battle." Neji looked at her blankly. "You are not even going to compliment me? What an ideal girlfriend."

Momo maintained her gaze at the arena as her cheeks flushed just slightly. "The others already gave you enough compliments… you want your girlfriend to do something so generic too?" She let the suggestion hang in the air before continuing. "My 'compliment' will be special."

Neji smiled and wrapped his left arm around her shoulders as she simply leaned at him.

The silence between them stretched while the others in the class gave them side looks before getting hit by Kendo on the heads.

Then, at last, when Neji almost thought the silence would last until the start of the next match, she turned her head to his and smiled.

"I am so glad you are on the path to being a hero."

...Neji's smile disappeared just as felt a tinge of guilt in his heart before he quickly pushed it down.

—★—

Soon after, the destroyed arena was repaired by Cementos and the waiting time had ended. So one by one, Inasa from the left and Bakugo from the right walked out of the entrances in the arena.

They took positions opposite each other and waited for Midnight to start the match.

"Are you ready, kids?" She asked as both combatants nodded. "Then begin!"

With a soft kick, she retreated far from the arena just as Bakugo and Inasa charged towards themselves.

Last time, Inasa was holding back against Momo to not finish the match too much. He did that so that he could let the Pros see what he was capable of. But that plan had instead backfired on him. So this time, he didn't hold back and rushed at Bakugo immediately.

Bakugo on the other hand was simply too impatient to beat Neji up, so he was going to finish this match asap. So he also dashed forward.

When they were only 20 metres away, Inasa drew back his right arm as a gust of grey wind started to swirl around it. Then with a thrust of his arm, he threw the attack at Bakugo.

"<Air Cannon>!"

A pillar of wind rushed at Bakugo's face, but with a very swift motion, he blasted around the pillar in a circle, his palms exploding brightly which also worked to stunt Inasa briefly.

Inasa used his other hand to call down a gust of wind to shove Bakugo to the ground which almost worked. Almost—because Bakugo's explosion had enough power to propel him back to the air before he could fall face first.

Bakugo had his arms pointed backwards as he fired explosions behind him, rushing at Inasa with a speed that was almost unfollowed by the crowd.

Inasa's brows furrowed as he stopped his previous techniques and started to conjure new ones for the approaching Bakugo.

Seeing Bakugo being only metres ahead of him, and knowing how good the shorter kid was in hand-to-hand combat, Inasa immediately decided to increase distance first.

He first released a simple wave of wind at Bakugo. It was simple, but it was strong. Yet, using the force of his explosions, Bakugo withstood the wave and only seconds later continued to surge forward.

However, Inasa had immediately started conjuring another technique with his other hand when he saw Bakugo not being pushed off.

Bakugo reached above Inasa, enough to touch his head with his hand, as he tried to do exactly that. He threw his right hand ahead as his palm exploded brilliantly.

But the explosion didn't touch Inasa, no, it couldn't touch him. Before Bakugo's palm could explode, Inasa threw the technique he was brewing into Bakugo.

It was a human-sized ball of swirling wind. The shape was round and stable, but its inside was chaotic.

As the ball hit Bakugo, he was thrown back from the air and even his explosions couldn't push through its force.

But his explosions at least helped him to barely cling to the end of the arena as the ball vanished in thin air.

Half of Bakugo's foot was outside the arena that was repaired by Cementos minutes ago. He was just about to get disqualified.

Inasa clearly noticed it too as he threw another wave of wind. This was an attack that took the least out of him, so he could spam it nonstop. But instead of doing that, he made a strong wave by putting more power into it which caused him to tire out faster.

However, Bakugo blasted his hands and leapt at the sky just before the wave could touch his body.

Then from the sky, as he noticed Inasa panting, he rushed down in a fast motion.

"Die you bastard!!"

Bakugo yelled as he brought his palms closer to each other, sparks starting to form at the part where the palms connected.

Then, just as he was close enough, his hand exploded as a barrage of explosions left his palms at once, bigger than his normal once and continuous as well.

Boom-Boom-Boom-bOom!

["W-wait?!"] Seconds later, as the explosions ended and dust covered the arena, Present Mic's baffled voice immediately cut to the crowd's chattering. ["That was exactly like student Neji's Dragon's Breath!! Did student Bakugo make this technique amidst the 5 minutes he got in the waiting room by taking Neji as an inspiration!? What a terrifying talent!"]

As his words ended, Bakugo had his jaws clenched. That was specially basically a broader, non concentrated version of his AP-Shot, but it was fundamentally inspired from Neji's last technique which is why he didn't need his battle-gear to use his technique. 

Bakugo certainly didn't like copying others, but it was true that Neji's technique could help him too. So he didn't see why he shouldn't use it out of petty pride.

In fact, Bakugo believed his one was more powerful since it had not only the shockwave of explosion, it also had heat, like that of an actual dragon's breath, whilst Neji's didn't. Though that didn't mean he would call this dragon's breath or something, that was too insignificant of a name for his technique.

The dust slowly cleared as Bakugo backed off at a safe distance. Just as he expected, another few attacks made of wind came from under the slowly clearing dust but he dodged them all.

Inasa came out of the dust, clearly not defeated at that attack. But Bakugo's merely observed the young man with no apparent surprise. He knew a direct hit of his new technique, <Corrosive Explosion>, could kill any civilian. But Inasa's quirk was great to its own right, Bakugo could imagine several ways Inasa could defend against that.

But Bakugo wouldn't have done an empty attack that cost him that much energy just to show off, either.

As he watched Inasa huff, blood dripping down his charred forehead, his right arm hanging limp, clearly to have blocked the explosion, Bakugo grinned.

"The next blow will kill you for sure."

 He rushed to Inasa again.

—★—

"Wow, he copied your boyfriend's technique."

"Is there no copyright in this Hero Society?"

"There are laws forbidding you from naming your attacks the same as another hero. But concerning copying others' moves? There is no law against that. Instead, heroes taking… 'inspirations' from their fellow Pros would only make them stronger so that they can serve humanity better. In some parts of the world, it's even encouraging."

Neji sighed as he listened to Mina, Kendo and Momo chatter.

He truly didn't care himself. If he had to be angry at someone, it would be UA's oh-so-great idea of showing off the students' quirks to the whole world. Neji truly couldn't bother to mind as he watched Bakugo beat Inasa pretty savagely, with the taller kid somehow managing the same.

The winner will be healed by Recovery Girl before the next match, so it wasn't anything too bad.

Then the winning technique happened as Bakugo was able to use his copy of Dragon's Breath again which caught Inasa off guard. Cementos had to, in the end, intervene by forming a wall between the explosion and Inasa which saved Inasa from a deadly blow.

At last, Midnight sighed and announced, "With that, Bakugo Katsuki passes to the finals!!"

Neji couldn't help but raise an eyebrow as Bakugo turned his head at the audience, at him, before walking away in the entrance exam with a small smirk.

'What's there to be so proud of after winning with a blatant copied technique?'

Neji couldn't help but chuckle while he could already hear some people debating who's 'Breath' was stronger.

'With that foul mouth of his, I bet his breath is much… 'stronger', heh.'

Neji just might beat some sense into the kid.

'...Perhaps.'

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