The next match started soon after. Mineta and Kendo walked up to the elevated stone stage.
"Now, this will be interesting," Gray said from his seat.
"Hmm? Why is that?" Mirko asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, if Mineta plays this right, he might actually take the win here," Gray responded.
"Really?" Mirko said, looking unimpressed. "To me, he just looks like a little pervert."
"Yeah, well..." Gray laughed slightly. "You're not wrong."
Midnight cracked her whip and yelled, "START!"
Almost immediately, Mineta ripped the sticky purple balls from his head and launched them all over the arena. Kendo had started to push forward, but she stopped dead in her tracks once she saw the dangerous minefield of purple spheres scattered across the stone. Class 1-B had made sure to gather all kinds of information on Class 1-A beforehand. Kendo knew that if she stepped on one, she would lose her shoe, and if they touched her skin, she would be stuck in place for a long time. Taking careful, measured steps, she slowly approached, little by little.
Mineta, on the other hand, made his move after throwing around fifty purple balls onto the ground. Using the minefield to his advantage, he started bouncing rapidly from one sticky sphere to the next like a pinball. Because Kendo had to keep her eyes glued to the floor to watch her footing, Mineta closed the distance at blinding speed. He grabbed two more balls from his head, feeling his scalp ache from the overuse, but powered right through the pain.
"Take this!" Mineta yelled as he closed in, lunging at Kendo with both hands.
"Wha-?!" Kendo gasped, snapping her gaze up at the fast-approaching boy.
Getting ready, Kendo activated her quirk, making her hands grow massive to swat Mineta right off the stage. Anticipating the giant swing, Mineta bounced off another ball on the ground to change his direction in mid-air, causing Kendo to miss her swat completely. The moment her giant swing threw off her balance, Mineta attacked low. He went straight for her legs and managed to stick two of his purple balls to both of Kendo's feet, pinning her shoes to the concrete.
Using the precious seconds it took for Kendo to frantically pull her feet out of her stuck shoes, Mineta made his next move. He bounced around the perimeter, throwing more and more spheres until it became almost impossible for Kendo to find safe footing. Mineta took his time, and in less than five minutes, he covered at least 90% of the stage with his quirk.
His scalp was bleeding a little bit now, and he was panting, but the win was right in his hands. He just had to push a little further, and that is exactly what he did. Bouncing rapidly toward the cornered Kendo, he went in for the final attack. Not wanting to lose like this, Kendo threw one last desperate strike, swinging both of her enlarged hands to smash Mineta as he bounced toward her.
Mineta laughed wildly as he flipped and dodged between her giant fingers. "You're not nearly as fast as the people from Kamabakka Kingdom!" he shouted. Inadvertently, the moment he mentioned the nightmare island where he had been chased for days on end, thanks to the special "training punishments" Gray had given him for his perverted behavior, his entire body visibly recoiled in sheer trauma.
Shaking off the terrible memory, Mineta got his bearings back together and bounced even faster. He darted around Kendo's blind spots, slapping sticky balls onto her arms, shoulders, and torso until she was completely bound and unable to move a muscle.
Midnight soon cracked her whip, announcing that Kendo was completely immobilized and that Mineta had moved on to the next stage.
The next fight started soon after.
Iida clearly had the upper hand in raw speed, while Ibara Shiozaki had the superior offense and defense. At the start of the match, Iida attempted to speed-blitz the vine girl from Class 1-B. However, Ibara had already planned ahead. She instantly formed a massive dome of thick, thorny vines around her from all sides, leaving only a tiny, narrow gap that let her track her enemy.
Iida was forced onto the defensive for the entire fight. Ibara calmly stood her ground, continuously launching waves of vines across the arena to cut off Iida's escape routes. Foot by foot, she boxed him in until he had nowhere left to run, smoothly sweeping him off the elevated stage to claim the victory.
Cementoss quickly stepped forward and began fixing the platform. Ibara had torn up a good portion of the stone with her heavy vine attacks, but with Cementoss's quirk, it took less than a minute to repair the arena.
Finally, one of the fights Gray had been eagerly waiting for, Bakugo vs. Ochaco, was about to start. Both students had already made their way onto the newly repaired stage and were standing across from each other, waiting for Midnight to give the signal to begin.
Once Midnight yelled "START!", both students stood completely still. Bakugo looked more serious than ever, his crimson eyes narrowed in absolute focus, while Ochaco kept her posture low, scanning her options on how to approach the fight.
Gray, up in the stands, smirked a bit, and Mirko didn't miss it.
"What did you do this time?" she asked him, leaning over slightly.
"Oh, I was just remembering something," Gray continued, crossing his arms. "She actually approached me for advice two weeks ago," he said, smiling. "She wanted some tips on how to become stronger."
"And?" Mirko said, suddenly paying more attention to the brunette down on the stage.
"I made it happen," Gray said.
Down on the platform, Ochaco tapped her own clothing to activate her quirk, making herself a little bit lighter. The moment she did, she surged forward, running straight toward Bakugo.
Bakugo braced himself, and the moment she stepped into his range, he swung his right arm in a massive, wide hook, which turned out to be a huge mistake.
Ochaco was ready for it. Remembering Izuku's notes, she ducked cleanly underneath the sweeping arm. Instead of trying to touch his uniform to make him float, she did something different. Moving with fluid, precise speed, she darted inside his guard and struck Bakugo's right arm and shoulder with two fingers on each hand, hitting a rapid series of pressure points.
Sensing immediate danger, Bakugo reacted on pure combat instinct. He thrust his left palm forward, firing a close-quarters explosion straight at her to force her to retreat. The sudden blast of heat and shockwave made Ochaco panic slightly, causing her to miss the final pressure point as she leaped backward to safety.
Bakugo jumped back, glaring at her as he felt his entire right arm go numb instantly, falling limp to his side.
Ochaco didn't come out unscathed either. As she landed, she hissed slightly, glancing down at her right forearm. It was covered in fresh burn marks from that second, point-blank explosion, the skin already turning a bright, angry red. Still, a wave of quiet confidence washed over her as her mind flashed back to the training dimension.
Two weeks ago, she had approached Gray and asked him for advice on how to get stronger. Instead of lecturing her, Gray made a new person appear to train her alongside Black Widow, a bubbly, acrobatic girl named Ty Lee. Thanks to her specialized teachings on pressure points, Ochaco finally had another weapon at her disposal to keep villains down without relying purely on her quirk.
Bakugo immediately realized he was in serious danger if he allowed Ochaco to close the distance on him again. He hadn't seen what she was doing inside the training dimension at all; he had only ever seen her during Master Roshi's morning conditioning workouts. He hadn't known what kind of secret training she had been doing, but it was painfully clear that she had been working just as hard as anyone else.
Annoyed by his numb arm, Bakugo adjusted his strategy. He began firing small, crackling explosions from his remaining left hand and both of his feet. Launching medium-sized blasts forward, he kept a wall of fire and smoke between them to keep her at a distance.
Ochaco dodged to the sides as much as she could, twisting her body through the air, though she was clearly at a disadvantage without a ranged weapon. That was until she looked down.
Every time Bakugo unleashed his quirk, the stone stage rattled beneath them. Then she noticed the loose, square cement slabs shifting and vibrating after every blast. An idea sparked in her eyes. Reaching down, she slapped her five fingertips onto one of the cracked cement squares and lifted the weightless slab off the ground.
Gripping the edge of the slab like an Olympic discus, she pivoted her feet, spun twice in a rapid, tight circle to build momentum, and whipped her arm forward, launching the cement slab straight toward Bakugo as hard as she could.
Bakugo saw the cement slab flying toward him through the smoke. Using his left hand, he triggered his quirk and blasted it into harmless dust before it could even reach him. But in that brief moment of distraction, Ochaco had already grabbed a few more slabs and threw them at him as fast as she could.
Bakugo would have no trouble destroying them all if he had both hands free. Glancing down at his still-numb right arm, he acted fast. Instead of trying to blow up as many projectiles as he could with one hand, he chose to evade them instead. Using the controlled explosions from his feet, he launched himself high into the air, avoiding the incoming barrage of slabs altogether.
Thanks to Bakugo retreating upward, Ochaco finally had a bit more time to breathe and plan her next move. The only downside was that Bakugo had taken to the skies, making it much harder for her to close the distance for another pressure-point strike.
Still, she wasn't done. She quickly went to work, touching the loose cement slabs one by one to accumulate an arsenal of floating weapons and shields around her. Meanwhile, high above the stage, Bakugo was having trouble maintaining his balance in the air with one limp arm. Thankfully, he was starting to get a tiny bit of movement back, managing to twitch his fingers slightly.
Once Ochaco had around forty heavy slabs floating around her, she launched her offensive. She began hurling the weightless slabs upward as fast as she could. For a brief second, she worried about the safety of the people sitting in the stadium seats, reminding herself that as long as she didn't release her quirk, any missed tiles would simply float away harmlessly, unless she accidentally threw one directly into the stands.
Shaking her head to clear the distraction, she focused her aim and threw them one by one, forcing Bakugo to clumsily weave and dodge through the sky. Bakugo was clearly getting more annoyed with each one, but he couldn't counterattack for the moment.
Ochaco's persistence finally paid off. She landed a direct hit, slamming a spinning slab into Bakugo's stomach when he couldn't dodge fast enough. Seeing her opening, she immediately used her quirk on herself again, only this time, instead of just touching her clothes to lighten her load, she touched her own skin to make her entire body completely weightless.
Coiling her legs, she jumped high into the air to catch the stunned Bakugo off guard while he was still reeling from the impact. However, Bakugo recovered rather quickly. Catching sight of her soaring straight toward him, he twisted mid-air and sent an explosion directly at her, blasting her backward and making her land hard on the ground of the stage below.
As Ochaco pushed herself up from the stone floor, Bakugo felt the numbness finally fade, and he regained full feeling in his right arm. He rotated his shoulder and flexed his fingers, then immediately flew through the air much faster than before. With both hands fully operational again, he didn't just dodge; he blasted and destroyed every projectile Ochaco threw his way, shattering them into rubble mid-flight.
Fed up with playing defense, Bakugo heated both palms, priming a massive explosion. Taking full advantage of the brief seconds it took for Ochaco to bend down and touch a few more slabs, he dove downward like a rocket. Once he reached the perfect range, he unleashed a colossal, blinding explosion.
Ochaco, unprepared for the sudden dive-bomb, was completely overwhelmed by the sheer force. She was launched high into the air as the stone stage beneath them shattered from the impact. Desperately trying to recover mid-flight, Ochaco reached out to use her quirk on herself to stabilize and float back toward the arena, but a massive second shockwave from the blast slammed into her. The concussive wave sent her flying out of bounds and straight toward the lower stands, finally granting Bakugo the hard-earned victory.
Midnight cracked her whip from her podium, raising her hand toward the smoke-filled arena. "Uraraka is out of bounds! Bakugo advances to the next round!"
Finally, the last battle of the first round was up. After a few more minutes checking on Ochaco and confirming she had only minor injuries, they sent her off to the nurse's office. Cementoss quickly got to work, raising his hands to repair the shattered stone stage back to its original condition.
Five minutes later, Tokoyami and Kaminari faced each other in the middle of the arena.
Once Midnight yelled "START!", Kaminari wasted no time. He unleashed a surge of his lightning quirk to try to stun Tokoyami right out of the gate. Anticipating the attack, Tokoyami immediately dashed backward as soon as the match started, putting some space between them.
However, the matchup was a nightmare for Tokoyami. Thanks to the blinding light Kaminari's quirk emitted every time he sparked up, Dark Shadow instantly began shrinking, recoiling from the glare. To make matters worse, having the match take place in the middle of the afternoon under the bright sun didn't help his quirk's strength at all.
The fight ended up being one of the most one-sided matches of the entire day. Realizing he couldn't rely on Dark Shadow's range, Tokoyami desperately attempted to rush in and use his close-quarters combat training, but Kaminari had learned to control his output much better. Keeping his discharge focused instead of frying his own brain, Kaminari released a jolt of electricity the moment Tokoyami got close, incapacitating him almost immediately.
Once Tokoyami dropped to the stone floor, knocked out by Kaminari's electricity, Midnight cracked her whip and called the match. "Tokoyami is unable to continue! Kaminari advances to the quarterfinals!"
Raising her microphone once more, Midnight addressed the roaring stadium. "That wraps up the first round of the tournament! We will now take a twenty-minute intermission so our remaining fighters can rest and recover before the next stage begins!"
The moment she finished speaking, the massive digital scoreboard screen behind her podium lit up with a loud chime, shifting to display the official Quarterfinals Bracket for the entire stadium to see:
Match 1: Izuku Midoriya vs. Shoto Todoroki
Match 2: Momo Yaoyorozu vs. Eijiro Kirishima
Match 3: Minoru Mineta vs. Ibara Shiozaki
Match 4: Katsuki Bakugo vs. Denki Kaminari