#imagine if i could copy paste from my google doc and my strikethroughs stayed

[horselesbian]

Round One: Hiyasu Shimokizu vs. Senshi Yasashii

@taiyuu-high-oct

it’s later than i wanted but it’s done and i think i like it we’ll see in like three days i guess

They’d been sent off to change into their gym uniforms with little other instruction, but even glancing at the shorts told Shimokizu that she couldn’t wear them. She tugged at her sleeve, and put them back. 

For whatever they were going to do, her uniform pants would have to suffice. 

Tugging at her sleeves again, she ventured out of the locker rooms, trying to watch everything at once and avoid being spotted by her teacher. 

Aurora-sensei seemed to be nice, but she was breaking the rules. There was no changing that. She would be in trouble. 

“Hiyasu! Why are you wearing your uniform pants? They’re going to get dirty, you know.” 

Shimokizu yelped as Aurora noticed her almost immediately, and tried to duck behind Yacchan, except they weren’t nearby, so she couldn’t. She had to face whatever punishment Aurora had head on. “U-um… I can’t… I’ll be too cold if I… um, with shorts. Sorry…” 

“Oh, alright. I’ll see what I can do about getting you some gym pants for your uniform. Why didn’t you say something sooner?” 

“I didn’t… I didn’t think, I’m sorry, sensei…” 

“No need to be sorry! We’ll take care of it, okay kiddo?” 

Shimokizu nodded. “Thank you, sensei.” 

Aurora smiled broadly at her, then went over to stand next to Wolfsboon. 

She tugged her sleeve, confused but grateful at the lack of punishment. “Stupid, stupid… breaking the rules on the first day…” she mumbled, wishing she could just curl up and disappear. 

“We’ll be going in the order you see here!” Aurora said cheerfully as she explained their upcoming sparring sessions. She indicated a board that had a list of thirteen pairs of 1-A and 1-B students. 

She was ninth, against Yasashii Senshi. Yameru was seventh, against Fuji Hotaru. 

Two fights in, however, she was getting nervous. “Everyone is so good… I’m nowhere near their level…” 

“You need to have more faith in yourself, Mocchan.” 

She jumped at the sudden voice, but relaxed at its familiarity. “Y-yacchan…” 

“Do your best and you’ll be fine.” 

She nodded, grabbing Yameru’s hand. “Okay.” 

After that, she watched each fight with rapt attention, gathering every small bit of information she could from each fight, about her classmates’ fighting styles, quirks, and even touches of their personalities. 

She didn’t know a thing about her opponent, aside from their name. She didn’t even know which of the students was Yasashii Senshi, though the options narrowed slowly as 1-B students were ruled out by process of elimination. A spectrum of colors filled out the space as she learned more about each person, some colors drew her in, others grated at her. 

She could almost get excited about pinpointing each of her classmates’ exact shades, what colors went well with theirs. 

“Mocchan, it’s my turn,” Yameru said quietly, and Shimokizu quickly let them go, embarrassed. 

“G-good luck Yacchan!” she said, louder than she meant to, later than she wanted to. She knew she was blushing, and buried her face behind handfuls of her hair. “S-sorry…” 

No matter how many times she watched Yameru fight, she was always enraptured. The way she could sometimes watch a move in so much more detail and sometimes she could barely see what was happening… there wasn’t anything else she could watch that could possibly compare. 

There were only six students remaining that could still be her opponent. The five others she’d seen in her class. As Yameru fought, Shimokizu nervously looked over the students from 1-B. She was slowly associating names to faces, but she was sure she’d forget at least half of them by the next day. 

Yameru was exhausted when they stepped back to stand next to Shimokizu. She tilted her head just enough to tap into their arm, to show her support without being a distraction to anyone else, and they patted her head. 

“Alright! You’re up, Hiyasu Shimokizu!” Aurora called, as Wolfsboon called for her opponent. “Good luck!” 

“Good luck, Mocchan,” Yameru said, quieter than she had been. 

She was wringing her hands as she walked to the ring. There, she faced her opponent, Senshi Yasashii. 

Still, she bowed. “T-to a good fight, S-senshi-san.” 

They bowed back, quiet, though there was something that might be disappointment in their eyes. 

She shifted her feet, shuffling a bit in the sand. She glanced Senshi over, gathering what she could before the fight started and figuring how low the temperature could go safely, given the factors at play. It wouldn’t be long, and as long as she limited the range… no, it would distract her too much. 

While she was thinking, Senshi took the opening and made the first move. They swung towards her with their staff, and Shimokizu took that as an invitation to start the fight. She slid under the swiping attack, sliding her stance wider and ducking down. The force ruffled her hair, carefully pulled tight into a ponytail, some strands catching and being tugged along with the weapon. She held carefully to her quirk so she didn’t go too low or too sudden and hurt anyone. Dropping would hurt everyone, and it wouldn’t be a fair fight. 

“I won’t be losing this fight.” 

Shimokizu blinked, catching a follow-up blow. “Wh- does i-it matter th-that much?” She pushed the staff away with all her strength, then rushed in close. 

“Are you serious?” They caught her jab, but the following kick connected, separating them as Senshi leapt away from the strike. “Of course it matters. I can’t be… weak.” 

Shimokizu scrunched her nose in confusion, but followed Senshi to keep herself close enough that their hand to hand would continue. “I-it’s j-just a… j-just pra-practice…” She saw that the chill was getting to Senshi; they retracted their staff and shifted away from her again, though not without attempting a quick punch that she easily dodged. “J-just a de-dem-demons...” She huffed in frustration, the chill closing words from her again. Stupid, stupid… words shouldn’t stick in her throat just because of her own stupid quirk…

They were about evenly matched at hand to hand, which meant keeping close was to her advantage. Shimokizu winced as her opponent struck her sharply in her right side, then responded by kicking at Senshi’s shin. “Just practice…? Is th-this a joke to you?” She ducked under a particularly harsh and fast blow and surged upward, only to be pushed back by a quick shove before she could make any hit, skidding slightly and almost wavering in her footing. She regained her balance quickly, the lack of traction of her boots being compensated for with a small twist of her ankle. 

She frowned, slipping the temperature downward a bit faster. The fight was dragging on too long and she was getting close to becoming too cold to stay focused. “I-I t-take ever-every fight s-s-seriously. I-it wou… would b-be r-rude n-not to.” 

Likely noticing the increase of her quirk usage, Senshi rushed her. She didn’t catch the nature of the feint until it was too late, and jumped back, wincing in pain from the solid punch to the stomach she’d received. 

In the moments she was recovering her focus and barings, Senshi had grabbed their bag, and flung the first thing they’d grabbed from it at her. 

Pencils scattered across the field at her feet, and she nearly missed adjusting her footing so that she didn’t step on them. Suddenly distinctly more conscious of her ill-suited, though warm, footwear, she kicked the pencils out of her way, then froze when she shifted her focus away from the ground and  noticed the water bottle in her opponent’s hands. 

Then she cursed herself for freezing, because there was no reason to suspect that she had any adversion to water except from her reaction, so stupid, SO STUPID you can’t make mistakes like this and she skittered back, trying to avoid the splash of water as best she could. 

She didn’t succeed in that endeavor. The water made her sweater itchy against her skin, weighed her hair down differently than it was before, and, worst of all, worsened her chill. She gasped from the shock and lost her grip of control on her quirk, the temperature dropping suddenly further down. She allowed herself to ignore it, even though she swore she heard someone gasp and something snap, instead watching for Senshi’s following move. 

It was a good thing she did, since they had been just about to shove her the last few feet out of bounds with their staff. She pulled herself to the side, slipping a bit on the balls of her feet and just barely dodging the weapon’s path. 

Before they could retract the staff, Shimokizu grabbed it, then dug her heels into the ground, praying that her footing would hold. “S-sorry,” she said, then twisted, forcing her grip to hold through shaking hands and quivering arms, and somehow, some way, used the staff to swing Senshi out of bounds. 

The whistle blew, but Shimokizu had already stepped out after Senshi, extending her hand. “Y-you… you’re a g-good f-fighter.”  Stupid, stupid… stutter! Just say the words, you know how to say them, it’s not this hard! 

Senshi stared at her. She tried to smile kindly, but it no doubt fell short. Wavering and uncertain, like always, be better, you idiot! 

They took her hand, and shook it. “Tha-thank you.” 

“I-I a-almost th-thou-ought y-you h-had m-me! I-I-I wa-was s-sure y-you g-got me w-with th-the w-water… Y-you w-were at th-the a-adv…adva…” She wrapped her arms around herself. “S-sorry…” 

“H-how cold… are you?” 

“A-ah, I’ll…” She sneezed. ‘’M f-fine.” 

“Hiyasu, you’ll get sick if you keep that soaked sweater on. Go ahead and change back into your regular uniform.” Aurora smiled at her, warm, kind, and wide. 

“A-ah, th-thank y-y… th-thank yo-ou s-sen-sensei!” Shimokizu bowed quickly, then hurried off. 

“If she can’t ask for what she needs, she can’t succeed as a hero.” 

“Shush, Kuzu. Give her time.”