[PVP Tournament R1] Fire and Blood

With the first volley the dynamic of the fight established itself. Ren was very clearly a long-ranged fight who didn’t move a lot when he was fighting, or at all if he could help it. With a quirk that relied on firing his own body parts, he deemed that acrobatics and martial arts were a waste of time, so he sunk all of his practice hours into his quirk, developing an impressive arsenal of explosions and proficency at using them, relying on his power for everything from attack to defense.

This was established early on as he met the bullet of blood she fired back with another firework, calmly shooting off the rest of his left hand while his right one regrew in a puff of smoke. The two attacks cancelled each other in mid-air; they were matched in destructive power. His other explosion was about to hit, but Rin escaped it with a bloody vaulting pole, staggering as she landed. As he expected, simple explosions weren’t gonna do if he wanted to hit her, but so far she had showed him nothing to worry about.

Nonetheless, Ren approached this fight as he approched every single of his fights, with cold calculations and the most down-to-earth, reasonable and safe approach, contrasting with the inherent and quite literal flashiness of his Quirk. The girl seemed to stay observant at a distance, which meant that he had to show her a bit of his hand or lose the advantage of the first attack. He quickly decided to capitalize on the advantage.

Extending his right hand this time, he fired each finger in quick succession, then the rest of his hand down to the wrist. Two of the fingers would fly in front of her eyes and explode in bright showers of sparks, lingering in front of her field of view to blind her, as two other would fly by each ear and explode there with a loud, disorientating bang. The last finger, his thumb, was a normal explosion aimed straight at her chest while the rest of the hand, another regular explosion, would crash at her feet, aiming to destroy the ground below her and prevent her from using the same pole trick. He wanted to see how she would react to basic attacks, so his eyes didn’t leave her behind the visor.

He was still in the information gathering phase for now, but as soon as he would formulate a plan, he’d go in for the kill. The crowd was quieter than in more flashy matches, but no less enraptured; it was clear to even a layman that these two were not fighting at their full power just yet. Encouragements towards Rin were shouted from the UA side of the stands. Meanwhile, the Chinese delegation stayed silent. Was it discipline, or did they not want to cheer for their top student? Or was it that they were simply not worried about the issue of this fight?

Behind the tinted blue visor, Ren’s cold gaze followed every move of Rin’s. His explosions were visually dulled by the computer connected to the glass, obscuring specific parts of the high-tech display to allow him to look at his fireworks directly, unbothered by the blinding effect. Noise-canceling headphones completed the panoply. Both of those were tuned to his fireworks and only really worked when the explosions were far, however, and would do little to stop a flashbang in his face, but that wasn't needed. All that his suit had to do was to allow him to think calmly and see the entire field. If he had that, then his victory was guaranteed. Ren had never lost to a single opponent before.

UA’s supposed #1 student fell on her rear from his explosion and scrambled down her utility belt for medicine. He raised his chin, ever-so-subtly, yet it increased the disdainful aura he gave off tenfold. Back in the bleachers, Cheng Young whistled and whispered to Huang Lan: “Oh boy, he’s gonna let her have it.” Huang nodded quietly.

“Pathetic,” he said evenly as he raised both hands, having regrown once again with the usual puff of smoke. Ten fingers were fired, flying in wild looping patterns to surround the girl with an attack from each side. He kept talking in the same even tone. “We are professionals working for the betterment of society. We give no praise to the public workers who clean up after us and we ask none for ourselves.” Anticipating another pole-vaulting maneuver, he fired his entire forearm up to his left elbow. The projectile was much bigger this time and would release a powerful explosion, comparable to those of a certain blonde girl Cheng had mentioned when he found it in him to shut up about her basketball skills for a second.

The idea was simple, to cut off her path with the smaller explosions and cause her to dodge up, where his forearm rocket would crash down on her. His fingers would burst in a colorful spray, at a sharp contrast with the boy’s personality. Two of them were sparklers and two maroons, like last time, the rest regular explosives.

“Is it all that Japanese heroism has to offer? Disappointing. I expected professionals, not little girls who blabber in a pitiful attempt to buy time.”

Heart was something Ren could understand. The myth of the heartless intellectual was just that, a myth. The Chinese adolescent felt strife, determination, and anger, like everyone; he wasn’t blind to the benefits of those emotions, in others, and as himself, but by the same token he wasn’t blind to its drawbacks either. Powerful emotions made you stronger, but at the cost of control. Heart was good for the sparring ring, public relations and desperate battles; but in the day-to-day practice of heroics, rationality, cool-headedness, and decision-making were the main qualities one required, believed Ren.

He knew the look he glimpsed in her eyes for a second before his explosions hit. Ren was not exactly one to sugarcoat his words, and many a student of Fenghuang had lashed out against him before. Most only had rage in their eyes, but only a few had such a look. A look which spoke of determination through the anger, a look could only be given by a skilled fighter. He tensed ever-so-slightly as his left forearm slowly recomposed itself down to the wrist in wisps of fizzly smoke. He would have to take this match seriously, it seemed.

He was not surprised to see a cracked egg of blood as the smoke cleared. More surprising was the speed at which the girl ran. It was not as fast as Huang, but she certainly could have given him a run for his money. Cheng commented as such with a poke of the elbow in his friend’s monocoque ribs. Huang said nothing, but he was now staring at Rin very intently, which made Cheng chuckle.

As for Ren, his eyes quickly darted left to gauge the trajectory of the bloody spear thrown by the UA girl. It was coming in fast, faster than the girl. To safely redirect it in time, he would need to sacrifice an entire arm up to the shoulder, but it was too much of a risk to take with Rin coming from the right; she could fire more attacks from her position. She needed to be dealt with, perhaps even more urgently so than the spear -- no, both of those were equally dangerous threats. He had to deal with them at the same time, all while keeping enough explosive power to deal with his opponent. His decision was quickly taken.

He seemingly did nothing about the spear, but he was keeping track of its trajectory still. He had no choice but to use the technique he had to develop for hero work: his reactive armor. As the spear was about to make contact, a piece of Ren’s skin quite simply exploded through his suit, deviating the spear enough that it only scraped against his left shoulder, drawing a little blood. Smoke was rising from where his skin had exploded.

He didn’t like using this move. It hurt, after all, but then again, getting impaled by a spear would have, in realistic conditions, hurt more. It took a certain kind of person to hurt themselves willingly, even if to avoid more damage; Ren would argue this was only the rational choice, but it was telling of his own burning determination to prove his methods were the most efficient course of action, those which would lead to the best outcome in a crisis situation. Some of his detractors said he was only interested in being right to satisfy his ego; the apprentice hero answered that they were absolutely correct, he was only interested in doing his job right.

“A serrated spear. How unheroic a weapon. Let me show you a real hero goes about his job with civilians around,” he commented with a cold, even gaze, seemingly unbothered. As if to illustrate his point, he lifted his right arm fo fire each finger separately, the palm, his forearms in three separate rockets and the rest of his arm up to the shoulder in one imposing missile. The barrage would fizzle and explode everywhere around Rin, a colorful festival of sparklers and marroons, until the last piece -- the big missile -- exploded in another thunderous blast, as close to the girl as possible.

Mind games where another one of his specialties; he had hoped to trick her into believing she had roused him up a display of pride, countering her dangerous attack with another series of non-lethal, crowd-controlling explosions supposedly more suited for law enforcement use, but this was a match where the use of force was allowed, likely designed to simulate a one-on-one confrontation against a dangerous villain. It was only rational to use every means at your disposal, even dangerous ones, against an offender who didn’t shy away from such violence himself. An appropriate response was justified in the eyes of the public and even encouraged; it was in every way the rational choice.

And Ren Zhenya was nothing if not a rational hero.

(tl;dr: blocks the spear with his reactive armor, still taking a fair amount of damage (C-rank attack vs D-rank durability). taunts Rin saying her attack was dangerous, fires an arm’s worth of status effect explosions aiming to trick her into believing he's trying to show her up by using less dangerous options, except the last one which is a big boom missile, meant to explode as close to Rin as possible. and he’s a cunt about it too, of course)

The pesky spear now divided itself in a storm of needles, as Rinkusu Kurama was walking through the storm protected by another shield of blood -- well, penguin sliding, but details. This required action. He couldn’t let all of Rin’s attacks come through, he needed a plan. He didn’t like using it, but it seemed he was gonna have to do that.

To counter a thousand needles, the answer was a thousand needles; or in Ren’s case, a thousand strands of air flying off from his scalp, leaving him with the most ridiculous of bald spots on the side of his head. Each hair missile only carried very little explosive power, but all together he could make a sort of explosive screen to deflect the needles. Nonetheless, some got in and he had to take them, for a graver danger was presenting itself.

The blood girl was now very close, close enough to send her shield of blood flying towards his stomach. He was too close to stop it with an explosion, he was going to have to use his reactive armor. However, the angle at which she threw the shield surprised him, and the blowback from his explosion sent him flying up.

Next came Rin, deploying wings of blood to go after him. Hooks shot up, aiming to dig into his skin. For all the angel metaphors, she was as ruthless as a demon. He couldn’t let the hooks get close, so he shot both feet and his good hand, while the other was regenerating, to know them away. That was one thread dealt with, now--

Wait, how was she there already? Were the sparklers and the maroons ineffective, was it the medicine from earlier that he spied her taking counteracting their effect? Nonetheless, there was no time to launch a proper explosion now, as she dunked him to the ground. All he could do was to activate his reactive armor once again to try to soften the impact. He was now careening towards the ground at high speed, head first -- if he did nothing, he might snap his neck. He knew it would be risky, but he had to do it.

An instant before the back of his head crashed against the floor, he activated his reactive armor once again, making the skin on the back of his scalp explode. The blowback redirected his body just enough that he fell on his back. The air was knocked out of his lung, and the sight of the bloody angel was the last thing he saw in this match. A whistle blew. The walls of shimmering air disappeared as the end of the match was announced and medics rushed over.

It was a powerful defensive ability, but the drawback of his reactive armor was that it looked -- and was -- gruesome. The back of his skull was exposed right now, even as his skin was regenerating. The amount of blood splattered across the arena didn’t help -- as much as everyone tried to keep in mind that it was just a natural consequence of the usage of Rin’s quirk, it played a part, subconsciously.

“Winner: Rinkusu Kurama!” were the last words Ren heard as he was carried on a stretcher, the audience rather silenced by this abrupt turn of events. Defeat. That was a new feeling to Ren. It had all happened so fast, and his head was too fuzzy to think about it. He probably gave himself a concussion. Whatever. He’d think about this more in detail back at home. For now, he would dedicate his time to preparing for the cross school competition.

The Fenghuang stand has been quickly deserted, causing whisper and murmurs among the audience. What they didn’t see was Huang carrying Chen on his back as they ran through the corridors, tailed by a tag team of Lan and Jin pulling Zhao behind them, all of them rushing to the side of their leaders. As much as they disliked his attitude, as much as was being made of Fenghuang’s military-like methods, they were still worried teenagers rushing to the side of their fallen friend.