A Test of Skill, the Enemy Group Defeated!

The air was thick with the smell of gunpowder, left behind by the explosives the five "enemies" had thrown and detonated.

Uraraka Shige used his "Quirk" to lighten his load and quickly moved the unconscious "enemy" inside a residential building. With rope scavenged from a home missing its doors and windows, he tied him up securely, gagged him with a rag, and hung him in the fifth-floor hallway.

That way, even if the "enemy" woke up, he wouldn't struggle too hard as long as he didn't want to fall to his death, right?

With that thought, Uraraka Shige narrowed his eyes and nodded, apparently pleased with his little clever idea.

"Well then..."

Uraraka Shige clapped his little hands, now filthy with dust, then got up and headed downstairs.

"...Little Clever Clogs, away! The goal is to defeat every 'enemy'!"

After Uraraka Shige had dealt with the "enemy" he had ambushed and knocked unconscious, two of the four remaining "enemies" on the battlefield, which covered only a few blocks, had also grown cautious. Their hearing was better than the others', and both had heard the screams and wails of the "enemy" whose nose Uraraka Shige had broken with half a brick.

"That sound..."

The "enemy" whose "Quirk" could amplify the power of explosions looked up and listened closely to the scream mixed in with the blasts. His expression grew somewhat grave.

"Was that guy attacked? That means the explosives we got when we gathered to resupply five minutes ago are all we have now... I'll have to watch my pace and conserve some explosives."

Elsewhere, the "enemy" whose "Quirk" could swap the properties of explosives with those of other objects was hiding behind the remains of a residential building, only half of which was still standing. He, too, keenly picked out the brief, faint wail amid the explosions and frowned.

"Was that... someone in the group getting attacked? Who attacked them? And who's the next target?"

He was the most vigilant of the five "enemies." Once he realized what had happened, his first priority was not to start conserving explosives like the other "enemy." Instead, he used his "Quirk" more frequently, turning most of his remaining explosives into stone and concrete that only looked like explosives.

He also turned some actual stone and concrete into explosives, then used them to set up layer upon layer of traps around himself. Combined with the explosives, rubble, and scrap metal nearby whose properties he had not swapped with his "Quirk," the mix of real and fake dangers had indeed turned his position into the most dangerous and troublesome place on the entire battlefield.

"I'd better prepare well. Otherwise, if I'm suddenly attacked later, I'll probably be caught off guard."

Unfortunately, the cautious "enemy" failed to notice a pair of youthful, lively eyes watching it all from the shadows atop a distant ruin.

That was right. Those eyes belonged to Uraraka Shige, who was still of elementary-school age.

"That 'enemy's' 'Quirk' is tricky... He seems able to turn things you can find anywhere into explosives... And is he setting traps now? In that case... I'll go after the two 'enemies' who haven't even noticed their teammate was attacked first, and leave this guy for those two 'heroes' to deal with last."

As he thought, Uraraka Shige unconsciously murmured his thoughts aloud. Fortunately, there were no "enemies" nearby to hear him.

"Now then... I'll pick you as my next target!"

Uraraka Shige fixed his gaze on an "enemy" on the other side of the battlefield. Still completely unaware that his team had lost its most important member, the one in charge of logistics, he was bombarding the area with the explosives he had left. He planned to use the clues hidden in the explosions to regroup with his teammates once he ran out, get another large supply of explosives, and then "let loose" again.

The enemy Uraraka Shige had his eye on shuddered strangely at that very moment, but he assumed he had simply enjoyed blowing things up so much that his body was shuddering from the thrill.

He really was asking for death.

Using his "Quirk," Uraraka Shige leaped from one shadowy height to another among the ruins and wreckage until he reached the vicinity of his target. His earlier success in ambushing an "enemy" through a lucky coincidence had given him a greatly inflated sense of confidence, and he was no longer as hesitant as he had been at first.

After only a short wait, he found an excellent opportunity. From atop a nearby piece of wreckage three stories high, he hurled a block of concrete half his own size at the "enemy," having used his "Quirk" to lighten it. Worried it wouldn't hit hard enough, Uraraka Shige even used his mind to reverse the flow of the "lines" around him after releasing the block, momentarily redirecting some of the gravity around him toward the "enemy" to add power to the blow.

Perhaps he was lucky, or perhaps heaven favored children. In any case, nothing went wrong.

After Uraraka Shige "increased the weight" of the concrete block, which was half his size, it slammed into the "enemy's" legs, visibly deforming them. They were clearly broken, and he could no longer move.

Uraraka Shige did not follow up with another blow. Instead, before the "enemy" spotted him, he quickly moved to another nearby high point and resumed observing the battle.

At that moment, the one remaining "enemy" who had not heard his teammate being attacked was drawn by the continuous screams of the "enemy" with the broken legs. Clutching a few explosives, he even intended to come over and investigate.

Uraraka Shige was naturally happy to see this, so he hid along the route the "enemy" had to take. He fashioned a noose from some rope he had found by chance, then used a handrail and a boulder to make a crude trap.

When the "enemy" passed by, the noose caught him around the neck and hoisted him into the air. Only after he had been strangled unconscious did Uraraka Shige lower him, tie him tightly with the rope used to make the noose trap, and hang him in midair as well.

With that, three members of the "enemy group" of five had been put out of action. The two remaining "enemies" had both holed up in the trapped area prepared by the vigilant "enemy," afraid to show themselves again.

Victory was already assured.