Facing Shoto Todoroki

Bakugo was savoring the thrill of victory, withholding the final blow as he looked down at Midoriya with contempt, watching him struggle to get up again and again.

This guy... he really has the makings of a criminal.

Jilan Jiyu thought to himself that Bakugo seemed better suited to being a criminal than he was. Bakugo was chipping away at Midoriya's confidence, trying to make him admit his own helplessness and go back to being the little follower trailing behind him.

Jilan Jiyu thought again of the day of the entrance exam-Izuku Midoriya had broken bones all over his body, not a single patch of uninjured skin, and every blood vessel had been on the verge of collapse.

If he were going to give up because of an injury like this, he could never have made it into the Hero Course at U.A. High School.

"Look, Midoriya's getting up!"

The security camera had not been damaged, and it recorded what happened next.

Izuku Midoriya got shakily to his feet and charged at Bakugo. Katsuki Bakugo charged to meet him, intending to beat him down with his Quirk! Then lines appeared on Izuku Midoriya's arm, as though it were about to explode, and he struck Katsuki Bakugo's arm gauntlet with a heavy uppercut!

"What?!"

The terrifying force from Izuku Midoriya's hand generated a powerful blast of air. In an instant, it tore through several floors, shattered every window in the building, and blasted a huge hole through it!

Perhaps Midoriya and Uraraka had discussed it beforehand, because she had wrapped herself tightly around a load-bearing pillar before the gale hit. Taking advantage of Tenya Iida's confusion at the sudden attack, she used her Quirk, Zero Gravity, to make the pillar lighter, then swung it like a baseball bat, batting all the debris blowing across the floor straight at Iida!

Iida had to defend himself against the debris and had no way to stop Ochaco Uraraka. She used her Quirk to float up again and wrapped her arms around the nuclear weapon!

"They recovered it! Midoriya and Uraraka won!"

It was an ending no one had expected. Midoriya had used the terrain to draw Bakugo directly beneath the base, then delivered a decisive blow with the Quirk he could only use once!

As Midoriya went limp and slowly collapsed, All Might announced loudly, "The hero team wins!"

But no one accepted that outcome.

"What kind of result is that? Everyone on the winning side went down, while the losing side is almost unhurt..."

"This was just a training exercise!"

Jilan Jiyu followed All Might to where Midoriya had fallen. All Might had likely known injuries were unavoidable and had prepared a transport robot in advance. He put Midoriya on a stretcher.

"Those injuries are really too awful to look at..."

Although Jilan Jiyu's Hamon had healing properties, he himself had never been reckless with it. Even if injuries like Izuku Midoriya's could be healed, they would still leave irreversible damage inside his body. It was like a sapling that had been cut with a blade: even if it could grow thick and strong in the future, the damage would grow larger with time, becoming an exposed weakness in a critical place.

All Might asked about Midoriya's condition. "How is he, young Jilan?"

"His injuries are serious, but they won't be difficult to heal. If Recovery Girl treats him, he'll regain consciousness quickly." Jilan Jiyu examined his injuries with Hamon, treating him as he explained to All Might, "My Quirk is good at healing internal injuries. I can't do much for his external injuries except stop the bleeding, and his burns will need Recovery Girl to heal them."

"Thank you for your help, young Jilan."

All Might instructed the robot to take Midoriya to the infirmary, then walked over to Bakugo. Jilan Jiyu had thought All Might might reprimand him, but instead, as though nothing had happened, All Might gave Katsuki Bakugo, who seemed to be standing there blaming himself, a pat. "Time to head back, young Bakugo. It's time for the review. Win or lose, you can only make good use of these experiences if you look back and reflect on them properly."

Katsuki Bakugo stared blankly at All Might's smile and said nothing.

"I believe everyone saw that battle. Win or lose, both sides gave us an excellent match. I hope you'll learn from their mistakes and stop destroying the surroundings!"

All Might stood in front of the training building, giving instructions to Hero Team B, who were about to set out. Their opponents, Team I, had already entered the base to defend it.

"Jilan, I didn't expect it to be our turn so soon..." Jilan Jiyu could hear the nervousness in Toru Hagakure's voice, but for some reason, she was taking off her clothes.

No, that might not have been accurate. She was taking off her gloves and shoes.

"Although I know you're doing this to make yourself completely invisible, there's a question I've always wanted to ask..." Although Jilan Jiyu understood, her remark still unsettled him a little. After hesitating for a while, he brought it up indirectly. "Hagakure, aren't you cold without any clothes on?"

"I know what you're trying to say!" Hagakure held her gloves up, seemingly covering her body, her voice somewhat annoyed. "It's embarrassing for me to be naked too! But if I wear clothes, I can't make myself completely invisible quickly!"

"Besides, you can't see me anyway..." Toru Hagakure muttered too quietly for Jilan Jiyu to hear.

"Sorry, my mistake." Jilan Jiyu apologized without hesitation. She was a girl, after all, so he quickly changed the subject. "How do you think the other side will attack?"

Toru Hagakure was not the overly sensitive type. After cursing Jilan Jiyu in her mind for a while, she began to think seriously. "Shoji's Quirk is Dupli-Arms. He can replicate parts of his body at the ends of his tentacles. I don't know how Midoriya managed it, but if it were Shoji, he'd definitely start by making ears and noses to guard against a surprise attack from us."

"Right. A surprise attack wouldn't be very effective for us. Besides, when both sides only know roughly where the other is, it's hard to say who'd be surprising whom."

"Yeah. I don't know Shoji's detection range, but they might already know where we are." At that thought, Toru Hagakure suddenly cried out, "If that's true, doesn't that mean my invisibility is practically useless against Shoji?!"

"Don't worry. He can't see you naked."

"Hah! Ah!"

"So you're in pretty good shape, Hagakure..." Jilan Jiyu rubbed his slightly reddened face and looked away.

Jilan Jiyu's Quirk, Hamon, could travel through a medium, so he was rather sensitive to the contents of the air. He suddenly noticed the water molecules in the air condensing and asked gravely, "Hagakure, are you really not afraid of the cold?"

"No, I'm not. I've got a great constitution!" But just after she said that with complete confidence, she suddenly screamed, "What?! Why is it so cold now?!"

"It's Shoto Todoroki." Jilan Jiyu recalled Inasa Yoarashi's description. "'His ice is much like my wind.' That's what he said." The man who was so confident in his own ability had once described the power he had seen in those words.

"What are you talking about?" Toru Hagakure hugged her gloves and shoes to her chest and crouched on the floor, shivering as she stammered, "This isn't the time for jokes, you know?"

"What I'm saying is, we're about to be frozen." Before Toru Hagakure could understand what Jilan Jiyu meant, rapidly surging ice covered the floor in an instant, and the ice growing like plants froze Jilan Jiyu's feet in place!

"Ah! Ah! My butt!" Toru Hagakure suddenly shrieked. In front of Jilan Jiyu, an oval block of ice grew half a meter high out of thin air.

"..." Jilan Jiyu fell silent. Perhaps even All Might had not anticipated a situation like this: a young girl's butt frozen in ice.

"Don't just stand there looking!" Toru Hagakure was deeply embarrassed. She could feel a solid block of ice freezing her legs and lower body in place.

"I'm frozen too. There's nothing I can do." Jilan Jiyu spread his hands helplessly.

I never should have crouched down!

Toru Hagakure thought bitterly. She cursed the man in front of her and the man making his way toward this floor ten thousand times in her mind, put them on her blacklist, and swore she would make them regret it!

The ice was cold, especially for Toru Hagakure, who was not wearing any clothes. Just as she was feeling so miserable that she was about to cry, Jilan Jiyu spoke. "Sorry, I actually do have a way."

It was not that Jilan Jiyu really had such a twisted sense of humor that he wanted to see a girl cry in front of him. He had been thinking of a way to win, and now he knew how.

Toru Hagakure watched as a ring of golden Hamon coiled around Jilan Jiyu's palm. He struck the ice around his legs, and it shattered with a crash. He had done it so effortlessly, nothing like someone who was as helpless as he had claimed!

"So... how am I supposed to get you out?"

Jilan Jiyu was in a bit of a quandary. If a girl had been caught in this situation somewhere with no one else around, he would have smashed the ice open without a second thought. But now more than a dozen people in the monitoring room were watching him. Grape and Kaminari might already have been so excited that their noses were bleeding. To save her, he would have to touch her body... the delicate body of a girl without a stitch of clothing on.

"Do you think I still care about that right now?!" Toru Hagakure quickly guessed what he was agonizing over and shouted, "I'm a girl and I'm asking you to do it, so why are you being so precious about it?! Hypocrite!"

All right. If the person involved doesn't care anymore, why should I?

Jilan Jiyu first placed his hand on the footprint-shaped ice. Hamon could travel through water, and he used it to shatter the ice piece by piece, leaving fragments scattered across the floor. He did the same with the other foot.

Toru Hagakure's feet were free again. Though the ice had cut them and they hurt a little, she did not care. She was eager to stand up, but after a startled "Wah!" she crouched back down miserably.

Damn it, I forgot about the ice around my butt!