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There was 4 minutes left on the clock for their final exam and they’d barely made a mark on Eraser Head. Granted, there had been no coordination to their attacks and 90% of them ran into each other, cancelling them out. It was time to try and adopt a strategy, Nika had decided when she used a slung vine to apprehend Bakugo from flying again.
“What the hell are you doing? Let me go and blast his ass away!” Bakugo growled while struggling against the vine.
“I’m sorry, you dropped this.” Nika said, holding out her hand.
“Dropped what you fucking idiot?”
Nika smacked Bakugo upside the head. “Your common sense, you moron, what the hell are you thinking?” She tightened the vine and used it to cover his mouth right before he began screaming.
“Listen, you goddamn inbred chihuahua. Our full frontal attacks aren’t working cause Eraser is quiet and hidden. You are about to set the whole forest on fire and kill all of us. Now, I have an idea and you are going to listen to me or I will surrender myself to him and fail us both, jackass. Are you listening?” Nika pointed a finger right into Bakugos sternum. He grunted in response as he continued to struggle against the vine. “Now I am also good at being quiet and hidden but not with you running around and blasting off every 2 seconds. I can only control alive plants with my quirk so this plan is extremely time sensitive. Katsuki!” She paused when she saw sparks coming through the vine and proceeded to kick Bakugo down onto the ground.
“Like I was saying, this is extremely time sensitive but I think we can do it. Without manipulating the size, I am going to try to wrap that tree’s bark around me like a shell. From there you need to quickly locate Eraser and throw my shell at him. The idea is that he’ll move away, dodging the bigger object. However, I want you to force the shell to blast, causing splinters and shards to fly around. He’ll have to close his eyes to avoid them and when he does, he’ll be blind to me being revealed by the blast. From there I’ll engage in hand-to-hand combat and attempt to apprehend him before he can erase my quirk. While I’m distracting him I need you to BE QUIET and have the handcuffs ready to either throw on him during the engagement or in the case I can trap him. I cannot stress enough how wrong this could go but we have to try.”
Quickly, Nika released the vine from around Bakugos mouth. “I will TRY your stupid plan but the second it doesn’t work I am going to start pulling grenades.” He bit towards his partner. Once in agreement, Bakugo was fully released.
While he got his bearings again, Nika stripped down a tree's bark and began moulding it around her, trying not to use her quirk to enhance it.
“Bakugo, do you have any idea where he is? I don’t know if this shape will hold once the life is drained from this.” Nika finished the shell, leaving a hole to communicate with her partner.
“Yeah, yeah I hear rustling coming from the south. Buckle up bitch.” Bakugo said before picking up the shell and Nika. He turned toward the direction he heard Eraser approaching from and blasted himself into the air. Down in the clearing he saw just a sliver of his teacher’s scarf wrap around a tree branch. “Go fucking die Eraser!” He yelled as he blasted the Nika bomb back towards the ground.
Eraser heard Bakugo yell before seeing a massive sheet of bark come from the sky. Following his gut, he hopped backwards onto a different tree to avoid a direct hit by it. “Is this their idea of a distraction. Nika has to be nearby to keep the barks shape, have to watch out.” Eraser Head thought before he was interrupted by a loud creaking sound and a spray of splinters and large wood pieces flying all around him. He instinctively shut his eyes to keep anything from getting in them and in that moment his guard went down.
The second the shell made impact, Nika was moving. She had to turn to find him but in the shadow of the trees was an unmistakable figure, currently holding his hands out in front of him while the last of the spray hit him. She ran onto a grass patch and activated her quirk, allowing her to move on the grass blades without making a sound. She lifted up and was so close to Eraser, when he whipped his head around, deactivating her quirk.
“Motherfucker!” She yelled at him as she panicked and grabbed a tree branch before falling. Once she had a grip on it, she pulled herself up onto the branch and attempted to launch herself at Eraser.
“You didn’t really think you could sneak up and cuff me did you? You rely on stealth, it’d be lazy of me not to tune into the sound of your footsteps or of plants whistling in the wind.” Eraser Head said to the student while he jumped from branch to branch. “I will admit hiding in a bomb was smart, but ultimately reckless. It could have gone way worse.” He taunted during his constant movements.
Just then, an explosion was heard roughly a mile north of them.
“Seems like he abandoned you for a solo fight.” He said before attempting to use his scarf to wrap up Nika. “I should go find him.” He set to take off before Nika let out a sob. He paused.
“Please, Mr. Aizawa, please I know it’s our final but this is already so much harder for me than it is for him. This whole time I’ve been at a disadvantage because my Japanese is barely improving. It's almost impossible for me to communicate with him even if he wanted to coordinate with me. Can’t I just have this?” Nika blubbered out, tears rushing down her face.
“I understand that you have more setbacks than any of the exchange students but if you can’t breakthrough with Bakugo, then working with any of the students is going to be a challenge for you. Keep moving forward.” He said before preparing to take off again.
“God you don’t understand anything do you?” Nika yelled out causing him to hesitate just for a second before turning back north.
Right as he released his quirk from Nika and took his first leap, Bakugo came from his right and punched him in the side, causing Eraser to begin falling to the ground. Setting off another explosion, Bakugo propelled himself towards Eraser and grabbed onto his wrist. His quirk was immediately erased under the steely gaze of his teacher. But it wasn’t until he felt the metal on his wrist that he realized Bakugo had the handcuffs the whole time. His eyes shot wide open at the realization. Once they hit the ground, he turned to see Nika, completely dry-eyed, lowering herself to the ground with the branch.
“Congratulations! Team Pimovna and Bakugo have passed the final exam!” The automatic voice rang through the arena.
“Good job passing. But Bakugo, how did you get here so fast?” Aizawa stared at the student.
“When the shell exploded, I used the sound to cover up my second blast upwards. Then I took an impact grenade and threw it as hard as I could in the opposite direction. After that I used quiet sparks to soften my landing. I used a breathing technique that I learned during the support classes from the licensing exam to try and make my presence less noticeable. Then I just waited until you tried to go towards my grenade.” He mumbled. “And no help from you idiot! You got yourself captured!” He turned and yelled at Nika.
“Hey! I distracted him while you were sneaking! Do you know how hard it is to cry on command you bastard?” She yelled back.
Aizawa wrapped his scarf around both students’ mouths before beginning to walk toward the exit. “One day your explosive behaviors and lack of self preservation is going to get your teammates gravely injured.” He lectured both of them.