MHA: Horizon(Ope-Ope No Mi)

Chapter 32: (Power VS Mastery)

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CHAPTER START---

"So who do you guys think will win?" Kaminari asks nobody in particular.

Horizon glances over at him then turns back to the screen where Deku and Uraraka are still reading the map and strategizing.

"Bakugo and Iida seem like a strong duo," Asui says. "Plus Midoriya hurts himself when he uses his Quirk."

"Yeah but his Quirk is super strong!" Sato adds. "It would probably only take one hit to take one of them down, or both if he gets lucky."

"Or Uraraka could float them into the sky," Shoji says.

"Yeah but she has to touch them," Mina taps her chin, brain working overtime to consider the combatants. "Getting close is a no-no with Bakugo, taking a grenade to the face isn't a good idea."

'They already failed,' Horizon shakes his head in disappointment, something All Might noticed in the corner of his eye.

ROOM!

He creates a room three hundred meters wide, easily covering the building they were in.

SCAN!

He keeps a constant 3D map of the building and people moving in real time in his mind, lining it up with the five camera feeds on the screen.

Noticing most of the cameras empty he feels Bakugo moving slowly, creeping up on the heroes.

"Sneak attack incoming," Horizon says, causing everyone to look at him confused, including All Might.

"Whaddya mean?" Mina asks.

"Three...two...now."

BOOM!

Deku just barely dodges an explosion to the face.

All eyes are glued to the screen.

"Dude how'd you know that?" Kaminari asks, eyes still glued to the screen but very creeped out.

Horizon only shrugs in response.

Watching the fight he ignores his classmates impressed cheers as Deku performs some of the most basic -admittedly sloppy- moves.

Horizon rolls his eyes beneath his visor, not at all impressed, as expected of someone trained by Arsenal, who most combatants consider a close combat monster.

Keeping his mental map up he sees Uraraka begin searching the upper floors for the bomb while Deku and Bakugo play cat and mouse on the second floor.

"Bakugo looks feral," Horizon chuckles as he sees them brawling once more, or more accurately, Deku barely dodging blow after blow.

"His pride is immense," All Might says, "much like yours, but he's much louder about it..."

"Probably because unlike me he can't back up his talk, so he always shouts," Horizon shrugs. "Both these teams are honestly disasters, let's hope something exciting happens...oh..."

They all see Bakugo yelling and aiming his gauntlet, and All Might immediately begins yelling to stop him.

The entire building they're in shakes from the shock of Bakugo's explosion an entire block away.

All Might gives another warning, before the fight continues, and Horizon is again disappointed by what he sees, until he notices something strange.

Bakugo throws another big right hook, and in the moment Deku dodges Horizon puts the pieces together.

Focusing on his map instead of what he sees from the cameras he notices Uraraka dancing around with Iida, constantly keeping herself at the edge of the fifth floor. And looking at it on the cameras it's impossible to tell, but with his map showing the building's five floors stacked he could see Deku constantly leading the fight to the middle of the second floor.

'So neither of them can win 1-on-1, so what's the play if Deku can't get away from Bakugo? If he hits him with his Quirk he also takes himself out and they lose, he needs to help Uraraka...or take out Iida, and he's got the power to do it, oh, I see...'

All the pieces brought together in 0.01 seconds, the monstrous power of a brain developed to handle the information flow from his Quirk.

"Man the heroes don't stand a chance here," Kaminari says, joined by a few others asking All Might to call an end to this brutal beatdown.

"Too bad the villains are meatheads, so the heroes win," Horizon says, suddenly silencing all the requests from his classmates to end the match as they see Deku get pummeled.

"Dude, are you even watching?" Sero asks, looking entirely confused.

"Listen, because I'm only saying this once," Horizon says, even getting All Might's attention as the battle rages on. "Deku is pulling Bakugo to the middle of his floor while Uraraka is trying to bait Iida into the middle of floor five while staying at the edges. Heroes can't win 1-on-1 or in a team battle, they need a 2-on-1. But with a few floors between them, the only way to do that is..." he gestures for anyone to fill in the rest.

And everyone stares at him looking confused.

"Ugh," he sighs. "The cripple boy needs to punch the ceiling below Iida, if he hits Bakguo, even if he manages not to kill him it takes both of them out and Uraraka loses her fight, so they lose. Take out Iida or the floor below his feet and she can jump across and touch the bomb, easy win," he shrugs.

They all stare at him as if he's lost his mind.

"They've been lining it up since the first time she tried to touch the bomb," he says. "The one good thing about Deku is that he knows how worthless he is, so at least he'll focus on the objective victory instead of a combat win..."

He earns a dozen glares with that last statement, 'even when he's given a compliment he's a total dick...' they all thought.

A couple of minutes later and the observation room is silent as it plays out exactly as predicted.

And everyone slowly turns to stare at Horizon in horror. "Told ya...I should have taken bets," he chuckles as All Might rushes off with two medical drones to collect the students. Horizon turns back to the screen, seeing Deku being loaded onto a stretcher, "honestly he did nothing right and somehow won, but at least it was a bit amusing..."

"You know if you weren't such a jerk you'd be pretty cool," Asui bluntly says.

"Yeah, and how did you even know their plan anyway?" Jiro asks, voicing the question that everyone wanted to ask.

"I just considered the battlefield, Quirks, mentalities, and all the information I already had," Horizon shrugs as if it were nothing special. "It helps that meatheads are predictable..."

'So much for recommended students supposedly being the top,' Momo glances between Horizon and Todoroki, who was also staring at him with a focused expression.

Todoroki considered all his classmates during the Quirk apprehension test, and not one of them seemed like any competition, until today. 'Healing, Warping, and he's some kind of genius strategist, I need to be careful oh my surroundings, and be cautious of any other abilities he may have...' he turns away from Horizon and sees All Might entering the room with Uraraka, Bakugo, and Iida.

As everyone gets settled All Might names Iida the MVP and asks for anything people noticed during the review session. And everyone immediately turns to Horizon.

"Figure it out yourselves," was all he said, dismissing them.

Momo scoffs and raises her hand, volunteering and giving a decent breakdown of the battle, and standing across from her Bakugo has his head down, feeling his ego get more and more crushed with each word she says.

"Horizon, since you were able to predict every action in the match---" this gets Bakugo, Iida, and Uraraka staring at him bewildered, "is there anything you'd like to add?" All Might asks.

"Not really."

"Oh, because she said everything, or because you didn't spot anything that she didn't? I honestly expected that genius brain of yours to have noticed something..." All Might challenges with a wide grin.

'He's playing on my ego...but if I just answer this one I can get them off my back for the other matches, and it'd be good for them to just know I'm better and not question me in the future...'

Horizon grumbles and turns to him, "I know what you're doing, trying to play on my ego...and I'll only allow it this once, then they can figure out everything in the other matches, got it?"

"Great!" All Might gives a joyous thumbs up.

"Alright," Horizon sighs. "Let's start with the villains. Honestly, most of what you did was correct," most of the class, including Bakugo, look surprised at that. "With Bakugo's Quirk, a 2-v-2 fight is out of the question since Iida is melee, that's just asking for friendly fire since none of us are familiar with each other yet. And he can't be in the bomb room since his Quirk would just set it off.

Sending him out to deal with the heroes makes the most sense, especially considering he's the fastest person in the fight."

Iida immediately raises his hand to correct that but Horizon cuts him off, speaking directly to him.

"Consider your Quirk, Engine. High top speed but shit at cornering, in a five-story building full of narrow hallways and a cramped stairwell to the top where the bomb is. Compared to that Bakugo is good at cornering and can fly, meaning he can just hop out a window, fly to the top floor and get back inside, outpacing everyone.

That's what he should have done the moment Uraraka got away and Deku got a bit hurt, then you capture her and wait for Deku, easily winning, but he got tunnel vision and overcommitted."

"I see," Iida and everyone else nods along, understanding what Horizon meant, while Bakugo just feels his ego get ripped apart more and more.

"Like I said, the villain did everything aside from not regrouping right," he shrugs. "The heroes on the other hand," he turns to Uraraka. "You two failed literally the moment you step inside."

"What?" she asks, looking confused and ashamed.

"Use your head, your Quirk is making things and people float, yet you entered through a window on the first floor. The bomb will obviously be at the furthest point from the entrance which is the top floor, just float either both or one of you up a few floors to get the drop on them, would have been perfect in this case since Bakugo was already down on floor three when the timer began."

"Oh..." she looks down at her feet, ashamed that she didn't think of that.

"Aside from the lack of any thought toward the verticality of the battlefield from both teams, the heroes clearly look up to a certain meathead too much," he looks directly at all might, causing the man to nervously freeze.

"What do you mean?" All Might asks.

Horizon sighs, "what I mean is, you get away with being just one big veiny bicep because the difference in power between you and the people you fight is so vast, they didn't have that advantage, and even if they did they shouldn't try to deal with everything head on, because the one time they can't overpower the enemy they will suffer for it, its a terrible habit."

Horizon turns back to the class as he continues. "If you try to just duel every enemy eventually you'll lose. Use the uniqueness of your Quirk to your advantage in any situation you can, basically what I'm saying is find a way to cheat. Instead of just focusing on brute power, focus on mastery."

"That's the difference between people like All Might and Endeavour," Todoroki flinches at those words.

"All Might has an insane amount of power, if you try to replicate that you will fail, and it will cost you. Endeavor doesn't have that, so in exchange he makes up for it by being what I consider the only person in the world with perfect Quirk Mastery. Master your Quirk and utilize it to give yourselves every advantage, at least before it comes down to some brawl, and if brawling is all you do, then you'd better be really damn smart about it, got it."

Everyone nods along.

"Good, your job is to be quick and efficient, not look good for the cameras, so less All Might, more Endeavor," Todoroki flinches again, balling his fists at his sides. "Aside from that, well, the heroes were pretty much trash at everything else too, they were overmatched, and Deku still has to break himself to use his Quirk because he's pathetic so there's that too, the only person who actually deserves a win here was Iida, the rest of you need to get your shit together."

"Excellent points," All Might says. "But again, it wouldn't kill you to be a bit nicer."

"Well I've never done it before, so it could," Horizon shrugs, "best not to take the chance..."

All Might sighs and announces the next match...

After three more matches, each ending with Horizon not contributing anything to the review, near falling asleep with how bored he was at the simple battles.

"Time for the final match!" All Might says. "Only four people are left, so let's see how they'll be paired up," he said, already knowing what teams Nezu chose.

Horizon, Todoroki, Momo, and Ojiro, those were the final four.

"The teams will be, Horizon and Ojiro as the villains, and that leaves Todoroki and Yaoyorozu as the heroes," he gives everyone the basic items, Capture Tape and earpieces.

Horizon places the earpiece in a small compartment at the side of his visor and syncs to it, only taking a glance at the map before handing it to Ojiro and walking away.

"Finally I get to do something..." he says while stretching his arms out to wake himself up. Placing one of his metal throwing cards face down on the control panel he turns and leaves the room, Ojiro a few steps behind him still reading the map.

All four students leave the control room to prepare, and everyone in the control room waits with bated breath for the most exciting match to begin...

END CHAPTER---

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