Minoru, Momo Yaoyorozu, Tsuyu Asui, and the bird-like Fumikage Tokoyami walked together towards an unused building. The previous fight between the villainous Team J—Hanta Sero and Eijiro Kirishima—and the heroic Team F—Koji Koda and Rikido Sato—hadn't destroyed the building the way Midoriya, Bakugo, and Todoroki had managed, but it did leave the top room covered in Sero's tape, necessitating the use of yet another building.

  At the entrance, Minoru and Yaoyorozu bid Asui and Tokoyami good luck and then hurried inside to prepare. As they headed upstairs to find the "nuclear weapon", Yaoyorozu drew breath to speak, but Minoru interrupted her. "Before we start strategizing, can I please ask you something?" Ugh, this was going to suck. "I'm going to be totally distracted until I get this off my…uh, off my chest." Damn it, real smooth, Minoru, real smooth.

  "Huh? Sure." Yaoyorozu shot him a confused look.

  "Uh, so look. You're, um, absolutely gorgeous and that costume…" he inadvertently found his eyes slipping towards her chest. "…well, you're a total bombshell in that costume. But, um, I noticed you looked a little stiff earlier, so I just wanted to ask…do you mind, I mean, uh, areyoualrightwithmeadmiringyourbody?" Shit, he was so nervous that came out way too fast. Also, what did he just say? That wasn't what he was planning on.

  Yaoyorozu looked extremely uncomfortable. "Ah, well, you're right. My costume is like this because of my quirk, so I'd really rather you didn't…admire me."

  Minoru let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "Okay." Damn it, getting shot down really never got easier, even if he was already aware no one—well, almost no one—would ever be interested in him. "Okay. Right. That's why I asked." He dragged his gaze up to her blushing face, however much it pained him to do so. "Anyway, do you have any ideas for how we can defend this doomsday device of ours?"

  Visibly relieved to be back to business, Yaoyorozu frowned and looked around the room. "Hm, perhaps. What exactly is your Quirk?"

  Minoru reached up and pulled off one of his hair balls. "My balls pop off and will stick to just about anything except me. They're basically impossible for a lot of people to escape, but it can be tricky to force people into contact with them."

  Yaoyorozu made a face. "We are not calling those things…that."

  Damn, there went a long-standing dream that one day he'd get to hear Yaoyorozu talk about his balls. "Uh, maybe call them grapes, then? They're kind of a similar color, so I've always thought I'd use a grape theme when I finally became a hero."

  "Grapes, hm? Not very threatening." Yaoyorozu's eyes briefly went unfocused. "Super sticky, which means anyone who knows about him is going to very carefully avoid them which means he'll usually need to throw large numbers of them…" Her gaze refocused on Minoru. "What about grapeshot?"

  "Grapeshot? I mean that sounds cool, don't get me wrong, but isn't that more like an ultimate move name?"

  "No, not 'grape shot' as an action, 'grapeshot' like the small caliber iron balls that can be shot out of a cannon."

  Minoru blinked. "Oh. Oh! That sounds awesome!" Heh, and she'd ended up saying "balls," after all. Keep a straight face, gotta keep a straight face…

  "Okay, great. So what do you say we scatter a bunch of your grapeshot around this room. I don't know its exact composition, but I've been able to create something very similar to Aizawa sensei's capture tape, so we could make it really difficult to get to the weapon."

  Minoru gave that some thought but ultimately shook his head. "I don't think that will be sufficient. If either Asui or Tokoyami get through that door, we'll probably lose because they just have to touch the weapon and Asui has her tongue while Tokoyami has his Dark Shadow. Unless we completely obscured the weapon, I doubt we could fully stop either."

  Yaoyorozu's gaze sharpened. "You know their Quirks?"

  Whoops, time to back-pedal. "I mean, not really! But I saw them yesterday while we were doing those horrible—I mean while we were taking those standardized physical tests. Asui has what, frog powers? So it stands to reason that she has a really long tongue, jump really high, that kind of thing. And Tokoyami was being helped along by some sort of shadow creature. I don't know how far away from him it can get, but I'll bet it's a lot farther than we saw during those tests. Plus it's a shadow, so it will probably be stronger indoors out of the sun."

  "Those are some astute observations for a single day."

  Minoru laughed nervously. "Ha ha, yeah that's me, always very astute with my…observations." His eyes started sliding back down towards the luscious amount of flesh that was on display, but he yanked them back up to her face through an act of supreme will and flashed her what he hoped was a confident smile and a thumbs up. "In any case, do you think we can stop them before they reach the bomb?"

  Yaoyorozu gazed over Minoru's head, looking thoughtful. "Maybe. Using capture tape should work better in combination with your grapeshot. Follow me; we don't have much time left and we've got a lot of setup to do."

  Several minutes later, Minoru was frantically lining the windows of the room that contained the "bomb" with his grapeshot. He hadn't wanted to mention to Yaoyorozu since he had no way to have realized it, but Asui was definitely able to climb walls, and he was willing to bet she'd try an external entry once she saw what a mess Yaoyorozu and he had made of the stairs. Yaoyorozu was staying there to monitor the actions of the opposing team, while Minoru had volunteered to serve as a last-ditch defense, in part so that he could lay these last-minute traps. He wasn't sure how much help he was going to be if they actually came into direct conflict, though; aside from both of their opposition being stronger and faster than him, his scalp was starting to ache. He definitely didn't have that many more grapeshot he could create before he overstressed himself.

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  The receiver in his ear came to life for the first time. Damn it was like Yaoyorozu was whispering right into his ear! Pure fantasy fodder, that.

  Minoru shook himself, slapped a final grapeshot on the windowsill, and refocused on what Yaoyorozu was actually saying. "…are currently just looking around and conferring with each other. Oh, there's that shadow creature you mentioned! It's prodding the first barrier…too bad, it looks like your grapeshot don't stick to it. Or maybe they do, but it can redistribute its body or something? They're having some effect, but nothing like you described."

  Minoru sighed. That was too bad; he'd never had a chance in his previous life to try and stick his grapeshot to Tokoyami's Dark Shadow, but he was hoping the fact that it was obviously corporeal meant that he'd be able to lock it down.

  Yaoyorozu was continuing to report. "Asui has retreated out of the stairwell; she might try to access the floor from outside. Tokoyami is advancing very carefully."

  "Got it," said Minoru as he jogged around the room, sticking his head out of each window in turn. "I'll see if I can get eyes on Asui. Give a shout if you need me to come try and slow down Tokoyami; I might be able to sneak a grapeshot around Dark Shadow."

  "Acknowledged. I think I can probably create something that looks pretty similar to your grapeshot, so I'll test the shadow's reflexes."

  Minoru didn't bother to respond; he'd finally found Asui. She was indeed crawling straight up the side of the building, and moving a lot faster than he expected. Already she was nearly to the window. At practically the same moment their eyes met, and Minoru barely managed to fall back into the room as her tongue shot out and whistled through the air past him before retracting out of the window just as fast. Unfortunately for him, she'd completely avoided the grapeshot he'd lined the window with, and as his gaze was drawn upwards where her tongue had flown he realized there was a critical weakness to his trap: he was too short to reach the top of the window sill, so the upper quarter of both sides and the entire top was basically free of obstacles. She'd be able to simply climb above the window and enter it from the top.

  "Ack! Yaoyorozu we need to swap places! I'm not going to be able to stop Asui from getting inside!"

  "I'm coming! Tokoyami is moving very cautiously, but he's definitely going to make it through the trap unless you're able to peg him with some grapeshot."

  Minoru frantically popped off and tossed several grapeshot toward the upper windowsill, but only one landed. Several others ended up on the inside wall above the window, and one just sailed right out into open air and fell uselessly away. And come to think, Asui could just enter through a different window; they all had the same oversight. He turned and sprinted for the stairwell.

  He was barely past the bomb in the center of the room when Yaoyorozu exited the stairwell and blew past him. Wow, that girl could move! If he didn't know better, he would have thought she had some sort of physical enhancement.

  "Asui was originally coming towards the window directly behind me, but she might have changed course!" he called over his shoulder. "Watch out for her tongue, and don't touch the grapeshot!"

  "Got it!" Yaoyorozu shouted back. No fair, she didn't even sound out of breath. He heard the crackling noise of her Quirk activating, but didn't look back to see what she was creating. She'd be fine; he'd seen her succeed against much more dangerous foes than Asui.

  He finally made it to the stairwell and ran into his first problem: he couldn't actually see over the railing. Two grapeshots and a quick jump-and-bounce later, and he hoisted himself up. There below him was Tokoyami, carefully threading his way through the grapeshot-encrusted capture tape that the two of them had strung across the stairwell. Dark Shadow would use its body and hands to press the tape just far enough away that Tokoyami could slip through.

  Yaoyorozu was right; it looked like the grapeshot were sticking to the bird-like shadow creature, but only as long as it held still. He also noticed that Dark Shadow was larger than usual and sticking close to Tokoyami; he wasn't going to get a clear shot from above. Damn, at the rate they were going, they'd reach the top, blow past him, and flank Yaoyorozu and at this point she definitely wasn't going to have any tools for handling Dark Shadow; Minoru still remembered how that match-up ended at the school sports tournament.

  Ugh, he really didn't see any way for him to win here. Guess it was time to do something stupid and hope for the best. Minoru dragged his feet up so that he was crouched on the railing. With one hand, he carefully popped off a grapeshot, wincing at the sting. Definitely nearing his Quirk's limits there. He took a deep breath, then another, then finally just shouted his battle cry as he launched himself into the air toward Tokoyami below: "Aaaaaaaagh, this sucks!"

  His cry pulled attention from both Tokoyami and Dark Shadow, but he'd timed his jump for a moment when Dark Shadow had both arms occupied with holding capture tape away from Tokoyami so the creature was unable to respond immediately. After a moment of shock, Tokoyami hurried forward to free up Dark Shadow, but as the shadow was finally releasing the lines of tape, Minoru had reached the tape he'd been jumping towards. Fortunately, it didn't come unstuck—that would have sent him tumbling down the stairwell and been both embarrassing and extremely painful—and Minoru rebounded off one of his grapeshot as the capture tape flexed with his weight. Unfortunately, by the time he was flying towards Tokoyami, Dark Shadow had its arms free again, and it snatched him out of the air and threw him away.

  The creature must have not noticed what had happened with the grapeshot, however, because it threw Minoru into another suspended piece of tape and Minoru came bouncing right back. He flew right next to Tokoyami and successfully slapped the grapeshot in his hand onto the bird-boy's back and he rocketed past, but although Tokoyami stumbled he didn't come into contact with any of the grapeshot-laden tape around him.

  "I got a grapeshot onto Tokoyami's back, but—" Dark Shadow grabbed him again, but this time instead of throwing him away, slammed him into the ground, leaned over him, and snarled. Minoru wheezed. "—I don't think I'll be able to make any use out of it."

  "Dark Shadow, back down!" barked Tokoyami. "Keep him there, I'll tie him up." He turned his attention to Minoru, still splayed under the hand of Dark Shadow. "I am sorry, Mineta, but your tricks and traps cannot overcome the strength of True Darkness."

  Minoru just rolled his eyes and tried to ignore the humiliation of being handled like an unruly child by the still-growling shadow creature while its partner secured his hands and feet with the tape provided by All Might.

  Hopefully Yaoyorozu fared better against Asui.

  really face off against Asui and Tokoyami?"

  hopefully not do something as asinine as trying to fight against Dark Shadow with a frigging sword and shield in the upcoming sports tournament arc).

  Yaoyorozu, despite having a Quirk that offers very little in the way of physical enhancement and while in competition with monsters like Bakugo.