MHA: Lust Quirk

She came apart in the first second.

The horn sounded and Setsuna split. Her body separated into pieces that lifted into the air like someone had hit scatter on a puzzle and every piece was alive and moving on its own. Head floating left. Torso drifting right. Arms detaching at the shoulders, legs breaking at the knees, all of it rising above the arena floor in a spreading orbit around me. She was everywhere and the crowd went loud because they'd never seen a Quirk do this and neither had Present Mic whose commentary dissolved into excited screaming.

Her head drifted to my eye level. The smile was the same tilted one from the obstacle race and the tunnel. Sharp teeth. Green eyes. Amused.

"You're pretty slow for a strong guy."

A fist hit the back of my head. I spun. Nothing there. A foot kicked my shin from the left and I grabbed for it and it detached at the ankle before I got a grip and floated up and away. Her detached jaw laughed. The sound came from above and behind and it echoed off the arena walls.

I couldn't grab her. She came apart whenever I closed my hands on a piece. I couldn't corner her because she WAS the arena, forty-some pieces floating in a ring, hitting from angles I couldn't cover. A forearm slapped my ear and the sting was sharp. An open palm shoved my shoulder from behind and I stumbled a step forward. A knee came at my ribs and I blocked it and the knee separated at the joint and the lower half kicked my thigh while the upper floated away.

In the manga she'd barely gotten screen time. A round against Bakugo that lasted a few panels. Here she was running circles around me with her body distributed across the airspace and I couldn't lay a hand on her.

A hand slapped the back of my neck. Hard. I grabbed for it and caught fingers and the fingers separated and pulled free and the hand reformed behind me and slapped me again.

"Stop hitting yourself," her floating head said from above. The stadium laughed.

I was being annoyed to death by a girl who could turn herself into a cloud of annoying. Part of me was enjoying it. Watching a cocky girl try to beat me through pure tactics when I could take every hit and keep standing. That part was probably saying unflattering things about me.

But I was tracking. Her pieces moved in patterns. Two distractions and a real strike. Two feints and a grab. She thought in sets of three and the third was always the one that mattered.

She was fast. I was faster. The post-Mina gains had put my reaction speed past where she'd scouted me during the cavalry battle. She'd planned for the guy who finished eighth in the obstacle race. She hadn't planned for what happened after.

Her right hand came at me in a slapping arc aimed at my cheek. Third in a set. I caught it.

Her wrist in my grip. The hand didn't detach. She'd committed the whole forearm to the swing and my fingers closed before she could scatter and the piece went still. Warm and solid and smaller than I expected. Her fingers twitched in my grip.

"What-"

I didn't let go.

Around the arena, her other pieces hovered. A foot cocked back to kick and stopped. Her floating head tilted, the smile faltering.

"Let go," she said. The head was trying to stay cool but the voice had a crack in it.

"No."

A coordinated assault. Six pieces at once, faster than before, coming from below and behind and both sides. She was trying to overwhelm me into releasing the forearm. I dodged the first two, blocked the third with my free hand, took the fourth on my shoulder, and the fifth was a forearm spinning toward my face and I caught that too. My fist closed around her forearm just above where the elbow joint had separated and the piece went still in my grip.

I held both of them up. Looked at the floating head across the arena.

"This is mine now."

Her mouth opened. Her cheeks flushed, visible even from across the arena, green-tinged skin going dark red. Her remaining pieces hung motionless in the air.

"Give- give that back."

"Come get it."

The stadium was laughing. Present Mic was calling it a hostage negotiation. Midnight was watching with her whip over her shoulder and a look on her face that said she was either entertained or taking notes. Setsuna's pieces hung in the air, all still, and her head was staring at her arms in my hands.

She recalled her pieces. They flew back and reassembled mid-air, clicking together. Torso to legs to head to one arm and two empty shoulders where the captured forearms should have been. She landed on her feet, whole minus both arms, and stood up.

Her bootlace was untied. The left one. It was trailing on the arena floor and she hadn't noticed. That was the first thing I saw when she walked toward me. The bootlace dragging through dust. Then the sharp teeth and the green eyes and the flush that was still going.

She stopped in front of me. Close. Closer than a fight required. She couldn't hold out a hand because I had both of them.

"Arms. Now."

I let go. Both forearms floated back and reattached. She flexed her fingers, checking. Her right fist opened and closed. Her left rotated at the wrist.

"Thanks for the dance, Tokage."

She punched my shoulder. Hard. Knuckles sharp against the bone. "Don't flirt during a match, 1-A."

"You came and got them."

"I- that's-" She stepped back. The flush deepened. She pointed at me with two fingers she'd just gotten back. "Fight."

"If you insist."

The fight resumed. She was faster now, tighter, angry in a way that made her better. The pieces moved in patterns I hadn't seen in the first half. She'd dropped the threes entirely. Fours and fives now, coming from angles I hadn't been covering, and the smile was gone and she was working.

An elbow caught my ribs from the left. I turned into it and a heel hooked my ankle from behind. A hand grabbed my collar and pulled and another hand shoved the small of my back and I stumbled forward and her floating torso was right there and a knee drove into my stomach. The knee separated and the shin kicked upward and caught my chin and my teeth clicked together.

The crowd noise shifted. She was driving me backward in a sustained barrage that felt nothing like the harassment from the first half. This was coordinated aggression. She'd been scouting me while I was catching her arms and now she was using what she'd learned.

I caught a fist. She split it into fingers and pulled free. I blocked a kick and the foot detached and the ankle jabbed my forearm. She was adapting faster than I'd expected. The manga hadn't shown this version of her and I was starting to wonder what else the manga had gotten wrong about the girls who didn't get screen time.

But she was still built for disorientation. I was built to take hits and keep walking. The post-Mina durability meant her strikes registered as impacts. She could drive me back but she couldn't put me down.

I caught three pieces at once. Forearm and hand and shin. Closed my grip and shoved them toward the arena boundary and her body followed because the pieces were hers and the momentum carried and she stumbled backward and tried to split apart but I was already pushing the caught pieces past the white line and the rest of her went with them.

Her feet crossed the line.

Midnight's whip cracked. "Hayami wins!"

The crowd roared. I stood in the center breathing hard. Dust on my knees. Red marks on my neck and forearms where her detached hands had been hitting me. My ribs ached from the knee. My chin was sore from the shin-kick. My shoulder throbbed where she'd punched it after reclaiming her arms. The knuckle bruise was going to last longer than the slap marks.

Setsuna was standing past the line. Breathing hard. Her hair was in her face and she pushed it back and looked at me. All her pieces reattached. Her bodysuit was dusty and her bootlace was still untied.

"Next time I won't go easy," she said.

"Yes you will. You had fun."

Her mouth twitched. The cool broke. She laughed, sharp and bright, teeth flashing.

"Maybe," she said. "Maybe I did."

She walked off the arena floor. Up the stairs toward the stands. The bootlace trailed.

In the stands, she passed the 1-A section. Slowed. Looked at Mina, who was on her feet with her fists still clenched and her horns flushed and her mouth open mid-yell. Looked at where I was standing in the arena.

"Your boyfriend's interesting," she said. Casual. Like she was commenting on the weather.

Mina's face went pink past her baseline and into territory I'd never seen. Her mouth opened and what came out was a squeak and not a word. Setsuna was already past, trailing a laugh that Jiro's earphone jack tracked the whole way.

Three seats from Mina, Jiro's other jack was pointed at Mina's chest. Mina's pulse was in her ears. The jack lowered slowly. Jiro looked at Mina. Then at the arena where I was walking back.

A man a few rows up spilled his beer on the person in front of him. They had a brief conversation about physics and personal boundaries that ended with both of them staring at the arena.

I found a spot near the tunnel entrance. Sat down. Leaned forward. Hands on my knees. My ribs ached and the slap marks on my neck were warm.

Midnight's voice carried across the stadium.

"NEXT MATCH. URARAKA VERSUS BAKUGO!"

The briefing was done. The coaching was over. The rest was hers.