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Story of a shifter

Static and Strategy

The air at Training Ground Gamma was crisp, smelling of cold concrete and the faint, ozone-heavy scent of anticipation. For Class 1-A and Class 1-B, this was more than just a joint exercise; it was a chance to settle scores, prove growth, and, in Camie Utsushimi’s case, ensure her social media presence remained "top-tier" even while pummeling her friends.

"Okay, team, listen up," Setsuna Tokage said, her green hair swaying as she grinned with a mouth full of sharp teeth. "We’re up against Bakugo’s squad. It’s basically a suicide mission if we play by their rules. We need to be sneaky, disjointed, and totally annoying."

Camie checked her reflection in the polished surface of Yosetsu Awase’s headbands. "Setsuna-chan, don't worry. The vibes are actually very in our favor. I’ve been studying Bakugo-kun’s energy, and it’s very 'one-note scream-core.' We just need to give him a remix he didn't ask for."

Kojiro Bondo let out a low rumble of agreement, his glue-dispensing holes twitching. "I can lock down the terrain. If they can’t move, they can’t blast us."

"And I’ll keep our defenses tight," Awase added, cracking his knuckles. "But we need to watch out for Sero. His mobility is no joke, and he knows how you think, Camie."

Camie let out a soft, airy laugh. "Hanta-kun? He’s a total snack, but he’s predictable. He thinks he knows me because of middle school, but I’ve got new layers. I’m like an onion, but, you know, one that smells like expensive perfume."

Across the training field, Hanta Sero was feeling a very specific type of dread. He knew Bakugo was already reaching his boiling point, sparking his palms with a rhythmic *pop-pop-pop* that signaled an impending explosion.

"Listen, Tape-Face, Ear-Lobe, Sugar-Man," Bakugo barked, his eyes narrowed at the 1-B starting gate. "We aren't just winning. We’re annihilating them. I don't care about their tricks or their illusions. If it moves, I blast it. If it doesn't move, I blast it anyway just to be sure."

"Bakugo, we need a bit more of a plan than 'blast everything,'" Kyoka Jiro sighed, adjusting her jacks. "Tokage can split her body into pieces. We’ll be surrounded before we even see them."

"I’ll handle the heavy lifting!" Rikido Sato said, popping a sugar cube into his mouth. "Just point me at the big guy."

Hanta looked at the map, his mind racing. "Keep an eye on the atmosphere. Camie isn't just about illusions anymore. Since her work-study, she’s been using her shapeshifting to mimic movements. If you see me and I’m acting too 'bubbly,' hit me with an explosion immediately."

"I was gonna do that anyway," Bakugo grunted.

The buzzer echoed through the industrial landscape, signaling the start of the match.

Within seconds, the battlefield was a mess of sensory overload. Jiro plugged her jacks into the ground, her brow furrowed. "I hear them. Multiple footsteps... wait, no. It’s everywhere. It’s like the ground itself is walking."

"That’s Camie," Hanta warned, firing a line of tape to pull himself up to a higher pipe. "She’s layering the sound. Don't trust your ears, Jiro!"

Suddenly, a thick, iridescent mist began to roll through the pipes. It didn't smell like smoke; it smelled like toasted marshmallows and high-end hairspray.

"Ugh, this is so tacky!" Bakugo yelled, swinging a massive explosion into the fog. The blast cleared a path, but the mist simply swirled back into place, thicker than before.

Out of the haze, a figure emerged. It was Hanta Sero, swinging gracefully from a wire.

"Hey, Bakugo! I found their base! Follow me!" the figure shouted, gesturing toward a dark corridor.

Bakugo lunged forward, but Jiro caught his arm. "Wait! Sero is right above us! I can hear his breathing!"

Bakugo looked up to see the real Hanta perched on a crane. He looked back at the "Sero" in the mist, who blew him a cheeky kiss before dissolving into a cloud of glitter.

"You damn copy-cat!" Bakugo roared, propelling himself forward with a series of massive blasts.

From the shadows, Setsuna Tokage’s hand flew out, detached from her arm, and slapped a piece of Kojiro Bondo’s glue onto Bakugo’s bracer.

"Now, Bondo!" Setsuna’s voice echoed from three different directions.

A torrent of fast-drying glue sprayed from the pipes above, aimed directly at the 1-A squad. Sato jumped in front, his muscles bulging as he took the hit, the glue hardening on his skin like a second, restrictive suit of armor.

"I’ve got this!" Sato yelled, tearing through the sticky substance with raw strength.

"Not quite, Sugar-kun," a voice whispered from behind him.

Sato spun around to see Camie, but she wasn't just Camie. Her body was blurred, shifting rapidly. In a flash of light, she transformed into a perfect replica of Sato himself.

"Let’s see whose sugar rush is more iconic!" she chirped.

She lunged at him, mimicking his heavy-hitting style with surprising accuracy. While she didn't have his exact strength, her movements were fluid and unpredictable. As they traded blows, she used her Illusion Quirk to create "ghost punches," making Sato flinch at attacks that weren't actually there.

Meanwhile, Hanta was engaged in a high-speed chase through the rafters. He was pursuing several of Setsuna’s floating body parts when a line of tape suddenly whipped past his head, pinning his arm to a pillar.

He looked down, confused. "What the—? I didn't fire that!"

Below him stood Yosetsu Awase. He had used his Cera-molding Quirk to fuse a roll of industrial tape—likely stolen from the 1-B equipment locker—to a piece of structural steel, and then "welded" the end of it to Hanta’s costume.

"Camie said you’d be looking up," Awase grinned. "She told me exactly how to catch a spider."

Hanta struggled, his elbow clicking as he tried to reel in the tape. "She’s been talking too much, Awase!"

He used his free hand to fire a counter-line, pulling himself toward Awase to close the distance, but the ground beneath him suddenly turned into a slide of slick glue. Bondo had appeared from behind a shipping container, coating the floor in a translucent sheen.

Hanta slid uncontrollably, but he managed to flip mid-air, using his tape to swing like a pendulum. "Nice try! But I’ve been practicing my recovery!"

"Have you practiced against yourself?"

The voice came from right behind his ear. Hanta felt a chill. He spun his head to see... himself.

Camie had abandoned her fight with Sato, leaving him to be swarmed by Setsuna’s flying limbs, and had scaled the heights to find Hanta. She looked exactly like him—the same plain face, the same lanky frame, the same tape-dispenser elbows.

"This is, like, totally meta, right?" the second Hanta said, grinning with Camie’s signature mischievous eyes. "We’re like twins. Only I’m the one with the better skincare routine."

"Camie, give it a rest," Hanta grunted, trying to find an opening. "You can’t use my Quirk as well as I can. It takes years to master the tension."

"Oh, I don't need to master it," Camie said. She fired a spurt of tape, but instead of a long line, it was a tangled, messy ball that exploded into a cloud of shimmering dust upon impact. "I just need to distract you."

The dust hit Hanta’s visor, obscuring his vision with a kaleidoscopic array of colors. He stumbled back, his senses reeling.

"Bakugo! Jiro! Don't come up here! It’s a trap!" Hanta yelled, but his voice was muffled by the illusion.

Down below, Bakugo was having none of it. He had finally shaken off the glue and was currently blasting Setsuna’s body parts out of the air like he was playing a violent game of clay pigeon shooting.

"Get out here, Utsushimi!" Bakugo screamed. "I know you’re the one making this place smell like a damn candy factory!"

"You called?"

Suddenly, the mist cleared entirely. Standing in the center of the arena was Camie. She wasn't transformed, and she wasn't hiding. She stood with her hands on her hips, looking bored.

"Honestly, Bakugo-kun, the shouting is so last season," she said, tapping her chin. "It’s giving 'insecure protagonist.' Why don't you take a five-minute meditation break?"

Bakugo didn't hesitate. He propelled himself at her, his palms glowing with a blinding light. "DIE!"

He slammed his hands together for a massive Stun Grenade, but as the light faded, he realized he hadn't hit Camie. He had hit a massive, reinforced steel pillar that Awase had "welded" into his path at the very last second.

The recoil sent Bakugo staggering back, and before he could recover, Bondo unleashed a tidal wave of glue, pinning his boots to the floor.

"Jiro! Now!" Bakugo ordered.

Jiro stepped forward, her jacks ready to blast a sonic frequency that would shatter the glue and the pillar, but she froze.

Standing in front of her was an illusion of the one person she didn't want to hurt: Denki Kaminari, looking charred and dazed, wandering aimlessly into her line of fire.

"Kaminari? No, wait, it’s an illusion!" Jiro shook her head, trying to clear the image, but the illusion was too detailed. It even smelled like ozone.

"Too slow, babe," Setsuna’s head whispered, floating right next to Jiro’s ear.

With a swift movement, Setsuna’s hand snatched Jiro’s jacks, preventing her from plugging in, while Bondo moved in to encase her in glue.

Up in the rafters, Hanta had finally cleared his vision. He saw his team being picked apart. Sato was trapped, Jiro was neutralized, and Bakugo was currently a very angry, very loud statue.

"It’s just you and me, Hanta-kun," Camie said. She had shifted back to her normal form, sitting cross-legged on a pipe above him. "Total 1v1 vibes. Very dramatic. Are you gonna be the hero and save them, or are we gonna just hang out until the timer runs out?"

Hanta looked at his friends, then back at Camie. He felt a surge of competitive spirit he usually kept tucked away. "You think you’ve won, but you forgot one thing, Camie."

"Oh? Is it about my lipstick? Does it smudge?"

"No," Hanta said, a smirk spreading across his face. "You forgot that I’m the one who taught you how to hide in middle school. I know where the real 'you' is."

He fired a line of tape, but not at the Camie sitting on the pipe. He fired it at a small, innocuous-looking vent behind her.

The "Camie" on the pipe flickered and vanished. A startled yelp came from the vent as Hanta’s tape snagged a very real, very solid boot. He hauled her out, and Camie tumbled onto the catwalk, looking genuinely surprised.

"Wait, how did you—?"

"The shadow," Hanta said, landing in front of her. "Your illusions don't cast shadows when the light comes from that specific angle in Ground Gamma. I noticed it during the Sports Festival."

Camie pouted, brushing the dust off her suit. "Ugh, Hanta-kun, you’re such a nerd. Paying attention to lighting? That’s, like, my job."

She stood up, her eyes flashing. "But knowing where I am and catching me are two different things!"

She lunged at him, her hand glowing. She tried to shift into Bakugo to blast him at point-blank range, but Hanta was faster. He wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug, pinning her arms to her sides.

"If I hold onto you, you can’t shift into someone bigger without crushing yourself," Hanta reasoned, breathing hard. "And you can’t use illusions if you can’t see the space around us."

They stood there for a moment, locked in a stalemate, two best friends from a normal middle school now grappling on a catwalk in the world’s most prestigious hero academy.

"This is, like, super awkward, Hanta-kun," Camie whispered, her face inches from his. "People are gonna talk. The shipping fanfics are gonna be out of control."

Hanta felt his face heat up, but he didn't let go. "Let them talk. I’m not losing to Class 1-B today."

"Technically," Camie said, a small, triumphant smile growing on her lips, "you already lost."

"What?"

The buzzer sounded, loud and final.

"Match over! Class 1-B wins!" Vlad King’s voice boomed over the intercom.

Hanta looked down. While he had been busy catching Camie, Setsuna and Awase had finished securing the rest of Class 1-A in the "prison" zone. Since the majority of the team was captured, the match was decided.

Hanta let go, sighing as he slumped against the railing. "You were the bait."

"I’m always the bait, Hanta-kun," Camie said, stretching her arms and popping her neck. "I’m the most distracting thing in this forest. I knew you couldn't resist coming after me if I made it personal."

She reached out, patting his cheek. "Don't be salty. You did great. That shadow thing? Totally big-brain energy. I’ll have to work on that."

As they descended to the ground, Bakugo was finally being dissolved out of his glue prison by a very frustrated-looking Aizawa.

"YOU!" Bakugo pointed a finger at Camie. "Next time, no mist! No sparkles! Just a straight fight!"

"Sure thing, Bakugo-kun," Camie chirped, completely unfazed by his rage. "I’ll bring some glitter-free smoke next time. It’ll be very 'minimalist chic' just for you."

Hanta walked over to his team, helping Jiro and Sato clean off the remaining glue. "Sorry, guys. I thought I had her."

"It’s fine, Sero," Jiro said, though she looked annoyed. "That team was a nightmare to track. Tokage and Utsushimi together is just unfair."

"It was manly!" Sato added, shaking his head. "Confusing, but manly!"

As the classes began to head back to the locker rooms, Camie caught up with Hanta, slinging an arm around his shoulders.

"So," she said, her eyes bright. "Since we won, and I was the MVP of distracting you, you definitely owe me those crepes now. And I want the one with the gold leaf on top. It’s very 'victory' aesthetic."

Hanta laughed, his disappointment fading as it always did when Camie was around. "Gold leaf? You’re gonna bankrupted me, Camie."

"A small price to pay for such an iconic performance," she sighed happily. "Besides, think of the photos. We’ll look so good."

Hanta shook his head, looking at the girl who could be anyone in the world but always chose to be exactly who she was. "Yeah. We will."