Chapter 30: Quarterfinals
Ochako bounced on her toes in the tunnel, trying to burn off some of her anxiety about her upcoming fight. Six months ago, she had imagined herself in her first sports festival, pushing herself to the limit in order to make as large a name for herself as quickly as she could in order to help her parents as quickly as possible. With the resurrection of her parent's company and their contracts with the HPSC, however, it seemed like money would not be a problem for her family for the foreseeable future.
As such, she had somewhat dampened her expectations for her first sports festival, knowing just how strong her classmates were and how competitive it could become. She figured that no longer having the motivation of providing for her parents meant that she wouldn't fight as hard. She was therefore somewhat surprised to find exactly how hard she had fought, and the amount of adrenaline coursing through her body in preparation to face Kaminari.
Ochako knew very well that the blonde boy from Class 1-B was likely going to absolutely destroy her. While she could render him useless with just a touch, he could do the same to her. And while Ochako was proud of how far she had come with her hand-to-hand skills in the class training that Midoriya and Yaomomo had put together, it was obvious to her that Kaminari was on a level beyond her. And all of that didn't even take into account his ability to use his lightning to speed himself up beyond what Ochako could follow with her eyes.
All in all, Ochako wasn't expecting to win this fight. It just didn't make any sense logically.
But she didn't give a shit about logic right now! Her competitive spirit was roaring, and no matter what happened in this next fight, she was going to give it her all! Even if it ended up with her getting tased.
She just tried not to think too much about that possibility.
"Let's get ready for the start of the quarterfinals! On one side, we have the gravity girl of Class 1-A, Ochako Uraraka! On the other side is the electric playboy from Class 1-B, Denki Kaminari!"
At Present Mic's introductions, Ochako found herself walking forward into the ring, adrenaline rushing through her veins and her heart pounding in her ears. She just had to remember the plan, simple as it was: Let Kaminari think that she might want to go out on a date with him and use that as an excuse to get close to him. Float him out of the ring as fast as possible and don't let him have any time to tase her.
Her opponent was looking better than he had at the end of his fight with Yaomomo. Unsurprisingly, he had taken advantage of Recovery Girl's services, but Ochako had been somewhat hoping that it would drain some of his energy. That did not appear to be the case, as Kaminari was bouncing on his toes, showing the same sort of manic disposition that he had displayed before his first fight. He was even still blowing kisses to the audience, basking in their cheers.
That just gave Ochako even more motivation to win. Kaminari obviously wasn't taking this seriously. Between the flirtation and his interactions with the audience, it seemed like he was focused entirely on the fringe benefits of being a hero. Ochako wanted to show just what determination to win actually looked like.
For the moment, however, that meant playing it cool. As Midnight officially started the event, Ochako dropped into a ready position but did not immediately start towards Kaminari, intending to give him an opportunity to let his guard down.
"Hey there, beautiful." Which was exactly what he did. "What do you say you and I grab something to eat after the festival?" Thankfully for Ochako's plan, Kaminari wasn't whispering, but he wasn't yelling either. It was fairly straightforward to pretend that she just hadn't heard him.
Ochako forced herself to relax just slightly, to make it look as if she was actually trying to listen to what Kaminari had to say. "What?" She shouted across the arena. "What did you say?" Internally she crossed her fingers that her acting would be sufficient. Kaminari didn't look immediately convinced, so Ochako took a step forward, tilting her head in order to hear better.
While looking to her side as part of her ploy, Ochako happened to meet eyes with Midnight. The woman was shaking her head and rolling her eyes at Ochako's acting, but she wasn't doing anything to stop it either. And if Ochako wasn't mistaken, there was a smile playing at the corners of Midnight's mouth. The pro hero probably knew exactly what Ochako was aiming to do. As long as she didn't interfere, Ochako was fine with it.
Kaminari also started walking towards the center of the ring, raising his voice slightly so it carried more. "I asked if you wanted to get something to eat after this." He made an exaggerated shrugging motion, with a face that was just a hair too innocent. "After all, it's not everyday that I get a chance to ask out someone as pretty as you."
Despite herself, Ochako blushed. It was hard not to when someone was flirting with her so directly. "Maybe if you're paying." She wasn't going to offer to pay for anything, even if she wasn't being serious right now. "What sort of food were you thinking?" She continued walking to the center of the ring, hoping that Kaminari didn't see through her farce. She was almost close enough to Kaminari and float him out of the ring. Just a few more steps.
"I, uh, hadn't thought that far ahead." Kaminari looked somewhat ashamed. "I honestly didn't think I'd get this far." He kept walking forward, though, which is what Ochako had been hoping for. "After all, by this point in the conversation…"
Whatever Kaminari had been about to say died on his tongue as Ochako flung herself towards him, hand outstretched. She could only enjoy Kaminari's eyes widening in surprise for a fraction of a second before he lunged back towards her, his own hand sparking with yellow electricity.
Ochako was able to slightly knock his hand off course and touch her five fingers to his chest first, feeling the familiar twisting of her stomach as she removed his gravity. Just an instant later, however, Kaminari landed his hand on her shoulder.
Electricity flowed through her, blinding in its intensity. Ochako wasn't sure how long it lasted, but the next thing she knew she found herself on the ground, convulsing slightly as the remaining charge worked its way throughout her body.
She was coming to, though, and was still in the ring. The electricity had messed with her brain a little, and she found it hard to think, but as far as Ochako could tell, she was still in this fight. Kaminari, on the other hand, still didn't have any gravity and might already be out of the ring for all Ochako knew.
Pushing herself to her knees, Ochako looked about the ring. To her left, Midnight was laughing openly, and behind her Cementoss had his head resting in his palms looking absolutely miserable.
To her right was Kaminari, slowly pinwheeling in place with a slightly nauseous look on his face. "There's probably no chance you'd let me down from here, I guess." Ochako shook her head slowly. How could she get him out of the ring without letting him touch her again. If that was the level of his shock through layers of clothing, she didn't want to think about letting him touch her directly on her skin. "And I bet that it won't turn off if you get knocked out, right?" Ochako nodded, not trusting herself to speak yet. "Figures. Just my luck."
Kaminari grew silent for a moment while Ochako forced herself to her feet, appearing to be deep in thought, glancing quickly between Ochako and Midnight. Finding it to be somewhat difficult to stay on her feet, Ochako slowly began to edge closer to Kaminari, rotating around him so she was approaching from behind.
"Not a bad idea." Kaminari broke the silence. "But I want you to know two things real quick." Every moment he wasted talking was another moment for Ochako to steady herself on her feet and made it more likely for her to win. "First, it never would have worked out between us. I just flirt because people expect it and it gives me time to get my quirk to my hand. It still takes me a little while to focus it there."
Ochako must have been a little out of it after being zapped, because she wasn't sure what any of this had to do with anything. "Second, and this is really important," Kaminari's entire body began sparking violently with electricity. "If I don't focus it into a specific body part, it goes literally everywhere." The lightning around him jumped in intensity, and again Ochako felt the sparking sting of Kaminari's quirk.
This time unconsciousness took her quickly and didn't let go for quite some time.
---
Kyoka's heart went out for her friend, but wasn't sure that she could spare the mental energy to worry about how Uraraka was doing right now. She had been brought to Recovery Girl's office after being knocked out by Kaminari's electricity, and Kaminari had ultimately been freed from his gravity-free tumble by Midnight tapping Uraraka's finger pads together despite the girl being unconscious.
It had been a close-run affair, and Kyoka was proud of Uraraka for somehow catching Kaminari in conversation and managing to get close enough to float him. She wasn't sure what the two of them had been talking about, as the prep rooms were far enough from the ring that even she couldn't hear the conversations happening in the ring, and the microphones for the television broadcast weren't sensitive enough to pick anything up.
They had announced that Uraraka would be fine though, especially after a trip to the nurse, so Kyoka put her friend out of her mind. Present Mic was running through the introductions for both her and Hagakure, but Jiro paid them no mind, instead focusing on finding her way into the same sort of flow that she had achieved versus Kirishima.
Hagakure, on the other hand, was obviously paying far more attention to this fight than she had to her match against Shinso. Instead of flouncing up the steps and idly chatting with Midnight like she had prior to her first bout, Hagakure was all cold efficiency this time around. Every step was measured and restrained and she paid seemingly no attention to Present Mic's introduction nor Midnight herself.
Of course, it was somewhat hard to tell exactly what Hagakure was thinking without the facial components of body language. Over the background of Present Mic and Eraserhead's commentary as well as the roar of the crowd, Kyoka could just barely hear Hagakure's heartbeat, as calm and collected a rhythm as she had ever heard.
Midnight signaled the beginning to the match, and Kyoka rushed forward. She didn't want to give Hagakure any time to shed her clothing and go fully invisible. Hand-to-hand combat with an invisible opponent seemed like a bad time to Kyoka, especially when said opponent was highly skilled to begin with.
There was a flash of light from Hagakure's side of the ring. No, rather there was a flash of light from Hagakure herself. Kyoka halted her advance, throwing one of her arms up in front of her face to shield her eyes as much as she could. Blinking away the stars that danced in her vision, Kyoka lowered her arm to find that Hagakure had disappeared, leaving behind only her gym outfit.
Damn it. In any other circumstance she would have been impressed at how quickly Hagakure had slipped out of her clothes. Now, though, it was just a distinct problem.
Kyoka tensed and snaked her earjacks out slightly to better hear what was happening around her. She focused on tuning out the crowd to focus on the soft patter of Hagakure's feet and her quick shallow breaths. It was just like what Izuku had had her practicing in some of their group exercise sessions, just with a bit more of an incentive to focus. It took just a moment to push all of the distracting sounds aside to find Hagakure.
There. Hagakure was approaching from the left and behind, and nearly on top of her.
Kyoka ducked down, expecting a punch from the girl, as that was how she had opened all of her spars in training. Her expectations were immediately shattered as Hagakure's sweeping kick crashed into her shoulder, knocking her off balance and sprawling onto the cement floor of the ring.
An instant later Hagakure was on top of Kyoka, frighteningly strong hands pulling her right arm back into a quick arm bar as her legs wrapped around Kyoka's torso. Hagakure really wasn't playing around.
Kyoka hadn't had a ton of experience in escaping from grapples like this, but knew that she had one advantage that essentially no one else had. Her earjacks remained completely uninhibited. And despite Hagakure's invisibility, Kyoka knew exactly where she had to be right now.
Stabbing blind meant that she wasn't exactly sure what she had hit, but a pulse of sound from her earjacks later and Kyoka was free. Hagakure quickly skipped back, putting distance between the two, and Kyoka took the opportunity to quickly get back to her feet.
Hagakure was on her again in a second, though, and despite knowing roughly where she was coming from, Kyoka found herself essentially unable to defend against the invisible girl. No matter where Kyoka tried to defend or block, a punch or a kick would just so happen to come from another direction. What good was super hearing if it couldn't even help her out in a situation like this?
Slowly, inexorably, Hagakure was pushing her back against the edge of the ring. If Kyoka didn't do something soon, she was going to be out of the ring and out of the tournament. And ultimately, whether she won or lost, she was going to be ending this round with far more than her share of bruises.
It was frustrating to be so close to knowing how to defend against an invisible attacker and yet unable to do so. Kyoka and Izuku had half-heartedly debated training her quirk to operate as something akin to sonar, but had ultimately decided against it, thinking that it would be too much effort for too little gain for the sports festival. For the future and for potential nighttime operations, maybe, but not for the sports festival.
And then she went and got matched up against Hagakure. Showed how much they knew.
Since just knowing roughly where Hagakure was wasn't going to be enough, Kyoka needed some way to flip the script on her. And for that, she needed a chance to think, which Hagakure was not giving her.
Operating more on instinct than any concrete plan, Kyoka danced away from Hagakure's latest attack and found herself on one knee with her back to the edge of the arena. Her earjacks extended and penetrated the concrete, immediately amplifying Hagakure's footsteps.
It still didn't tell her what the girl was doing, but it did offer her more confidence in her timing.
As Hagakure charged her, obviously aiming for a ring out, Kyoka forced as much of her heartbeat through her earjacks as she could at exactly the resonant frequencies of the concrete in the ring.
In a spectacle that surprised even her, the entire arena began to shake and the ring in front of her cracked and shattered nearly instantly. Dust rose slowly from the cracks in the concrete ring, but far too slowly to be helpful in outlining Hagakure. Perhaps if Kyoka had been able to draw the fight out longer the dust could have shown an outline of the invisible girl, but at this point in the match, it seemed unlikely to help.
If Kyoka hadn't already been on one knee, it was likely that she would have lost her footing in the tumult caused by shattering the ring. Hagakure sounded like she was having similar problems, stepping quickly in an uneven pattern, but still advancing towards Kyoka at a rapid clip.
Kyoka straightened, adopting a defensive pose, anticipating that her last-ditch attempt had failed but still wanting to go down fighting. Instead, she heard a quick gasp of breath from Hagakure followed by one of the protrusions of concrete directly in front of her shifting awkwardly.
Based on where the shard was and the direction it was falling, Hagakure had likely lost her balance and was falling more or less towards Kyoka at the moment. Kyoka stabbed out with her earjacks blindly that once again found purchase in Hagakure's side. A pulse of sound elicited another small gasp as Hagakure was stunned, footing faltering once again, and Kyoka knew exactly where the invisible girl was.
Not wanting to let up on her advantage, Kyoka rushed forward and pushed Hagakure in the direction of her poor footing, continuing her pulsing sound. She was rewarded with the sound of footsteps towards the edge of the arena, followed by a soft, nearly inaudible, even to her, curse.
"Shit." That was all Hagakure had to say before Present Mic exploded over the stadium speakers.
"And folks, thanks to our thermal imaging technology, we can see that Jiro has forced Hagakure out of the ring! Give it up for the second of our semi-finalists, Kyoka Jiro!" Kyoka swore that she could hear Izuku in particular cheering from the stands.
"Faced with a physically superior combatant with the decided advantage of invisibility, Jiro was quick to put together a gambit to use her quirk to grab the upper hand for just a moment." Eraserhead droned, something almost akin to pride in his voice. "It was a calculated risk and it paid off."
"Damn straight it did!" Kyoka really didn't want to let either of them know that everything that had just happened had been done in something of a panic, that she had gotten by on pure luck.
Resolving to ignore the commentary for the moment, Kyoka found that Hagakure had already vanished further from the stadium, leaving not even her clothes on the other side of the ring. Odd behavior, but Kyoka couldn't promise that she would have been better after a sudden loss.
Kyoka's destination at this point was clear, though. Many of Hagakure's blows were really quite strong, and so Kyoka headed straight for Recovery Girl's office. Perhaps Uraraka would be awake.
If not, it wasn't a problem that Recovery Girl would likely keep her there until her next match. After all, no matter what happened in Izuku's fight against Todoroki, the nurse's office was the most likely place for him to end up as well.
---
The break between the second and third matches of the round was a lengthy one, as Kyoka had done significant damage to the ring. She really had come a long way in terms of finding and exploiting resonant frequencies. The ring had started cracking and breaking almost as soon as she had plugged in.
Since there was going to be a decent break before Kaibara and Awase started their fight, Izuku figured he may as well pay Kyoka and Uraraka a visit down in Recovery Girl's office. After he'd gotten an earful for "disturbing her patient's rest," the elderly nurse had begrudgingly allowed Izuku in to speak to Kyoka. She hadn't strictly needed to come down, after all.
Uraraka, on the other hand, was still unconscious after being zapped by Kaminari. Apparently Recovery Girl had given Kaminari quite an earful about that, as well, even if Uraraka's continued unconsciousness was more due to being drained from the healing than any residual damage from Kaminari's electricity.
Part of Izuku was very glad that he wasn't the only one who got chewed out by the elderly nurse. Scratch that. All of Izuku was very glad that he wasn't the only one who got chewed out by Recovery Girl.
After nearly twenty minutes of conversation and laughter, the ring had finally been repaired and Awase and Kaibara were nearly ready to begin. Izuku began to extricate himself so he could prepare for his round with Todoroki.
"You've got this round in the bag, Green." It was nice that Kyoka had such confidence in him. "I'm sure you have all sorts of plans for the candy cane boy, right?" Izuku nodded and opened his mouth to respond immediately, but was preempted by Kyoka sighing and rolling her eyes. "Let me clarify. I'm sure you have all sorts of good plans for dealing with Todoroki, right?"
Izuku could honestly not say that he did. Despite how standoffish Todoroki could be, Izuku just couldn't get the image of the distraught look on his face after defeating Honenuki in the previous round. After everything that Todoroki had told him (and Kyoka, even if accidentally) about how he would never use anything other than his ice, Izuku was sure that it wasn't helping anything. If anything, it was hurting things twice over: handicapping Todoroki compared to his full potential while making sure he continued to focus on his father.
"I have plans for my fight with Todoroki." Was all that Izuku could ultimately say. Kyoka would know if he was lying either way.
Kyoka's sigh this time was much deeper than before. "Just don't let yourself get too hurt in your fight." As an afterthought, she added. "Or hurt him too badly, I guess."
"Back in my day," Recovery Girl suddenly broke in. "Good hero students didn't need to be reminded not to injure themselves or their classmates, regardless of circumstances." All of a sudden Izuku felt the need to be elsewhere. "Seeing as how I am still around, it is still my day. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, ma'am. I'll be on my way now, ma'am." Izuku bowed and slipped out the door before Recovery Girl could continue making her point. All he heard as he escaped was a mixture of Kyoka's laughter and Recovery Girl's grumbling.
Based on Present Mic's distant announcing, Kaibara and Awase were preparing for their fight, so Izuku hurried on his way to his prep room in order to mentally prepare himself for his plans for Todoroki. There were a lot of ways this fight could go, and the vast majority of them required at least some forethought.
Unfortunately, two halls away from the prep room, Izuku ran into one the people he least wanted to see: Endeavor. "Ah, there you are, boy." That made it sound an awful lot like the number two hero had been stalking through the halls looking for him, an idea that made Izuku exceptionally uncomfortable.
Izuku tried to edge his way around the imposing man in front of him. "Excuse me, I have to get going now so I can get ready." Endeavor flared his ambient fire for just a moment, forcing Izuku to take a step back.
"I saw what you did out there during the second round." Izuku could only blink dumbly at Endeavor, not entirely sure what he was referring to. "To shatter my Shoto's ice with just a single strike is no small feat. In terms of power, your quirk might even be on par with All Might's, whatever that may be."
For a moment, Izuku's heart felt like it stopped. Did Endeavor know about One For All? Izuku couldn't imagine All Might telling Endeavor of all people about his quirk. Add to that the way he spoke of All Might's quirk, and it seemed unlikely, but Izuku would still have to be careful in this conversation. Izuku's eyes darted around the room as he tried to think of a reasonable response to the implied question.
"Interesting." While Izuku was happy that Endeavor seemed willing to carry the conversation all by himself, he had no idea what conclusion he could have possibly just come to. "You should know then that my boy, Shoto, has a duty to surpass All Might. His match against you will be an important first step for him. I expect you to put up a good fight against him, understand?" Endeavor turned and began to walk away. "That's all I had to say. Fight well, Midoriya."
Anger flared, white hot, within Izuku's chest. So much of what Todoroki had said to him earlier had been purely theoretical before. Now, having actually interacted with Endeavor, all Izuku could think was that, if anything, Todoroki had been downplaying things.
"So that's what Todoroki wants then?" Endeavor halted, turning back to Izuku with his eyebrow raised. "I assume that he told you that he wants to be the next number one hero." Part of Izuku, buried deep within him, was yelling at him to shut up, to just let Endeavor walk away. That part was drowned out by his pulse drumming in his ears, by the rage simmering just underneath his skin.
"It is why I created him. He is my masterpiece. It is the reason he exists." Izuku hadn't expected to be able to get more angry, but he did. Just what sort of sociopath was Endeavor?
"So no, then. He didn't tell you any of that."
"Boy…" Endeavor started, but Izuku didn't let him finish.
"Do you even know if he wants to be a hero at all? I would hope for his sake that he does. He'll need some sort of deeper motivation if he wants to graduate U.A, regardless of who his father is." Endeavor started to growl, deep in his throat. "So let's assume that he does, in fact, want to be a hero. But what kind of hero?
"With his ice, he could be one of the greatest rescue heroes of all time. It can stabilize damaged buildings, provide transport out of dangerous locales, extinguish fires, and more. He could easily surpass All Might in the field of rescue heroics." Endeavor's flames were climbing, reaching nearly to the ceiling at this point. "Would that count for you? Or is your concept of heroism as narrow minded and brutally unsubtle as your costume?"
Endeavor's eyes narrowed as the temperature in the hallway soared, and Izuku's survival instinct (which he totally had, no matter what Kyoka might say) chose this moment to take over and remind him just who exactly he was mouthing off to. The sight of Endeavor towering over him, flames running high, made Izuku realize that he might have just signed his own death warrant. Certainly if looks could kill he would already be dead on his feet.
Thankfully, Endeavor was wise enough to realize where he was, and with a visible force of will, restrained his flames. "You do not know what you are speaking about, boy. The real world will be a rude awakening for one such as you." With that, Endeavor took his leave, not hurrying away but not taking his time, either. This time, Izuku had no particular desire to call back out towards him.
Izuku had never considered himself a morbid person, but in the moment, he was sure that he knew how he was going to die: killed by a Todoroki. Either his plans for the coming match would not work out well, and his classmate would kill him, or Izuku would get to live long enough for Endeavor to kill him.
---
After what had felt like hours, but had been probably only about twenty minutes, Sen was in the ring, ready for his fight against Yo. The crowd was slightly thinned, partially due to the unexpected break in the events. In all likelihood, a number of them were using this time to use the restroom, catch up with emails, or something equivalent, all in order to ensure they could watch Midoriya and Todoroki duke it out in the next quarterfinal match.
Honestly, Sen didn't blame them. When watching the sports festival from home, he had always focused far more on the competitors with the flashiest and strongest quirks. Although, even as a child, Sen had known that those two categories did not necessarily overlap.
He had long ago accepted that his quirk was far from the flashiest, even if it let him pull off some incredibly gymnastic stunts. And while Sen thought his quirk was relatively strong, he knew that it had alway been a battle (sometime literal) to convince his peers of that fact.
Yo's quirk, on the other hand, was indisputably powerful, but required a lot more lateral thinking to see exactly how many uses it had in heroics. The two of them had spent plenty of time doing just that, but Sen knew that most people had not.
Therefore, while Sen was disappointed that a non-negligible number of the pro heroes in attendance had opted to focus their attention elsewhere, he was not surprised.
"Thank you all for your patience! We return now for the third match of the quarterfinals! On one side, he's left us welded to our seats with his performance so far! It's Yosetsu Awase from Class 1-A!" Sen restrained a groan at the pun and the slight overselling of Yo's festival so far. "On the other side, having drilled his way into the quarterfinals, it's Sen Kaibara, also from Class 1-A!"
From across the ring, Sen met eyes with Yo, and though neither of them said anything, he knew that they would both be giving this match their absolute all. Although, to be honest, despite their overall record in sparring edging closer to being exactly evenly matched, Sen was nearly positive that he would win this match.
After all, when they sparred, they made use of all of the different arenas that U.A had to offer. All of them were more involved than the empty ring that they were currently standing in. The other locations all had pillars and walls and obstacles to keep things interesting. For Yo, these were essentially the only way he would win a fight. In a completely open field like this Sen had a vast advantage.
It was horrifically unrealistic, but Sen wasn't going to turn down a free advantage.
After making sure that the two of them were ready to start and more than her fair share of flirting, Midnight signaled the match to begin.
Despite himself, Sen found himself not able to take a single step towards Yo.
This wasn't because he was afraid, or unwilling to fight his best friend. No, instead, it was because as soon as the battle began, Yo had welded his fucking shoes to the fucking ground. Fucking asshole.
The smug prick was even smirking about it right now as he stalked towards Sen, looking oh so proud of himself.
Sen wasn't Midoriya, and couldn't simply break the ring with super strength. He wasn't Todoroki or Kaminari to be able to attack from a distance. But he did have one very useful card up his sleeve that Yo had apparently forgotten.
As Yo approached, he began to circle around behind Sen. "Want to give up? It's either now, or after I punch you in the kidney a couple of dozen times."
Sen snorted. Obviously Yo hadn't thought his brilliant plan all the way through. He decided to wait for a more dramatically appropriate moment to reveal that. "Nah, I know how hard you punch. You'll probably wear yourself out before anything bad happens to me."
"Ok, just don't blame me for what's about to happen." Yo had made his way directly behind Sen and started to rush him. Sen figured that now was a good time to show Yo why this wasn't going to work out quite the way he hoped.
Just before Yo got to him, Sen used his quirk to rotate at the waist, quickly turning to face Yo head on, despite his feet pointing the other direction. Shocked by the sudden change, Yo slid to a stop just a few feet away from Sen, abandoning his attack.
"Did you really forget that I could do this? It's literally the easiest fucking thing I can do with my quirk."
"No." Yo spoke through grit teeth. "But I was kinda hoping that you would have."
"I live to disappoint." Sen was still ready to fight at any moment. Yo had often used conversations to distract him while sparring, and he did not want to get caught off guard here in the festival.
"True." That still stung a bit, even if Yo was only agreeing as a joke. "Guess we get to do this the fun way then." Yo took off again towards Sen, a grin on his face.
No matter Sen's bold words earlier, fighting with his feet welded to the ground was not particularly easy. He could still get some leverage using his quirk, but Yo had so much more flexibility and adaptability than he did that it was somewhat unfair.
Which is to say that they were fighting more or less to a draw. Yo would get more strikes in, but whenever Sen managed to punch back, he made it count.
All of that changed when Sen made his first major mistake, allowing his left arm to come into prolonged contact with his torso. Yo's hand snaked out and touched Sen just long enough for him to weld the arm onto his torso in a severely uncomfortable position.
Yo jumped back to avoid Sen's retaliatory punch. "Still don't want to surrender?" His voice was a bit less certain than before, likely because he was developing quite the black eye from one of Sen's more savage blows.
"Nah, I'm still good to kick your ass." Sen looked down at his feet still solidly attached to the cement of the ring. "Well, you know what I fucking mean."
"If you say so, dude." Yo rushed back towards Sen, trying generally to keep on his left side, although Sen made it hard for him.
Another exchange of blows and while Sen had managed to give Yo yet another developing shiner, Yo had managed to weld Sen's right arm to his torso as well. He could still bend his right arm at the elbow, but had almost no reach and wouldn't be able to get any real force out of a punch with it.
Again Yo jumped back and offered a way out. "Last chance Sen. You don't have many options left."
"Fuck you, I'll bite your kneecaps off." Yo rolled his eyes and advanced towards Sen one last time.
Thankfully, Sen's provocation had had its intended effect, as Yo was decidedly not as careful as he should have been. As he approached, Sen swung his head forward and connected squarely with Yo's nose just as Yo punched him square in the solar plexus.
The air was driven out of Sen's lungs, and had he been more able to move, he likely would have sunk to his knees in pain. As it was, though, he was more or less forced to remain on his feet, gasping for air, as Yo fell to the ground unconscious.
"And with a vicious headbutt, Sen Kaibara is our third semi-finalist!" Present Mic's voice echoed through the stadium. "It just goes to show that you should never give up, no matter the odds!"
Sen allowed him to bask in the cheers and praise for a moment before he was forced to confront a very real problem.
With Yo unconscious, how the hell was he going to get out of the ring?
---
There had been yet another delay, this time for Cementoss to free Kaibara from the ring, but finally, Shoto's match against Midoriya was about to begin. It may have only been the quarterfinals, but this was the most important fight that Shoto was going to have all day. If he could defeat Midoriya, whose power approached that of All Might, it didn't matter if he lost in a subsequent round. He would have proved to himself, to Endeavor, to the world that he could surpass All Might even without using Endeavor's fire.
Midoriya stood on the other side of the ring, looking far less anxious than usual, eyes set in a determination that Shoto had only seen on him in the USJ. An attempt at intimidation, perhaps, but ultimately futile.
Shoto could strike at a distance, from anywhere in the ring. Midoriya would never even get a chance to get close. His body tensed, preparing for the start of the match.
At the first indication from Midnight of the fight starting, Shoto struck out with his ice. It was not the same gigantic glacier that he had used in anger against Honenuki, but still more than large enough to encase Midoriya many times over.
However, since his mind was clear, he was not so foolish as to assume that a single attack would defeat Midoriya. No, this was to be a battle of endurance, and Shoto planned on winning it. He also generated a wall of ice behind him to buttress him against the inevitable counterstrike from Midoriya.
His forethought was immediately rewarded, as the glacier he had summoned shattered into a thousand glistening shards from Midoriya's punch in response. The strike was so powerful that the air pressure alone pushed Shoto back into the ice wall, thankfully keeping him from being pushed out of bounds.
Shoto didn't let up. Immediately after the first glacier was destroyed, he sent a second, a third, a fourth glacier directly at Midoriya. Each was destroyed as simply as the first, be it by punch or by kick. One of the more powerful kicks not only destroyed the glacier, but forced Shoto through his own backstop due to the air pressure. Only a hastily formed second wall prevented Shoto from losing on the spot.
Across the arena, Midoriya sparked with green lightning and was breathing heavily, but seemed not particularly worse for the wear from Shoto's opening salvo. Shoto, on the other hand, could feel the creeping numbness of cold on his right side at the tips of his fingers and toes. He took the moment to flex his right hand and wipe a stray bit of ice from his eyebrow. The audience had been hushed into an awed silence at the power on display in the ring.
"Is that all you have, Todoroki?" Midoriya's voice broke the silence, harder than Shoto had heard it before. Anger blossomed in Shoto's chest, ice cold, to match the feeling of his right side. Midoriya knew what Endeavor had done, knew about Shoto's oath, yet here he was, still pushing Shoto to use his fire.
Roaring in anger, he launched a much larger attack at Midoriya. As before, it shattered under the strength of Midoriya's blows, but Shoto was already moving. To the side, to avoid the air pressure from Midroiya's attack, then forward, closing the gap between the two combatants.
The only reason Midoriya could destroy his attacks was he had enough time to see them coming. If Shoto got close, he could trap Midoriya and win. In the center of the ring, where Shoto's previous iceberg had been stood Midoriya, panting as he sparked ever brighter with his lightning, staring at where Shoto had been. All Shoto had to do was get a little closer and trap him.
Midoriya's head whipped to the side and he locked eyes with Shoto. It was all Shoto could do not to stop in his tracks. In the moment, he swore that Midoriya's eyes were glowing, whether from his quirk or some trick of the light he couldn't say. Every self-preservation instinct that he possessed was blaring in his head to avoid the student in front of him, but Shoto forced himself forward. Just a few more steps, and he'd be close enough that Midoriya wouldn't be able to dodge.
Just one breath later, Midoriya had closed the entire gap between the two of them.
When had he gotten so fast?
Shoto didn't have the chance to ponder this question, as Midroiya's fist took him solidly in the stomach, throwing him backwards, leaving him rolling across the arena floor. A small amount of ice stopped Shoto's backwards slide while he launched yet another glacier towards Midoriya.
This one, surprisingly, was not immediately obliterated. Pushing himself to his feet, ignoring the urge to shiver at the cold deep within his right side, Shoto looked to see if he had managed to capture his elusive opponent.
"You're getting slower, Todoroki." Midoriya's voice was just as hard as before, ringing out from above. Looking up, Shoto found his classmate standing atop his most recent glacier, eclipsing the sun as he stared down. "Your ice drops your body temperature too much. If you keep it up I doubt you'll be able to move at all. But you have a way to stop that, don't you?"
Shoto ground his teeth at Midoriya's taunts. "Did heput you up to this?"
"Of course not." Midoriya spat the words before jumping and sliding down the glacier. "It's just that everyone else in the festival is putting it all on the line, while you are literally half-assing it. And now, it's not working. You haven't even touched me yet." Midoriya's bravado was slightly undone by the clear wobble in his legs as he touched the ground.
"You're wasting your time. I've told you that I will not use his fire. I've made my decision!" Midoriya was approaching slowly, and Shoto only had the capacity for a few more large-scale attacks. Better to conserve them for now.
"You have. I just think that's a stupid decision." Out of pure anger, Shoto launched a spike of ice at Midoriya, directly at his chest. Green lightning flashed, however, and Midoriya easily dodged to the left, snapping his hand out to shatter the spike. "Why do you even want to be a hero, Todoroki? It'd be much easier to keep your pact if you were in literally any other field."
"I've told you!" Shoto ground out. "I will prove to Endeavor that I can be the number one hero withouthis quirk."
Midoriya snapped forward, driving a knee into Shoto's stomach before he could summon ice to once again separate them. "I don't appreciate being lied to, Todoroki." That stoked Shoto's rage even higher. He flung a small glacier and Midoriya, with the front a collection of sharpened spikes and skewers, but again his opponent shattered it with a gesture.
"No one who's motivation was based on spite would do the things you did at the USJ." Midoriya continued. "No, you worked yourself to the brink of death itself to protect Uraraka and Honenuki, to protect all of us. Someone powered by spite and spite alone would not do that." Something shifted deep inside Shoto. Maybe it was the adrenaline flowing through his body, or maybe the cold numbing his mind, but he realized that Midoriya was making some amount of sense.
"You're clearly willing to die for whatever your reason for being here is." Midoriya took a step forward, and Shoto took a step back. Something was wrong. He couldn't turn away from Midoriya, equal parts terrified and entranced by what he was going to say next. "But what if your death won't save anybody? What good is your promise to yourself if it leads to civilians dying? What is more important to you? That you keep your oath? Or that you protect those who can't protect themselves? There will come a time when you can't do both."
Shoto's mind was racing, but there wasn't a coherent thought in his head, just emotions. Confusion. Anger. Everything felt fuzzy and difficult to focus on. Why did he want to be a hero? How far would he go to save someone. "But… Endeavor's quirk is…"
Midoriya cut him off. "It's your quirk, Todoroki. You have your quirk. Not your father's and not your mother's! It's yours!"
Memories flooded back into Shoto, and he felt a distantly familiar heat on his left side. He clung to it for dear life as tears streamed down his face.
At the same time, anger still swirled through him, at Midoriya's presumption in both pushing him to use his fire and in thinking he knew anything about why Shoto wanted to be a hero. The flames on his left arms flickered and danced, mirroring his internal struggle.
---
Izuku hopped back a few steps as Todoroki's left side came ablaze. He was glad that Todoroki had been slowing down when he had, as he had used essentially all of his Fa Jin charge, shattering the various glaciers that had been sent his way. If Todoroki had been able to send even just one more, he wasn't sure what he would have done. Perhaps used more of One For All despite the risks to his own body? He was already panting and sore just from the constant usage of Fa Jin.
Regardless, while he had planned to try to convince Todoroki to use his fire and the conversation with Endeavor had left him more convinced than ever, the look on Todoroki's face as he used his fire was not quite what Izuku had expected. Todoroki was rarely one to wear his emotions on his sleeve, but this was one of the few occasions where he was actually emoting. Izuku just couldn't tell whether the emotion he was displaying was rage or sorrow. The tears flowing down Todoroki's cheeks honestly could have been from either.
"Everybody seems to want me to use my fire." Todoroki's voice was nearly inaudible over the roar of the flames, but Izuku focused in. He didn't want to miss a word. "So fine. I'll use it. Just remember, you asked for this. You all asked for this."
Not quite the embrace of the fire half of his quirk that Izuku had hoped for, but it was a starting point.
Immediately, the flames on Todoroki's left side flared higher, engulfing his body and dancing into the sky. Their color, which had started at a dull red, began to shift, through orange to yellow. Izuku could already feel the heat from the flames from where he stood. Activating One for All at just one percent across his body was enough to increase his durability to the point where the heat did not bother him, thankfully.
"SHOTO!" Endeavor's cry echoed through the stadium, and Izuku squeezed his eyes shut in frustration. That man was the last thing that Todoroki needed right now. He opened his eyes and searched the crowd for Endeavor, finding him standing as close to the arena as possible, hands on the wall separating the seats from the center of the stadium.
Even as Izuku found Endeavor, though, the hero's face was creasing in obvious worry. Izuku glanced back towards Todoroki and found that the flames coming from his left side had changed color yet again, having become a pale enough yellow that it was nearly white. The ice and frost that had coated Todoroki's right side had already melted and were beginning to evaporate, causing steam to rise around the boy.
To keep himself cool, Todoroki began generating ice just for the drop in temperature, but it melted and evaporated as soon as it left his body, leading to an increase in the steam surrounding Todoroki. Even his tears were steaming away as soon as they ran down his cheeks.
Izuku stole one more glance at Endeavor, finding the man paralyzed in shock, jaw hanging open as his face paled, before turning back to Todoroki and taking another few steps backwards. His flames had changed from pale yellow to a pale blue, stronger towards the center, and the heat he was emanating was beginning to overpower the additional durability from One For All. It was becoming difficult to see Todoroki due to the steam coming off of his right side, but Izuku was sure that he saw the cement sagging and melting underneath him.
It was at that moment that Izuku became aware of the pandemonium breaking out all around him. Midnight had torn her costume to release some of her quirk and attempt to knock Todoroki out, but the superheated air currents around him had effectively dispersed the gas. She had since retreated a safe distance from the heat that Todoroki was putting off. Cementoss was having difficulty controlling the cement that got too close to the boy, unused to working with liquified cement.
Izuku looked up towards the announcing booth and was surprised to find it unclear and indistinct, obscured by Todoroki's steam in much the same way the boy himself was. Presumably Aizawa had attempted to erase Todoroki's quirk, but was unable to establish line of sight through the steam. Even from Izuku's point of view, it was now impossible to see Todoroki, completely obscured as he was by the steam. His flames were still visible, though, thoroughly blue at this point, roaring ever higher and hotter as time went on.
Despite getting exactly what he asked for, Izuku felt sick to his stomach. All he had wanted was to show Todoroki that his slavish devotion to spiting his father wasn't all there was to being a hero, that he didn't have to reject part of who he was simply because he was related to his father.
Instead he got a hellish firestorm that was almost certainly burning his opponent alive.
Suddenly, the inferno that had been raging in the center of the ring snuffed itself out, leaving behind only rapidly cooling steam. Pulling upon One For All at ten percent, as much for speed as for protection from the still superheated atmosphere around Todoroki, Izuku sped forward, heedless of Midnight and Cementoss's calls for him to stay put.
At the center of the cloud of steam, Izuku found Todoroki standing alone, staring at his left hand, a small red flame dancing in his palm. All around him stood melted and disfigured pillars of cement, evidence of Cementoss's efforts to stop the boy. At the sound of Izuku's approach, Todoroki looked up, and Izuku could see the damage he had done to himself.
The left side of his uniform was essentially gone, revealing broad patches of severely burnt skin. Reds and yellows decorated his body in a patchwork, with some small regions of brown and even black where the temperature had spiked highest. His face and head had escaped the worst of the burns, although there were red tracks down his face where his tears had boiled off of his skin.
Throughout all of it, though, Todoroki now wore a small smile, continuing to hold the small flame in his hand. Renewed tears were falling from his eyes, although Izuku couldn't help but flinch as they fell and sizzled on the still hot cement floor.
"I had forgotten how this feels." Todoroki's voice was soft, harsh, and gravelly, but easy to hear over the silence that had befallen the stadium. "I can't use this against you, or anyone. Not now. But hopefully I'll be able to do what I must in the future." Todoroki closed his fist around the flame in his hand, extinguishing it. "Thank you, Midoriya." Even as the words left Todoroki's mouth, his eyes shut and he began to pitch forward.
In a flash, Izuku was at his side and caught the boy as he fell. Todoroki's skin was still burning hot, enough for Izuku to feel even through One For All, but he ignored the pain. Quickly adjusting to carry Todoroki over his shoulder, Izuku ran out of the rapidly dispersing steam and deposited his classmate on the ground, just outside of the ring.
"Call the match!" Izuku quickly found Midnight standing speechless at what had just happened, as silent as the rest of the stadium. "CALL THE MATCH!" Izuku screamed, and for just a moment wished that he had Present Mic's quirk. It was the only way he could imagine getting the volume that he wanted.
Thankfully, Midnight quickly composed herself, raising her whip and announcing, "The winner via ring-out is Izuku Midoriya."
As soon as she had made it official, Izuku picked up Todoroki once again and raced through the halls towards Recovery Girl's office. Hopefully it would be fast enough for her to heal most of the damage that Izuku had goaded Todoroki into doing to himself.
If not, Izuku wasn't sure how long it would take him to forgive himself.
---
"Well, that was certainly an exciting way to end the quarterfinals." Gran Torino was the first to break the silence in the room. Despite his typical irreverent tone, he had appeared just as shocked as anyone else at what had transpired, let alone that they had chosen to broadcast the disaster of a fight in its entirety.
For not the first time today, Mirai questioned why he had agreed to observe Izuku Midoriya's progress with the elderly hero. Mirai still wasn't completely convinced that One For All needed to be passed on to a quirkless inheritor, as his own research had encountered a number of road blocks. Apparently the number one hero could request information far more easily than most. Regardless, what he had found indicated that Toshinori may have had a point.
Irrespective of his research, however, Mirai did have to admit that he had been impressed with Midoriya's performance so far. Mildly, of course, but impressed nonetheless.
That was, at least, until Midoriya's match against Endeavor's son.
"I would use a number of very different, much uglier words for that display, Gran." The two of them were alone in Mirai's office, and so could speak freely without worry of the secret of One For All getting out. "Self-aggrandizing, thrill-seeking, hubristic, and honestly, idiotic. Midoriya had an obvious advantage and could have ended the fight within the first minute. Instead he took his time gloating and pushing Todoroki until he decided to use his fire. Midoriya had no way of knowing what would happen in that case, and is simply lucky that Todoroki took himself out of the fight by drawing too deep."
Gran sighed, looking into the middle distance. "So that's what you saw in that fight, hm?"
Yes, Mirai was certainly regretting watching the festival with Gran Torino. He sighed, and pinched his nose between his eyes. "Don't be so vague, old man. Say what you mean plainly or don't say it at all!"
"I'm not old, you're just a young whippersnapper! You're barely even old enough to shave, I bet."
Mirai leveled a flat gaze at Gran Torino. "Are you done?"
"For now." That was probably the best that Mirai would be able to get out of the old man. A different tact might bear fruit, though.
"Let me be clear then, to show you how it's done. What I saw in that fight was someone unsatisfied with an easy win, willing to help his opponent for a more interesting fight. I saw someone who would be a liability in the field and more than likely get themselves and civilians killed by their recklessness. The Izuku Midoriya that I saw in that fight has no business as All Might's successor and is wasting the power and potential of One For All. Understand?"
Gran Torino sat silent for some time as the television announcers talked up the semi-finals, and Mirai was more than happy to return to the copious notes that he had taken on Midoriya throughout the day. There were many things that he needed to add and reinterpret through the lens of that last fight.
The silence stretched for so long that Mirai had assumed Gran Torino had abandoned the topic. Instead, though, the elderly man began to speak in a somber tone. "There was a hero that I knew once, when I was younger. Her hero name was Flux. She never made too big of a splash and this was a long time ago, so don't feel bad if you haven't heard of her." Mirai hadn't, which surprised him. He considered himself relatively well informed about heroes, even those of previous generations.
"She was in Toshinori's class at U.A, the one that I was homeroom teacher for. She had the potential to be one of the greats. Her quirk involved control over the electromagnetic force." That was awfully broad, and Mirai could see dozens of applications in hero work. "We never found out the exact extent of what it could do. For a couple of reasons, but primarily because she refused to use her quirk to do anything magnetic. She tried to stick to electricity only."
"That was foolish." Mirai interjected at a small pause in Gran's story. "Everyone knows that electricity and magnetism are inextricably linked."
"You're right, and she knew that. But it didn't change her behavior. She'd redirect electric currents, use the electricity as a ranged attack, that sort of thing. Overall she was similar, but weaker, than that Kaminari boy. But she never did anything that would affect magnetism in the time that I saw her."
"Is there a point to this story?" Gran sneered at Mirai for the question, but obviously changed what he had been about to say.
"Everytime she was in a situation where her magnetism would help she always hesitated, like she had to remind herself every time why she wasn't using it. I lost track of her once I came to the states with Toshinori. I had hoped that U.A would help her through her complex."
"And?" Mirai wasn't too familiar with U.A's policies pre-Nezu, but was fairly certain that the U.A of today wouldn't let a student simply ignore half of their quirk.
"I looked her up a few years after we got back to Japan. Flux died in the line of duty, crushed by metallic debris, along with two civilians that she was trying to save. If she had used her magnetism at all, it would have been child's play to keep everyone safe." Gran Torino fell silent for a moment, and Mirai joined him in a silent tribute to a fallen hero.
"I saw the same look in Todoroki's eyes that I saw in Flux's all those years ago." The elderly man met Mirai's eyes evenly, no sign of the feigned dementia that often clouded them. "Just now, I didn't see Midoriya looking for a fight. I saw him looking to help a classmate get over whatever complex he had about his fire. I saw him acting like a hero when he had every incentive not to."
Mirai opened his mouth to argue, but Gran Torino didn't let him. "I don't need to see any more, Mirai. I agree with All Might; Midoriya is the right choice and he always has been. He needs training, but I've been itching to kick the crap out of another zygote for some time. You can keep watching if you want, but I have some internship paperwork to fill out."
Stunned by the sudden proclamation, Mirai could only sit and watch as Gran Torino jumped out of his chair and let himself out of the office. Every so often the elderly hero surprised Mirai with his insight into the emotions of others. It was a field that Mirai knew all too well that he was less than proficient in.
In the gap between rounds, he decided to go back over his notes and recordings from earlier in the tournament, this time focusing on Todoroki where he could. If Endeavor's son had truly been avoiding the use of his fire, there might be signs of that earlier in the festival. And if Midoriya had caught onto that and gone into this match with the explicit aim of helping Todoroki to use his quirk, then perhaps he would be a better inheritor of One For All than Mirai had initially thought.