So, we've got a shorter chapter this week and I apologize for that. Between holiday stuff and other stuff, I haven't had as much time to work on this chapter as I anticipated. Next chapter will be longer, I promise!

Review time:

Twilight-Lloyd, Slayer76, Mrguy22594, Darashiko, Eramis8, Jack Inqu, uchihaNaruto247, Tism-schism, Jumper Prime: People Looking Forward to Izuku vs Neito

Slayer76, Engineer of Epicness, the_narr_master, Reverseflash, Eramis8, Jack Inqu, ILiekFishes, The 0bservanc3: People who figured out how Denki broke out of Brainwashing.

Cieszesi Niezmiernie: Wow, thank you! It's great to hear that this fic ranks up there with the manga for you! Also glad you enjoyed the fight! What music did you add to it? I'm always curious about stuff like that.

Engineer of Epicness: Does Bakugo have a thing for blondes? I'm not going to spoil any shipping stuff with him, but I'm legitimately curious.

the_narr_master: Kirishima will for sure have the chance to watch a recording of his and everyone else's matches, as will all the other students. You can bet that at least a couple will get some good learning experiences from the Sports Festival!

Tism-schism: I do agree that the timing is a bit weird, though I promise it's coincidental. I can certainly confirm that Izuku's Quirk will be further developed, though I obviously can't say for certain if it will match canon or not. It's great to hear that you put this story on-par with the manga! It most certainly makes me proud.

D3lph0xL0v3r: This is a good question and I will answer it in the post-chapter notes to avoid spoilers.

The 0bservanc3: If you think about it, while 12 minutes is certainly a long time to be in a fight, it's not unheard of for matches to last that long. Hell, boxing matches routinely last even longer than that, since 3 minutes is one round. Granted, they get one-minute breaks in-between rounds, but still. You are correct that the fights will look different to the civilians and the Pros. They even touch on this a bit in canon with the Katsuki vs Ochako fight. Huh. I never realized it, but you're absolutely right about Ms. Joke being there and it makes total sense that she would be.

It's suggested in canon that Crimson Riot had some sort of hardening-type Quirk, so it's likely that Eijiro drew inspiration from him, just like he always does. As for Mina, I'm sure she can increase her resistance to her acid as well as find ways to mess with the potency of it among other things. What happened is that Tetsutetsu swung wide and that caused his punch to take too long to land. Eijiro took advantage of this and used Headbutt. You are correct that the clanging was alternating hits. They do make more or less identical sounds.

Yep! I was totally serious when I said that Kyoka didn't hear a single word of Denki actually being heartfelt and cool. I wouldn't say that Shinso's a noodle, he's just not totally jacked like some of the other students. You are correct that he has room to improve, just like all the other students.

Corruption of Saints: Midas, huh? It's appropriate for sure, in more ways than you realize. I think I might use this.

yasideen1: There's a good chance that Tooru will have a costume overhaul when that part of the story comes around, yes.

avidreaded, shanekg, Sentinel07, IWriteWhenTheHiatusStrikes, mlkoolc86, Devildogg20: Generic thank-you.

Now, let's get on with the fight a lot of you have been waiting for!

Chapter Thirty-Five: The Only "One"

Izuku Midoriya was doing his best to think quickly as he walked down the concrete hallway that opened onto the field where he would soon be doing battle with Neito Monoma of Class 1-B. Unbeknownst to him, his opponent was doing the same thing, only in reverse.

Honestly, Izuku knew it should be a fairly straightforward fight, given that he now knew what his opponent's Quirk was. That was the big issue concerning Monoma and Shinso, after all: that they didn't know which one of them had been responsible for the sonic attack that had injured Kaminari and Jiro. Given Shinso's obvious guilt over the whole thing, it had seemed plausible that he was the one with the sonic-type Quirk.

However, this had quickly been proven incorrect when he had demonstrated his Quirk to be freaking mind control during his match with Kaminari. Izuku couldn't help but feel that he had dodged a major bullet with that one; he shuddered to imagine what would have happened if he had been the one to be subjected to a Quirk like that. It wasn't as though he had some sort of Quirk-related failsafe that he could activate subconsciously or anything like that.

That would just be silly.

So, given the new evidence that had been presented to him, Izuku could only conclude that Monoma was the one with the sonic Quirk, which meant that Shinso had felt bad about something that had in no way whatsoever been his fault, which meant that he was just a good guy in general. Izuku hoped that he would get into the Hero Course like he wanted; they could always use more people like that, especially when they had such a powerful Quirk.

Maybe he could talk to Aizawa about that? He was Class Vice-President after all. That had to count for something, right?

Focus.

Right. He was getting distracted. He needed to come up with a plan of action for combating Monoma. Really, there wasn't much to be done other than cover his ears and take him out when he was recovering from using his Quirk. He would probably have one hell of a headache when it was all said and done, but there was nothing else for it. It was about as good of a plan as he was going to get.

…Why did he feel like he was missing something critical, then?

Wouldn't be the first time.

…Okay, he had kind of asked for that one.

T – o – r – c – h – b – e – a – r – e – r

Neito Monoma was reviewing the relatively small amount of information that he had on his opponent. Contrary to what he had said to 1-A's Class President, he understood very well that every extra bit of planning could mean the difference between victory and defeat. Even so, it wasn't as though he was about to let a member of the competition know that they had thrown him for a loop.

Now…Midoriya. In spite of the fact that he had been careful to observe him during the first two contests whenever he had the opportunity, Neito was forced to admit that he knew disturbingly little about the other boy's Quirk. Oh, he knew that it allowed him to breathe fire, but he had no idea about the exact mechanics behind it or if he could do anything else with it. Indeed, now that Neito was taking a moment to review his observations, Midoriya had not made any use of his flames whatsoever in the Sports Festival up until that very moment. In spite of this, he had made sure that he and his teammates had placed first in both of the first two events.

The fact that he could accomplish this while handicapping himself in such a way was…disturbing. Sure, Neito hadn't made much use of his Quirk in the first event either, but he had also placed a full thirty-four places below Midoriya. Granted, this was by design to give himself and his classmates more of an opportunity to observe Class 1-A as a whole, but even if he had gone all-out, Neito doubted that he would have placed too much higher than twentieth or so.

The most likely explanation, of course, was that the other boy was purposefully keeping the true nature of his Quirk a secret for as long as possible in order to give himself an edge over the competition. Neito had exercised similar tactics himself, after all. While there was certainly a chance that the other boy had figured out that his Quirk wasn't Comic, there was a very, very small chance that he had managed to figure out what exactly it was.

Of course, it would quickly become obvious to not only Midoriya, but everyone else in the stands as well just what his Quirk actually was. Once he turned the other boy's own power against him, even the biggest of idiots would be able to figure out the true nature of Copy.

Neito was many things, but he was no fool. He had held no illusions about the fact that he would only be able to keep Copy a secret while he could still rely on the support of his teammates to disguise his abilities. In a one-on-one fight, unless he was facing off against someone who was truly weak or incompetent, he would need to use his Quirk in order to have a fighting chance.

As much as it chafed, Neito was forced to admit that anyone who could accomplish what Midoriya had without making use of their true abilities could be considered neither weak nor incompetent. In fact, if he was being realistic, the opposite was more likely to be true.

My only chance will be to use Copy before he can react. I guess I'll have to bank on him not knowing what my Quirk is and go from there. Otherwise, who knows what could happen?

T – o – r – c – h – b – e – a – r – e – r

Denki Kaminari was currently the center of attention of Class 1-A while they waited for the next match to start. Everyone wanted to know just how he had managed to break through and subsequently ignore Shinso's Brainwashing, not the least of which was the man himself, who had taken Denki up on his offer of sitting with them.

"I mean," the sleepy-eyed boy explained, "I know that it's not foolproof: it can be broken with just a minor physical shock, like someone bumping into you for example, but nothing like that happened to you back there!"

"Yeah, you can't expect us to believe that you just bullshitted your way out of that with manly spirit or something like Kirishima did for his match." Bakugo concurred.

"Hey! Don't diss manly spirit!" Kirishima objected before grinning sheepishly at Denki, "Although, yeah, I don't think I'd be able to get out of mind control with it, so come on, Prez! Spill!"

"Well, when I use my Quirk, I send electrical currents all throughout my body." Denki explained, enjoying the feeling of being the smart one in the proverbial room for a change, "Overusing my Quirk, as I'm sure you've all noticed by now, makes me a bit…"

"Derpy?" Hagakure supplied.

"Slow?" Iida offered.

"Mentally hilarious?" Ashido guessed.

"Sure, let's go with those." Denki said, eyebrow twitching slightly, "Anyway, that's the result of too much current passing through my brain in a short period of time. You might say I literally fry my brain, though it always gets better after a while. Well, just because I don't fry my brain when I use smaller amounts doesn't mean the current isn't still passing through me, get it? All I had to do was discharge a small amount of electricity to disrupt whatever Brainwashing was doing to, well, my brain."

"Okay, that makes sense for how you stopped me from reapplying it," Shinso agreed, "but it still doesn't explain how you got out of it in the first place! When Brainwashing is active, my target stays completely still unless I tell them to do something and even then, they only act as I order them to until it wears off."

"Well…" Denki scratched his cheek, trying to work out how to explain it, "Hey, Yaomomo, can you help me out here? You know how it works, right?"

"Oh! Yes." his buxom classmate was momentarily taken aback at being called on so abruptly, but she recovered quickly and began to explain, "You see, during the USJ incident, Kyoka-chan and I accidentally discovered that Kaminari-san responds to his first name when he has overused his Quirk. Most likely, this is the result of some sort of childhood conditioning on the part of his parents to rein him in when he would otherwise be uncontrollable."

"Hey, Denki," Sato tried experimentally, "get me a sandwich."

"Nice try, jackass. It only works when I'm brain-fried."

"Okay. Fry your brain, then get me a sandwich."

"Anyway," Denki flipped Sato off and then got the conversation back on track, "it was really all thanks to Jiro here that I was able to shake it off. If she hadn't thought to try what she did, then I'd have lost. No question." knowing that she couldn't hear him, Denki gently shook Jiro's shoulder as he spoke.

"You're welcome, moron." she had apparently gotten the message, though he kind of wished she would look at him since, judging by the way Ashido and (presumably) Hagakure were giggling, she was making a funny face.

Denki was considering pushing the issue, but right then Present Mic decided that the audience had waited long enough for the next match.

"Alright, Listeners! Let's welcome our next pair of combatants to the ring! He's the one I'm sure a lot of you have been keeping an eye on since the first event! He's taken first place not once, but twice so far! Can he continue his winning streak, or will it all end here?! It's the Vice-President of Class 1-A: Izuku Midoriya!"

The applause for Midoriya was, as expected, very enthusiastic. The audience was clearly eager to see what he had up his sleeve for the third event and Denki couldn't blame them; he felt the same way.

"Wow, listen to that applause! Now, let's hear that energy one more time for his opponent! He's the mastermind of Class 1-B: Neito Monoma!"

The blond boy walked onto the field to his own burst of applause from the audience, which was clearly energized by the idea of a clash between the two tacticians.

"Hey, Bakugo?" Denki got the bomber's attention, "What do you think?"

"I think I'm about to call you a dumbass."

"Heh. You're that confident in Midoriya, huh?"

"No, dumbass. We don't know for sure what that kid's Quirk is and that means that unless Deku ends this quickly, it could go either way."

"Huh? Wait, why are you calling me a dumbass if my question was legitimate?!"

Bakugo appeared genuinely confused by this.

"Eh? I called you a dumbass because you're a dumbass, dumbass. Whoever Deku's fighting, it won't change that. Goddamn."

Denki groaned and slumped in his seat as a few of his classmates laughed at his predicament.

There was just no winning sometimes.

T – o – r – c – h – b – e – a – r – e – r

Izuku stood across from Monoma, who was making a show of sizing him up, a confident smirk on his face.

He's just trying to psych you out.

I know that, but it doesn't mean I don't still have reason to be worried.

"Midoriya, are you ready?" Midnight snapped him out of his reverie, one hand on her hip.

"Ah, yes, Sensei."

"Monoma, are you ready?"

"I suppose I am."

"Very well. Fifth Match: Izuku Midoriya versus Neito Monoma! Take your stances…and begin!"

Just before Midnight had said "begin," Izuku had noticed Monoma taking a long, deep breath. Clearly, he had intended to launch a sonic attack as soon as the match began. Izuku clapped his hands over his ears as the other boy charged at him, letting out a yell.

"GOTCHA!" there was no resounding wave of sound. There was, however, a misjudged swipe of Monoma's hand that had just barely managed to graze Izuku's hair before he hopped backwards, out of range of Izuku's retaliatory strike.

He missed! He misjudged his distance with that attack!

Are you sure about that? He looks pretty satisfied to me.

Indeed, Monoma was standing a few feet away from Izuku, flexing his fingers experimentally. Then, without warning, he leapt forwards far faster than should have been possible and sunk his fist into Izuku's gut, sending the bewildered boy flying several feet backwards before catching himself and skidding to a halt.

"Guh!" Izuku coughed as he recovered from the unexpected blow, only narrowing avoiding having the wind knocked out of him when he tensed his abdominal muscles on reflex.

"Geez, packs a bit of recoil, doesn't it?" Monoma groused as he made circular motions with his arm, loosening up the muscles, "That explains why you're as fit as you are, I guess. Here I thought I was no slouch, but I guess I need to step up my game a bit."

Izuku was dumbstruck. There was only one possible explanation for what Monoma had just done, but he had never stopped to consider it.

He had copied One For All. Izuku feared for a brief moment that he might have outright stolen it, but he could still feel the power at his fingertips, waiting for him to call upon it.

Well, this might not be so bad. If he copied One For All, that means he didn't get Flame Magnet! He can't use more than five percent of One For All's power without anything to fuel it.

"Alright," Monoma looked mildly puzzled as he rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck experimentally, "what does…this do?"

He visibly tensed for a moment and it was then that Izuku noticed the two nearest flame pillars waver as though blown by a non-existent breeze.

Oh shit. He copied both?!

Ask him. He seems like the type who likes to run his mouth. It's worth a shot.

"What did you do?!" Izuku did his best to appear confused and scared.

"Don't play dumb, Midoriya. I obviously copied your Quirk." Monoma wasn't falling for it. Time to change tactics.

"That doesn't explain how you know how to use it! It took me years to learn how to control it properly!"

"Oh. That." Monoma was surprisingly willing to talk, though maybe he was using their conversation to buy time while he learned the ins and outs of One For All and Flame Magnet? Izuku needed information.

"Understand this, Midoriya:" Monoma said as he began circling Izuku, "I'm not telling you this for your benefit. I'm telling you this so that all the Pro Heroes in the audience can understand exactly what's happening when I beat you with your own Quirk."

Monoma took a moment to compose his response, though Izuku could tell from the glint in his eye that part of him was just enjoying all of the attention.

"My Quirk is, appropriately enough, named 'Copy.'" he began, "By making physical contact with someone, I can copy their Quirk for a limited period of time as long as it's not a Mutant-type. Once I've done this, I gain an instinctive understanding of how to activate said individual's Quirk. This can be a bit tricky when said Quirk has multiple possible functions, like yours. This goes double for Quirks that I don't know very much about. Again, like yours."

"Do you understand what this means, Midoriya?" Monoma had nearly made a full circuit around Izuku by this point, "It means that I can grasp the Quirk that you spent so many years perfecting and turn it on you in a matter of moments! There is no Quirk that is too powerful for me to fight against when I can make that very power my own with a mere touch! Also, I really must thank you for providing me the time to figure out that the second function of your Quirk is a sustained-activation ability instead of a single-action type!"

Izuku only had a fraction of a second to figure out what Monoma was talking about before the four pillars of fire that surrounded the ring shot towards Monoma.

"Don't do it!"

But it was too late. Monoma had turned Flame Magnet on at full power, not having the lifetime of experience that Izuku did with the finer applications of the Quirk.

"AAAHHHHHH!"

The result was that he was bathed in a torrent of flames before the pain broke his focus and caused Flame Magnet to deactivate. Izuku immediately pulled the residual flames towards him, devouring what he could before allowing the rest to dissipate harmlessly.

Standing in the center of the ring was a thoroughly singed Neito Monoma. His clothing seemed to have protected him from some of the flames, but his exposed arms and face were undoubtedly burnt. It was a good thing that his contact with the flames had been brief, otherwise the results would have been much worse.

"Monoma-san, are you alright?!" Izuku ran over to his opponent and was rewarded with a Smash to the face which sent him crashing to the floor.

"What…what kind of messed-up Quirk is this?!" Monoma shouted as his burnt lips cracked and split, "How…how could you use such a suicidal power?!"

Izuku stood up and shook his head to clear it. It was still a novel experience to get hit by his own power and he suddenly had a newfound level of respect for Kacchan tanking all of those hits during their Battle Trial match.

"I'm surprised that someone as intelligent as you hasn't figured it out, Monoma-san." he responded coldly, "Weren't you saying just a moment ago that my lifetime of experience wouldn't help me? Maybe with some Quirks that might be true, but let me tell you something: You drew the short straw today. The fact that you only know how to activate the Quirks that you copy instead of how to use them means that you roll the dice every time you go up against an opponent that you don't know anything about. It was only a matter of time until you got snake eyes."

Izuku approached Monoma, stopping when he was a few feet away to avoid any more surprise attacks.

"Face it, Monoma-san: no Quirk is universally powerful against every conceivable opponent and yours is no exception. Now surrender before you get hurt more than you already are."

"Don't insult me." Monoma spat, "What sort of Hero would give up just because he got a little cooked? I still have your strength and that seems like the only aspect of your Quirk with any combat potential since you'll just burn yourself if you do anything else!"

"You're wrong."

Izuku called the fire from the two nearest pillars to him, focusing it towards his left hand, guiding it around, condensing it, passing it to his right hand…

"Reflect Fire."

…and letting it go.

The resulting explosion sent Monoma flying, causing him to impact the floor and skid to a stop, sporting a fresh coat of burns on his now-bare torso.

"Sensei!" Izuku raised his voice to make sure Midnight heard him, "I'll keep fighting him if I have to, but I really think you should call the match. Unless I do something really stupid, there's no way he can win as things are now."

"Go…to hell…" Monoma, despite clearly being in a large amount of pain, forced himself to sit up, "If you want to win this match, you'll have to knock me out or get me out of this ring. If you expect me to just roll over and make things easy for you, then you've got another thing coming!"

"Do you expect me to kick you while you're down and unable to fight anymore?!" Izuku shouted in exasperation, "I can't do that!"

"Well, you could always surrender." Monoma suggested, managing the same mocking smirk as earlier in spite of his blistered and bleeding face.

As far as Izuku was concerned, that tore it. He began walking purposefully towards where Monoma sat on the ground, fully intending to drag him out of the ring by his neck when Midnight's voice rang out, interrupting him.

"That's enough! Monoma is judged to be unable to continue due to injury! The winner is Izuku Midoriya! Now can we please get a stretcher out here?!"

As a pair of U.A. robots rushed onto the field to comply with Midnight's request, Izuku exited the field, massaging his jaw and thinking.

"Monoma-san!" he called out as the other boy was being loaded onto his stretcher, "How many Quirks did you have copied during our match?"

"What, trying to make your victory seem that much better?" Monoma scoffed, "Well, tough! While it's true that I can copy multiple Quirks at once, I only had your Quirk during our match! That was the only one!"

Izuku stopped dead in his tracks.

What did he mean…the only "one?"

Seems pretty self-explanatory to me.

But…I have two Quirks! Flame Magnet and One For All!

He certainly didn't seem to think so.

But…how can that be?! He was using both of them!

Other Izuku did not respond, though Izuku thought that he heard a long-suffering sigh from within his mind.

Just what could he be missing?

Well, whatever it was, it could wait until after he had seen Recovery Girl. It wasn't often that one was hit in the face with their own power and Izuku for one could safely say that he hoped it never happened again.

I know that the fight wasn't much of a fight and that some of you were really looking forward to seeing another Izuku fight scene. Don't worry though; his next fight will make up for this. You all know the one I'm talking about.

Now, as one of our long-time reviewers asked above, here's how Monoma's Quirk works in regards to One For All AS I SEE IT: He absorbs whatever version of One For All his target is using. Since One For All is different for each user, the exact benefit(s) that Monoma would get depends entirely on who he's using Copy on. Izuku just so happens to have a version that is capped at 5% unless he burns fuel on it, which is how Monoma was able to use it without destroying his body. If he was to, say, use it on All Might, things would probably end badly for him.

Well, next time we've got another match that we didn't get to see in canon: Todoroki vs Ojiro! How will things play out when the Tailed Titan actually knows what he's up against and doesn't get immediately flash-frozen?! Find out later!

Happy New Year and as always, thank you for reading!