A/N: Thanks a bunch to Huynher, my beta, who has been giving me excellent advice for several chapters and was especially helpful on this one!
Bakugo paced back and forth in the bathroom like a caged beast; since the match with Ibara, something in him had begun to unravel and he hated it. This stupid weakness of his... no, he wasn't weak! He wasn't weak! He was strong! It was all a matter of willpower, and all he had to do was channel his rage enough. That, he was certain, he could do if he just tried hard enough. What he couldn't handle was what he had overheard from the audience as he approached his seat to watch the incredibly short match between Kaminari and Todoroki, which resulted in a frozen moron. He was minding his own business when a number of comments caught his attention:
"You saw how he seized up? I wonder what the problem is,"
"Not hard to figure out. He was one of the students at the USJ. To have all that happen right in front of you..."
"No wonder he's messed up, then. Hell, he had actual tears that second time he froze!"
"Yeah, poor kid..."
The entire conversation had infuriated him—particularly the part where they completely made up shit like him crying, which he didn't do!—but it was that last comment that cut the deepest. That last comment which ran through his mind over and over again during the match to the point where he couldn't bear sitting there any longer, feeling their gaze on his back, hearing those words...
"Poor kid..."
He was not a "poor kid"! He was Katsuki Bakugo, the strongest in Class 1-A! They had no right to talk about him that way! He didn't need their stupid pity! He didn't need anything beyond his quirk and his rage. All he had to do was focus that until the Fake's match with brainy girl and Deku's match with four-eyes were both done, then it would be his turn and he'd blow the other guy to smithereens. And this time, he wouldn't seize up. This time, he'd fucking say it.
"Okay," he said, looking into the mirror with a grimace. "Just focus. It's all a matter of willpower! I'm stronger than this! I'M STRONGER THAN THIS!"
As he pumped himself up a few more times, he took a deep breath, channeled his fury, and shouted with all his might.
"D—"
A few seconds of shaking later, Bakugo smashed the mirror. It was lucky it had only been punched rather than blown up. He certainly felt like blowing up the entire room; hell, he felt as if he himself were about to explode. Good, that was the rage. That was what was needed. Just a little more...
"...d—"
The same effect occurred, but this time he couldn't even shout it. It barely came out as a whisper. It was like the word was stuck in him, refusing to leave but threatening to tear him apart from the inside out if he didn't just spit it out. And yet, he couldn't. He was too strong to be caught up like this! He was too strong to be this weak! This thing would not stop him. He'd figure out how to break this stupid problem after his next match. Once he blasted the other guy with the full force of his anger, once he knocked that metal asshole into the stratosphere, then he'd show the world that he didn't need their damn pity. He didn't need it, because he wasn't weak. He was strong. He was strong. He was strong...
I stood across from Momo, observing her furrowed brow. She was strategizing, thinking up a million probabilities and narrowing them down. She undoubtedly remembered what happened during battle training and how she nullified my quirk; if I can't move or hit something, I have difficulty generating kinetic energy. And my quirk doesn't protect me from energy-based attacks. Two major weaknesses, one more easily exploited than the other. I'd trained hard since then, however; for one, I put a lot of effort into getting over my habit of just tanking hits, expecting my quirk to handle things for me, and learn how to dodge instinctively. I also had a couple of techniques that I could use even when immobilized, but I was hoping to save them for any future confrontations that weren't on camera. The League of Villains was still out there, and they were watching the sports festival just like everyone else; anything I used here, they'd see and probably find a counter for. Besides, I was at least eighty to ninety percent sure I wouldn't need it for this match. The only reason it wasn't a hundred percent was because this was Momo.
I need to close the distance before she can do anything to stop me, but she already knows that. So the first thing she'll do is try and block my path and vision with something, then lay a trap.
As soon as the match began, I ran forward, but not at full speed; I knew her quirk worked fast, and there was no way to tell if she had already had something to stop me with. As she pulled out five small grenade-like objects, I shot forward. She stopped me by producing a riot shield that covered and concealed her body.
Blinding me to whatever she's doing, I thought as I tried moving to the left. As soon as I did, though, five round objects landed in my path and exploded, spreading a thick adhesive over the ground. Leaping back before I could run into them, I heard a few more explosions of the same kind behind me. As I stopped myself from landing in those, Momo tossed the shield at my face, which would have blinded me if I hadn't been prepared for that trick. The next trick caught me by surprise: a large vacuum-powered air gun aimed right at me, a few more glue grenades in her other hand.
The air gun... she plans to use it to knock me into the glue. My quirk won't protect me from that. And even if I dodge, she's ready to throw those grenades in whatever direction I move or jump in.
Wasting no time, I charged right for her. She knew I'd do that, but she was hoping her gun would get me before I could reach her. And she would have been right, had I not done something she didn't expect: I stopped in my tracks and dropped flat against the ground, minimizing the amount of surface area for the blast to push against and preventing me from being blown back. As soon as the blast was done, I launched myself forward in a spear-like fashion straight at her legs, hoping to cause her to trip. She was just quick enough to turn and fire the air gun downward, knocking me down mid-leap. Knowing I was done for if I didn't move immediately, I rolled to the side, just barely avoiding the glue grenades. Which turned out not to be, as smoke immediately began filling the immediate area. I leapt straight up and out of the smoky area, but saw no sign of her as I landed outside the smoke.
So what exactly is her Plan B here? It can't be the same as her fight with Mei. She knows I can't see through smoke. She almost certainly knows I'm aware of the glue traps now and will be careful not to just step in them, smoke or not. So what—"
My thoughts were interrupted by a couple of metal prongs on cords firing out of the smoke at me. Having trained my dodge reflex, I moved in time to evade them; at closer glance, they turned out to be from a taser. Suddenly, more such projectiles began firing in my direction from out of the smoke, which was slowly beginning to dissipate to reveal that Momo had made a number of tasers. Plenty to spare, I thought as I dodged, and I bet they're modified to continue giving a charge to those wires. Which would leave me with even less ground to leap around and run on, while the only ground available would be immediately next to her. And there's no way she doesn't have an answer for that, too.
Not that it mattered. Getting in close was the only way I could win, and she knew it. I had to find a way to protect myself from the tasers before they could cut off all the room I had left. Suddenly, I had an idea; I began unbuttoning my uniform as I ran, pulling my arms out of its sleeves before wrapping it around my left hand and charging straight at her. She fired off another taser shot in my direction, but I batted it away with my newly-insulated hand, though just enough electricity got through to make said hand spasm a bit, forcing me to grab onto the bunched-up shirt with my right hand to keep it from falling off. Or so she probably thought as she smiled and pulled an elecrified-net gun on me. Before she could fire it, I whipped out my right hand, causing the shirt to unravel and fly in her face. Her grip on the net gun was loosened, so I knocked it out of her hands before shoving her backwards onto one of the earlier glue traps she had intended for me.
Finding herself stuck, Momo sighed as Midnight called the match in my favor. "I can't believe I didn't see that coming... nice move, Keikkun."
"You were pretty good yourself, YaoMomo," I said, trying to find some way to pull her off the glue without tearing her uniform apart. "That last move was pretty spur-of-the-moment; if I'd thought of it just half a second slower, you would have had me for sure."
In the end, it took a minute or two for the glue to dissolve on its own, at which point we bowed to each other and left the arena.
"Coming into the ring now, the other half of the Midoriya brothers, IZUKU MIDORIYAAAAAA!"
Izuku took a deep breath in and out to center himself as he approached the ring. This was where the real test of his newfound control would begin.
"And his opponent, the youngest of a line of great heroes, the boy with the lightspeed legs, it's TENYA IIDAAAAAAAA!"
Iida's face was pure stone, completely unreadable. That was worrying to Izuku. By now, Iida had likely already realized that Izuku primarily relied on his ability to read and predict his opponent's moves, and the best way to do that was to watch their eyes and their face; one could tell a lot about an opponent by their expression. The fact that Iida was obviously concealing this told Izuku that his plan of attack was likely to include unorthodox tactics and surprise maneuvers to compensate for the power difference. As far as his own quirk went, Izuku was able to get up to about four to five percent with Full Cowling, but he hadn't had to use it while fighting someone who could match that speed. Casey could go about as fast as Iida, but he took some time to build up that speed whereas Iida could reach top speed instantly. While Iida was only slightly faster than Casey, Izuku knew that in a fight even "slightly" could make a world of difference.
Either one of us could send the other out of the ring with one move: me with my strength, him with his speed. This is going to be a battle of who lands the first—and probably last—blow.
No sooner had the match begun than Iida charged forward at such a speed that Izuku barely had time to react; when he dodged, though, he found Iida suddenly in his face. His spectacled classmate had managed to tilt like a motorcycle, planting his hand like a brake to make a quick turn before launching ahead of Izuku to intercept. Reacting as quickly as he could, Izuku threw a punch with Full Cowling, only for Iida to simply not be there anymore, having dropped down for an engine-powered sweep kick. Izuku leapt over his opponent, but he had only just turned his head after landing in time to see Iida zig-zagging toward him, clearly trying to disguise the location of his impending attack. This time, rather than dodge, Izuku decided to meet the attack head-on with a charge of his own... but once again, Iida was just fast enough to move out of the way and flank him.
"You are fast, Midoriya. But I saw your performance in the Riot Ball match. I know precisely how fast you are and how quick your reaction time is. But there's something I haven't shown you yet."
With a loud whine that quickly became a roar, the engines on the back of Iida's left leg let off a blast of smoke and flame.
"RECIPRO BURST!"
The sheer power of the kick nearly took Izuku off his feet, and it was only due to a spectacularly-timed block that he wasn't sent flying out of the ring. Iida stalled in place for a moment as if tired; Izuku quickly deduced what the issue was.
He can only use it once before the engines in his legs stall. Now's my chance!
Charging forward as fast as he could, Izuku pulled his fist back in preparation. "SMAAAAA—"
"Nice try."
With a smirk, Iida shot forward with the engines on his other leg, driving his left knee into Izuku's gut. I'm an idiot! Of course he only used the one leg for the burst!
In the exact same motion as the knee thrust, in that very split second—as if it were in slow motion—Izuku could see Iida's right leg coming around for a roundhouse. Reacting on pure instinct, Izuku grabbed Iida by the ankle and began turning with the latter's own motion. As Izuku landed, he continued spinning, adding some of the power of One for All into his motions and then simply letting go of Iida's ankle. The result was not unlike an ancient slingshot, swinging around a stone before letting it go, with Iida playing the role of the stone. In the blink of an eye, Iida was sent flying out of the ring, into the arena entryway, and out the other side, landing in an unfortunate vendor's vegetable stall that was being carted by the door at that very moment by pure coincidence. The vendor's cries were quickly drowned out by the cheering crowd.
For a moment, Izuku was worried that his friend might have been injured by the landing, but upon seeing him bowing over and over again while frantically apologizing in his overly-formal tone, he breathed a sigh of relief.
Tetsutetsu grunted as yet another explosion came his way. Ordinarily, he wouldn't have been much more than annoyed by this sort of attack, but the sheer frequency and ferocity of his opponent's assault was more than enough to give even him pause. What genuinely freaked him out was Bakugo's face.
Crap, those eyes! He's nuts!
During the Riot Ball match, Tetsutetsu had gotten a brief look at Bakugo before. There was a sort of berserker energy in the latter even then, but at the time it had a certain degree of focus, something to contain and control it. Here, there was no control, no focus; instead, there was pure chaos, and Bakugo's eyes reflected that. This wasn't someone just trying to win a sports match, this was the look of a cornered animal with nowhere left to run and nothing to lose. Which was odd, considering said animal was currently pummeling Tetsutetsu without giving him the remotest chance of fighting back. Speaking of animal-like, the sounds Bakugo was making were little more than roars and growls and enraged shouts. No trash talk, no insults, just enraged yelling and bestial roaring.
Tetsutetsu began to feel genuine fear for the first time...
Izuku had told me to give Bakugo a chance. I had done my best to keep what he said in mind, about why Bakugo was the way he was, about the possibility that the jerk could actually change. After his freeze-up in the Riot Ball match, and his performance against Shiozaki where he had the same issue, I had begun feeling genuine sympathy for him. Obviously, the USJ incident affected him just the same as everyone else, and it wasn't difficult to figure out why he couldn't say his favorite word anymore. I was finally beginning to believe that there was enough humanity left in Bakugo for my brother to save.
Until his match with Tetsutetsu.
"RRRRAAAAAAGH! AAAAAAH! HYAAAAAAA!"
I could hear his nearly animalistic shouts from the stands and see the huge explosions he was letting off on his opponent; I couldn't hear Tetsutetsu at all, but the latter's expression said it all. He wasn't just losing, he was being brutally crushed. It was one thing to see Bakugo trying to win normally, but this... this wasn't any different from his unhinged performance during the battle test, save for the even greater bestial fury on display.
He's not just trying to win, he's trying to crush Tetsutetsu!
The match was so brutal that I couldn't bear to watch any longer, running off to the waiting room.
"Wait! Casey!"
As I left, I heard Izuku calling out to me; I didn't look back. I'd seen all I needed to see.
"Argh," Tetsutetsu grunted. "Dude, you're crazy!..."
At the metallic teen's words, the look on Bakugo's face briefly changed to show some level of humanity... before the rage came back again, though at least this time there were words to go along with it.
"SHUT UP! I'M NOT CRAZY!"
Tetsutetsu was taken completely by surprise by the subsequent explosion as Bakugo increased his assault as the latter continued to scream.
"I'M NOT CRAZY! I'M! NOT! CRAZY!"
As Tetsutetsu was sent flying out of the ring, he could have sworn that Bakugo was shivering. Upon landing outside the ring and hearing the match be called in Bakugo's favor, Tetsutetsu looked on in shock as Bakugo collapsed to his knees, tears in his eyes.
"I'm not crazy... I'm... I'm not..."
If this chapter seems a little hard on Bakugo, don't worry about any author-opinion-based bashing—Casey's got a personal grudge to work out, and Bakugo needs character development. Both needs will collide in the next chapter, and when the dust clears, both of them will walk away further changed from it. But who will be the victor? You'll just have to wait!