As Izuku stepped through the halls of the arena, he went over how to fight in his head, taking everything he had seen of Uraraka's fights today, and how their last battle had gone, into account.
Uraraka's biggest weakness the way he saw it, was still that she moved and attacked in bursts. Her power would explode into a surge of energy, then she would move with that enormous increase in strength.
That, alongside the fact that however, her powers worked, her brute physical strength was far less than his, meant there was something here to exploit.
That said, he had not forgotten how their last battle had gone.
Near the end, Uraraka and Izuku had both hit each other with a counter, meaning all the energy both had used for their own punches had transferred into the blow they took themselves as well.
That had cracked his ribs and given Uraraka a massive concussion.
He wasn't sure if Uraraka had used all her power(Even if she had, she hadn't been on the ground to leverage her weight for it) for that punch, but he had not. The Only people he had ever used his full physical strength against, had been Mei and the Rhino, and that hadn't exactly gone… well for him.
The unfortunate fact was that he simply could not do so either. Unlike him, Uraraka did not possess a healing factor, that would take care of all injuries. Meaning he simply couldn't unleash a force that could be deadly. Uraraka however could. She could beat him black, blue, and break his bones, and as long as he was still alive, he would recover from it in time.
It was a rather huge disadvantage for this fight. Not to mention the arena itself. While the open space and little cover might not be the worst thing for him, the actual fighting space he had available meant he couldn't jump as much as he would have wanted. That hadn't been a massive problem so far, but he could see in his mind's eye how he would have preferred to be able to fight this battle, and getting Uraraka up in the air would have been his first choice for an easy victory.
Either way, this battle would be a tough one. Uraraka hit just as hard as he did, if not even more so while being faster than him.
There were a lot of disadvantages for him in this fight.
Yet as he walked, adrenaline pumping through his veins, he felt only one thing. Confidence.
Win or lose, he was ready for what was to come.
I
As she walked out into the arena, Uraraka felt an overwhelming pressure come upon her.
The source of that pressure came into view as a figure clad in black, entered the ring on the opposite side of this arena.
Izuku walked with a strong, confident stride, as if he had been born for this battle, and that this was where he belonged. It was as if he was the opposite of how she felt right now. Nervous, out of place, in over her head.
Those blank white eyes were unnerving in a way that Uraraka had never really thought of them before now.
Still, as she entered the ring, she plastered a confident smile on her face, just like All Might would have done.
"Ready for the final bout Izuku?"
Izuku didn't answer her with words, and instead just nodded. Then got into a makeshift combat stance.
On her own end, she did the same, as Midnight positioned herself near the end of the arena, well away from the two of them. Above them, Present Mic began talking.
"AT LAST WE'VE ARRIVED! THE TWO BEST AMONGST YUEI'S FIRST YEARS WILL NOW BE DECIDED IN THIS FINAL BOUT! THE ADORABLE PINK WONDER THAT IS OCHAKO URARAKA, VERSUS THE POWER OF YUEI'S SPIDERMAN, MIDORIYA IZUKU."
Uraraka felt every single bone, sinew, and muscle in her body tense, as she and Izuku both waited for whether there would be a countdown or the match would just start immediately.
"START!"
Pink energy burst out around her, and forward she moved.
I
As Izuku had predicted, Uraraka launched herself forward with a massive burst of pink power.
He could have moved, but he didn't. Nor did he take the risk of a counter like he had in their previous bout.
Instead, as Uraraka brought up her fist in a punch, his arm shot up and hit, not her fist, but the forearm of the swinging arm.
They hit hard, a sharp "crack" sounding across the arena as his fist clashed against the forearm, and Izuku could feel the shock of their massive powers clashing, and her fist stopping before it could reach it's goal.
However, the first blow was Izuku as Uraraka winced in pain as Izuku's fist hit true.
The follow-up was a hard backhand across her face, which sent her flying.
She skidded across the floor, as Izuku quickly maneuvered himself to face her.
As she got to her feet, she spat to the side, a clear red hitting the floor. So he'd cut the inside of her cheek with that blow.
This time, Uraraka brought forth a sideways kick as she launched herself forwards.
He ducked beneath it, barely avoiding the blow, though he felt the very air itself move along with the move.
Her back was exposed, and Izuku hit with a mighty hook, which once more sent her flying.
This time as she once more got back on her feet, Uraraka did not launch herself into another attack, instead, she considered what to do now.
It seemed she, as Well as Izuku, had realized a massive flaw in her power set.
The way Uraraka moved in short bursts was very fast, hit very hard, and wasn't easy to react to. You'd need a pretty high level of superhuman reflexes, and no small amount of speed to react in time.
However, If you had that, then the way she launched herself straight ahead in one direction wasn't hard to counter at all.
Izuku might not have had the speed necessary to just make mincemeat out this weakness with direct counters, but it was not hard for him to read her moves, then avoid or block the first move, then hit her with a punch of her own.
He suspected that Mina would have been able to do so. If so, luck had favored Uraraka well today.
Izuku read Uraraka's next move before she did it, as in a flash of pink she launched herself forward, not at him, but past him.
Both of them turned on their heels to face the other, Izuku stationary, while Uraraka snapped around as she was still in motion.
Izuku expected her to launch herself forward into another attack.
Instead, Uraraka brought her hand up in a manner like a Karate chop, then brought it down towards him, like she was breaking an invisible board in front of her.
-MOVE-
The warning came barely too late, as Izuku tried to move sideways, but all that achieved was that instead of hitting him head in, the attack hit him slightly to the side punching straight into his left leg, and the left side of his body.
It felt like Uraraka had just launched an invisible wall at him, and that said wall had slammed into him sideways.
It had hit hard, and though it hurt, it was only enough to knock the wind out of him. Izuku then realized that Uraraka was preparing the same attack again.
He jumped to the side, as her hand came down again. This time, the invisible blow broke the rock beneath it, just where Izuku had just stood.
It would seem that Uraraka was putting in more power into it, now that she had seen the first one didn't do much.
It was as he dodged the fourth attack that Izuku finally realized what Uraraka was doing.
One of the more unconventional attacks all might could do, was that his full-powered punches hit so incredibly hard that he could attack with the sheer force of the air itself.
Uraraka was doing something similar, though instead of just letting the air go indiscriminately forward, she instead focused it into a very simple chop motion, which let her use what was a pretty strong ranged attack.
And as he dodged, it became clear enough for him that the force of said blows could vary rather heavily, from simply stopping someone in their tracks, to breaking a normal person's ribs, to shattering stone.
Obviously, she had trained a lot to master this move.
However, she wasn't the only one with a ranged attack.
As he landed on his feet, and Uraraka was preparing another blow, two lines of black slammed into her ankles, and with a pull, Izuku wrenched her feet down from under her.
Then, rather than pulling her towards him, he instead just let the line go, letting Uraraka slam into the ground back first.
He was over at her in an instance, as she scrambled to her feet, his knee connected to her forehead. Amazingly, she did not go flying, as she dug her hands into the cement floor beneath them.
To attack him though, she had to let go of said floor, and Izuku had already jumped back, and well out of reach by the time her fist shot forwards.
As she got to her feet she shook her head, clearly shaken by the blow.
So far, she had definitely been taking the worse of this dance.
Then, in a burst of pink, Uraraka launched herself forward again. Almost twice the speed she had been demonstrating throughout this match.
Had Izuku been more prepared, he might have been able to react to the incredible speed increase, but unfortunately for him, he had become used to the speed she had demonstrated so far, and his own instincts betrayed him.
This time, the blow came so fast, and with a speed, Izuku just hadn't expected that he did not manage to get his hand up to block it in time.
Instead, a blow hit him across the face so hard that 3 of his teeth broke, and once more he was sent flying, and once again, only the stickiness of the alien goo saved him from an out of bounds.
Had he not been pumped up on adrenaline already, the pain would have been insane. As it was, Izuku didn't realize just how badly the punch had damaged him.
His body though, shook even harder as he got back on his feet, than Uraraka's had after she took his knee to the head.
Head blows were always a thing you had to watch out for.
This time it was Izuku's turn to spit out some blood, though in his case there were also quite a few broken teeth pieces amongst the blood.
He forced himself to his feet, and once more got into stance, sure that Uraraka would launch another attack at him.
She did not.
Instead, she had a look of pain as she turned to face him on shaking feet.
Had Izuku's body not been pumped up on adrenaline, and had he not just taken a massive blow to the head, he probably would have been able to figure that Uraraka had just damaged her own legs with that little stunt. Not enough that she wouldn't be able to move, but certainly enough that she wasn't going to be able to jump around like she had so far.
She had gambled her ability to move like lightning on a decisive blow and had failed.
Lucky for her, however, Izuku, brain still shaken by the blow, made the mistake of going on the offensive, when a much smarter move would have been to take it nice, slow, and take her down by attrition.
The adrenaline pumping through his veins, screaming for him to act, to attack, to move, Izuku launched himself at Uraraka.
He easily avoided the hook she tried to hit him with, and instead took her straight in the side with a hook of his own.
Uraraka buckled over from the blow, but as Izuku brought back his hand for another blow, her right hand shot forward and hit him straight on with a hook of her own.
It wasn't an ideal blow, but the sheer power and force from it was easily enough to send Izuku flying as 2 ribs flat out broke.
Another dulled burst of pain shot up through his body, and once more the amazing adrenaline let him keep going relatively well, as he staggered to his feet.
Once more, he took the offensive. This time, however, he jumped over Uraraka as she tried to hit him with a swing.
He brought his leg up, and into her side once more. Uraraka screamed as the already damaged part of her body took another massive blow. Then she grit her teeth, and swirling around, she hit Izuku in the face with another blow.
This time, the bone of his lower Jaw broke in two along the left side as another of his teeth shattered.
Uraraka did not stop there though, as she followed it up with a straight right into his face.
Izuku felt it as his nose crunched beneath her fist, and he saw stars as he went flying. Once more, only Venom's timely intervention saved him from going straight out of bounds.
Meanwhile, the mask that hid just how severe his damages were was the only thing that made it so that Midnight didn't stop this fight immediately.
However, she did not, so as Izuku got to his feet shakingly once more, Both Teenagers got into stance once more.
Uraraka on wobbly feet, and with a hunched-over posture that screamed that her side was hurting like nothing else. Izuku with a shaking body that was wrecking with instinctual pain and conclusions that Izuku could not truly feel.
Either way, as the two teenagers looked into each other's eyes, they reached a mutual understanding.
It was time to finish it.
A back line shot forward straight at Uraraka's face, only to be blocked by her hand which wrenched backwards, clearly aiming to bring it's originator to her.
Izuku however, disconnected the line the moment it hit Uraraka's arm, and instead made a jump straight at her, now that she had left herself open as she tried to wrench Izuku at her.
Once more, he hit her in the side with a hook, making Uraraka buckle over with pain, and then- he lost all momentum as he tried to bring his other fist into a blow to her face.
Uraraka's left hand had closed around Izuku's arm, and with that touch, robbed him of his weight.
He had been so focused on her brute strength, that in the heat of Battle, he had completely forgotten about her other quirk.
Then her entire being exploded once more into pink lightning, as she hit him straight in the face with another punch. But she didn't let go of him, as her hand closed around him in an iron grip, and she hit him again, and again, and finally, putting all her back into it, she hit him Straight on with a massive hook.
Not that it mattered. Izuku had lost his consciousness at the second blow.
I
As Uraraka let go, she could feel it as Izuku flew from the sheer weight of her final punch.
Her body hurt all over, her legs felt like she had pulled every single sinew in them(She hadn't of course. She knew what it felt like to do that, and this wasn't near as bad), her side felt like it had caved in, and her head throbbed like nobody's business.
Still, it was over. Or so she had thought.
As she was hunched over, just cradling her side, she had expected to hear Midnight announce the end of the fight. She didn't.
She knew what that meant, and with a sinking feeling, she looked up.
There, near the end of the ring, Izuku got to his feet once more.
But the way he did it… It was not the movement of a regular person, not even the one in pain. It was jerky, like a puppet on strings, being forcefully jerked on it's feet.
Then, suddenly, Izuku shot up, his spine straight as a rod. And in an explosion of black goo, he expanded. His body grew, becoming taller, wider, bigger. Muscles of black liquid solidified into a massive, hulking frame, a good two meters tall.
From Izuku's normally sleek head sprouted a mouth of large jagged white teeth that Uraraka had seen many a time before, and honestly, she had grown used to them to such a degree that now that she saw them like this it was a complete shock.
His eyes, which usually were perfectly sleek and like two white patches, now became jagged and far, far more expressive as they narrowed at her, a grin forming beneath the eyes.
This… This was gonna suck.
I
Ah… Venom would never stop loving this feeling.
Full, and total control.
During the initial bond with a host, a Klyntar usually got to experience being able to take the body out for a joyride or two as the host slept.
That however was something one lost as the bond crystallized, the connection becoming so strong that it became impossible to do so and not wake the host.
Venom had only gotten to take control over Izuku's body a single time before they reached that stage, and that had been the night they finished the bond.
Still, that didn't mean that Venom wouldn't get to take control again, as the little spat with the boy called Shinsou had proven. Of course one didn't need supernatural powers to make Izuku take a backseat in this relationship.
Not when their host being knocked out would allow Venom full control.
Usually, that meant a shit ton of pain along with said control, but today Izuku was absolutely doped up on chocolate, and by extension, so was Venom.
Still, if there was one thing today's final battle had proven, it was that Izuku could not be permitted to fight doped up like this. He became sloppy, headstrong, completely unlike how he normally fought.
One only needed to see the difference between his sloppy and embarrassing display against Uraraka, compared to his pretty good performance against Mei to see the difference between fighting while you were level-headed, and fighting when you were high.
Oh well. This was gonna be fun.
"So… You're in control Venom?"
Uraraka's question came haltingly like she was in pain. Which she very much was as Venom could feel rather clearly.
"Yes. Izuku couldn't finish you off, so that falls to us instead. Don't worry though, kid. We'll make it quick."
Then Venom punched the air, and a ball of black liquid slammed into Uraraka's chest like a Cannonball.
Venom saw the look of complete shock hit her as All air was knocked out of her. Then that was hidden from their view as a second cannonball of black liquid hit her straight in the face, breaking her nose.
This one knocked her straight over, and she slammed into the ground.
Uraraka scrambled to her feet and barely got out of the way as a line of black slammed straight down at where she had been, like a whip.
She knocked the third cannonball out of the air with a punch, only for a line of black to take her in the gut and wrench her through the air, straight at Venom's massive frame.
In response, she grit her teeth and hit the punch Venom was trying to land on her with a punch of her own. The two fists collided, a deafening "Crack!" Sounding from it, as a shock ran up Uraraka's arm.
She made her move the moment her feet touched the ground. She planted them and put 50% power into her next swing as her left hand slammed into the massive frame with a thunderclap of a hook.
The mass of black exploded into liquid, then immediately reformed as a mouth of teeth... Which slammed shut around her arm.
Uraraka screamed in pain and shock. Though the teeth were neither as strong nor sharp as the ones in Venom's mouth(As a matter of fact they broke against her skin) the vice-like grip the arm was now caught between was pretty damn strong.
Her scream was cut out very quickly, however, as Venom punched her straight in the face with a hook, which the symbiote followed up with a massive uppercut, all while Uraraka was caught in that vice-like grip.
Uraraka crumpled to her knees from the blows, her eyes completely out of focus as Venom chuckled.
"You know what the really funny thing is kid? If you had just focused on blows to the body and limbs, and not been so insistent on head blows, you'd have won this little duel. Oh well. Time to finish it."
Venom put the large, black hands together, fingers intertwining, as they were raised high, preparing to slam them straight down on Uraraka's head.
The girl looked up, then in a moment, her eyes cleared up. Pink lightning burst around as Uraraka finally wrenched the arm free, and put some distance between the two of them.
All the distance, as she was now at the opposite end of the arena, as far from him as she could possibly be.
So she wanted to drag this out just a bit longer, did she?
Well, Venom didn't mind this going on for just a bit longer.
I
As Uraraka backed away, she felt like there were walls closing in on her, trapping her where she stood.
The walls in this case were the white lines of the arena, making sure she wasn't going anywhere.
Holy shit this had changed gears quickly.
She and Izuku had been fighting in a relatively equal playing field. Then Venom Had taken over and smashed her, and her confidence to Itty bitty, tiny pieces.
Now, she was beaten, she had trouble breathing through her broken, blood-filled nose, her sides hurt like hell itself, and worst of all, Venom was taking his sweet ass time getting over to finish her.
He just… Stood there, hand under his chin, contemplating her, as if he was considering just how to finish her off.
And all the while, her mind struggled, wrecked it's way around how he would finish this. Finish her off.
What the hell was she gonna do now? Her thoughts went back to what she had talked with All Might about before the tournament had even begun. About how important a moment in her career this was.
And yet here she was in the final moment, barely able to stand, just watching her doom as it prepared to end her.
And as she looked into Venom's eyes she was struck by a sudden emotion she hadn't really felt since the invasion.
Fear.
There was something about those eyes that reminded her of the eyes of the man of mists. A killer, who would not hesitate to claim her life. Back then, she had been able to steel herself and grit her teeth as she worked through it for the battle.
Here though… That look was on the eyes of someone she considered a friend. A comrade, someone she cared about.
It was a thousand times worse than the eyes of him, or the man with the white hair had been.
Then, suddenly, and without any prompt, Venom's grin got wider as he nodded, then began walking forward cracking his knuckles.
Every single muscle in Uraraka's beaten and sore body tensed.
Then…
"WHAT THE FUCKING HELL ARE YOU DOING URARAKA!?"
Uraraka and Venom both stopped their imminent final clash to turn and look in the direction that the voice had come from, and all around them, noises across the arena had gone silent.
The speaker was their classmate Katsuki Bakugou.
"YOU'RE SERIOUSLY GONNA LOSE LIKE THIS? YOU MANAGED TO BEAT ME, YET YOU'RE GONNA HALFASS IT HERE IN THE FINAL ROUND, AND LOSE LIKE A BITCH TO FUCKING DEKU!?"
The look on his face was… Weird in her mind, a strange mix between pissed off, angry, and desperate, like he was in physical pain from seeing Izuku win.
"DIDN'T YOU DESTROY ONE OF THE FUCKING ENTRANCE ROBOTS IN ONE SINGLE BLOW, YET HERE YOU ARE, ABOUT TO LOSE, HAVING USED NONE OF THAT KIND OF POWER AT ALL! WHAT KIND OF FUCKING JOKE IS THAT URARAKA? ARE YOU SERIOUSLY GONNA LET DEKU WIN JUST LIKE THAT?!"
Venom snorted derisively.
"So… Is he a friend of yours?"
"No…"
She had literarily only had a single sentence worth of talks with Bakugou Katsuki during her time at Yuei. And that had been a pretty short talk during their first exercise as a team against Izuku and Tenya.
"Yeah… A friend would have encouraged you. But Katsuki isn't capable of giving support to anyone. He just isn't able to handle it if we win this we suppose. It would destroy him if we took number one by besting the one who beat him into the ground."
He grinned.
"Isn't that a beautiful thought?"
Uraraka though, suddenly felt a boulder of fear disappear from her shoulders. Katsuki… Katsuki was right. She HAD destroyed one of the dummy entrance exam robots. She had done it. No one else. And he was right in one other way too. She hadn't been giving this battle Her all.
She'd been playing this way, way too safe. She still had way more to give.
As that thought clicked into place, she also noticed another thing. Midnight wasn't standing behind Venom, instead standing off to the side from where the two of them were standing.
She didn't need to hit Venom. She just needed to get him out of bounds.
So she called upon it. The enormous power that was One for all in it's entirety.
100% power, all gathered into her arm.
She was going to win this, a d she was going to win, and she was going to win giving it her all. That was the kind of hero she wanted to be.
I
There were very few things that all the sentient races of the universe had in common.
One of those very few things, however, was a concept, a description of a certain feeling.
It was a sense of incoming danger of enormous proportions, like a cold chill down into your soul.
Humankind called that feeling "Someone walking over your grave".
Venom understood exactly what was about to happen the moment they saw the maelstrom of green lightning that suddenly began dancing around Uraraka as a pattern of pink energy began to dance across the skin of her arm, not simply the air around it, but the muscles themselves began to glow.
They had a couple of seconds before the blow would hit.
Venom slammed a foot sideways straight down into the ground, black tendrils shooting beneath the heel, down into the concrete to anchor them in place. Then, a mass of black sprouted out in front of them, centered around the left arm as they braced the makeshift shield for the incoming hammer blow.
I
The Shockwave from Uraraka simply punching the air itself, was such that even the bystanders all around the area were affected, hats being blown off, hair going skyward for a good 10 seconds before falling down again.
Uraraka cradled her arm, her teeth clenched fully, and pain shooting through it.
The sheer power she had brought to bear had been enormous, astonishingly so. However, she wasn't anywhere close to having mastered the full power of this quirk. Her body still had so much room left to improve before-"Are you done, girl?"
Uraraka froze, her head shooting up to look at the center of her attack.
There, Venom stood, with one arm and leg having lost all it's additional black bulk, and each having been grotesquely broken in several places. It was a morbid sight, which brought horror to Uraraka, who had wanted to simply blow Venom out of the ring. Instead he had weathered the blow and with it, all the power she had brought to bear.
Then, as she stared at him in sheer horror, the bones snapped back into place, putting the body like it had never been broken at all, and then a new layer of massive black muscles began to form.
The quirk grinned evilly, as it dawned on Uraraka just how screwed she was.
I
The high was beginning to wear off.
That in and out of itself was bad enough, as the insane pain in everything began to set in.
However, the true problem came from another fact. Namely that Uraraka had just completely turned this battle around.
He could tell by her face she didn't quite understand this fact, not yet anyway.
Venom could put bones back together in the position they should be with absolutely no problem. Actually reknitting them, as well as all the muscles around them? Yeah, that wasn't something Venom could just do on the fly.
And so, by sacrificing her arm, Uraraka had effectively taken one arm and leg from them.
Venom could stand, and hold a stance, but they couldn't actually move from where they stood at all. Nor did they have the capacity to fire more cannonballs or at least not one's with strength enough to win this battle.
Shit, this was bad.
How to win? How to- Uraraka suddenly began to run at them at full speed.
I
Uraraka forced herself into a sprint, the destroyed arm flailing limply with every step, pain shooting through her entire body, her head, her legs, her arms, her chest. Every single part of her body hurt, and it hurt badly.
Yet she knew what she had to do.
She had to finish this in one, final blow to get Venom out of the arena.
If he could just heal from any injury she threw at him, just beating him up would do it. She had to FORCE him out of it all.
And so, she sprinted. Not superhumanly fast either, her legs were too damaged from her previous movement to move like lightning with ease. She had one good burst of speed left.
She sprinted like someone in the absolute peak condition of humankind would sprint, making her way across the arena in a sprint.
At any moment, she expected Venom to fire away with vines, black cannonballs, or web lines.
Instead, he simply readied himself for a final clash.
Uraraka's legs exploded with energy once more, as she launched herself forward one final time, crashing into Venom's enormous frame. She hit the right side of his body like a truck and- The entire side exploded into black goo. It was in that horrible moment, as she became entangled in the black goop that had until just a second ago made up Venom's additional body mass, that something closed around her left leg with a grip like steel.
"You should have aimed for the spine."
She was wrenched up, and into the air, then, she sailed through it. She landed face-first into the ground beneath the arena.
Above her, she heard the sound. As Midnight declared a Victor.
"The final Match is over. The winner is Midoriya Izuku."