It was amazing how Izuku had been so worried about his fight with Todoroki, only for all that worry to seemingly dissipate, as he instead only worried about Uraraka instead.
He really, really wanted to go check up on her at the infirmary. To hear how badly she was hurt by the explosion.
Instead, he was heading down towards the entrance, towards the arena where he was going to fight the boy with the highest potential for sheer destruction in class 1-A. The boy who could call forth the flames.
And Izuku just couldn't focus on any of it. All his thoughts were instead on Uraraka, worried that the explosion had permanently damaged her ears.
He was so out of it, that he didn't even feel it as he walked through the corridors, and someone was reaching the corner just in front of him, until as he walked, he crashed right into a massive figure, well over two meters tall.
"Oh, sorry!" He squeaked out. Then he jumped back and winced as he realized his leg was touching fire, a sharp sting of pain shooting through his body. He hastily clapped on the part of his leg that had touched the flame, and he put it out.
"Ah, there you are." Said a deep, hard voice.
Izuku blinked at that voice. He knew who it was, of course, he was a giant Hero nerd, and it would have been inconceivable that he didn't recognize the man before him.
Izuku swallowed, as he stared at the person before him.
Over two meters tall, powerfully built with muscles so well built they seemed on the verge of splitting the dark blue material his skin-tight suit was made off apart. His hair was a dark red, complemented by a beard of flames, a mask of fire also adorning most of his face like a mask.
His suit had flame running through it in lines, his boots practically looking like they were made of the stuff.
Roughly 4-5 times Izuku's body mass, the towering figure in front of him was one of the most impressive heroes in Japanese history. A man who held the distinction of having solved more criminal cases than any other person in the history of the human race!
Todorki Enji. Endeavour. The number two hero of Japan. Todoroki Shotou's dad.
He was an incredibly intimidating sight, looking more like a bear on fire than a man.
Yet as he stared at him, it wasn't the build or the fire he instinctually feared so much that struck Izuku speechless.
No, the thing that did that was his eyes.
Endeavor had a presence, an aura of intimidation, which seemed to be permeating the very air around him.
Yet it was those eyes that struck Izuku so hard.
Enji Todoroki had clear blue eyes, which seemed so utterly, and completely without anything that could be taken as anything that even resembled anything a hero should be. They weren't compassionate, nor kind, nor friendly in any way. They were two blue holes of anger that were staring down at him.
They were the same kind of blue as All Might, but they could not have been any different.
At that moment, Izuku couldn't help but think of the Villains he had faced so far in his life. Rhino and Tel.
Somehow, both of them had had more life and humanity in their eyes than this man did.
He swallowed.
Venom appeared on his shoulder and bared his teeth against the man covered in flames.
Izuku could feel both his fear towards this man and his flames, as well as his anger at being burned by him(Though really, that was Izuku's own fault, not Endeavor's). There was also a large pang of… Disgust?
Endeavor did not seem bothered by either of their reactions and continued talking.
"I've been looking for you Izuku Midoriya."
"...Why?"
"I've been watching you very closely today."
Izuku suddenly found a large, pointing finger right in front of his face.
"You and Uraraka Ochako to be specific. There are a couple of others around, but the two of you are the only ones who are going to be a real challenge for Shoto."
"Um… Thanks?"
He felt like he should feel way more happy about being praised by a hero who had reached so high, but he just didn't. The flames he so feared got in the way.
"Black Cat's brat might also have been a challenge for him, but she is up against Connor's bastard next round, and that isn't a battle she can win. So, it will be you and Uraraka Ochako who will be his tests for this tournament."
Izuku swallowed. Then an oddity with that statement struck him.
"Wait, what about Mei?"
Endeavor snorted.
"Shoto has nothing to fear from that girl. However brilliant she is as an inventor, the girl has never seen battle before. Not like you two have."
Izuku, bizarrely found himself wishing to stand up for Mei and push back on the way Endeavor dismissed her, but Endeavor continued before he could say anything.
"Strength, speed, durability, and ranged power. Both of you have all of that in plenty. And though I'm rather sure the girl will become the more dangerous of you two in time, you are clearly the more powerful of you two at the moment, however inept you are at aerial combat."
Then, a truly terrifying grin spread across Endeavor's face.
"And best of all, if that reaction you just had right now is any indication, you fear fire."
Izuku immediately began panicking, then bit his lip, and desperately tried to compose himself. He didn't need to have bothered. The terrified look on his face had told Endeavor that his guess had been right on.
Izuku swallowed. Hard.
"That is good. Shoto will not prevail against you without using his flames. Either he will stop his ridiculous rebellion and use his flames, or you will crush him, and he will learn how helpless he is without MY flames. Either way, this will be a good test for him."
Izuku's brain took a few seconds before it caught up with what had just been said.
"Wait, what?! Todoro-I mean, Shoto... He won't use his fire? Why?!"
The revelation completely threw Izuku off guard.
Endeavor finally withdrew his finger from Izuku's face.
"The brat has reached the point of his life where he thinks he knows better than I do. Now, he refuses to use his fire powers for no other reason than to spite me."
Endeavor stepped to the side and walked past him, Izuku making sure to keep a good distance between him and the open flame, and his eyes never leaving the number 2.
Endeavor stopped for a moment, then without turning back he kept talking.
"My boy Shoto… Has a duty to surpass All Might before he dies. Win or lose… This next fight will be critical for his development. So give it your all, Izuku Midoriya. Put on a good show out there. Show him how helpless he is without fire."
Izuku just stared at him, feeling like he had jumped into a manga at volume 3, and missed the character introduction. He didn't have the slightest idea about any of the context here.
As endeavor left, not saying another word, Izuku felt utterly confused about everything.
I
Uraraka as Uraraka stepped back unto the viewing stands, she caught surprised looks from her classmates.
"Man, that was quick." Mina commented, her face looking relieved. "Everything well with your ears?"
She nodded.
The truth was that she still felt a faint ringing in them, but Recovery Girl had told her that would fade in an hour or two.
She would take her word for it.
Compared to the insane pain she had felt after the battle, it was a small price to pay.
As she sat down on the seat that had until recently been occupied by Izuku, a feeling of unease began to spread through her gut.
Down below, Izuku and Shoto had both just entered the arena.
Izuku looked like he usually did, with a nervous look on his face, His gym uniform being coated in a black substance.
On the opposite end of the arena was Todoroki Shoto. Wearing a cold, stoic, determined look on his face, he also didn't look much different than he usually did.
At least that's how she would have described that look yesterday. Today, she knew more about Shoto, how he came to be, and what drove him.
She was able to see that underlying anger, just hidden beneath the surface. More important than that, however, was that she thought he seemed incredibly… Sad.
She didn't know what to feel about this match.
She had little doubt Izuku would win, and she would be happy for him if he did, but at the same time… she would not be happy if Shoto lost.
She had no idea how to help Shoto right now. But him suffering a crushing defeat in this tournament could surely not be the answer.
Storms. Before today, she had been so nervous about this tournament. She had seen it as just a sports competition. An important milestone for her, her first real test where she was thrust into the spotlight as All Might's successor.
Now… That seemed to be the furthest thing from her mind. Instead, she was worried about Shoto and his struggles with his asshole dad, the fact that she just couldn't see a way to help Shoto.
Wasn't that what being a hero was all about? Helping people? How did she help Shoto in the situation he was in?
Had Uraraka been older, and more experienced in the way of the world, she would have known the answer. Take the information to All Might. Or Aizawa, or literarily any of the adult Heroes in her life, or just take it directly to child services.
Alas, being young, and with the idea that she had to solve everything herself, she failed to see this obvious, easy answer.
Down below the fight started.
I
Shoto slammed his foot down and ice shot up around it. In less than a second afterwards, a giant mass of ice shot forward up along the ground towards Izuku with the speed of a moving car. Only this mass had sharp, pointy spikes at the front.
Izuku jumped, soaring straight up into the sky, and avoiding the mass of ice, which now formed a wall across the arena below.
A line of black slammed down into the ground to the right side of the wall, and with a heave, Izuku shot down again, barely avoiding as another mass of ice shot upwards where he had just been.
As he slammed down into the ground, the mass of ice that had just shot into the sky, slammed down, into the ice wall just to his right. A shower of broken ice hit him, and all the ground around him, though since the black suit that was Venom had instantly covered him fully when the fight began, he had suffered no damage.
Izuku saw Shoto make the move for his next attack. Time to counter-attack.
His right hand shot up and from it, a line of black web surged forward, right at Shoto's chest.
Instead of hitting him, however, a big wall of ice, roughly two meters tall, materialized out of thin air to block it, Todoroki having instantly switched from attack to defence.
Izuku tried to simply wrench the ice away to the side and out of the arena, but all that got, was that a chunk of ice broke off from the rest, and sailed through the air, crashing into the walls of the arena.
Adrenaline shot through Izuku, so he was fully prepared when Todoroki suddenly shot up from behind the ice wall, having propelled himself up with a wall of ice from below.
His hands shot up, preparing to fire another line at Shoto, only to stop as a wall of ice shot forward, not at him, but instead above him, forming a roof above, blocking off his view of Shoto.
Another wall suddenly shot forward at his right side, enclosing him off, with only the way behind him open to the air.
He understood what was about to happen next.
Then, as the wall in front of him began shooting towards him, preparing to push him towards the edge of the arena, he sprang sideways to the left, into the first wall of ice, and putting his entire strength into it, he hit the wall with a punch of the same force he had used when he hit Rhino in the face.
The wall of ice, a solid mass of frozen liquid exploded from the impact, and, Izuku sprang through the hole, barely avoiding the surging wall.
Then, he jumped up, and unto what was essentially now a giant block of ice. At the side of the arena, the wall of ice Todoroki had pushed forward below trying to force Izuku out of bounds, crashed to the ground outside the arena.
As he landed on top of the wall, he had expected Todoroki to be standing ready for a new attack. Instead, the boy was moving quickly to the right, and as he jumped across the edge of the block, he created a block of ice that in Izuku's opinion looked like a frozen wave, one which he rode down unto the arena, turning around in the process, facing Izuku as he stood on top of the block of Ice.
Right by where he now stood facing Izuku, Midnight was standing slightly to the side, looking strangely excited by the battle in front of her. In the background Present Mic was saying something loud, the crowd cheered, and somehow Izuku once more managed to single out the voice that was Mina Ashido, though in this case, he could also hear Uraraka.
As he stood there looking down at Shoto, Izuku took in the sight of the boy.
Izuku had considered attack Todoroki as he moved, but instead had halted his attack, letting him move. He had thought he had seen something in Shoto's movements, and now as he looked down at him, he had confirmed what he thought he had seen.
The boy was shivering.
-Seems he wasn't as much of a pushover without his fire as we thought he'd be.-
Izuku narrowed his eyes.
No… He saw the path forward. The path to victory.
He muttered his plans to Venom, asking a question. Venom replied in an affirmative, then gave a quick summary, to which the teenager nodded.
"Midnight-Sensei!" Izuku called out the teacher who judged the match.
As he talked, the mass around his hands began to expand, bubble, compress and prepare for what he was planning next.
"Please get behind Todoroki-San! It is the only place that will be safe in a bit!"
Midnight stiffened, then, her grin became a strange mixture between curious, and excited, and she promptly walked behind Shoto, not asking another question.
Shoto for his part stood on alert, standing ready for whatever Izuku was planning. He seemed to be on the defensive now, not eager to attack as he had just been a short while before. Izuku was pretty sure he knew why that was.
Izuku stood there, letting the liquid around his hands expand freely.
Shoto watched his hands, clearly worried about what it was Izuku was planning.
Izuku was counting on it.
Quick as a snake, Izuku ripped his leg upward, a chunk of ice still stuck to the bottom of it thanks to him still willing the black piece of his suit to hold to the ice he was standing on, the way it did when he was climbing.
The ice that he ripped out wasn't that large, maybe a bit smaller than a basketball.
Izuku let go, then using quite some force, he kicked it, shattering it into a hundred pieces, all of them aimed in the direction towards Shoto.
Instantly, a wall of ice shot up in front of him, making the pieces of ice bounce off of it harmlessly.
That was fine though. The ice attack had just been a distraction.
Izuku whirled his hands to the sides and downwards, spraying the ice block, not with a thin but solid line of web, but instead a much thinner, less compressed layer of black.
The entire top was coated, but instead of that being it, the black mass instead kept expanding, moving around the block of ice, coating the sides in a thin layer of black.
Izuku jumped down the side Shoto was, hitting the ground, as the wall of ice Shoto had used to protect himself fell forward, having been pushed to give Shoto clear sight.
Again, he didn't immediately attack, as he had at the start. Chunks of ice clung to his skin, in particular his right arm.
Amazingly, this entire fight had only gone on for 2-3 minutes tops so far. In those two minutes, Izuku had now glimpsed a fatal weakness in Todoroki Shoto's ice abilities.
"You're not used to firing off massive attack after attack in rapid succession are you?" Izuku said. Loudly.
Todoroki tensed but didn't reply. Behind him, Venom kept replicating around the block of ice through a line of black from Izuku's leg, slowly but surely painting the entire block of ice into a dark, black color.
"I never really noticed it before now, because you always tend to finish things in a flash, but after each exercise or battle I've ever seen you do, you use your fire to melt your own ice."
"You aren't able to handle the cold without it overwhelming you. Your powers work in a symbiotic way. You use your fire to make sure the cold in your body doesn't overwhelm you. I'm guessing your fire powers work in the same way with your ice."
-We're done.-
Izuku quickly stepped back, his arms shooting up and backwards, his palms landing flat against the giant block of ice.
His hands dug into the ice, and he slammed his right foot forward, putting the upper part of his body into it, as he pulled with his arms and, heaved. With relative ease, he lifted the entire block of ice up, and over his head. The black mass coating everything but the bottom, as Izuku had hoped, prevented the thing from just breaking apart under it's own weight along the lines of the 4 pieces of ice the block was made off.
As Izuku stood there, lifting the entire thing over his head, he couldn't help but think that this thing was surprisingly light, given it was essentially the size of his family's apartment.
To his credit, Shoto made his next move before Izuku was done throwing the gigantic mass of ice at him.
A giant wall of ice shot up in front of him, as a shield against the flying pieces of ice.
The projectile and the wall, both exploded into a gigantic shower of ice, coating the part of the arena Izuku had been standing on, in a hail of sharp pieces of frozen liquid and dust.
Not that Izuku had anything to fear, as he jumped up high, avoiding the entire thing.
As he slammed into the ground again, he jumped backwards, putting some distance between him and Shoto.
In front of him, the gigantic piece of ice Shoto had summoned to protect himself, had held, but was also massively cracked.
Then, as he watched, the entire thing shattered as another burst of moving ice shot forward at him!
He dodged to the side, avoiding the attack, which just kept going out of the arena, slamming into the wall before it finally stopped. It did so at a much slower pace than his previous attacks.
In front of him, at the other side of the arena stood Shoto, and behind him Midnight, who again seemed to be rather impressed with the battle so far.
The projectile hadn't done any physical damage to either of them, just as Izuku had known it wouldn't, but his goal with it had been reached.
Shoto, who had just now been shivering, and covered in ice, was now full-on shaking, with chunks of frost and ice stuck to his entire right side.
While the size of the wall was probably a factor, the main problem as Izuku had already determined, was the way he fired off huge scale attacks, rapidly, without any time in between.
If he just used his fire to heat up his right side, none of this would be a problem of course, but just like endeavor said, he wasn't using his flames at all during this battle.
Izuku could see the way to victory. All he had to do was keep forcing him to use his powers in rapid succession to defend himself, and sooner or later Shoto would be left defenceless.
Easy, simple, and safe.
And yet…
"Why aren't you using your fire powers?" He asked loudly, just a bit of anger creeping into his voice.
Shoto stiffened, then, the normally stoic boy growled.
'Why do you care?"
"You're going to lose. Badly. You've got NO chance of winning this fight without using your fire powers."
Shoto's expression turned from a stoic look, into something feral, his teeth gritted, and his face and eyes becoming a beacon of anger.
"I'm NOT going to use my fires for battle. I'm gonna reach the top without giving my father an inch of satisfaction!"
"What, so you're gonna half-ass it instead?" Izuku said, real anger beginning to boil in him.
-Wait, what are you doing?-
Izuku ignored the voice in his head as he continued.
"Everyone else here is putting everything they have into winning this tournament. Ojiro gave up on his chance because he didn't earn his spot in the final through his own efforts, Mei put aside her hatred of me, just to reach the finals, fucking Katsuki knocked himself out, putting in everything he had, just to try and win!"
A large part of the anger that flowed through his mind at that moment was due to the adrenaline Venom was pumping through him. But even without it, this was something that galled Izuku anyway. The idea that Todoroki wasn't giving this his all.
"Everyone of us is giving it our all! And yet here you are, thinking you can win, even when holding back half of your power! It's an insult! To me, to this tournament, to EVERYONE! SO COME ON TODOROKI! STOP HALF ASSING THIS AND COME AT ME! WITH EVERYTHING YOU'VE G-"
At that his speech was suddenly halted as the black mass around his head expanded outwards forming Venom's head above his shoulder, facing him, as a black line formed across his mouth shutting him up.
"What the fuck are you doing Izuku!"
Izuku startled, shocked from the gag, then his hands went up and ripped it apart, the liquid splattering around his mouth.
"I'm trying to get Todoroki to-"
"Have you lost your fucking marbles! He's got FIRE IZUKU!"
Izuku was about to reply, the anger and adrenaline pumping through his veins, only for a sound to interrupt both of them, both of them turning their head back towards Shoto, just in time for a mass of ice utterly and completely encase them.
Not encase them like Todoroki had done with Sero in Todoroki's previous round.
Instead, the ice-encased Izuku and Venom completely in the center of a massive block of ice.
Izuku was utterly and completely immobilized, oxygen cut off. He panicked. Then he began to move. He put everything he had, every muscle in his arms to just move, force them apart.
He could feel the crack of the ice, as the block began to break. Then in one burst, it broke apart, huge pieces of ice sent flying.
As his arms got free, he slammed his hands down on the ice below, freeing his lower body as the ice broke apart.
Then he staggered out of the frozen block.
He had to jump to dodge another wave of ice sent his way but compared to the previous attacks, this one was downright sluggish.
Todoroki had put a lot more energy than he should have in the previous last-ditch attack while Izuku was distracted.
Now, the boy was flat out shaking and had obvious troubles not just falling over and hugging himself trying to keep warm. And yet, he didn't make so much as a single speck of fire. He could so easily banish the frost, yet he forced himself not to.
"Todoroki, y-"
His arm shot upwards, completely unprompted, and a line slammed straight into Shoto's chest. Then it wrenched sideways, sending the weak and limp Shoto over the edge.
Silence followed for a moment.
Then…
"Todoroki Shoto is out of bounds. Midoriya Izuku is the winner." Midnight announced.
All around, cheers from the tribunes. But Izuku couldn't focus on any of them. He felt… Annoyed. Angry. At the end result of winning against someone who wasn't taking the match seriously. Against Todoroki for holding back in the first place, and at Venom, for cutting him off as he tried to make Shoto fight with his all.
He could feel that Venom was also brimming with anger.
At him specifically.
I
"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!"
After winning, Izuku had gone over to the nearest toilets to get some privacy for what he could tell was coming.
"What is wrong with me? Why did you cut me off like that?"
"BECAUSE YOU WERE TRYING TO MAKE HIM SUMMON FUCKING FIRE AND FLAMES!"
"I was trying to get him to take this match seriously! To take this entire tournament seriously!"
"Who the hell cares about how seriously he was taking this thing! The POINT of this tournament is to WIN, not to get our enemies to work out their issues to become more effective fighters!"
Venom's face was right up in front of Izuku, shouting at him, with his long rows of teeth at full display as he shouted at Izuku with that voice that sounded so much like his own, yet so different.
"What is the point of winning this, if the rest of the tournament isn't taking this seriously? We'd just be playing games!"
"WE ARE PLAYING GAMES HERE IZUKU! This is a fucking SPORTS TOURNAMENT, not a REAL fight! But even if it wasn't, this sort of shit is the kind of stuff that would get you KILLED in a real battle!"
Izuku did not back down. Maybe it was the supernaturally strong adrenaline that was still pumping through his veins, or maybe it was that this did genuinely matter to him. Whatever it was, he refused to yield on the point to the symbiote.
The two of them were interrupted, however, when the door opened. Both his and Venom's heads snapped around towards it as Ibara from 1-B walked in, wearing a calm, but annoyed expression.
"What do you want?" Venom snapped at her.
Ibara, seemingly not intimidated by the alien, merely raised an eyebrow as she replied, her voice calm.
"It is not my place to get between a man and the quirk which God has blessed him with. However, I must ask you to vacate these premises. This facility is for those of the female gender, and you are not one such. Thus I must ask you to leave immediately, lest I can only assume you are a perverted man who cares not for the privacy of Women, like the sinful, perverted dwarf of your class.
Izuku blinked. Then he did a double-take, as he took in her words, and the anger suddenly became replaced with shame and embarrassment. He nodded, and walked past her, out the door, took a look, and saw that indeed this was a female bathroom.
He had been so pissed he hadn't even noticed.
As he walked down the corridor, he began to calm down, the adrenaline reaching it's end. He was still angry at Venom, but as he thought back, the sheer volume of it seemed… Disproportionate.
It wasn't like Venom didn't have a reason for doing what he had, by cutting the fight short.
But in the moment, he had just felt… Rage. Complete and total rage.