The Bright Hero, Cobalt

Chapter Twelve

A/N: Thanks a batman (Ottoman unit of weight measurement. It was pronounced exactly the way you think.) to my readers, friends, and most importantly, my editors, who keep poking me to keep this going. The real MVPs, you are.

"Normal speech."

"Buff Might/Explosive Kacchan/AI/Angry character speech."

"Telepathy."

'Thinking/Unintentional telepathy.'

'Sign Language.'

Several Minutes Prior To The End Of Chapter Eleven

Katsuki and Ochako resolved to walk to their match together, not too worried about preparing. Due to their...unique relationship, there wasn't much they didn't know about the other, Izuku having previously filled the former in on what he'd learned of the brunette's quirk via their bond to even the playing field as much as he could, since she was aware of almost everything about the explosive boy's.

Before they made it out the tunnel, though, Ochako made something clear to her opponent.

"I'm still not completely over how you bullied Izuku-kun. I intend to deal with a bit of pent-up anger here, so no hard feelings when I've blown you away, okay?" the girl of the void spoke, reaching her hand out.

Her opponent grasped it, giving it a firm shake. "I'd be more irritated if you weren't bothered by that. If this can get rid of those stupid-ass feelings, wail away at me. I won't just sit there and take it, though. You already fucking knew that, though. Now, like Izuku before you, if you wish to avenge Deku, your fist, my jaw. If I win, though," and at this, the ash blond grinned ferally, "you have to tell the nerd how you really feel. No pussyfooting around."

The girl with a literal grasp on physics frowned. "I wish I could. Fuck, I wish I could just grab 'im an' smooch his cute lil' freckles over n' over, but I can't! There's too much at stake, and I might ruin it fer both of us if I do that!" she nearly shouted, as irritated as she was by the subject.

With a frown, Katsuki turned around, heading to the ring. "We'll figure that shit out later. Let's beat the fuck out of each other for now. That should help. Also," and at this, he turned around with a smirk, "they really are cute freckles. The two of you are going to be disgustingly fucking adorable together."

With a roar of frustration, Ochako chased the meddling maniac to the ring, much to the amusement of Katsuki and the audience.

"Uraraka-san, the match hasn't started yet. While I have nothing against two young, strapping kids tussling, you'll be disqualified if you catch him too soon," Midnight joked, though she pulled a bit at her sleeve to show that her threat was not idle, a minute amount of pink mist leaking from her outfit before she snapped the sleeve back into place.

With a roll of her eyes and a bark of laughter from the angriest friendly person in their class, Ochako and Katsuki made their way to their corners.

"In the first corner, from Class 1-A, the surprisingly OP as hell brunette! Don't let her adorable exterior fool you, or you'll find you're the one who's out of this world! Give it up for Uraraka Ochako!"

The crowd cheered loudly, and Ochako pumped her fist in excitement, letting out a roar of enthusiasm.

"And in the other corner, also hailing from 1-A! He's a one-man armory, and it's all grenades! Credited with the making of 1-A's new slogan, his friendship is inevitable! Let's make some noise for Bakugou Katsuki!"

Again the crowd cheered loudly, but louder still was the combined warscream and pair of explosions from the boy himself, getting into it and helping amp up the crowd further.

"Izuku. When you get your nerdy ass back, grab The Thing from Auntie and bring it over to our section," Katsuki instructed. He didn't get a response other than the feeling of compliance and encouragement, but that was enough for him.

"Uraraka Ochako, are you ready?"

"Hell yeah!"

"Bakugou Katsuki, are you ready?"

"I'M GONNA FUCKING EXPLODE! LEMME LOOSE, SENSEI!"

With a smirk, the thumbs up was given.

"READYYY? CLASH!"

Instantly, Ochako tapped her side, then charged at her opponent. Katsuki was a bit surprised, expecting her to try some stupid tactical crap, but was more than ready to retort, blasting her with as powerful an explosion he could use without it being horribly dangerous. It wouldn't do for her to lose an arm or anything like that, but he wasn't going to hold back anymore than necessary, knowing how powerful his opponent was.

To his surprise, she only skidded back a meter. He'd expected her to be a lot closer to the edge of the arena after that blast, but no such luck. She brushed herself off with a smirk. "My granny hits harder than that. Try a bit harder, Bakugou-san," she taunted, refraining from telling him about said grandmother's quirk. People typically didn't remain standing after taking a punch from Mass Maestro, after all.

With a grin and a roar, Katsuki flew at the floaty child. "You made yourself heavier with your quirk?! FUCK YEAH, THAT'S THE GOOD STUFF!" he screamed as he blasted her from his position in midair, putting enough oomph behind it to knock some rubble loose, and sending her flying out of bounds. Before she could hit the ground, though, she twisted her hand, and she was falling up instead of down. In seconds, she dropped down lightly less than a meter away from her opponent, reaching her palm out to him. In his panic, Katsuki let out a big, loud blast, which covered the ring in dust and smoke.

When the smoke cleared, the brunette was nowhere to be seen. Katsuki kept his ears open, eyeing each piece of rubble as if it had personally insulted his father. The man had a fragile ego, damnit! He did not have to wait long.

"Ougi: Meteor Mash!"

With a punch that was probably going to bruise her knuckles, Ochako smashed through her cover, sending pieces of it flying, then falling back down at high speeds, thus creating even more rubble, and forcing Katsuki on the defensive.

"Hey! Quit toying with her, you punk!"

Katsuki and Ochako did their damndest to ignore the peanut gallery, both stopping for a fraction of a second to roll their eyes in annoyance. A few voiced their agreement with the moron, but the two of them soldiered on, engaging in a spectacular melee while they waited for damage control they already knew was coming, agreeing not to finish one another until this had been dealt with. Damage control did not take long. After all, Midoriya Izuku was very protective of his friends.

The heckler was surprised when the freckled boy descended from above, glowing bright green, his eyes a bit red. "Okay, I'm ending this train of thought right now. I don't know what your quirks are, but my friends in the arena both have incredibly lethal quirks, and both worked really hard to get to this school regardless. Kacchan's quirk is more obvious. After all, explosions have killed literally millions of humans in the history of our species, but Ochako-chan's quirk is nothing to sneeze at, either! Most pros here have no defense against gravity suddenly deciding to change on a whim, and all she needs is to touch somebody with all five fingers! Kacchan's not letting her get close because he KNOWS that it's over if she touches him! Now sit down, shut up, and let my friends show you what they're made of!" the green bean erupted, telepathically shutting down all the naysayers in the crowd at once before going to sit with his mom for a moment to cool down and grab The Thing.

With a grin, the two combatants leaped apart, not wanting to end the match prematurely by taking advantage of their impromptu agreement to let Izuku handle the hecklers. "You've got a nasty right hook, Round Face. Izuku's one lucky fucker to have attracted your attention!" the emitter of nitroglycerin cackled.

"Can we not talk about that on live television, Bakugou-san?!" the grasper of gravitational forces complained with a huff and a stomp. "You're making me regret even less and less how badly I'm gonna beat you!"

"Show me, then! Show me the power that forged that bond you share with Izuku! I'll beat the shit out of that power, and then you'll have to pay up! Don't forget our wager, Round Face!" the angriest of pomeranians erupted, popping sparklers from his palms as he taunted her.

Something inside Ochako snapped. 'I can't handle this. These feelings...We can't handle something like this getting in the way…' she thought to herself, unknowingly confusing her partner when he heard the thoughts, the boy having his own issues about their relationship. "Fine. You want to see my power, Bakugou-san? Be careful what you wish for."

Unbeknownst to Katsuki, since he'd only been given the info on his opponent's quirk gained from the incident where Ochako and Izuku's memories had been shared, the brunette had been setting up his defeat for a bit now. Of course he knew she'd been working on developing her quirk, but he had no idea that the extra few seconds she'd been hiding behind that one bit of rubble had allowed her to apply a very specific aura to it. When it had been smashed, and rained bits and pieces down on the field hard enough to knock more bits of debris loose, the debris closest to the points of impact had also come under the effects of her quirk. With a twist of the hand that had affected the gravity of the rubble, chunks of debris from all around began falling upwards. A pink aura surrounded one of the larger pieces of the arena, which the gravity-manipulator had applied her telekinetic power on. She leaped onto it, standing upside down as she glared down at her opponent.

"Ougi: The Sky is Falling!"

With a twist of her hand, she reversed the gravity of the objects sent skyward, making them fall back to earth, then increased the weight of each of those objects, holding in the nausea from using the telekinetic aspect of her quirk as much as she could. Izuku, ever helpful, erected barriers above the audience and the surrounding area, though he left the inside of the stadium bereft of them for obvious reasons.

As he gazed up at the rapidly descending chunks of arena and earth in awe, Katsuki could whisper just one thing in response. "Fucking badass."

He put his all into delaying the inevitable, firing off blast after blast at the manmade meteor shower, and managing to successfully repel the attack. It came at a price, however. As he fired off his quirk over and over, his opponent had landed nearby, and after increasing her weight and pushing through the shockwaves of his blasts, slapped him. It was nice of her to let him finish off the rubble and show off how long he could keep going, but the fight was won in that one move.

Upon finishing, Katsuki grinned at his foe. "That was a great fucking fight. Not gonna just sit back and let you beat me, but I think we both know how this is gonna end. Now HIT ME WITH EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOT, ROUND FACE!" he roared as he blasted off and flew at her as fast as he could.

Hiding her unease behind a smirk, Ochako met her opponent halfway, punching him in the face with one hand while she twisted the other, sending him careening away from the arena before he started putting more oomph into his propulsion, essentially ascending sideways to get back in the ring.

"Ougi: Up is Down, and Down is Over There!"

With several twists of her hand, constantly changing the direction gravity was pulling her foe while also holding onto him enough to prevent him from flying into space, Ochako succeeded in forcing her enemy to the earth, where he was rung out.

"Bakugou Katsuki is out of bounds! The victor is Uraraka Ochako!" the maker of dreams announced from her spot by the ring with a flourish of her hand, just as Ochako bolted from view before the crowd could see what was about to happen. With a roll of his eyes and a smile, her bonded partner glowed blue and sped down to be with her.

Izuku found his other best friend over by a waste bin, retching her guts out. He gently rubbed her back, not wanting her to suffer more than necessary. When the brunette finished emptying her guts, the two of them went to a water fountain where the girl got the taste of bile removed from her mouth as much as she could. "I'll walk you back to 1-A's viewing section," Izuku said, hoping to spend some time with his friend before they were amongst their other friends again. Ochako simply nodded, and the two of them walked together. The sound of rapid explosions going from the arena to their destination informed them of Katsuki's method of returning to their class.

The two walked in silence for the most part, neither of them really looking at the other, but feeling awkward regardless. Eventually, Ochako broke the silence, pointing out the folded banner that Izuku was carrying telepathically. "So, I see you have The Thing," she said mirthfully, calling it what their mutual friends in-the-know had decided to call it.

The red-shoed verdette nodded. "It'll be a bit embarrassing when Kacchan starts waving it around, but I think it'll help. We all made it with feelings of hope and love in our hearts, and if it can help reach Shoto, that would be more than worth the embarrassment. He needs us, and we won't just leave him alone when he's right there with us every day," he said with a bit of a blush, really hoping they could add the hot and cold boy to their group soon.

"You're really sweet, Izuku-kun," the brunette said with a grin, a blush adorning her cheeks. The Thing had been Katsuki's idea, but the idea to have everybody in the class contribute to it by writing portions of the message and adding their names to it was Izuku's idea. It made the butterflies in her belly flutter even more than usual. It's probably even part of the reason this next exchange happened.

"Can I...hold your hand, Izuku-kun? I promise I won't throw you twenty meters away this time," the brunette asked, hoping silently that this would be enough to help her deal with her stomach butterflies.

"Y-you mean platonically, o-of course," Izuku stammered from next to her, turning red as he turned his face away.

"Y-yeah! P-platonic as h-heck!"

"O-okay, then."

Refusing to look at one another out of nervousness, the two of them nevertheless managed to grasp each other's hands. Izuku's were calloused from the physical training he did prior to entering U.A. Ochako's finger pads, to Izuku's surprise, were actually noticeable even through touch. The two blushed heavily, trying their hardest to hide their hearts from one another in plain sight.

'She's too good for a guy like me.'

'I can't get in his way. It's better like this.'

Despite the sad thoughts haunting them, they enjoyed the feeling of the other's hand in theirs. Before long, though, they separated, and walked the rest of the way to their seats in silence.

Minutes Later

Izuku face palmed as his friends snickered at his current situation. Fumikage and Dark Shadow were kneeling before him, begging forgiveness for their failure to defeat Jedi Knight Yaomomo.

"The Force is simply too strong with her! We were blinded by her unique powers!"

"The flashbang that came out of her forehead when I got near her sure as hell didn't help, either!"

With a bit of a chuckle of his own, Darth Midori gestured for his apprentices to rise. "If one is to understand the great mystery, one must learn all aspects of the Force, not just the great power of Darkness. You will learn from a colleague of mine, who wields the Light art of detonation. You will learn tolerance against the Light, or you will learn...other methods," the Dark Lord of Adorableness instructed the two of them, as Katsuki grinned ominously while sparking pop rocks from one hand.

Momo, having been nearby during the conversation, apologized once again, still unhappy with how utterly she defeated the duo. "Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?" she asked.

Fumikage gaped for a moment, then groaned at what he knew was coming next. "Mario Kart. Play some Mario Kart with me, then we're even. I don't get to play nearly as much as I'd like, being tied to this guy here," Dark Shadow responded, pointing a thumb at his partner.

Everybody chuckled good-naturedly, and went back to watching the match, except for a certain pinkette, who never stopped watching to begin with, a grin on her face as she watched her horn buddy accidentally bro-fist his opponent again.