"I chose the three of you because, together, you make the most stable formation."

Shoto eyed his chosen team, feeling confident. Kaminari would be on the left, his electricity a deterrent to any approaching teams. On his right, Yaoyorozu would handle defense and insulation, so the only ones getting electrocuted would be the enemy. Iida would be the horse, the main defense and source of movement.

If a small part of why he had picked them was because they were the only names he could remember off the top of his head, well…

In any case, they had a strong team with a very high likelihood of winning.

"So you will be utilizing your fire and ice quirk to create diversions and attack incoming hostiles?" Iida asked.

Shoto looked to the stands, where a very visible figure stood, flames billowing from his specially created suit. "Not fire," he replied quietly. The knuckles on his hand went white as he squeezed his fingers into a fist, his eyes narrowing darkly. "As far as fighting goes, my ice is all I have ever needed, and I don't see that changing today."

Iida nodded slowly, looking like he wanted to pry further; but in the end, he shut his mouth. Shoto noted his reaction and was glad for it. He wasn't sure what would have come out of his mouth, and now wasn't the time to be alienating allies.

With their strategy in place and only a few minutes left on the countdown, Shoto got into position, and together with his team waited tensely for the round to start.

As Present Mic counted down the seconds, Shoto moved his focus to the point where it most mattered: the one million points. With his own 615 resting on his forehead, he was perfectly aware that they would also be a target, but was equally aware of how little that mattered: whoever targeted them was going to be in for a rude awakening, because Shoto was perfectly ready to bulldoze his way to his goal, regardless of who he had to trample over to get there.

The buzzer rang. As one, they moved.

Shoto used his ice to trip and re-route the attacking cavalry groups. A group from class B came at him, a girl with green hair shooting long, spikey strands out towards them. As Iida pushed jets of air from his legs and swung them about, Shoto twisted to the side and sent off a parting shot of ice. It didn't dislodge the rider—a boy with pale silver eyes and a nasty looking smirk—but it did get them scurrying away. Yaoyorozu created a long metal pole and handed it to Kaminari at one point, enabling him to run his quirk through it and electrify another group that tried to sneak up behind them. Three different groups attempted to get them at once, in a move that was suspiciously coordinated. Rather than wait, run or try to delegate their defense, Shoto simply created a massive barrier of ice and barked at Yaoyorozu to get them in the air, and Iida to get them around it. Five seconds later, Shoto had three bands in his hands, the cries of the defeated teams echoing in his ears.

They were so much closer now. He gave himself a second to glance up when Present Mic announced that the ranking would be revealed... and had to force himself to look away at what he had seen.

So many groups from Class A didn't have their points? Shoto resisted the urge to check again, because right now everyone was the enemy. Still, it was an incredibly unexpected turn of events, and Shoto's mind went briefly to the strange encounter with the three teams and their failed ambush.

Hmmm, interesting. It seemed that Class B had decided on an interesting strategy to get them through the games.

Still, ultimately pointless.

Shoto touched the bands around his neck absently, already calculating the distance left to their goal and the quickest, most productive route to get there.

They could try as hard as they liked, but even when Shoto had the one million points around his neck, he had no intention of stopping there. By the time the buzzer rang for the end of the round, Shoto had every intention of carrying enough bands to put everyone out of the running.

Kaminari was yelping and sending a stream of electricity through the ground, disrupting a group from 1-A (Tentacles, his arms wrapped around his back, doubtless with his teammates inside), when Shoto caught the sound of explosions. He glanced to the side: Bakugo, band-less and looking mad as hell, with a large number of teams from Class B surrounding him.

An ambush, huh.

Shoto had had his talents honed to a very sharp edge over years and years of training. He'd had tactics beaten into him, strategy shoved down his throat till he couldn't contain any more, and done the same moves over and over and over again until he could practically do them in his sleep. It was thanks to this training that the images in his brain all snapped together at once to create a pattern, and Shoto was able to see the path laid out before him. He gave hurried orders to his team. In the distraction provided by the Class B teams, Team Todoroki was able to slip past the crowds and make their way to stand before Team Midoriya and the one million points.

They hadn't been the only ones to take advantage of the opportunity: four other teams stood about them, forming a loose semi-circle around Team Midoriya. Shoto marked two A teams and two B teams, but dismissed them in favor of Midoriya. If any of the teams survived the backlash of power that would be resulting from this clash, he would be able to get them later. For now—

"Iida, get us up close, and fast. Yaoyorozu, defense, and Kaminari—"

"Yeah, I got it," he said, sounding breathless with either excitement or fear, or a mixture of both.

Shoto breathed out an even, steadying breath, and leaned forward.

They moved.

Shoto pulled at the insulation sheet forming out of Yaoyorozu's stomach without having to look and threw it over his, Yaoyorozu, and Iida's bodies. Kaminari let his electricity loose, and all the teams surrounding them felt its full force. The long stick of metal that Yaoyorozu had formed and dragged across ground served as the connection Shoto needed to freeze the disoriented teams before they had a chance to recover.

"We're in a bit of a rush, so you're gonna have to bear with the ice for a while longer," he shouted for the sake of appearances. He didn't particularly care, but he did hope it would work to keep anyone from retaliating should there be significant damage as a result of his ice. Granted, considering his next move was to then steal a handful of headbands from the two B teams in passing, there was guaranteed to be some level of ill-will after this was all over with, anyway.

Ah, well. All's fair in love and war.

As they flew at Midoriya, head-on, his team's 'horse', Crow Boy (whose quirk was a parasitic shadow-creature called... Dark Shadow, was it? who was heading straight for Shoto) came flying at them. Tensing, Shoto shouted, "Yaoyoruzu!", and threw an arm up to guard his face. Thankfully, she was quick enough to create a stone guard to block its forceful attack, and Dark Shadow withdrew.

Iida kept them moving forward, even as Team Midoriya hurriedly fled backward. Shoto iced off any and all paths for escape. Frozen walls went up on all sides as they moved, so the opposing team had only one direction in which they could flee, and that direction met a natural end at the boundary line.

Shoto's mind produced the image of a cornered rabbit, and he felt a surge of vicious satisfaction.

All the other competition was out of the way. The one team Shoto had been concerned about—Bakugo's—was currently preoccupied, and likely would be for a while longer. They had their prey all to themselves, and though it felt a little childish, Shoto gave into the desire to revel in it.

…a feeling which began to slowly chip away, the longer it took to get the band they needed.

Shoto's brow began to furrow as they failed time and time again to get close enough to Midoriya.

Midoriya was being very, very cautious, and had an unfortunately good read on Shoto's team. He was staying consistently to the left of Yaoyorozu, so that if Shoto wished to freeze them over, Iida would be caught in the crossfire. If he kept shooting out ice indiscriminately, Team Todoroki were the ones who would be screwed. With Crow Boy able to defend against Kaminari's electricity and Shoto essentially hobbled, they weren't making any headway.

Bastard, came the unfriendly thought. Shoto glared icily at his target, frustration beginning to fill the lines of his shoulders. It was startling to realize that someone he had essentially dismissed from his list of 'threats worthy if notice' was proving to be an above-average opponent.

(Midoriya Izuku. The name seared itself into his mind, each glowing letter branding itself into place, and Shoto gritted his teeth and vowed to never forget it.)

Then, Iida spoke: "Everyone, there's less than a minute left on the timer. After this, you won't be able to use me anymore, so make it count!"

Shoto felt the shoulders under his fingers tense, and he blinked in surprise. He started to ask, "Iida?" When Iida brought his body weight forward over his knees and his engines began to whine, making Shoto shut his mouth with a snap.

"Get that headband, Todoroki," he demanded, and Shoto clenched his hands tightly in response.

Torque-over, Reciproburst.

They moved from zero to something like warp-speed in an instant, and it took all of the considerable muscles in Shoto's arms and legs to hold on as the world rushed past them.

Iida's plan crystallized in his mind in those blinding seconds that went rushing past, and the rate of his calculations sped up to match. He had maybe half-a-second to get this right. Shoto narrowed his focus, raised his hand, and when his fingers touched cloth, he clenched his fist as tight as he could.

They came to a stop a moment later, Iida's shoulders heaving, the rest of them coming down from the shock to their systems.

Shoto couldn't have stopped the shocked question on his lips if he tried.

"What the hell was that?" he demanded, incredulous.

Iida explained how his quirk—his leg engines—worked, and how by forcing more power into his engines, he had been able to reach incredible speeds... for the price of temporarily stalling them. He would essentially be unable to do more than be a physical barrier for the remainder of the event.

But in the end, that didn't matter. Shoto felt the cloth beneath his fingers and clenched all the harder. They hadn't won yet, but they had done what they set out to do. Satisfaction sat warm and glowing in his stomach as Shoto tied the band around his neck.

They had done it.

But Midoriya was gearing up to attack them again, his and his teammate's faces twisted with desperation, so Shoto put thoughts of victory aside to focus on their final, desperate attack.

He wasn't worried. The bands sat heavy and welcoming around his neck; his teammates were tired, but not burnt out just yet; he had yet to start shivering, and Yaoyorozu had plenty of ideas up her sleeve. There were only a handful of seconds left till the end of the event, and all they had to do was defend against one final, desperation fueled attack that would doubtless prove fruitless in the end.

Shoto tensed his body in preparation, and wasn't worried… until he was.

Because every single hair on his arms and the back of his neck rose as Midoriya's arms lit up with red, glowing lines. A thrumming feeling in the air, one that was painfully familiar, rose in tandem with the glowing arm as Midoriya closed in on him, and Shoto (in an instinctive move that would later horrify him) did what his mind screamed at him to do:

He raised his left arm, and flames came to life across his forearm in his defense. Then Midoriya was right in his face, and—

—air billowed, throwing his arm and his flame away from his face—

—and he turned to watch it, horrified at the realization of what he had done—

—and Midoriya was reaching out, that pressure gone, but the memory of it still pressing against his mind's eye—

—and a band was snatched from his neck.

Shoto distantly heard Midoriya shouting, but his eyes were paralyzed by the realization of what he had done.

He had used his fire. His fire.

"Todoroki, please get a hold of yourself-"

He stroked a hand up and down his arm. His fire. He dug the fingers of his right hand into his leg, his face briefly contorting with the strength of his emotions. Then he took a deep breath, buried all of that down for later, and mentally tried to bring himself back into the game.

Ten more seconds.

"Kaminari!" Shoto shouted, and threw Yaoyorozu's insulation blanket about them as Kaminari electrocuted the air surrounding them, blocking Dark Shadow's incoming attack. In that same instant, Bakugo came shooting out of the wall of ice surrounding them, somehow in the air and away from his teammates in a move that should technically have disqualified him. He went high, then came falling, directly aimed for Shoto and very clearly screaming his name.

Iida tried to make his engines work, and failed. Shoto, mind whirring, called a terse: "Yaoyorozu!" She instantly produced for him conductive medal, and he iced it over, tensing in preparation for the incoming attack.

Three… two… one.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuz.

It was over. The two attacking teams froze, Bakugo dropping like a stone to fall on his face and Team Midoriya stuttering to a halt. Shoto watched the determination on Midoriya's face change to despair, and looked away.

They had won. Shoto hopped down from Iida's back, a curse escaping his lips.

The crowd was still going wild, the air buzzing with their excited energy. Shoto listened to the noise, his right hand rubbing his left arm while the cheers of his teammates echoed in his ears, and wondered why the victory felt so hollow.

'I won't use my left-side', huh. Damn it. If he kept this up, he would be doing exactly what the bastard wanted…

A glimmer of a plan formed in his mind, and as he gave it more consideration, it solidified. Determination gave him a second wind, and Shoto turned on his heel as they announced the start of the lunch break, and stalked after where he had last seen Midoriya.