A/N: if you read this and found something you enjoyed, I'd love to hear from you!

"What did you want to talk to me about?" Midoriya asked.

He stood against the opposite wall of the tunnel leading to the inside of the stadium, the angle of the sun fully illuminating him while casting Shoto—head tipped against the wall, eyes unwavering—in shadow. It apparently made for an intimidating sight, as the twitching in Midoriya's hands and the micro-twitches of the muscles in his thighs and shoulders showed a deep uncertainty, as well as fear.

(His face was remarkably blank, for what his body was telling, and Shoto marked that down as something to remember).

Shoto hadn't intended to have that effect on his fellow winner, but perhaps it would serve some purpose in the long run. He kept his gaze on Midoriya even as he rearranged what he planned to say in his mind.

He had one chance to get this right. He couldn't let himself trip up over what he wanted to say, or let the content of his words send his mind to places they couldn't afford to go.

"Hey, ah, Todoroki? If we don't go soon there won't be any food left….um…"

Shoto half-opened his mouth, closed it, and tried again:

"That last second of the event, when you came at me with your quirk… I was completely overpowered; so much so that I broke a promise to myself that I had sworn to uphold."

He had to get this right. He brought his hand up and stared into the palm of his left hand, seeing through it to the awful power hiding under the paper-thin skin.

"Our teammates… none of them felt it. Only I, who had experienced that power first hand, recognized it for what it was."

"What… does that mean?" Midoriya asked. His hands had frozen at his sides, and his eyes were wide, but he looked like he knew the answer, and was afraid to hear it.

Shoto studied him intently, sharp eyes ready to spot and identify any possible tells as he said: "Midoriya, are you… All Might's secret love child or something?"

Midoriya's reaction was both satisfying and instructive; he immediately began waving his hands about his face, his head shaking wildly as he insisted that in absolutely no way was that true.

Though, Shoto noted, he didn't actually deny that they had something between them, just not a familial relation, something Shoto quickly called him out on. When Midoriya began to look like a deer caught in headlights, Shoto relented, because in the end, it didn't really matter.

This next part did, and this is where it got hard.

His breathing slowed, deliberately, as Shoto preemptively tried to stay calm and in control.

"My Father is the pro-hero Endeavor, as I'm sure you've heard by now."

A tremor was already building in his extremities, just from saying his name. Shoto breathed, deep and even, and pushed on regardless.

"He's been stuck as the Number Two forever. He's never been able to rise up, and he's carried a grudge for years. If you have something from the Number One Hero, then…"

He had closed his eyes without meaning to, and now he opened them to glare at Midoriya, hoping the burning rage in his eyes would read as determination.

"…Then I have all the more reason to beat you."

He explained how his Father's mind worked: the way he had fought to reach the top using brute force and the power of his quirk; how All Might's casual rise to the top infuriated him beyond belief; how his frustration at his continued failure had made him look elsewhere to complete his goals.

"What are you talking about, Todoroki-kun?" Midoriya asked, a hint of frustration in his voice, arms gripped in front of his chest protectively, as if to guard himself from the words coming out of Shoto's mouth. "What are you trying to say?"

Shoto looked at him levelly, trying the words out on his tongue, and said: "What do you know about quirk marriages?"

The next few minutes were… hard. Very hard.

Shoto kept his voice and face neutral through sheer willpower, and through the pain of the nails digging into his legs through the hands pressed into his pants pockets.

Quirk marriages had come about during the second and third generation after superpowers had emerged. Families would force other families—some with literal force, others with bribery, blackmail and other unsavory methods—to marry into their own for the sole purpose of merging two strong quirks together, in the hopes of making newer, and stronger, ones. It was a different time, back then, before society began trying out the idea of 'Heroes' in earnest, and things like 'morals' and 'appearances' started to become important once again.

Father had money and fame, and when he used both of those things to woo Mother's family, it was a simple matter to get them to agree to a marriage.

From there, Father's dream of creating a hero to surpass All Might began to seem like a reality.

Shoto sneered at the floor, his mind producing unwanted images of the man in question, and bringing hate and bile rising in his throat to meet and mix with his rage.

"It's so damn aggravating…" Shoto snarled, unable to stop the words from rolling off his tongue. He would not become the tool of that absolute scum of the Earth, so help him.

(Mother stood, turned away from him. Her back was bowed, her shoulders hunched and shuddering with every hitched breath as she sobbed into her hands.

Shoto raised a hand, reaching out to her—)

"In my memories," he said, and brought his hand up slowly to his face, not seeing it, "Mother is always crying. One day, she said: 'You left side is ugly,' and poured boiling water over my face."

He brought his hand up to his scar and touched it, feather-light—the symbol that strove him to be better, stronger, fight harder.

Midoriya's horrified gasp reminded him of his audience, and Shoto dropped his hand, allowing Midoriya to see the truth in his words that he tried the best he could to show on his face.

He laid his challenge at Midoriya's feet, his promise not to use his fire a pledge both to Midoriya, as well as to himself. He would not use his fire. He would win, and beat Midoriya, without—no. He would win, in spite of his father's power, and prove to him once and for all that he was not, and would not, be his pawn.

Having said what he wanted to say, Shoto pushed himself off the wall and began to walk.

He thought of something as he stepped out of the tunnel, and told Midoriya over his shoulder:

"I won't pry into what's going on between you and All Might, that's none of my business. It doesn't matter anyway, because, in the end, I will rise to the top with only my left side and beat everyone else attempting to do the same, regardless of their circumstances. Sorry for wasting your time."

Shoto let the conversation drop, satisfied that he had gotten across what he wanted to say. Midoriya, it seemed, had another idea. When Shoto finally left him far behind, it was with these words ringing in his ears:

"That declaration of war you gave me earlier today… I'm ready to return it! I will beat you, too!"

Shoto had managed to get through the conversation intact; sadly, his appetite had not. With only one hour left till the start of the next event, Shoto dithered at the classroom door.

He had his lunch box in his bag, as always. But on a day like today, with ash again on his tongue and fire dancing behind his eyes, and the overwhelming pressure of his father's physical presence (imagined though it may be, with multiple concrete walls between them) pressing him in on all side, the thought of obediently eating his specifically prepared lunch made him want to break something.

But the thought of lining up in that crowded room, then trying again to find a place to sit…

His stomach lurching at the thought of it, Shoto was pretty sure that option would have to stay off the table.

But he needed the energy. Already he could feel himself flagging, the tension from riding the constant adrenaline high beginning to fade as tiredness set in. He needed to eat.

He wavered for one more second, before turning on his heel before he could change his mind.

There was no rule saying you had to eat the cafeteria food only in the cafeteria (he had been careful to look that up, after the first incident), he just hadn't had the chance to utilize that loophole until now.

Get in, buy the food, take it outside before anyone noticed he was there. There were plenty of empty stairwells and classrooms, after all; there was bound to be somewhere he could hide out for a few minutes in peace.

His fingers shook, rattling the wooden chopsticks as he tried to pick up a clump of rice. It wobbled and dropped back into his plate, the attempt failing. Shoto snarled quietly and tried twice more before succeeding.

The wait in line at the cafeteria had taken more out of him than he had realized.

A few of his classmates had noticed him standing in line, and unlike before, when he would pass them by and they would either stare at him until he looked their way or tried to pretend he didn't exist altogether, they waved at him, gesturing for him to come over. Shoto either stared through them, or pretended he hadn't noticed.

Thankfully, they took the hint and didn't press when he speed-walked past a few of them with his full tray of food, and very obviously in the direction of the door.

There was one moment that nearly ended badly, where he passed Shoji's table—he'd thought Shoji brought lunch every day, but that apparently wasn't the case—and the large boy waved at him and asked if he wanted to join his table.

Eyeing the small space between Tsu-chan and, of all people, Purple Balls, Shoto couldn't stop the incredulous look he shot at Shoji, who quickly raised his hands in the air defensively.

"All right, no pressure, I just thought I'd ask. Are you planning on… I mean, I hope you enjoy your lunch. See you at the next event."

"Hey hey hey, Shoji, what's that about? Why are you inviting scary-face—"

"Feel free to come eat with us any time, Todoroki-kun, ribbit. This idiot will most likely not be here next time, ribbit, so you do not have to worry."

"Hey!"

Shoto lingered a moment, ignoring the two others and staring at Shoji (who eyed him back patiently with two sets of eyes on two different limbs), before turning back to the door.

Shoji was… good. Tsu-chan wasn't terrible, really, but Shoji was good people.

Shoto dodged his way through the sea of people, doing his best to ignore the occasional, "What the-" or "Hey, where's that guy going-" as he speed-walked his way through the halls and into the first secluded corner he could find, which happened to be behind a teacher's desk in an empty classroom.

There, he tried to eat lunch with hands that shook from the draining anxiety of the past few minutes, as well as the large number of other things on his mind.

But he didn't have the time for this; there were only thirty-minutes left before the end of the break, and he needed time to digest. If he didn't eat anything, his focus and stamina would suffer, as would his control of his quirk. This wasn't like at home on weekends or holidays, where he could skip eating for entire days so long as Father wasn't there to micro-manage his caloric intake. If he didn't eat now, his performance would suffer, and he ran the real chance of fainting in a very, very public setting, with Endeavor actually in the stands to watch him fail on live television. The thought sent his insides swooping, and Shoto's fingers clenched around the thin wood as he tried his best to bring his heart-beat down and his limbs to settle.

It didn't work, even after he had tried three different breathing exercises and pressed hard against fresh bruises. In desperation, he finally resorted to doing something that brought heat rising in his cheeks that had nothing to do with his quirk: he ate with his hands.

By the time his plate was empty—thankfully, he had chosen the daily special, not the curry or katsudon—the tips of his right hand were fully capable of handling the heat of the food that had slowly cooled as he ate it. Still, the heat in his cheeks lingered as he produced then melted ice off his hand to clean it, and got to his feet with only a minor grimace at the soreness in his limbs.

He already felt better for eating. Even if he had gone about it in a way that left him feeling slightly humiliated, it wasn't like anyone had been around to see it, so there was no use dwelling.

Picking up his tray, Shoto left the room and headed back to the cafeteria, noting, but ignoring, the occasional double-take from the students he passed by.

This… could work. If he did it too often, there was a chance someone would try to follow him, which would be a definite worst-case scenario, so he would have to limit it to once or twice a week at most. Perhaps… if it was only sometimes… he could try sitting with Shoji.

The idea had merit, and didn't fill him with dread the way eating with anyone else might have, so Shoto nodded absently to himself and mentally jotted it down as an option to consider.

After getting rid of his tray and high-tailing it out of there, Shoto made his leisurely way towards the stadium.

At the stadium, once it was time to announce the theme of the final, tournament-style event, there were a number of surprises.

The first was the sudden and surprising withdrawals.

Shoto looked askance at 'Ojiro-kun'—his classmate with the tail and martial arts training, whose name he hadn't remembered till Midnight had called it—as he raised his hand and asked to withdraw from the tournament.

Stepping down from a potentially life-changing event like this, over something as simple as pride? Shoto felt a stirring of disdain in his gut and fought to keep the corner of his lips from curling upwards in a sneer of disgust.

Cowards always used pathetic excuses to avoid having to face their fear of failure. There was a twinge in the back of his mind at the thought, something like guilt attempting to wind its way to the forefront of his mind, but Shoto ignored it. Let him withdraw; he would only have himself to blame, down the road, when it came time to choose a hero agency to intern at and he discovered that he had no offers.

The second surprising thing was the fact that the 1-A girls were dressed in cheerleading uniforms.

His brow furrowing in confusion, Shoto looked from the embarrassed looking girls—as Ojiro called them out, a hand slapped over his eyes—to where Kaminari and Purple Balls stood together, snickering gleefully to each other and eyeing the girls in a predatory way that Shoto did not like at all. He had a distinct feeling he knew what had happened. Purple Balls was starting to show a pattern of behavior that Shoto strongly disapproved of, but this was not something he had expected of Kaminari.

If Shoto were any other person, he imagined he would walk up to Kaminari and say: I expected better from you, because you know better, and you are better. You are above this behavior, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself.

But in the end, that was not the sort of person Shoto was, so he compromised. He stared fixedly at Kaminari until, perhaps feeling the strength of his look, the boy turned to look at him. When their eyes met, Shoto did his upmost to project his extreme disapproval and disappointment, and was gratified when Kaminari's face turned white, and he quickly looked down at his feet and took a few steps away from Purple Balls.

They weren't friends, he and Kaminari, but they weren't… unfriendly. It would have been unpleasant to know that someone, whose name he had bothered to remember, would do something so disgraceful and unpleasant. Shoto was pleased to think that Kaminari had been cured of his ill-thought behavior, and put the whole thing out of his mind to take in what Midnight was saying.

They would be having one-on-one, no-holds-barred (other than the obvious) fights. The thought was a thrilling one, full of possibilities, and Shoto's heart-rate picked up.

A few members of Class B would be taking place of the Ojiro and the B student who had also dropped out, but Shoto paid that no mind as he impatiently waited for Midnight to announce the order for the one-on-one fights.

There: his name. Against Sero… Hanta. Shoto scrunched his brow, wracking his brain for who that could possibly be… and came up blank. Ah, well. That person was less important than who he had next in his line-up.

Midoriya Izuku.

Shoto felt… something, spread from his chest and out through the tip of his fingers. Fear? Excitement? Determination? A mix of all three? Shoto didn't know, only that it made his heart race and his tension sky-rocket.

He would meet Midoriya, and he would utilize his powers against a strong, surprisingly powerful opponent; this was his best, and possibly last, chance to truly prove himself to Midoriya, to the world, and most importantly, to his father, that he could reach the top only using his mother's quirk.

Present Mic announced the short recreational interlude, giving the students who were still in the running a chance to rest and get their thoughts and plans together for the oncoming tournament. Shoto used the chance to escape somewhere outside and away from everyone, needing to re-discover that small moment of peace that he had found in that empty classroom.

He found a place quickly enough, a shaded spot outside the stadium but still on school grounds. (Security was extra tight today, the patrols so thick with pro-heroes that it hadn't even occurred to him to try his luck leaving the premises, which was for the best—no doubt he would have been disqualified instantly if he had been caught.)

He pressed up against the wall, in a darkly shaded corner, and slid down into a crouch. Lowering his head to lean over his thighs, Shoto closed his eyes and opened his ears to hear:

Tree branches, their leaves rustling in the wind with every passing breeze. The distant sound of voices, audible even outside the stadium walls. The boom-boom-boom of fireworks, far enough away not to send him flying to his feet at the sound. The sound of birds, chirping cheerfully, and the flap of their wings as they took flight.

Shoto listened, and breathed, letting his mind drift within the safe confines of this quiet little world, and slowly brought himself into a quiet state of calm.

If only he could always make his world like this—still, peaceful. Alone.

His phone buzzed, some indeterminate time later, and Shoto reluctantly got to his feet. His match would be the second, after Midoriya, so he had best wait in the waiting rooms in order to not miss the signal for his match.

It was time.

Present Mic's voice announced the winner (Midoriya, something that sent relief shooting through him, though he hadn't doubted the other boy would persevere, not truly).

Shoto stood up out of his chair and left the waiting room, feeling unmotivated and eager to get this fight over with. His eyes were already on the future, where a fight he was desperate to have awaited.

(This, for Sero Hanta, would prove to be a very unfortunate thing.)

But before that could happen, something else did.

Shoto turned the corner that would lead to the exit into the arena, and paused.

"You're in my way," he said, as coldly as if the ice of his quirk had merged with his words, sending them on a freezing path to their intended target.

"You are an embarrassment, Shoto," said the Number Two Hero, Endeavor. He stood, his arms crossed and fire billowing, to one side of the narrow hallway—not actually blocking the way, but near to it.

Shoto's eyes flicked between the wall and the large man across from it, cold eyes calculating the distance and the odds of being able to pass the man without touching him. A final glance at the man decided him, and Shoto started walking again, determined to get away as fast as possible.

Rage, a cold, solid thing, sat heavy within him, and Shoto used that weight to move his trembling body past the flames that eagerly licked at his uniform.

His uniform was not (as his father had demanded he request) fireproof because Shoto had no intention of using his fire. This made catching fire from Endeaver's quirk a serious concern. He edged closer to the wall, and tilted his body to the side as he passed.

He did his best to tune out the word-vomit spewing from the bastard's mouth, but as he walked past, some of the words began to get to him. Shoto gritted his teeth and picked up the pace slightly, but he couldn't leave fast enough.

The words that left his mouth—in answer to his father's absolutely unacceptable statement that he was different from his siblings, as well his greatest masterpiece—were dark and heavy with resentment and anger.

"Is that all you have to say? You should know, old man, that I plan to win using Mom's power, and hers alone. Your power has no place here."

"Even if that works for now," the words followed him as he moved towards the light, said with all the smug assurance that could be packed into a single sentence, "you will very soon reach the limit of that power."

His face twisted into a ferocious, angry mask, Shoto drove the words from his mind and moved forward, his control veering one step closer to the edge.

Shoto stood on the stage as the dramatic fire of the decorative pits in the four corners of the stage billowed dramatically, the name of his opponent (who he did recognize, though only distantly, as Elbows, the student with a quirk that produced a tape-like substance) and Shoto's announced over the large sound system.

His mismatched eyes, hidden behind his hair, glared forwards and past Sero, to the point in his future where Midoriya was waiting; behind him, his back turned to the man who had caused him more grief than he could ever put to words, and to whom he had so much he had to prove.

There were, theoretically, a couple of ways Shoto could go about this battle, but as the seconds ticked down, he knew that there had really only been one option from the start.

The buzzer rang, present Mic announced, "STAAAAAAAART!", and his opponent sent tape whizzing in his direction.

Shoto didn't bother trying to dodge. Sero dragged his limp, unresisting body towards the boundary.

Perhaps Sero felt confident; perhaps he knew the difference in their power, and was desperate enough to try to win regardless; maybe he really thought that he had a chance.

Whatever the case, Shoto felt only the tiniest twinge of regret at what he was about to do, one that was quickly burned out in the gradually building flames of Shoto's burning resentment and rage.

He lifted his head as the boundary line came closer and closer, and said, with dark humor in his voice:

"Sorry about this."

It was said that All Might could change the weather itself with one, concussive blast from his powerful fist. Shoto… wasn't All Might, but he could do the next best thing. So Shoto touched his foot to the ground, and proceeded to do just that.

In the silence afterward, when his massive iceberg had finished shaking the foundations of the building as it shot up and out of the stadium, having filled the whole of it and nearly destroyed part of the arena, Shoto stood and breathed out puffs of white air, his mind blissfully quiet. The dark emotions simmered, but seeing the ice, in all of its cold, expansive glory, settled him, reminding him that he was perfectly justified in his course of action.

It would have been different, if his power had been weak and faltering, his control uncertain and all over the place. Here, with millions of people as his witness, he stood, tall and proud, having done the equivalent of shouting at his Father, saying: Look at me. See what I can do, without you, in spite of you.

It would have been the perfect punctuation to a perfectly created statement of intent if he had been allowed to turn his back and walk off that stage, head held high, back a solid rejection of everything Father wanted him to be.

Sadly, reality reasserted itself shortly after his dramatic move. The moment Midnight announced the win and the crowd began an uncertain—then gradually, uproarious—round of applause, Cementoss and Midnight came rushing onto the stage, urging him to melt the ice and get Sero out before there was any permanent damage. Shoto obliged easily, putting out his right hand and sending heat through the gigantic iceberg. In a matter of minutes, Sero was flopping to the ground, and medical personnel were ushering him off the stage and to Recovery Girl.

That wasn't the end of it, of course.

Shoto watched the faces of the pros as they looked about the ruined stage, and felt distinctly amused at the rising look of horror on their faces as they realized something that should have occurred to them from the start:

When you melt ice, particularly such an incredibly large quantity of it… that ice has to go somewhere, doesn't it? It doesn't just… disappear into thin air.

As the sky rained down entire bathtubs-full of water, Shoto finally turned and made his way off the stage. This wasn't his problem. He'd done what he intended to do, and now he was going to find somewhere quiet to sit and rest off some of the fatigue clinging to his bones.

He made his way through the hallways, silent and empty now that any available personal had been called to help out with the mess in the arena. Present Mic announced a short break due to the necessary clean up over the loudspeaker, and fighting a smirk that was completely unfair to all the people who would be panicking right about now (did he care? Not really), Shoto made his ambling way over to one of the waiting rooms.

The next match was… He mentally called up the image of the tournament listings, and recalled that Bakugo would be going against… Ura…raka?

Hmmm. That was not a name he was familiar with. Shoto pushed open the door to Waiting Room 5, poked his head in to make sure it was empty, and stepped inside.

He pulled out a chair at one of the tables and sat himself down. There was a table with light snacks and drinks neatly lined up for participants to partake of, and Shoto regretted having sat down, because the fatigue from using his quirk so extensively was beginning to really make itself known, and the thought of going to get the drink he wanted was awful.

A thought occurred to him as he stared at a sports drink and took in the label without really seeing it.

His classmates… he should really remember their names, shouldn't be?

Shoto began tapping the table-top with his left hand, shifting to lean over the table and rest his chin on his right.

The thought was surprisingly irritating. Perhaps it was the residual negative emotions from his confrontation with his father speaking, but Shoto found that he was annoyed at the idea that he might have to learn their names, due to some unspoken social obligation.

What did it matter, whether or not he knew their names? He knew the quirks of almost every student in his class and a number from Class 1-B; that was already more than a majority of his classmates could probably claim.

When a child is born, their parents give them a title, something to call themselves by. As they grow, they learn to identify themselves by that name, and as they slowly but surely grow into it, that name gains weight, something they use to tell the world who they are. Without it, Shoto could easily imagine any one of his classmates feeling an intense sense of loss, along with any number of other negative emotions.

Shoto rolled his name around in his head as he moved his tapping fingers over to his left bicep.

Todoroki Shoto. Shoto. Todoroki.

The syllables had the calming weight of familiarity and comfort behind them. Shoto, too, had carried the weight of his name from the day of his birth, and while there were some bad memories and unpleasant emotions associated with it, overall, Shoto felt that the pleasant memories he had clung to for so long could easily outweigh the bad.

Even so, if given the choice…

Todoroki Shoto, he mouthed into the silent room.

Even so. If given the choice, Shoto would erase his name from existence in a heartbeat.

Present Mic's voice came screeching in his ears, announcing the end of the break and the start of the next fight, to begin in five minutes.

Shoto sat up and rolled his shoulders, considering. Bakugo was a wild card that Shoto had no doubt he would be facing later on in the tournament.

Bakugo's demand to be seen and heard, coupled with his versatile and powerful quirk, called for a level of caution Shoto hadn't thought he would need upon entering this school (an arrogant thought, perhaps, but one Shoto still considered to be mostly true). Bakugo didn't raise the same level of caution in Shoto that Midoriya did, but he was powerful enough that Shoto seriously considered the merits of watching his next fight.

The thought of the roaring crowds set his teeth on edge and his skin tingling, but there was nothing for it.

Shoto made his way out of the waiting room and headed towards the stands, telling himself that it would be a short, easy fight, anyway, and he could leave any time he felt the urge.

In the stands a short time later, Shoto found himself reconsidering his earlier assumption.

This did not, in any way, seem like it would be an easy or simple fight.

Shoto leaned forward unconsciously, entranced by the clever dance unfolding on the concrete stage below him.

There had been few open seats left by the time he made his way to the 1-A seating booth, but Shoto hadn't wanted to be noticed, so he'd slipped through the door and into the shadowy corner by the back wall. He figured he'd slip in, watch for a minute or two as Bakugo decimated his opponent, and slip back out to prepare mentally for his fight with Midoriya.

He hadn't expected to have his attention arrested only a few minutes into the fight.

At first glance, it seemed like a one-sided beat down.

The girl Bakugo was fighting—Gravity, Shoto recalled upon seeing her face—kept up a continuous full-frontal charge with little subtlety, and little apparent success.

Every time she came in range of Bakugo's quirk, he blasted her away with painful and accurate explosions. Shoto recalled that her quirk required her to have a five-fingered contact before it could work, which explained her continuous, bull-headed attack pattern.

There had been an interesting moment, where she had used her jacket as camouflage to step through the smoke and attempt an ambush, but that had failed, and every attack since then had been the same simple, ineffective charge.

Still, for all that it appeared thoughtless and desperate… Shoto's eyes narrowed around the time she had made her fourth attack, been beaten back, and still tried again.

Still. There was something going on here that he wasn't seeing. What was—

Shoto's eyes caught on the movement of something small and gray as it shot into the sky. Rubble was constantly flying about, due to Bakugo's continued attempts to destroy his opponent and his surroundings with extreme prejudice, but something about the rubble—

Shoto's eyes followed the gray rocks up and up and up… and stopped. Then, slowly, he began to smile.

Clever. Shoto leaned against the wall, the smile still lightly touching his lips. Clever, and interesting.

Mousy-brown hair in a short bob, a round, kind face with smiling eyes, and a fairly useful and interesting quirk. Shoto hadn't given her too much thought, as all of those characteristics were a dime a dozen in even UA's Hero Course, and she hadn't had the presence of someone truly worth being wary of.

This interesting display, however…

It was about this time that some of the members of the audience began shouting down at the two fighters, condemning Bakugo for his 'unheroic actions' against a girl, and how he should 'have pity on her and send her out of the boundary'.

Shoto side-eyed the heroes that were now standing up and booing, contempt curling the corner of his lip. Were they blind? Did they not see?

Aizawa-sensei's voice unexpectedly boomed from the speakers, and Shoto's head shot to the announcer's box automatically. He listened, one eye on the crowd and the other on the arena, as Sensei scathingly shot down the booers, and condemned them for their lack of awareness. Shoto's lips twitched up in amusement at his teacher's interesting choice of words: 'go home and consider other employment'? Harsh. Shoto had distantly respected his teacher from day one, if only for the way he effortlessly controlled a rowdy class with an iron hand; then at USJ, when he had put himself on the line to protect his students against a full crowd of villains—with no thought for his own safety—and in the end, walked away with nearly debilitating injuries, but with not one student lost, that respect had changed from distant, to something solid and real.

Now, that respect shot up once again, along with his wariness, because Shoto had vaguely understood that their homeroom teacher cared about their future and wellbeing in so far as his work required it of him, but he hadn't realized the true depth of his regard.

This… could prove to be difficult, should anything… happen.

Shoto ran his hand over his chin, possible scenarios rolling through his mind, but another loud explosion reminded him that there were other things he ought to be concentrating on, so he put it out of his mind for the time being.

Gravity was looking very battered by this point and, eyes on the space high above the arena, Shoto thought that it was right about the time she would be pulling out her final trump card.

He leaned forward, arms crossed and eyes narrowed, determined to catch the moment she made her move.

He was rewarded seconds later as she paused—her mouth moving around words too quiet to catch—and her spread fingers touched together in a five-fingered contact. Shoto's eyes immediately shot up in time to see—

A meteor shower.

Concrete debris—some seemingly large enough that Shoto imagined they could kill a person on contact, falling from that height—fell like rain, clumps of all sizes dropping from the sky like a shower of stars, inversely dark against the bright rays of the sun.

Shoto's eyes followed them down, admiration building, because it had been a very clever move against an opponent like Bakugo, with such heavy firepower and incredibly quick reasoning skills.

Unfortunately, however…

Shoto's fingers gripped his forearms tightly in sympathy as Bakugo stood, still as a statue, save for the arm he slowly raised to the sky, palm open, the red-gold of his quirk building.

Unfortunately, from the look of Bakugo's body language, despite all of Gravity's preparations and crazy-but-useful ideas, this wasn't going to end the way she thought it would.

Shoto was proven right a second later when the massive, concussive blast from Bakugo's hand blew every single bit of rubble—and his opponent, as well—harmlessly away from his body. When the billowing wind from the blast died down (Shoto had tucked his body as far into the corner as it would go to avoid it, something his classmates hadn't managed if their screaming was any indication), there was a clear, empty circle of space around Bakugo, and his opponent was lying flat on the ground, energy apparently spent.

Eyeing the scale of the debris and what he could recall of the girl's quirk limits, stamina, and muscle mass, Shoto grimly concluded that, even if she managed to get to her feet, there would be no more future for her in this fight.

Shoto found himself oddly reluctant to witness such an unfortunate end to a very risky but well-executed plan, but he made himself stand witness until Midnight came forward and announced the win.

Then he turned and swiftly made his way out of the box, his mind finished analyzing what he had seen and already moving on to the next fight.

Uraraka Ochako. The name hovered in front of his mind, smoothly inserting itself in front of a draft of a plan to counteract Midoriya's quirk.

Shoto paused, half-way to the arena entrances, and gave that name the acknowledgment it deserved.

Then he shut off all thoughts that weren't relevant to his next fight, and walked towards the next step in his plan to beat his father through the sheer strength of his spite.