It's the day of the sports festival. Shouto is infinitely glad it takes place on a Monday; he would not want Zuko winning for him. This is his chance to show his father how he can beat everyone else without using his fire, and Zuko would ruin that. Katsuki pledges to win, and they stand in front of a massive obstacle course.
"START!" yells Present Mic, and they run. Shouto skids past everyone except for the Iidas on a skatboard of ice (thank you, Zuko, for that waterbending trick) and pushes into the air with a ramp.
"TODOROKI IS SOARING AHEAD OF THE COMPETITION, CLOSELY FOLLOWED BY YAOYOROZU AND BAKUGOU!" Present Mic says, and Shouto looks behind himself to see Bakugou exploding himself through the air, and Yaoyorozu on fricking ice skates, what the the frick, zipping over his ice. Ashido is sliding by on acid, some girl from the Support Course catching up with a jetpack that Tsu has attached her tongue to, practically jetskiiing. Midoriya has stolen some of Sero's spare tape, and is stuck to Tsu in turn, trailing after her.
"ASUI TAKES ADVANTAGE OF HATSUME'S JETPACK, AND MIDORIYA USES THE SAME STRATEGY!" announces Present Mic.
Soon enough, Shouto reaches the next part: ropes, over a chasm. Iida Tenya is scooting across hesitantly, while his sister has transformed into Shouto himself--that's still weird--and is icing a bridge before melting it behind her. Shouto wonders briefly what would happen if she drank blood from him on a Tuesday; would she turn into Zuko? Shouto copies Iida Himiko's strategy, watching a Gen Ed student slip off. Next up are the robots; Shouto smashes through beside Bakugou, who is passing him. He manages to pull ahead, stopping in front of a minefield. He and Bakugou begin hopping through, hesitantly, and Shouto takes inspiration from waterbending once more. Sending a line line of ice curling around the mines, it crashes into one near Bakugou, who steadies himself with an explosion--a mistake. The two are ahead of everyone, passing Shouto!Himiko, who is having trouble controlling Shouto's quirk and getting herself exploded. Suddenly, a massive boom occurs as he and Bakugou battle through a maze of tunnels.
"MIDORIYA HAS USED THE MINES TO SHOOT HIMSELF FORWARD, BEATING OUT MOST OF THE COMPETITION!" Present Mic yells, and what does that mean...oh. Midoriya flies through the air on a sheet of metal, avoiding smashing into the ground by spinning around a pole. Now neck and neck with him and Bakugou, Midorya runs beside them in the tunnel. They are closely followed by the Support Girl--Hatsume--and Shouto!Himiko. Shouto creates a pole made of ice, hurls it at Bakugou, who stumbles, and jumps off the side of the wall, beating out Midoriya by a few inches, thanks to Zuko's parkour lessons.
"TODOROKI WINS FIRST PLACE! AFTER HIM COMES MIDORIYA, THEN BAKUGOU, THEN HATSUME, THEN IIDA HIMIKO!" Present Mic yells. Midnight is smiling at him. That does not forebode anything pleasant.
A Calvary Battle, okay. One only passes to the next round with enough points, sure. First place gets a headband with 1 million points, what the frick. He can deal with this. Shouto ends up on a team with Denki, Ashido and Sero; no one else wants to be a target. Midoriya is grinning, with Hatsume, Uraraka and Tsu. They seem to have a plan set up. Bakugou has Kirishima and the Iidas.
The moment the event starts, everyone goes after team Todoroki, predicticably--except for team Midoriya, who is stealing headbands from everyone else, as they aren't paying attention--also, they're flying, with Uraraka's quirk and Hatsume's equipment (also known as babies). Shouto is keeping people off with waves off ice, while Sero tries to grab headbands with tape, Denki zaps people and Ashido throws acid. Bakugou has turned from Shouto, and is blowing Monoma's team apart when Monoma turns Shinsou's quirk against him. Bakugou wobbles his team's pyramid, and Shoji!Himiko falls on top of Denki, leaving Shouto open to attack; Tsu takes the initiative to steal the million-point headband, and soars away. This means war. Everyone's after team Midoriya now, but as they're flying, they cannot be reached. Someone from 1-B with purple sticky balls on his hair knocks off one of Hatsume's jetpacks, but they barely falter. Denki shoots lightning, but his attacks are easily warded off by an umbrella-looking shield Midoriya holds. Right.
"Anyone have a plan?" Sero asks. In the absence of ideas...what would Zuko do? His usual first resort is to yell and throw fireballs. That's not an option; his usual second resort is to break into some impossible-to-break-into fortress. Also not an option. Then, he caught sight of the discarded jetpack. Aha.
"Sero, I need lots of tape; Ashido, some acid that reacts with whatever this fuel is; and Denki, quite a few volts." Shouto said.
"WHOA! CLEVERLY USING HATSUME'S JETPACK, TEAM TODOROKI IS SOARING THROUGH ALL THE COMPETITION, WITH STICKY STATIC STEALING DOZENS OF HEADBANDS! AND THEY'RE GOING FOR TEAM MIDORIYA!" Present Mic yelled.
"What are you teaching these kids, Shouta?" he asked Aizawa, who shrugged, remembering a blackened hole in a wall.
Shouto, holding onto the tape, slid across an ice skateboard, knocking others aside. The jetpack, blasting them through the air, had multiple lines of tape flapping off it, each snapping and crackling, sticking and pulling away headbands. Shouto created a ramp, and launched into the air, towards Midoriya. Ashido reached for the million-point headband, missed, and Uraraka slapped Shouto, floating him into the air. He grabbed onto the tape-and-headband-covered jetpack, swung into Midoriya, and flared up with fire as a reaction, partly because of all the static reaction between himself and partly because of Midoriya's green lightning. Uraraka released him, and he fell, dragging his team to the ground, and Sero catches him and the jetpack.
"TIME!" yells Present Mic. They didn't get the million-point headband, but they still got second place. This, however, was not a good enough consolation prixe to reassure Shouto; Midoriya had made him break his vow, and use his--Endeavor's--fire. He didn't need Zuko to ruin the Festival for him; he could do it just fine on his own.
The 1v1 matches were starting, and Goggles made a complete fool out of Glasses before forfeiting, as witnessed by Katsuki Bakugou. He walked through the corridors, and stopped before an area in shadow, where HalfnHalf and Izuku stood.
"Are you All Might's secret love child?" HalfnHalf asked. Katsuki stared, hidden.
"Wha--no. Of course not." Izuku replied.
"I know you have a sort of relationship with him. No matter the specifics, you are my opponent as much as All Might is my father's. Today, you made me break my vow, and use fire. I don't think you understand the seriousness of this. Have you heard of Quirk Marriages...?" HalfnHalf outlined, in great detail, his tragic backstory.
"It's not his fire. It's yours." Izuku replied, but HalfnHalf didn't listen.
"I am going to beat you with only my ice, and restore my honor. Um. Ignore that last part." HalfnHalf said, and marched away. Okay. Sure.
After a fight against Stupid Hair--which had actually been somewhat difficult, until Bakugou had the bright idea of casting a minor spell of slipperiness. His explosions faded to popping sparks, but Stupid Hair kept tripping over nothing, and it was hilarious. When he landed on his face for the third time, Katsuki grabbed by the leg and hurled him out of the ring. Tailboy had recorded it, much to Katsuki's amusement.
"Look, Kouda. He's just--falling over--great job, Kirishima." Tailboy said, laughing.
"Delete that!" Stupid Hair cried. Katsuki wondered if it counted as cheating, taking advantage of something no one else could. He settled down to watch HalfnHalf and Dunce Face's match.
CrackcrackSNAP! Lightning lanced and leaped across the field as Shouto shunted blocks of ice at his friend, who kept blowing them up.
"Beat this!" Denki shouted, twisting his hand in a familiar manuever. What the frick, that was lightningbending, that could kill someone! Although, Denki was trailing absurd amounts of electricity, siphoning off from the lethal levels. Good--oh no. Shouto threw up a wall of ice, which was promptly shattered. Hmm, what would Zuko do? He hadn't been taught lightning redirection for nothing. However, chances were he could only hold the electricity on his fire side--it wasn't technically using the fire, and was worth a try.
Katsuki and Izuku watched Shouto and Denki dance across the arena, Izuku taking notes. Kaminari twisted his arm back, pointing a finger gun, and a truly massive lance of lightning exploded from his hand. And Todoroki--instead of dodging, or shielding--reached out his hand as well, and--
"Did he CATCH it?"
Shouto caught the lightning, twisting it through himself as he spun, and kicked, the energy exploding through his shoe. Denki stared in surprise, before getting smacked full in the face. The electricity went straight to his brain, leaving him spinning.
"Wheeeyyyy!" he sang, letting Shouto easily walk him out of the ring.
"AND IN A TRULY SHOCKING DEVELOPMENT, TODOROKI HAS SOMEHOW MANAGED TO KICK KAMINARI'S LIGHTNING BACK AT HIM!" Present Mic yelled.
Notes:
"in a truly shocking development" I think I'm hilarious