Izuku flipped through his notebook, and turned to Katsuki.
"How did he do that?" he asked. Katsuki shrugged, unable to think of any spell that would allow that.
"It's my match next," Izuku realized. Todoroki, uninjured except for a slight soreness in his hand, waited for Izuku.
"START!" Midnight shouted, and Todoroki launched an iceberg at him. Izuku exploded it with a flick.
"Use your full power!" he shouted, but Todoroki just launched another iceberg, which Izuku easily flicked away.
"You asked for it." Izuku said, and with his whole body lighting up green, ran towards his opponent, dodging glaciers and flying shards.
"LISTEN TO ME! It's not his fire, and it's never been his! Your quirk is not Ice, and it isn't Fire. Your quirk is Half-cold Half-hot, and everything about it belongs solely to you." Izuku shouted, hoping to get through to his friend. Todoroki's side was completely covered in ice, and Izuku smashed through another wave.
"Can your father control your fire? Can he create flames from you as he does from himself?" Izuku asked.
"Of course not." Todoroki replied, steam rolling off him. "Then there is no way it belongs to him. Todoroki, it's your power!" Izuku shouted, and Todoroki stood, thinking. Then he smiled.
"Do you want to lose the fight, or something?" he asked.
"I will, if that's what it takes for you to understand." Izuku offered.
"Zuko said much the same." Todoroki said, and then his right side exploded into flame. Izuku grinned, and Endeavor yelled from the stands.
"Don't listen to him." Izuku warned.
"I wasn't going to." Todoroki said, and then he leaped, fire and ice swirling, twisting in quick succession. Izuku dashed to the side, and looked up. Todoroki stood before him, a sword made of ice in one hand, and one made of fire in the other. Then he swung, and holy frick, Todoroki actually knew how to use those. Spinning, dancing, flipping, smoke and steam erupting around green sparks, the two sparred. Izuku dialed up his power, and slammed his hand into the ground, creating a massive shockwave that rippled with electricity. Todoroki didn't move, though. He dropped his swords, and kicked off his shoe. As the wave of energy reached his outstretched foot, instead of knocking him back, it wrapped up his leg, looking as though Todoroki held One for All himself. How...?
The green crawled up Todoroki's right side, and around his arm. Energy sparked and crackled, and Todoroki spun his hand in a strange movement, trailing lines of electricity through the air. Izuku stepped back, and lightning erupted in a green, rumbling, roaring, BOOM!
Izuku was blown backwards by a massive explosion, as big as anything he'd ever seen made by All Might. A veritable dome of energy ripped up the ground, crashing, smashing and destroying, and Izuku was hurled from the circle as Todoroki screamed, and everything went black.
Toshinori, in the stands with the rest of the teachers, watched young Todoroki take control of One for All and throw it back with terrible force. It was greater than anything he'd done for five years, since his quirk began fading. This, combined with Kaminari's destruction of the gym, pointed fingers of suspicion at Todoroki, because his quirk was definitely NOT energy absorption and redistribution. Or whatever had just happened.
Shouto and Izuku woke up in the nurse's office, and Shouto's arm hurt like frick. He looked at it, and...
"My arm broke." he realized.
"Your hand, too." Recovery Girl said, healing it. This was the second time it had been broken, too.
"How did you do that? You stole the power and made it stronger...you did that with Kaminari, earlier." Izuku said.
"It's, uh, something I've been practicing." Shouto said, and focused on the energies, spinning his arm, which became wreathed in blue seed lightning. What. He could lightningbend now?
"This is new." Shouto noted.
"Can you do the same on your ice side? I've noticed you only use the fire side--which should be better classified as the hot side, I think." Izuku said. Shouto copied the motion with his left hand, and suddenly, the ice covering his arm changed, and glowed blue. Huh. It looked like waterbenders tried to heal someone...wait. Shouto reached to his bloody right hand, and enveloped it in the glowing water. He was healed almost instantly.
"You can heal with the energy too." Izuku said. Still holding the energy, he created more ice--and a wave of water splashed across the room.
"Looks like I'm half an Avatar." Shouto said, and fell back asleep from quirk overuse.
"THE NEXT MATCH IS IIDA VS IIDA, BROTHER VERSUS SISTER! WHO WILL WIN!" Present Mic shouted. Katsuki only watched superficially; he was more interested in WHAT THE [BLEEP] HALFNHALF DID. Because seriously. What the [bleep]. The Iidas' match ended rather quickly once Knife turned into Invisible, and the two walked past Katsuki as he got ready for his match against a certain HalfnHalf bastard. Suddenly, Glasses' phone rung. He picked it up, and Katsuki watched his face go from confused to terrified.
"We have to go." he said, and he and Knife ran the [bleep] out of there. Katsuki wondered briefly what had happened, and continued. Anyway, in good news for the day, HalfnHalf was using his fire and it wasn't a Tuesday, so Katsuki would get a real challenge.
Was anyone going to tell him HalfnHalf could create water now, or did he have to learn that himself by getting soaked?
Or what about the fact that he could drag the explosions away from Katsuki, and make the fire vanish with a wave of his hand?
And what about the part where he slammed his hands together, which created a compressed beam of hot energy that exploded on impact?
"I can combustion bend! Zuko is going to be so jealous." said the bastard, and shot another explosion. Fine; you want to play with magic? Katsuki could see that HalfnHalf was twisting the limits of his quirk in ways that were normally impossible. He could play, too.
Katsuki muttered a quick barrier spell (a very small one) as HalfnHalf clapped his hands, and the energy built up at the end of his fingers, glowing.
"What--"
Katsuki grinned as the bastard blew himself out of the arena. Some fights weren't about who tried harder, but about who could cheat better. Round Face was supposed to fight Knife next, but she was still off with Glasses doing whatever, so Uraraka won by default, and was paired off against Runes. Wait.
"[bleeping] Hosu!" Katsuki yelled, remembering a detail from other realities.
"Bro?" Stupid Hair asked. Katsuki remembered that in every other reality, something happened during the Sports Festival, which caused something else real troublesome in Hosu, which involved the [bleeping] Hero Killer, and Glasses, HalfnHalf, and Deku. He'd have to figure it out later, though. He was up against Uraraka next, as she'd won in like, three seconds, by simply walking up to, ignoring, and slapping Runes.
The two walked towards the circle.
"Why do you call him Runes? You're the one that got them incorporated into your hero costume." Round Face asked.
"Because he helped me figure them out, a few years ago." Katsuki admitted. The two faced off, in the circle.
"START!"
Thus begun a rather difficult match. Round Face just kept coming, no matter how many explosions he threw. People yelled at him to go easy on her but that was stupid; Round Face--Uraraka--was the most difficult challenge he'd had so far. He'd need magic to beat her, he decided. But even with Uraraka tripping over nothing and missing him by impossible inches, he still couldn't win, but neither could she. And then--
and then--
There was a [bleeping] meteor shower that she'd been building over his head. Creating a massive explosion with what was remaining of his nitroglycerin--oh he was running out he'd used it up for the magic--while dodging rubble, Uraraka slipped on thin air and crashed into him, activating her quirk and nearly sending him soaring out of the ring. He managed to explode himself into the ground, and then bounce himself off it like a pinball, soaring high, and still technically inside the ring. Time to bend the rules a little. Katsuki activated a spell to remove himself from the effects of Uraraka's quirk, which pulled massive amounts of quirk energy from him--he wouldn't be able to explode anything, or cast spells, for at least thirty minutes, with a spell of that caliber. But quirkless didn't mean useless; and he had eight seconds of timeless existence to exploit. Just because he traveled every night didn't mean it had to happen then.
Uraraka felt the nausea disappear, and Katsuki, from his barely-visible position in the air, begin to speed downwards. How--? She hadn't released him. Then, she remembered something Izuku had told her, when he was given her strategy hints to win against Katsuki.
"He cheats. Like, at reality. I've never found a way to explain it, but sometimes stuff just happens. You saw his match against Kirishima, right?" Izuku had said. Kirishima had tripped over his own feet--ridiculous, until she found herself doing the same. Currently, Katsuki was going to collide with the ground, dangerously.
"DIIIIEEEE!" he roared, and Midnight stared upward with horror. He was the one who was going to die; there was no way Uraraka could slap him, not at the speed he was going. Katsuki twisted in midair, falling feet-first. Uraraka begin floating the ground, maybe she could catch him with rubble, but he smashed straight through it, obscuring the arena with dust. He was right above her and then--
and then--
he
was
gone.
The clouds of dust were slowly settling, and Katsuki was nowhere to be seen. Uraraka had nearly died at the USJ; she knew terror. This--this was horror.
Then she got tackled from behind, and the relief was overwhelming. She wrestled him back, hitting him with her quirk, WHICH WASN'T WORKING. The two rolled away from each other, breathing heavily.
"How the [BLEEP]!" Uraraka screamed.
"Since when do you swear?" he muttered, and they rushed each other again.
"SOMEHOW, BAKUGOU AVOIDED BECOMING A PANCAKE, AND NOW HE AND URARAKA ARE FIGHTING QUIRKLESS! THE BATTLE'S GETTING BRUTAL, LISTENERS!" Present Mic shouted. Swinging, sliding, Uraraka attacked Bakugou, who had no more explosions to give her, and she, somehow, could not float him. However, she could float some of the rubble laying around, and hurled a massive piece before releasing it from her quirk's hold. Maybe Bakugou had overused his? But that didn't explain his brief disappearance from existence, nor his immunity to her quirk, nor whatever had been happening earlier. If she was going to win this, she'd have to innovate. Hmm.
Uraraka slapped the ground a few times, and massive chunks ripped themselves out, floating. She shoved them towards her opponent, and he smashed through them, but he was struggling. What else could she do?
"URARAKA IS TEARING UP THE GROUND, BUT BAKUGOU IS HOLDING STEADY! THE TABLES HAVE TURNED!" Presen Mic shouted, and Uraraka remembered how earlier, she'd been the one running at him, trying to get through the explosions. The table was on her side, now; she had almost won. What else could she float at him, she wondered. And then, flinging another chunk of the ground through the air, she had an idea. There was no way it would work...but if it did?
Katsuki was getting slowly pushed towards the edge of the circle. Dodging another chunk of earth, suddenly he was pushed upwards, into the air.
"HAAH?" he yelled, wondering how Uraraka had managed to float him when a) the immunity to her quirk still hadn't worn off and b) she was nowhere near him. Wait--he wasn't floating, gravity was still pulling him downwards. He was being levitated by the air itself...
"YOU FLOATED THE AIR!" he shouted, realizing. Uraraka walked up to him, smiling. He was trapped by the pressure. "Amazing." he said. Uraraka blinked at the compliment, and stepped closer to push him over the line, and then--
and then--
she tripped. Over a piece of the shattered arena, not even his spell. Time seemed to slow as she fell forwards, past Bakugou, and over the edge of the circle.
"What?" Bakugou asked.
"BAKUGOU HAS WON THE SPORTS FESTIVAL!" roared Present Mic, and an indecipherable look passed over Bakugou's face as Uraraka released the air from her quirk.
"No. No, that's not fair. She tripped, it doesn't count. She was going to win, you [BLEEP] [BLEEPING] [BLEEPS]!" Bakugou shouted. Midnight walked over.
"The awards ceremony will start once you both get checked over." she said.
"It can't be over, we need a retry. I didn't win fairly, Uraraka was about to win! SHE should have first place!" Bakugou growled, following Midnight out of the arena.
"I'm not accepting that medal." he told the volunteers, who were gathered to lead him to the podium.
"I don't deserve first place. I cheated, anyway." Katsuki said.
"You...cheated. What, with unregistered support items? Yeah, I don't see any. He's trying to get out of it." someone said.
"I refuse first place." Katsuki snarled.
"You don't get a choice in the matter."
Notes:
Shouto is the hand crusher...because he crushes his own hand