A/N: Hey everyone! We hope you've been enjoying the fic so far! When we started writing it, we had kinda hoped it would take off, but it's still so mind boggling and humbling to see the number of people who've checked out, so a million times thank you to you all for reading, favouriting, following. We're always open to feedback of any kind beyond the numbers to get a feel for how our story is doing, so please don't hesitate to leave a review so we know what's working and what we can improve on, so we can give you all the best version of this fic! Just as a glance to the future, beyond Affinity, we have plans for 2 other fics: one called Ambivalence- which will pick up after the end of Affinity and be centered around Bakugo and an OC we'll be introducing later in this fic- the other is going to be Legacy, which will be kind of a next generation fic involving the legacies of some of our favourite class A students. Anyways, that's enough from us, thanks once again! Enjoy!

Emiko still found herself stewing in her anger at Mineta and Kaminari's stunt with the cheerleader outfits while she stood in the wings as Deku and Shinso got ready for their match. Though her gaze was fixed on the two students in the combat arena, her mind might as well have been a galaxy away.

The gasps and cheers of the fans reacting to the two combatants were muffled as though her ears were stuffed with cotton balls. She vaguely registered Deku slowly walking out of the ring under the effects of Shinso's quirk. A gust of strong wind snapped her out of her reverie as Deku somehow shook off Shinso's quirk, something she'd never been able to do. Shinso was stunned and Emiko spotted the telltale damage on the green haired boy's fingers that meant he had somehow used his quirk to snap out of the brainwashing.

Deku rushed forward at Shinso and began pushing him towards the boundaries as the purple haired boy raged at him, not believing how he shook off his hold. Shinso began throwing punches at his opponent, trying anything and everything to provoke the boy into answering him so he could reassert his hold on him.

Shinso momentarily seemed to turn the tables at the border, only for Deku to shift the momentum and judo flip Shinso painfully onto his back, the taller boy slamming into the concrete with a painful sounding crack. A strangled groan slipped from his lips, eyes slamming shut at the pain.

The fight ended, Shinso's feet just barely over the line.

Residual rage still simmered in her gut, flaring with each breath she took. It thrummed in her veins, a deafening bass rhythm hammering through her. Near impossible to control, it grew. As she pictured Shinso being thrown out of the ring, she saw the embarrassed faces of her friends standing there, exposed and belittled.

As Midnight proclaimed Deku's victory, Emiko's heart flip-flopped, torn between ecstasy for her classmate, and sympathetic sorrow for her friend's loss. As the crowd applauded the two contestants and they exchanged words amongst themselves. There was a brief recess and she felt her nerves begin to mount at the prospect of her upcoming match against Shoto. She thought back to the times they sparred in her dojo, and hastily forced herself out of that train of thought. He'd never used his quirk in those sessions, so this might as well be like trying to write with her other hand. She knew he was stronger than she was, physically. Though her technique and skill in hand to hand combat was higher, she knew it would be a tough matchup for her, especially given his insane strength and proficiency for creating awe inspiring boundaries of ice.

"Are you ready, everyone?!"

Present Mic's voice swirled around her, pushed anxiety into the festering rage growing inside of her. She knew, just beyond that concrete platform, Shoto stood waiting for her. Her hands trembled slightly, a sure sign of her own anxiety.

"From Class 1-A, Emiko Komatsu!"

She gave her headband from Momo a quick tug to tighten it, thankful for the relieving pressure it gave her, which helped her cope with the cauldron of emotions that reached towards the skies on each side of her as she made the long walk out of the tunnel towards the concrete arena. It bubbled and frothed, and threatened to spill over, shifting and mixing into indistinguishable, gargantuan walls that inched closer and closer to squeeze her into nothingness.

A soft breeze caught her hair as she walked, pulling it forwards and causing it to swirl wildly around her face. It clung to the sweat at the nape of her neck, across her cheeks and to the exposed skin of her arms.

As she stepped past the boundary line and took up her starting spot, she felt the heat from the pyrotechnic devices in the corners behind her flare up, spitting sweltering jets of flame into the sky, eliciting further cheers out of the frenzied crowd.

Emiko grit her teeth as her quirk once again began firing on all cylinders, settling a nervous edge into every fibre of her being and bringing her earlier emotions boiling over with the discomfort she felt and was all too familiar with. Her frustration at the handicap this crowd gave her, her fury and humiliation from the demeaning stunt those assholes pulled.

Her anger was only fuelled by an equal inferno of rage that rolled off of Shoto, his expression murderous and his gaze positively glacial as he took a stiff stance in his end. He stood across from her, fury emanating from his every pore. She wanted to grin at him, nod her head or bow, but she couldn't. Couldn't show any weakness. His rage burned around him, lighting up like a forest fire. It nipped her heels, burned the tips of her fingers as she stood, watching him. Sparks flickered in his eyes, threatening to light at any moment.

His rage and hers burned, melting together. It was enthralling, all encompassing. Impossible to separate, they melded together. His rage became hers, his emotions overtaking her own and stoking the fire that she had been burning steadily for the entire afternoon.

"What's got your panties in a twist, icy hot?" Emiko growled, stretching her arms up and over her head.

"None of your business, Komatsu," he rebuked, his tone just as flat as ever, but with a strong undercurrent of annoyance and anger.

As the match was announced as beginning, Emiko strafed around the perimeter, her gaze focused on her opponent and drowning everything out as she anchored onto the boy's emotions.

"Did your daddy not give you a good luck kiss before your big match?" Emiko cooed, not knowing where the words were coming from.

"Shut up," he barked, balling his fists in barely contained frustration.

"Still hung up on those daddy issues, Shoto, huh? At least yours is here to cheer you on," she snarked, not missing the glint of rage sparking in his eyes.

"SHUT UP!" he roared, flinging his right arm up in a vicious arc, ice forming from nothing. Emiko cartwheeled out of the way of the spines of ice that shot up out of the ground, landing and quickly crouching and sliding a leg out as she dodged a volley of ice shards Shoto had launched her way with a butterfly kick.

She traced her leg gracefully behind her into a sprinter's stance and took off in a determined dash towards Shoto, pumping her legs and arms furiously to eat up the increasingly short distance between them, leaping to avoid the sheet of ice that coated the ground following a stamp of his foot and using the momentum of her jump to carry her into him swinging a flying punch towards his head.

His left arm barely got up into a blocking position in time, diverting her punch and she wasted no time in using the momentum from his block to swing her leg into his midsection and he groaned at the impact of her kick, his right arm darting down to pin it in at his side. She gave a little hop as her sense of balance was disrupted, before once again twisting and swinging her standing leg over his shoulder and hooking her foot behind his head and using her momentum and strength to lever his upper half towards the ground. He stumbled and let go of her as his instincts kicked in and his hands splayed out to catch himself.

In a flash she leapt to pin him down, her hands locking his wrists against the cement, straddling his lower back, determined to pin him into submission.

"You taking it easy on me, you bastard?" she growled, pouring all of her strength into keeping him restrained.

When no rebuttal came from the boy, her mind raced. The spines of ice he sent her way were way too slow and allowed her to dodge out of the way with some room to spare and she'd seen how quickly he could have ice shoot up out of the ground. The ice shards also did seem to have been lazily aimed, blunted blocks. If he'd really been wanting to catch her as she was still finishing her cartwheel, he could have aimed them in such a way to hit her and never give her a chance to avoid it.

"You son of a bitch, you are taking it easy on me!" she squawked out indignantly, her eyes widening at the audacity. "You've trained with me how many times?! You know I'm not some helpless girl who needs to be handled with care. I'm not made out of glass! You want to shove all this in the face of daddy dearest and show him how tough you are by letting yourself get beaten? Come on you coward, FIGHT BACK!" she screamed as she vaguely heard Midnight counting down the pin to see if Shoto would yield.

"Fine. Your funeral," Shoto muttered.

Before Emiko even had a chance to register the words, she jolted her right hand back as she felt frostbite on her hand from Shoto's ice quirk localizing in his wrist. His right arm freed, he swung his right arm back and his elbow found purchase with her jaw, jolting it painfully to the side and a metallic taste flooded her mouth as her blood flowed in. The attack unbalanced Emiko and Shoto maneuvered himself enough room to roll and reverse the pin.

The wind was forced out of her lungs at the impact and she looked up at Shoto, who loomed over her, the both of them panting heavily at their barely contained anger. Shoto's eyes were ablaze in a wild, manic stare.

"There, is that what you wanted?" he snapped harshly.

Emiko felt a fire in her veins as her anger kicked up to another notch. Angry at herself for losing focus, angry that Shoto thought of her as nothing more than some helpless girl that was made of glass. That she was once again being humiliated.

She returned his gaze with a cold fury of her own and spat at him, the blood that had pooled in her mouth from his elbow hit painting his face below his scar crimson.

Empath's Rage, Shattered Mirror! She screamed out in her mind, reaching out and dipping her quirk into the roiling, treacherous rapids that represented Shoto's fury and seizing it with an iron grip, holding them like the reins of a frenzied mare and bending them to her will. Her hair defied gravity as it lifted off the ground and fanned out in the air around her, shifting and vibrating in the currents of pure, undiluted emotion that Emiko was wielding.

She gathered it into a cocoon shielding her body and slammed it into Todoroki, sending the boy reeling back at the emotional backlash, stumbling a few steps away as Emiko darted to her feet, her teeth gritted painfully, tears flowed freely down her face and her hair still hung suspended in the air, splayed about like some nightmarish halo that marked her as some avenging angel.

Shoto looked at her in shock and a bit of fear, before he schooled his features and faster than she could comprehend, ice spread out along the ground and encased her in a frozen prison that stretched towards the heavens, as if offering her as some sacrifice to whatever twisted deity saw fit to create this sick world.

Encased in ice and suspended a few feet in the air, Emiko tried to thrash out of the block of ice, but it was all in vain as everything from her neck down was trapped, with no wiggle room at all. Her throat was raw as she let out a feral scream, tears mixing with the blood that was leaking out of her mouth and nose. A loud ringing noise pierced harshly at her ears as she made out the blurred form of Shoto walking forward through her tears. She was unsure at this point if the numbness she felt in her hands was from her Empath's Rage or if it was from the cold of the ice.

Shoto's voice echoed and warbled through the ringing, but was still discernible enough to make out what he was saying.

"Maybe you should cool down and grow up if you are going to throw a hissy fit any time someone actually cares about your well-being," Shoto spat out, before turning to leave. He stopped and glanced at her side-long. "I'm not helping a petulant child out of this, you can wait for someone else to thaw you out."

Emiko's enraged tears then turned into hiccoughing sobs and into quiet tears as her vision faded to black and shut the whole world out.

She regained consciousness some time later and blearily opened her eyes to the stale setting of Recovery Girl's infirmary. Her eyeballs throbbed with discomfort as she shifted her gaze to her bedside, where Momo sat, her eyes fixed on the floor distractedly, arms hugging herself bashfully.

"Guess I should have known you'd be here to watch over me," Emiko croaked out, her throat feeling as though it were coated in sandpaper.

Momo's gaze flitted up and a diluted smile graced her features.

"Emiko," she breathed in muted relief. "You're awake."

"It wouldn't kill you to sound a little happier I'm alive," Emiko groused. "Shouldn't you be preparing for your match?"

Momo's gaze dropped and her smile turned to a pout.

"No match to prepare for. I got beaten quite soundly by Tokoyami," she mumbled.

"Oh," Emiko merely said. "Sorry to hear that, I really thought you would go far in the tournament..."

"So did I," Momo replied meekly.

Shameful silence hung in the air between the two friends until Emiko couldn't stand it.

"Sad little pair we make," she joked, eyeballing the emergency blanket that was draped over her, cascading shimmering shapes onto the ceiling from its reflective surface. "How long was I out? Is the tournament still going?"

"Just a few hours," Momo answered. "Once they got you out it took them a while to get rid of all the ice Todoroki made, and then the rest of the first round battles happened. They had to have an arm wrestling rematch between Kirishima and that boy with the steel quirk from 1B and a break after that round. The second round just finished. It's Todoroki vs Iida and Tokoyami vs Bakugo. There was also a delay to clean up the mess from Todoroki and Midoriya's battle."

Emiko frowned at the last bit of information.

"Did Shoto put up another ice prison?" she asked.

Momo shook her head, "No, Midoriya got Todoroki riled up and made him use his left side. I think Midoriya also severely injured himself using his quirk. Even used his quirk and re-injured already broken bones. Todoroki was preparing a massive attack using both his fire and ice and Midoriya was dashing to strike him when Midnight used her quirk and Cementoss put up several cement barriers between the two, which were all blown to pieces by the two."

Emiko's eyes widened weakly at Momo's description of the battle. For Midoriya to get Shoto to use his left side, he must have really gotten under his skin!

Recovery Girl strolled into view right at that moment.

"Ah, you're awake. Let's have a look at you," she said and strolled up, taking temperatures and inspecting Emiko thoroughly. "Well, you're still fighting off the last bit of hypothermia, and you're also severely dehydrated. Your fractured jaw healed while you were out and otherwise you're in good nick. If you want to go watch the rest of the festival, make sure you drink plenty of fluids and bring those blankets with you to keep warm. Your classmate can help you there," she finished, indicating a wheelchair at her bedside.

Momo stood up and helped Emiko to stand and suddenly Emiko understood why the wheelchair was offered. Where she thought it was frivolous previously, her feebleness in that moment hit her like a wave and she gratefully slumped into the chair, shivering as she'd abandoned the comfort of the emergency blanket.

Momo quickly grabbed several of the blankets on the bed, including the emergency blanket and quickly draped them on Emiko, who breathed a sigh of relief at the welcoming warmth they provided.

As Emiko was soundly swaddled by the pile of blankets, Yaoyorozu used her quirk to make a cupholder and a long straw for the chair, putting a large glass of water in the cupholder and directing the straw into Emiko's grateful mouth.

Emiko sipped ravenous at the drink as Momo wheeled her out of the infirmary and through the empty halls of UA and through the pathways of the gargantuan campus, where they started to come across some stragglers milling about the stadium. The concession stands were busy as they were clearly in an intermission, but Momo wove through the throngs of people and up towards the box seats the students had at their disposal.

Emiko realized as she was being carted through the crowd that what would normally be a roar of emotion from the crowd was just a minor buzz, barely tingling at her senses. It dawned on her just how much her Empath's Rage had taxed her quirk if her senses for those emotions were so weak at this point.

She managed a slight smile as her classmates greeted her arrival and offered consoling words to her about her battle against Shoto.

"Let's just drop it," Momo suggested, seeing the sad look that tainted Emiko's features at the mention of her fight. "So, final four, who do you all think is going to go through and win it all?"

The diversion worked as her classmates all enthused about who they were rooting for and discussion and debate raged amongst them. Emiko tilted her head up lazily at Momo and conveyed her thanks and relief with her eyes as she sipped away at her drink.

"You're welcome," Momo whispered, and their gazes were drawn back to the stadium floor as roars accompanied the arrivals of Shoto and Iida in the battle arena.