Notes: I hate writing action scenes. This was supposed to be a fun, light story for me to write. And then I wrote myself into a corner to write an action scene. I actually had some fun with this, mainly because of Uraraka and Todoroki. I should've focused on Sero and Bakugou more since it's from Bakugou's POV, but once I started coming up with ideas for Uraraka and Todoroki, I just ran with it.
Every team was placed in a different part of the arena, all of them ready to be let loose once the buzzer sounded. Cementoss had done an incredible job in helping build the place. They'd even been allowed to wear their hero costumes. It always irritated Bakugou when they were stuck in their U.A. athletic uniforms, if only because it was like the teachers weren't allowing them to reach their full potential. Bakugou was ready to blow everyone out of the water. He didn't want to go easy on anyone and his hero costume allowed for just that.
Before being split up, he had managed to catch eyes with Uraraka. It was hard to miss her with that teal hair of hers now. Of course she'd been standing at Todoroki's side, unusually silent as many of the other teams chatted away. He had actually commented on her hair, saying that it reminded him of the ocean, which had put Bakugou in a sour mood since he'd had the same thought (but hadn't said it). She had looked his way, seemingly by accident as she scanned the area, but then stopped then when her gaze landed on him. He smirked at her and she stuck her tongue out before putting her helmet on and turning back to say something to Todoroki.
Thirty minutes later, the game was afoot and well under way.
Bakugou and Sero had been practically raining fire and explosions down on people. They'd already managed to take down two teams alone: Mineta and Jirou (the latter of whom might have been grateful) and Hagakure and Sato. Even if he hadn't been his first choice, Sero proved to be a very cooperative partner who seemed to know when Bakugou needed backup when he had trouble admitting it. That intuitiveness helped them out quite a bit since he rarely had to ask Sero for assistance.
However, that was not the end goal of this fight. Elsewhere in the arena were his other competition. Despite the weird match up in their quirks, Deku and Ashido were still out there fighting. A large concrete wall that nearly reached the ceiling collapsed behind them. Freaking Deku. Not to mention that he knew Uraraka and Todoroki were still in it. Todoroki left his mark behind obviously, both ice and fire. He still tended to stick to using the ice half of his quirk, despite more or less coming to terms with his fire.
Honestly, Bakugou didn't know who he wanted to fight more, but in the end, he wasn't given a choice because Uraraka came to him.
They rounded a corner and there she was, wiping dirty off the faceguard of her mask. A grin cut across Bakugou's face and he launched himself in the air and called out, "On me!" at Sero, so that he'd connect a piece of tape to Bakugou's leg and get dragged into the air with him. Once they were at an appropriate height, he tore off the tape and grabbed hold of it and then twisted his other hand and set off a fire of rapid explosions so that it spun him and Sero in the air like a tornado. He pulled on the tape as hard as he could, letting out a shout as he threw Sero in Uraraka's direction.
The speed and suddenness of the attack took Uraraka off guard. She barely had time to react, activating her quirk on herself and leaping out of the way so that she was floating up as Sero came down. He anticipated the move though and used his quirk tape to snatch her by the ankle and jerk her back down to the ground. Before she could hit the ground hard though, a spike of Todoroki's ice sliced through the tape. The sudden change sent her reeling, flipping backwards, and Bakugou used his quirk to rocket himself in her direction.
I've got you now, Round Face! Bakugou thought triumphantly, but then another wall of ice appeared, not at him but behind Uraraka. She landed on her feet, her body horizontal with the ground and at least twenty feet in the air. Instead of trying to get down though, she kicked off hard, aiming directly towards Bakugou. It caught him off guard, but he saw her coming and he threw one arm out to aim at her and shouted, "Come on! You can do better than that!" Sure, she was wearing a pleased look on her face, but honestly, she should've known better than to fight him head on.
And then she deactivated her quirk, dropping mid-air so that his explosion hit a chunk of ice that appeared behind her and caused him to crash into the ground, rolling in the dirt and broken ice. Meanwhile, she slid down the ice like it was a slide, coming up behind Sero, who just barely avoided getting touched by her by attaching some of his tape to the same ice wall that she'd come down to pull himself up. Bakugou aimed and let off a large explosion in his frustration, which forced Todoroki to use his fire to cut through it. Sero had to pull himself out of the way again to avoid getting hit.
Finally. Bakugou always took it as a matter of pride to get Todoroki to use his fire quirk.
Todoroki followed it up with a massive wall of ice not unlike the one he'd created to help give Bakugou an escape route from the League of Villains when he'd been kidnapped. It had been his maximum at the time, but he had grown further in his strength since then. If Bakugou knew how to do anything though, it was break and so that was what he'd do.
"Spiral!" Bakugou demanded.
Sero gave him a leery look, but then he'd seen this move of Bakugou's only once before during their first Sports Festival in Bakugou's fight against Todoroki. Back then, he'd used his own explosions to spin him in a tornado, which built up the oxygen in the air that surrounded him. The oxygen made his explosion akin to a missile strike, but it also forced him to use his quirk so that the last one wasn't as strong as it could be.
This time, Sero wrapped Bakugou in his cellophane tape, flicked him in the air, and jerked hard. The action caused a spiral much faster than he could've made himself and when he slammed hard into that ice and ground with an explosion, it was more massive than anyone could have anticipated, so strong that it blew even Sero back. The ice shattered around him in thousands of pieces, his explosion doing more than just creating a huge hole in the wall. It completely obliterated the ice wall, causing it to topple over.
Except it didn't fall to the ground. Nothing did.
Everything was floating.
The smoke and steam cleared and that was when Bakugou saw her. He saw Uraraka. Scuffed up from the blowback of his explosion, the face mask of her helmet cracked, but still standing and the pads of her fingertips pressed together. What sucked the air out of Bakugou's lungs wasn't her stance, but the look in her eyes, a fire so intense burning in her eyes that it rivaled his own. Despite being in the middle of battle, he gawked at her.
One of the proudest grins that Bakugou had ever seen slid onto Uraraka's strained face and she said, "Release."
It wasn't just a meteor shower, like the one she'd done during their Sports Festival fight. Todoroki had created an insane wall of ice and Bakugou's massive explosion had sent shards of ice everywhere. It didn't just rain down on them; it fell everywhere in the arena like a intense hailstorm. There was little to no escaping it for anyone. He could hear surprised cries and panicked shouts throughout the arena.
Even worse for Bakugou, because he had pushed his quirk to its limit with that last explosion in his left arm, he only had his right to protect him. Except this time, there was too much falling ice for him to completely come out unscathed and he knew it. Some chunks of ice were much larger than others, not to mention the huge fucking piece from the top that fell over like a bulldozed skyscraper.
"Find cover!" Bakugou screamed at Sero before he raised his right arm directly above him and pulled the pin of the gauntlet. At that angle, he had to make sure that his knees were bent and his arm was straight so that it absorbed the shock of the explosion's blowback. When he let it off, shattering the ice even further, the explosion was so powerful that it forced him down to one knee.
Even then, it wasn't enough to take out all the ice, just the worst of it, and he had to throw his arms over his head to protect himself, using the gauntlets as shields. Chunks of ice pummeled him, some tiny and harmless, some sharp and cutting, all of them dropping with a sense of revenge, as if they were making up for the gravity that had been briefly taken from them.
By the time it ended, Bakugou was folded on the ground, his entire body feeling battered, bruised, and cut up. He pushed himself up though, determined to not give up so easily. She was going to have to bring a whole building down on him before he gave up. That couldn't be said for everyone else. A loud buzzer went off before a screen showed that two other teams had been taken out by Uraraka's and Todoroki's hailstorm. Shoji and Ojiro, along with Kaminari and Tsuyu, had somehow been defeated. They hadn't even been the main targets.
When he looked around, Bakugou saw that Uraraka had shielded herself with a large piece of concrete, gripping it with her fingertips so that it floated above her head like an umbrella. Todoroki had used his ice quirk to build a quick shelter for himself. When he had created that massive ice wall, she must have touched it before dashing away, knowing full well that Bakugou would get pissed and would do everything in his power to break it apart. They'd used his own quirk against him.
All Bakugou could see was red (oh, he had blood dripping into his eye from a cut over his eyebrow) and that grin on her face.
"Sorry I'm not sorry!" Uraraka called out cheerfully before she fucking chucked that hunk of concrete at him. He blew it up with an explosion, dust and debris spattering him, but would've been struck by a blast of fire from Todoroki if not for Sero pulling him back at the last second with his tape. He too had taken a beating from that hailstorm, bleeding and bruised, but he must have found cover before it took him out completely.
Sero gripped his right forearm and cringed. He must've been hit hard there and was favoring his left. Recovery Girl was going to have a field day with them over today. "Damn, who knew Uraraka could have that kind of power on a scale like that?"
It irritated him, but Bakugou should've known. Yeah, they'd only been playing Mario Kart together and making these dumb bets, but he had seen how relentless she was, how driven, how determined to prove herself. He had seen her push herself far beyond what anyone expected of her before. She wasn't just here to make friends and have a good time. She was here to become a hero. For what reasons, he didn't know and he didn't really care. All that mattered was that she was here and she was giving it a hundred percent.
As furious as he was for letting himself get caught in her hailstorm, Bakugou was elated as well. Now this was the kind of fight he'd been looking forward to with her.
"We have to contain Todoroki," Bakugou said through gritted teeth.
"Yeah, I tried that once," Sero replied dryly. "It didn't end well for me."
"You didn't have me at your side back then," Bakugou pointed out.
When they peered around from their hiding spot inside a hollowed out building though, Uraraka and Todoroki weren't anywhere to be seen. Bakugou didn't think they were just hiding either. They were fucking gone. After that show, they must have decided to move onto trying to take out other teams instead of getting stuck in a exhausting, drawn out fight with Bakugou and Sero. After all, it wasn't just the last team standing that won. It was also the team that took out the most people.
"Those damn bastards!" Bakugou exclaimed, resisting the urge to use his quirk to rocket himself around the arena in search of them. He wanted to take them down. If someone else did it, especially Deku and Ashido, he would be infuriated. Still, their strategy was the right one. It made the most sense. Take out the weaker teams before moving back to the strongest. Even if they weren't the last one standing, if they had more takedowns, they could still win. It was why hiding and waiting until the last minute wouldn't work. "Let's get a move on! We have to catch up!"
Even if they'd had no takedowns before crossing paths with Bakugou and Sero, that little stunt of Uraraka's had helped them catch up. Two teams in one move and Bakugou had technically helped them. They had counted on him going all out. He did half the work for them. A part of him wondered who had come up with the idea. Most people would assume it was Todoroki, but no, Bakugou knew in his gut that it had been Uraraka. He couldn't have said why, but that look on her face, like he had played right into her hand, said everything. It was much more her style than Todoroki's.
Plain and simple, she'd tricked him. It felt like that moment when she'd walked into the common area with his shirt and looking better than ever before all over again, but twenty times worse.
His fury over the whole situation did help propel him forward. Bakugou struggled to remember a time when his quirk had shown so bright. Through some ingenuity and sneakiness with Sero's tape, they managed to trip up Iida. Would Bakugou ever forget the way Iida had flipped through the air and crashed upside down into a wall? (Not likely.) With his partner out of the way, Bakugou came up from behind to attack Tokoyami from behind before he could take out Sero. Their quirks were too opposite. The trick was to get Dark Shadow before it got you and using Sero as the upfront bait had been their best bet.
Straightening up after restraining Tokoyami enough to consider it as a takedown, Bakugou barely had time to take a breath before Sero shouted, "Bakugou, watch out!" He looked up and spotted Deku coming down on him from above with a small percentage of his quirk activated. Bakugou barrel-rolled out of the way in the nick of time, popping up and shooting off an explosion that Deku side-swiped to dodge.
"I thought you were hiding somewhere, Deku!" Bakugou taunted.
"No, just staying away from you until closer to the end." Deku smiled. It was so infuriating. However, he did look a little rough around the edges. He hadn't gone untouched either. "The hailstorm attack from Uraraka and Todoroki almost got me though. Judging from the explosion, I'm guessing it was because of you."
Bakugou clenched his jaw. He didn't like Deku knowing that without being there, but then he was a damn nerd that analyzed everyone's quirks. A battle royale like this was right up his alley. He knew their quirks and how they would compare with and against each other. That was frustrating too, but it had made him realize a while back that knowing the people around him came in handy. Not that he would ever admit that.
Distracted by his fight with Deku, who took up so much attention now that he was able to control his quirk better, Bakugou couldn't afford to look away to see how Sero was faring against Ashido. He could hear the two of them fighting, along Ashido laughing and Sero complaining. His tape allowed him a lot of maneuverability, but Bakugou knew that out of nearly everyone in their class, Ashido had the best reflexes.
At one point, Sero did manage to get a hold of her, but then he yelped when Ashido's acid burned through his tape and slid down it to touch his elbow. Still, she was more brawn than brains, so Bakugou knew that it was best to focus on Deku and let Sero deal with her.
The two of them crashed together multiple times with Bakugou getting an explosive hit on Deku once that sent him flying backwards. He managed to dig his feet into the ground and slide to a stop, but not without some difficulty and pain. When he pushed himself back upright, there was an angry, red burn mark on his neck from where the explosion had touched skin.
However, Bakugou was thrown for a loop when Deku came flying back with superspeed. Bakugou took aim again, but then Deku dropped into a slide like in baseball to duck an explosion from Bakugou. When he popped back up behind Bakugou, he gripped Bakugou's left gauntlet and pulled hard. The move would've pulled Bakugou's arm out of socket if he hadn't slipped his arm out of the gauntlet. It was a huge loss too, considering that it had just filled with enough nitroglycerin sweat for a huge blast. Deku must have realized it.
"Give that back!" Bakugou yelled, charging towards Deku, who threw the gauntlet to the side. Attacking him head on was a stupid idea, so when Deku reached out to grab him and counterattack, Bakugou threw his hands down and launched himself straight up into the air at a ninety degree angle. Deku turned on his heels, expecting Bakugou to land behind him, but instead he went straight down on top of his shoulders. Planting one hand on the ground like he was doing a one-handed backspring, he shot off an explosion with his other hand so that he had the momentum and speed to flip Deku over him and slam him front first onto the ground.
Luckily, Bakugou's knee pads took the brunts on his landing, so he was able to jump to his feet quickly and ran in the direction of his discarded gauntlet. If he could just get a hold of that, he'd be able to take Deku out. Right before he reached it though, a ball of fire struck the ground between him and the gauntlet and he had to slide to a halt to keep from getting hit. More fire began to rain down on them and he had to once again duck for cover.
When he was given the chance to look up, he damn near hissed. Floating above them like some sort of hot air balloon was Todoroki with Uraraka holding onto his feet. They were too high up for Bakugou to reach them from the ground with his explosions, so he took off to the side, zigzagging through the air. His arms were beginning to ache from the constant use of propulsion, but he ignored it. He had to get up there. If he stayed down here with Todoroki above them, they'd all be sitting ducks.
Todoroki moved his right hand and Bakugou immediately raised his to counterattack, but instead of attacking Bakugou with ice, he forced balls of ice around Uraraka's heavy boots. The sudden weight dragged them back down to earth and out of Bakugou's reach. Fifteen feet or so from the ground, Todoroki sliced his hand through the air to create another ice slide and pulled Uraraka up with his right hand and wrapped it around her waist so that he could get them safely to the ground. While Todoroki let off a large burst of fire to keep Bakugou and Deku away, she made quick work of shattering the ice and he hastily melted the rest.
Before Todoroki could fully make another spike of ice, Bakugou shattered through it and landed back on the ground. He picked up a chunk of the ice and used his explosion to throw it hard. Todoroki didn't have the chance to dodge it, so he tried to create another shield of ice to block it, but it was propelled too fast and broke through it, catching him in the gut and knocking him back. Bakugou was panting from the effort, but he smirked. Todoroki should've used fire. It would've melted the ice. But he almost always relied on his ice quirk to defend himself.
Too focused on trying to take Todoroki down, Bakugou had forgotten about Ashido and Sero. When he rushed to finish off Todoroki, he stepped in something that had him sliding and losing balance before he crashed into something hard, knocking him to the ground Only when his shoes began to smoke and his face sting did he realize that he'd stepped in Ashido's acid. She'd made a line of it and then thrown an acid veil at him. Whenever she changed the consistency of her acid, she could turn it into a block of something stronger than concrete. As hard-headed and muscular as he was, he wasn't as solid as concrete and his body felt it too.
Fuck, Ashido must have somehow taken Sero out. Bakugou had not anticipated that.
From his spot on the ground, Bakugou angrily shot a large explosion in Ashido's direction, but she used her acid to slide to the side fast and flipped out of the way. Damn her and her insane acrobatic abilities. She'd started working on them a lot more with Aizawa over the past year, using her higher skill to her advantage against everyone else.
Concentrating, Bakugou aimed at her again as she slid around him, but then changed the direction and blasted the ground in front of her. Unable to dodge it in time, the explosion and broken concrete caught her off guard and threw her into the air. She landed hard on the ground, groaning and staying on the ground when she came to a stop. To the side, Deku and Todoroki were going at it, ice being created and shattered, fire raging and then being sliced through with wind created by Deku's attacks.
Bakugou didn't care about them for once though. Let those two take each other out. With Sero and Ashido down and Todoroki and Deku fighting each other, that left one other person for him to watch out for. Uraraka. He was expecting her to try to sneak up on him and float him, but he didn't see her anywhere. Where the hell was she? His eyes swung around the area and then his heart dropped into his stomach when he realized that there was also something else missing from the scene.
His left grenade gauntlet, the one filled with dangerously explosive nitroglycerin.
"Todoroki!"
Bakugou jerked his head up and around to find Uraraka standing on top of a large concrete construction. She must have floated herself up there. Her face was pale except for rosy cheeks, the use of her quirk on herself taking its toll, reminding him of when they'd first started playing Mario Kart together. She was scuffed up to high hell and heen forced to abandon her helmet at one point, her hair a tangled and wild mess.
And in her hands: his damn gauntlet.
Her plan hit him like a train. "Deku, stop Todoroki!" Bakugou shouted. It irritated the hell out of him to rely on Deku for even a second, but he didn't have the time to stop both of them, not with Uraraka so far away. Her eyes widened right before he launched himself towards her with a massive explosion. It made him almost as fast as a bullet, but he couldn't change his direction once he did it. He reached out to snatch her.
But it was too late.
She threw the gauntlet in the air and, without gravity, it went soaring wide over them. A line of fire from Todoroki cut through the air and struck the gauntlet before Deku could tackle Todoroki to the ground. The second the fire hit the gauntlet, it exploded.
It wasn't like when Bakugou used it and he could control the explosion to go in a direction. This was like setting off a bomb. It blew everyone back. Because he was in the air, Bakugou took almost the entire brunt of it. He tried to set off an explosion to knock himself out of the way, but he didn't do it quick enough and the explosion struck him, sending him crashed straight into a building. It knocked the wind out of his lungs and he gasped. As he began to fall to the ground, he felt the muscles in his arms twitch from overuse. There was no way he would be able to make a safe landing.
A hand clasped around his wrist and he stopped. Dizzy, head pounding, and feeling close to blacking out, Bakugou lifted his head and connected eyes with Uraraka. He must have crashed into the construction that she'd been standing in. Shit, that meant the explosion had knocked him at least thirty feet back. For a moment, he almost questioned how she was able to hold him up with just one hand, but then his body began to float in the air. She'd activated her quirk on him the second she'd grabbed him.
Maybe he looked confused, although he was mostly dazed from the explosion, because Uraraka told him, "I'm not gonna just let you fall." She canceled out her own gravity and then grabbed a small rock. It had to have weighed than less than a pound, but it pulled them to the ground safely. She made sure that he was on the ground, setting the rock on his chest, before she released her quirk and returned their gravity. Almost immediately, she collapsed back on her ass, her arms shakily propping herself up, and then leaned over to puke.
"That...looks familiar…" Bakugou muttered through the pain.
Uraraka wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Ha, ha, very funny."
The buzzer went off again, twice, announcing two teams had been taken out and then Bakugou watched as his and Sero's team was placed on the screen, alongside Deku and Ashido's. "Team Todoroki and Uraraka win," Aizawa deadpanned over the intercom.
With a growl too tired to be considered angry, Bakugou dropped his head back onto the ground. Even if he wanted to fight, he wasn't sure if he could. His arms were aching something fierce, but it was his head that was pounding and he was still catching his breath from having it knocked right out of him. In the corner of his eyes, he saw Uraraka beaming, her smile so bright that it was almost blinding. She looked like utter hell and her teal hair was still so fucking ridiculous, but she looked…
She looked stunning.
When Uraraka turned her gaze to him, Bakugou found himself swallowing a lump in his throat. "Looks like you owe me that dinner," she proclaimed gleefully. He couldn't find it in him to say anything in response. He could only grunt and look away from her, embarrassed and angry and...pleased. He hated losing - couldn't stand it for the life of him - and he'd been stewing over this loss for months. But if it had to happen, this was the best way, he reasoned. In spectacular fashion.
Even when Uraraka stood up on shaky legs and offered a hand to him, Bakugou didn't shove it away or ignore it like he normally would. He took it, letting her help him back up. He staggered into her, but she caught him with her hands on his chest. There was a look of concern on her face, but he waved it away and stood up straight as he pulled away from her.
"You should check with Recovery Girl for a concussion," Uraraka told him.
"I'll be fine," Bakugou replied gruffly. His eyes scanned the area over her head and he spotted Sero sitting up in the rabble. The other boy was rubbing elbows and cringing. "I gotta check on Sero."
"Of course." Uraraka sounded like she knew that Bakugou was avoiding the idea of getting checked on, but she wasn't going to argue with him.
His eyes flickered down to hers. "Go celebrate with Icy Hot."
"Were you surprised?" Uraraka asked curiously.
You're just filled with them, aren't you? Bakugou thought.
Out loud, he replied, "You came up with some decent ideas." She smiled again. He smirked at her. "I wouldn't celebrate too much though because I'm picking what we eat. I hope you like spicy food."
Uraraka sighed, as if she'd expected it, and shrugged her shoulders before flouncing off in Todoroki's direction. Bakugou watched with a guarded expression as she flung her arms around Todoroki's shoulder in excitement and Todoroki actually hugged her back. Todoroki looked somewhat dazed, having must have taken a hit from the explosion as well. There was ice everywhere. He'd probably tried to shield himself as best as he could, but that his fire had reacted particularly well with Bakugou's nitroglycerin.
Before he could turn away completely, he caught eyes with Deku, who had apparently been watching Uraraka's and his whole exchange. Bakugou shot him a scowl and Deku held his hands up in surrender, as if to say that he didn't mean anything by it. Whatever. He couldn't have heard what Bakugou and Uraraka had been talking about. It was none of his business. Bakugou stomped in Sero's direction, forcing Deku out of his mind.
"Did we win?" Sero asked as Bakugou helped him stand.
Bakugou grit his teeth. "No."
"Oh." Sero looked around and spotted Uraraka talking excitedly to Todoroki. Bakugou refused to look back. He'd caught an almost soft smile on Todoroki's face and that had been enough. Sero gave Bakugou a leery look. "You're not gonna, uh...explode me, are you?"
Letting out a sigh, Bakugou said, "No," but his voice was too quiet and it made him mad. It was just from the exhaustion that came after a fight. Nothing else. Normally, whenever he lost, he found himself either frozen with rage or burning with it, but right now, he couldn't manage that fire. No doubt it would come to him later, but he was too exhausted physically and mentally. It had to be the concussion. Maybe he should go see Recovery Girl.
Bakugou glanced back in Uraraka's direction where she was helping Ashido up to her feet and then walked away. It had been a good fight. That was all that mattered.