New year, new chapter. Like the year that is coming to an end the tournament is finally coming to its final fight.

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Comments:

Sweet Kagamine Kiss: I don't actually even remember if there was one in the anime, but seems like that is how it should go and it fit the story.

Guest: The relationships / friendships have become pretty much core of the story. This story has really helped me understand what kind of stuff I want to write in that sense which I am trying to adapt to some original though more slowly progressing writing too.

AnimeFan13579: I'm thinking of a combination of mental and physical and hardening helps to endure the physical strain.

GgeorGge: It got a little long, I think the same happened to Horikoshi with the original manga. This chapter is the last fight though.

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Proofread by 3DPhantom

Chapter 46: The Final Fight

Izuku released the hardening before stepping out to the arena. It left him feeling worse without it, but there was no need to expose the ace up his sleeve unnecessarily. He wondered if the quirk could have other positive effects on the body besides the obvious defensive value and enhanced strength. He joined Honenuki and Midnight at the centre of the arena.

"Well aren't you looking in high spirits Midoriya," Midnight said, "Excited for the finale?"

"No," Izuku said and tilted his head to massage his stiff neck. "Just ran into some friends on the way. Invited them to a victory party at my house."

Honenuki frowned at Izuku's nonchalant attitude. "Confident much?"

"Actually yes, although you did beat Todoroki so I should probably be careful. Mostly I just have other things on my mind."

"Like?"

"Not your business."

Izuku slipped from the serious expression with a quick inhale and held the side of his forehead for a moment.

"Are you feeling okay Midoriya?" Midnight asked.

"Yes, don't worry about me." Izuku stretched his arms above his head, trying to show he was ready for the fight despite blinking a few times to clear his vision. "Are we going to start this show?"

"You should at least take this seriously."

Izuku brought his arms down and stared at Honenuki.

"It is a show to entertain people and do our best to show off for heroes that are recruiting. That's the whole point of this festival. Doesn't mean I wouldn't take this fight seriously, just not for my own sake."

"Mmm interesting," Midnight said in her constant flirtatious style. "You have goals besides winning the tournament?"

"The point of winning is to look good to people watching and lot of them have already decided to hate me before they knew anything about me besides the basics of my quirk. I prefer to worry about people that actually give me a reason to care about what they think."

"That…" Honenuki said. "I don't have anything to say about that, except people can be nasty that way… I apologise for what I said."

Izuku smiled and offered his hand for a handshake. "No hard feelings then?"

Honenuki raised his hand but hesitated.

"Don't do it," someone shouted from the audience and got a scowl from Midnight.

"The match hasn't started yet. I couldn't do anything to you without getting disqualified if I wanted to."

"True." Honenuki admitted and took Izuku's hand. Then each of them took their starting position with Midnight to the side. She raised her arm.

"Begin!"

Honenuki immediately crouched to bring his hands in contact with the floor for his quirk, but at the same time Izuku's jets flared. He took several running steps and then his feet left the ground. The distance between them disappeared before Honenuki had time to even activate his quirk. He barely dodged Izuku's kick. It was an impressive show of reaction speed on his part, although he only had time to do so because Izuku aimed for his side rather than the head as was his first instinct. Still impressive especially considering Izuku had moved so fast he himself had barely reacted fast enough to do the kick.

He landed behind Honenuki a bit further than intended and took a fraction of a second too long to regain his balance, but by then he was already turning around and charged back at Honenuki the instant his feet touched the floor, this time without using his jets. The one mistake both Tenya and Todoroki had made was to keep too much distance for too long. Honenuki however continued reacting fast. He was already back up and raised his arms to block Izuku's punch, turning a little to guide the attack aside. Then Honenuki started falling backwards. His hand approached the floor again.

His leg left the floor and swung up in an arch ending at Izuku's head. It was far from impossible for Izuku to dodge, but what benefit would that have had for him?

The kick connected with a loud thud, yelp and a hiss as Honenuki's foot met the rocky surface of Izuku's hardened skin. His head barely turned from the hit. It was so painless Izuku had a chance to analyse the experience. If he had chosen to do so he could have braced himself and remained totally motionless from the hit, though that would have been bad news for Honenuki's foot.

He really liked this quirk. He was so happy to have gotten a taste of it and had a wide grin on his stony face, at least until the booing started, well mostly booing.

"So you did steal Kirishima's quirk after all," Honenuki said, hanging on the opposite edge of a small puddle of the arena nursing his foot bent against his torso. "Was that whole friends act just for show?"

"Why does everyone always assume I'm stealing?" Izuku muttered and raised his hand to point at where his class sat, where the loudest voice in the arena had come from.

"OH Yeaaaah!" Eijiro cheered arms up standing one foot against the railing despite Tenya waving his arm next to him. Midnight stepped a bit closer and had enough understanding to hold her microphone in front of Izuku.

"Does he look, or sound, like someone that has been stolen from?"

Honenuki didn't respond. He wouldn't be that easy to brainwash.

"No, I let him borrow my quirk! He didn't even ask until I got the idea!"

Izuku raised his head to look at Eijiro while still keeping his mouth close to the microphone.

"Eijiro I could hear that. Are you sure you don't have a voice quirk too?"

"Yeah!" Came the response only slightly quieter than before, more audible as the rest of the audience had forgotten to boo while listening to the interaction. Izuku finally returned his full attention to Honenuki.

"I want people to see what he could do with his quirk, in case it isn't clear to everyone already. If you get out of your pool, I'll let you attack me three times without fighting back."

Izuku strained his whole body, turning it entirely into its hardened state. Despite the strain he was feeling so much better that way. Honenuki remained quiet for a long moment and began expanding the melted pool behind himself to get further away.

"You think I am stupid enough to expose myself for pointless attacks?"

Izuku crouched and leaped using his jets for extra distance. He landed on Honenuki's side of the puddle right by the edge, reached down with a hardened arm before Honenuki could swim away and lifted him up with a single arm. Izuku moved his arm up and down, testing his strength in this state, satisfied and excited at how light his opponent felt. Honenuki wasn't about to go down without a fight though and swung his fist to punch Izuku between the eyes.

It ended about as you'd expect. There might have been a little crack, but it didn't come from Izuku. He swung his arm and threw Honenuki several meters away. He tried to step to go after him, but one of his feet wouldn't come up. Glancing down it had been partially sunken into the floor that had resolidified around the foot. Izuku had to move quickly and he crouched to punch the floor as hard as he could. The solid concrete around his feet exploded and shattered like the boulder on his yard had. Izuku still had a wide grin on his face as he pulled his foot free and kicked the floor just to see a piece of concrete break and fly off from the kick. He was getting giddy at experimenting on a new quirk like a kid that had just manifested his but hadn't yet had their parents notice.

A moving shadow was the first warning of Honenuki's approach. Izuku raised his arms in defence, but Honenuki didn't go for a punch, or even kick. Instead he dove to the ground below Izuku's defences like he was going for a super low tackle. It was surprising and for most people seemed to be a stupid move as Izuku was just a second away from stomping him into the arena, hopefully with not too much force. Unfortunately for Izuku he wasn't fighting most people and the foot still on the ground sunk into the ground that began rapidly turning into liquid as soon as Honenuki touched the floor. They both sunk in as the fight suddenly turned into a mix of swimming and wrestling.

This was Honenuki's domain. Hardening wasn't helping Izuku and he had to focus on keeping his head above the surface and keeping Honenuki close, while Honenuki tried to pull him down and get him trapped. Ever considerate, Izuku twisted to turn his back away from Honenuki before activating his jets. Liquid concrete splashed around them as Honenuki tried to keep him down, but that ended when Izuku introduced him to the sole of his shoe. With a burst of the arena Izuku launched straight up in the air.

If only things had been that well.

It only took seconds for his flight path to start shifting towards more erratic. The way he was going he'd be lucky if he crashed inside the arena instead of outside of it. At least that way the landing would be softer as Honenuki had finally gotten to start the process of turning the arena into a swimming pool.

"Well I guess this is as good a chance as any to do this," Izuku muttered. "Even if it hurts."

He boosted his jets trying to gain as much altitude as possible, then reached deep inside and opened the cage in which he had stashed his second most recent quirk loan. As soon as he did, he bit his teeth together from pain as his entire head felt like it was on fire and being crushed at the same time. He couldn't even keep his eyes open as the skull and skin around them changed. If his flight had had any stability left it disappeared as he entered a death spiral towards the floor. He tried to twist and change his position but it was already difficult enough to do at the best of times.

Suddenly he jolted upwards and came to a relative stop as his body was pressed against a large soft mass.

"Finally. I don't know how you did that, but I don't want to do it again."

"Heh," Izuku chuckled. "Mehe neihthe."

He was having difficulty talking now. He felt his new beak with his fingers. The teeth he had bit together were no longer there. The audience had fallen silent again, but really, did they have any reason to be surprised anymore?

Dark Shadow had emerged from Izuku's gut and spread his wings to balance their flight. As Izuku restarted his jets they zoomed over the arena like a plane.

"You better not. I didn't want to do this in the first place," the quirk complained.

"Ith wah youh idea."

"I only did it because of Fumi. You need to show these people I am a good quirk."

Izuku chuckled. "Okah."

He leaned back, bringing them to a hover. Dark Shadow pressed and even melded against his body, spreading his wings even further, making them look like some dark angel hovering over the arena. Izuku pulled his hands up and leaned his elbows against Dark Shadow to support his head over the quirk, acting quite relaxed.

"You ahe heat at this. Why haven'th you donh this with Tokoyahmi?

"I wish we could fly together, but he doesn't have such a jet-quirk, just me."

He was quiet for some time.

"You have been talking about giving people quirks, could you… I mean… I wouldn't be opposed if he had something like those jets, if they feel good for him of course."

Izuku would have laughed, but the sound that came out of his beak was barely recognizable as one.

"You donht neeh anohher quihk. I alheady sthopped ushing my jet quihck. You ahe the one keephing ush up."

Dark Shadow twisted to see Izuku's back and how the jets weren't doing anything anymore. Izuku was just laying on Dark Shadow and they kept hovering over the mostly liquid arena.

"I'm flying?" Dark Shadow said. "We are flying. I can help Fumi fly."

"Seemh sho."

"I can fly with Fumi!" Dark Shadow shouted and moved around excited so much Izuku had to grab the quirk and hold on."

"Calmh dohn. The fight ish not oveh yet."

"So," Present Mic's voice echoed across the stadium, "what now?"

"Now," Aizawa responded, "now Midoriya has taken a possibly insurmountable advantage over his opponent. It doesn't seem like Honenuki can reach him up there, and we have already seen in previous matches that the opposite isn't true."

Even though he couldn't see Aizawa, Izuku could tell he was rubbing his forehead about to get a headache over his 'problem child'. Speaking of which, Izuku's throat was squeezing and he had to breathe shallowly for a moment.

"Wah out," he told Dark Shadow and pointed his hand down where Honenuki was still floating in the now mostly liquefied arena. The Dragon Blade flashed over his hand and launched a blue Hellfire Arrow. Izuku wasn't aiming directly at Honenuki. His opponent wasn't Eijiro and killing him would have been counterproductive.

The blast hit the liquid concrete several meters from Honenuki and exploded with enough force that some of the liquid concrete got launched into the air and well out of bounds of the arena. Honenuki got pushed back by the waves generated and landed with a splat. His head turned enough to keep his face over the surface as one of his hands clawed at the liquid concrete.

"Aeei," Dark Shadow screamed and they lost several meters of altitude before Izuku used his jets to slow them down until Dark Shadow got back control.

"Sohhy," Izuku said. "Leth land on the edge,"

Dark Shadow carried him down to a thin edge of arena within bounds of the match that was still solid. As soon as Izuku's feet touched the floor he pointed at Honenuki.

"If you want to showh you ahe gheat quihck, go defeath him and dhag him up."

"Okay," the sentient quirk responded excitedly and stretched away from Izuku towards their opponent. Izuku made it a point to turn away.

"Hey! What? Let go of meblmm!" Honenuki shouted. As his voice was mumbled under gurgles there were splashes and soon after wordless yelps.

Izuku strolled casually along the edge of the arena. If he still had lips he might have whistled just to make the point better, but instead he was more focused on feeling his facial changes. His mouth and nose had turned into a bird's beak like Tokoyami's, but as he yanked off one of the feathers covering his head it wasn't quite as dark as Tokoyami's feathers or Dark Shadow. Izuku's were grey, and light grey at that, closer to his normal hair colour than Tokoyami's feathers. He remained focused on it until a large shadow rose over him, Dark Shadow carrying a gasping Honenuki from one leg.

"Gooh, puth him out of boundhs. Gently. He might be huht."

"Okay," Dark Shadow dragged Honenuki past Izuku and lowered him over the edge of the arena."

"Honenuki is out of bounds," Midnight declared. "The winner of this match, tournament and first year's sport festival is Izuku Midoriya!"

"And Dahk Shadow," Izuku added.

"Yes of course," Midnight said, "and Dark Shadow… the quirk."

"Thanks," Dark Shadow whispered to Izuku who held his fist up and they fist bumped, or at least Dark Shadow made his closest equivalent to a fist. Then Izuku jumped off the arena and kneeled next to Honenuki who was still conscious but breathing fast and superficially. He jolted when Izuku pressed his chest with his hand.

"Maybe that wah litthe too much," Izuku muttered, then spoke louder as Honenuki tried to push himself up. "Don't move. That shockhwave did a numbeh on you. Recovehy Gihl needh to check on you."

"Ar," Honenuki couched, "Aren't you going to celebrate your victory?"

Izuku's eyes hardened. "Celebhate? While shomeone is layinhg on the ghound with uncleah injuhies bahely able to bheathe? Only a shcum would do shomething like that," Izuku turned to look away and towards the area of the audience where he knew most of the teachers to be, including All Might, "oh something wohse than that."

"Like what?"

"Nothing," Izuku shook his head, then regretted it as the world began spinning. "Sorry." He turned away and managed a few shaky steps before he leaned forward and vomited his lunch out while UA's robots came to pick up Honenuki. One of them came to Izuku and tried to grab Izuku's arm, but despite barely remaining standing Izuku pulled his arm back.

"I don't need youh help."

"Are you sure?" Dark Shadow asked as the robot held back.

"Yehs, you ahe jusht a heavy quihk to have."

"Are you calling me fat?"

Izuku laughed once, then gagged, barely holding back another hurl of vomit.

"No, but you ahe sthong and complhex. It is hahdeh foh my body to adapth to you."

"Oh. So I'm so strong it makes you sick."

"Soht of."

"Remember that if you ever want to take me again."

"Suhe."

"What have you gone and done now!" Recovery Girl said with annoyed sharpness in her voice. She stopped the robots from taking Honenuki with a gesture as she stepped out of the corridor. After feeling his chest with her fingers, looking at his eyes and giving him a short kiss with her healing quirk, she let the robots then take him away and walked to Izuku with Hitoshi, Eijiro, and Tokoyami coming after her, though the last one was unrecognisable for most present.

He had a sharp chin, regular but quite pale skin, thin lips, large sharp nose, large eyes and spiky raven black hair that would have not been out of place on an anime protagonist. Most importantly there were no feathers or beak anywhere on his head.

"Fumi!" Dark Shadow stretched out to Tokoyami. "Did you see us? I could fly. We could fly. He wasn't even using his jets. We could fly!"

Fumikage smiled. He could be surprisingly expressive even in his normal look, but this was the first time in all his life he could smile just the same as almost everyone else around him. He hugged the dark quirk as Recovery Girl kept walking to Izuku with the others. Midnight got there first though.

"Midoriya you really don't look right. Are you sure you didn't suffer any injuries during the fights?"

"No…" Izuku had to pause to gag and spit some more slime and vomit. He was leaning on the edge of the arena as he did.

"I don't think you need to worry about him," Hitoshi interrupted. "He just forgot to follow his own advice."

"Oh, what advice was that?" Midnight asked, holding out her microphone.

"He warned us to not eat too much right before the tournament, then he went all in on the quirk buffet." That caused a lot of murmur from the audience. "Izuku was mostly trying to help us get visibility for our quirks, but that just made him overdo it. He can get overly selfless sometimes and forgets his own good, at least for people that he likes enough. He didn't need my quirks to beat Monoma, but it let you see what they could do better than our fight did."

"Heh, I just had the idea to bet my quirk on our fight," Eijiro added. "Glad to see he got to use it. I hope that guy's hand is okay."

"I didn't like to leave Fumi, but Midoriya wouldn't be alive anymore if he had stolen me," Dark Shadow said just as the audience murmurs were getting louder.

"I should have realized you were going to do something like this," Recovery Girl muttered. "What made you think it would be okay to take, what, three, no, four extra quirks into your body all at once?"

Izuku didn't respond anything to that. Recovery Girl sighed.

"For Shinso's quirks you should hold onto them till the morning while he recovers, the other two…"

"Noh phoblem."

Izuku pushed himself away from the arena and stopped in front of Tokoyami.

"I hope you didn'th get ushed to the new fhace."

"I sent a picture to my parents and didn't explain anything to them."

He smiled again, taking the last chance to do so as Izuku placed his hand on Tokoyami's head.

"Don'th bite youh tongue."

The transfer and the transformation were no more pleasant than the previous times and Hitoshi moved in closer, ready in case either of them collapsed during the process, but slowly the pain began losing its heat. Both of them were left gasping for air, but at least the arena around Izuku didn't spin anymore. Dark Shadow popped out from behind Tokoyami's once again very birdlike head and showed his closest equivalent to thumbs up, clearly in a chirpier mood than before. Izuku leaned back, his arms hanging loose, enjoying the feeling of relief like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

"You know," he said just loud enough to be caught by the microphone. "People act like I was going around stealing every quirk I see, but besides everything else they are wrong about, they don't get how hard that would be, just from a biological point of view. For a moment there I thought I was going to faint from four extra quirks, and two of those I've already had before, before today."

He straightened up and grabbed Eijiro's hand in a very manly handshake until Eijiro raised his other arm and hardened it in the view of everyone.

"Great quirk," Izuku said. "Love it."

If it was possible for Eijiro to look any brighter than before he managed it.

"Any time dude. I just wish you had gotten to use it more."

"Me too."

"So did that help?" Recovery Girl asked.

"Yeah, I'm already feeling much better."

"Good, now if you excuse me, I'll have to go see how badly you shook that boy's insides with that explosion." She turned around and walked away with a clacking of her cane.

"Well folks," Present Mic started narrating. "The first-year tournament for this year is over, but remember to stay for the award ceremony which will begin shortly!"

"You can step in to wait while we prepare the arena, but don't go anywhere far," Midnight ordered to the students.

"Okay," Izuku responded and settled between Hitoshi and Eijiro as they headed back.

"Congrats Izuku. We knew you'd win," Eijiro said.

"Hey, I was there too," Dark Shadow complained.

"Yeah, it was cool too. I didn't know you could fly together like that."

"Neither did I," Tokoyami said.

"Yes, we can fly Fumi. I'll show you."

Dark Shadow dove under Tokoyami, trying to become his wings like he had done with Izuku, but Tokoyami yelped and jumped back."

"Dark Shadow!"

"Sorry," Dark Shadow said, head down. Tokoyami took him into his arms and patted the quirk's head.

"I am excited too, but this isn't the place. We need to train somewhere in peace to master flight."

"Tomorrow," Izuku said, "at the beach is a perfect chance for flight training, for both of us."

"That sounds good."

Izuku reached out for Hitoshi's shoulder and pulled him close with an arm over his shoulders. "Hopefully Toshi also recovers enough to participate in our training. That way we'll have a full five people for it. Never had that many people over…"

Izuku paused to look around.

"Wait, where's Tenya?"