Izuku breathed deeply as he stared down the horde of students that rushed towards him. A cavalry battle certainly wasn't what he was expecting when he had planned for the festival, thankfully, he had a few Orders prepared for the event.
He stood at the front of his group, with Hagakure partially on his shoulders, Tokoyami to his left and Uraraka to his right. The reason for the horde that charged them was the band around Toru's neck, a brilliant ten million displayed upon it. "Deku!" The air shook as Bakugou took off. "I'm going to-"
"The air will solidify into a foot thick dome shaped wall, ten meters away from me." Multiple teams were forced to stop by the invisible barrier, though two we're determined to penetrate it. Bakugou continued to launch himself through the air, targeting random parts of the wall in an attempt to break it. On the other hand, Todoroki was much less precise, a wave of ice coating the whole structure.
If it were to remain for long, team Hagakure would be forced from their position. Unfortunately for Todoroki, it was gone nearly as soon as it arrived: "Dark Shadow's growth is reversed." The quirk sprung from the iceberg, sending shards of ice scattering down like a torrential storm.
He quickly dropped the rule to allow Tokoyami more control, though not without weakening his team's defences. In an instant, the ground became liquid, vines shooting out of it to ensnare his team. "Quirks cannot pass through the ground!" As quickly as they had arrived, the effects of the quirks vanished, leaving just the one who had caused them.
"Power like that is wasted on a 1-A loser like you, behold, as I show you the power of 1-B!" A smug blonde haired boy charged forward, though his confidence was in vain.
"Stop using my quirk you-" Bakugou's cursing was drowned out by the sounds of his own explosions, distracting the 1-B team long enough for Izuku's to sneak away. Predictably however, the moment of rest did not last long. Walls of ice sprung to life, towering over the group as if the team ahead of them had brought mountains down upon the field.
"Give it up, Midoriya. You can't get out of this." Todoroki's ever stoic gaze shone from between the ice, but Izuku couldn't help but notice the fury that rested behind the neutral exterior. Seeing that his opponents would not falter, Todoroki tapped Ilda twice on his left shoulder, and braced himself.
The speed at which they shot forth would have outmatched the reactions of any normal person, unfortunately for Todoroki, that speed wouldn't be enough. "The distance between spacetime is amplified!" Shoto's hand shot toward the floating head band, but as he got close to it, the world stopped moving. It was a strange feeling, his position compared with everything else remained the same, yet he could still feel himself lurching forwards.
Eventually, Ilda's engines fizzled out, leaving Todoroki just inches away from grasping the band: "Thats it! Team Hagakure places first, with the ten million, followed swiftly by Todoroki and Bakugou! We've got a short break after this, but then we'll be back with the main event!"
"Have you ever heard of quirk marriages?" The two stood within one of the side corridors, Todoroki having insisted upon speaking with him.
"Yeah, but they were outlawed years ago, I don't see how that's..." No way, it couldn't be.
"Originally, I thought you were the product of one, but Star and Stripe is your aunt, not your mother, so it wouldn't make sense. I wouldn't wish my situation upon anyone, but I suppose I thought it would be nice to relate to someone." Oh god it was. "You've beaten me twice now, but what's coming is what matters the most. Your quirk may very well be the strongest in the world, when I beat you, Endeavour will have no choice but to accept that his fire is useless to me."
Todoroki turned without another word, walking away from the deafening silence of the corridor. "Todoroki!" He paused, though did not bother to turn toward Izuku. "If you think I'm just going to let you cruise by on half your power, then your wrong. What your doing is going to get someone killed in the future, when your not strong enough to help them. What then? All you'll have done is prove him right."
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Todoroki kept walking, he refused to entertain the idea, it aligned with his father, so it must have been wrong. Even if- Even if it remained him of the words of someone who used to matter so much to him. It didn't matter, he was doing what she had wanted.
He wasn't letting Endeavour control him.