"This wasn't a fight."
Izuku Midoriya stood with his hands clasped behind his back, enduring the strange sensation of vines all around him, writhing on his skin and plunging into the bridge between nothings made by his Quirk. In front of him Shoji Mezo and Kyoka Jiro were on their knees, their limbs wrapped in verdant green tendrils that forced them into immobility. Behind him Ibara Shiozaki was sighing softly, the vines of her hair stretching forward and into the collar of Izuku's top, disappearing into the space between his clothes and flesh and materializing all around their opponents.
The match was called. The time? Fifteen seconds from start to surrender. The method? A display of synergy unmatched by any number of competitors thus far. The result?
A crowd gone wild.
Cheers, shouts and applause rang from all sides, men and women throwing their hands in the air and joining their voices in a chorus of celebration. Izuku was already a celebrity of sorts, the boy with the green hair who could do the improbable and the impossible with ease. Warp Quirks were a sight to behold for the common man, being so rare and peculiar. His mature demeanour and calm, respectful attitude only furthered his growing popularity. The crowd was simply addicted at this point, begging for more.
Bets were being placed, and nobody would bet against the Midoriya/Shiozaki team-up. Against Bakugou and Komori? Easy win. Blackmore and Tsuburaba? Piece of cake. Hitoshi and Yaoyorozu? What was even the point of laying money on the table? All over Japan people were saying his name, discussing his deeds.
He was almost instantly famous. All it had taken was one good day.
'This is good.' said Valentine, the one who had guided him to this point. 'Hear them shout, hear them cheer. They are with you now. But you must earn more than their confidence; you must earn their respect. Prove to them that you are the hero they need, the one they think they deserve. Show them who you are... and who you will one day be.'
Izuku said nothing, for what was there to say? He didn't revel in his victory, he simply signalled for Ibara to withdraw her vines before offering Kyoka a hand up. One she accepted, perhaps with a measure of reluctance. He couldn't blame her; losing a battle in fifteen seconds wasn't good optics for her future hero career. But he didn't dare pity her, for he knew that would be an even greater humiliation in her mind.
She took his hand and he brought her to her feet, and she stared him in the eye for a moment. No words were spoken; she simply turned and walked away. Indignity, then. Perhaps anger. Whatever it was, he offered Shoji a hand as well. It was engulfed by a much larger grip, and Shoji rose with a groan.
"Thank you." he said, bowing his masked head. "I expect you hoped for more from us. I apologize."
"This was a bad matchup." Izuku replied, shaking his head. "You are a close ranged powerhouse, and Jiro a versatile hero who relies on preparation. In comparison... we are two power-types with the fortune of extremely compatible Quirks. This match was effectively rigged from the start."
"That is not true." Shoji's retort caught Izuku off guard, making him blink in surprise. "There were ways for us to retaliate against your attack. A sonic wave through the ground to disrupt your concentration, using my Quirk to overwhelm you physically before you could initiate your combo attack... there were options. We must better ourselves."
"The gulf between our abilities-" Shoji shook his head, cutting Izuku off hard.
"Can only be bridged with hard work, discipline, and careful application of the power we were born with." he said. "Do not assume birthright is all a man has to offer. Is not Eraserhead a man... er, woman of skill over born ability?"
Izuku couldn't think of a counterpoint. He instead looked at the floor for a moment, narrowing his eyes. In his mind, there were those born with power and those born without. He had been the second for nearly all his life. In gaining these powers, these gifts of two of the universe's mightiest men, had he fallen into the same trap of ego Bakugou and others had? Had he become the same sort of person who had once disregarded him for being Quirkless?
He wasn't certain. Perhaps he hadn't yet, but was on that path. Perhaps he was, and needed to change. Or perhaps he wasn't, and all this was pointless speculation. But it was a good thing to consider regardless.
"You're right." he said, nodding slowly. "I... I have been a fool about all this, haven't I? I've thought of myself as somehow greater than you all."
"You stand above us at this time, true." Shoji said. "But do not delude yourself into thinking you will remain there forever. We will close the gap."
"Then I'll have to strive to stay ahead." Izuku concludes, before offering Shoji a hand. "Thank you. I... I needed to hear that."
"And I need to speak with you after the festival." Shoji replied. "It's about... well, I cannot say. But I suspect it is related to your Quirk, the warp part."
Izuku nodded.
"I'll find you once this is ended." he agreed. "If I may ask...?"
"Tokoyami has been suffering from a rash of strange nightmares." he said. "And Dark Shadow... it has been changing, he tells me. It complains of something else intruding upon the space within him. And he feels a bizarre draw to you when he thinks of it."
Izuku thought for a moment on this new information. Nightmares, changes, something within...
"I will be there." he promised.
Shoji shook his hand again, before Izuku turned away and walked back to the waiting rooms, where he and Ibara would await their next match. There wasn't enough time to get to the bleachers, as they would likely arrive and then end up running back down to prepare anyways. Ibara followed him, shadowing his left side.
"I trust our victory has satisfied you?" she asked.
"Less than I expected." Izuku replied, shaking his head. "I had hoped for a proper fight. As it stands, it seems I'll be looking to Blackmore and Tsuburaba for a good brawl."
"You are a curious person." said Ibara, shaking her head. "Your desire for fighting is matched only by those periods of bizarrely calm analysis and the occasional melancholic soliloquy."
"I'm sure it's endearing." said Izuku.
"That's an interesting way of saying 'odd'." Ibara replied.
"Blackmore has proven quite the role mode for expanding my vocabulary." Izuku chuckled. "Another thing I need to thank him for. Along with the twenty-or-so other things."
Izuku and Ibara withdrew to their waiting room, turning on the monitor that would show them the coming fight, one Izuku was quite interested to see. Had Bakugo yet recovered from the prior fight? What of his partner? And then there was the matter of the boy with the purple hair, and his unknown Quirk. Perhaps Izuku would be able to analyze this new challenger as well...
"IT'S BEEN A LONG, HARD FOUGHT DAY SO FAR, BUT WE'RE GETTING CLOSER AND CLOSER TO THE FINISHER, LISTENERS!" Present Mic's voice boomed. "COMING IN AFTER AN EXPLOSIVE FINISH TO THEIR LAST MATCH, IT'S KATSUKI BAKUGOU AND KINOKO KOMORI!"
Katsuki Bakugou walked out, hiding his face from the cameras by staring at the ground. Behind him followed Kinoko, hands together in front of her, fingers knotted up in a tangled mess and eyes hidden behind her hair. Across from them, Shinso Hitoshi and Momo Yaoyorozu walked side by side, the former slumping over slightly with his hands in his pockets and the latter constantly looking around. Izuku followed both groups with his eyes; nobody looked excited to be there, especially not Bakugo, who looked to be nearly dead on his feet.
"Perhaps he should be." he muttered aloud, letting a confused Ibara wonder what exactly he was on about.
In the arena, Kinoko Komori was afraid. She knew just about nothing of what was going through her partner's head right now, and that was scaring her because she wasn't confident she could handle these two on her own. She had tried to talk to him, tried to get him to communicate, even tried hugging him like Itsuka would. All to no effect, though the last saw him mutter 'fuck off' so maybe she had broken through a little.
"Well, if it isn't the monster of Class 1-A." said the boy with the purple hair, making Kinoko start and Bakugo actually look up. "Tired from hospitalizing your classmate, or are you just now realizing you don't have what it takes to be a hero?"
Bakugou grunted, and the purple haired boy seemed almost disappointed.
"Oh come now, surely you must be feeling something..." he said, smirking. "Tell me, did it feel good, blowing that stuck up son of a hero away like that? Showing him you were better despite his birthright? Or did it dawn on you could have killed him with that attack? Is that regret on your face?"
"Hey-" Kinoko interrupted, before freezing in place. This was strange; why couldn't she move? Her arms fell slack at her sides, her eyes glaring over. What was happening? Why couldn't she move? She was trying to speak, but her mouth wouldn't make sounds. What was going on?
"Or is the animal in front of me just sad he couldn't go all the way?" the purple haired boy continued, slowly approaching Bakugou, hands still in his pockets and a sadistic grin on his face. "Were you trying to kill him? Are you disappointed he survived? I can't blame you..."
He got closer and closer, while Bakugou slowly looked down at the floor again, as if in defeat. What was this, Kinoko wondered? The boy's Quirk? Momo stood silently by, watching with clear horror in her eyes, but not daring to interrupt her partner who had told her to let him handle the fight.
"After all, its not like he was giving you a good fight." Shinso was only a few feet from Bakugou now, looming over him with hands free of his pockets, eyes narrowed and smile fading. "Is that all you wanted? A good fight? A good hard brawl? Or maybe you-"
He fell silent when every last iota of air was driven from his lungs, a thunderous impact slamming into his sternum. Kinoko watched with widening eyes as Bakugou delivered a righteous sucker punch straight to the boy's gut, blasting him clean across the arena with a snarl of pure rage. Shinso came down hard, crashing into the cement near the entrance, wheezing and gasping for air before wrenching, rolling onto his side to throw up whatever he had eaten for lunch that day all over the ground.
Bakugou stalked forward, an animal snarl on his face.
"I didn't want to put half and half in the hospital, you fuck." he snarled, drawing closer with hands crackling, tiny detonations cooking off in preparation for the bigger blast to come. "I didn't want to hurt him that bad. I just wanted to win. And you know what?"
Bakugou's hands came down, wrapping around the collar of Shinso's top and hauling him up to eye level, so the boy could better see the rage on his face.
"I don't even want to hurt you that bad." he declared. "But you come in here with a shitty mind-control Quirk you didn't even try to hide until now, and you start talking shit like you're some kind of mastermind who has me all figured out? Like you fucking know who I am?"
Bakugou released his grip with one hand, holding the boy up with the strength of his right arm alone while his left fired off a blast backwards, sending Momo tumbling ass over teakettle with a staff in her hands. He spat on the ground, ignoring the pathetic wheezing attempts at words coming from Shinso's mouth and throwing him on the ground, right next to the out of bounds.
"You think you're a fucking genius, some kind of terrifying mind-controlling puppetmaster, but I've seen scarier shit before." His throat ached slightly where a tiny hole had long since patched over with scar tissue, a permanent reminder of the boy who could have killed him, who could still easily kill him. "I've fought scarier shit before, and I've beaten the shit out scarier shit before. So fuck you, fuck your self-righteous 'woe is me' act..."
Katsuki hauled the boy back up to eye level, and dropped him off the cement pad of the arena, out of bounds.
"And fuck every other motherfucker like you who doesn't know shit about me and just makes it all up." he concluded. "Now, I'm gonna go give the walking encyclopedia over there a good fucking fight, so you sit down, shut up, and try to learn something. Got it?"
Shinso, still straining to do anything more than breathe even, just nodded.
And Bakugou turned, readying himself for a fight, only to find his partner holding Momo in a chokehold, mushrooms growing all over the other girl's exposed arms.
"I got her!" Kinoko declared happily. "Did we win?"
Bakugou walked over, grinning a hollow grin.
"Fuck yeah we did." he declared.
AN:
It's gonna take more than a mistake to knock Bakugou out of a fight. Especially not when he's got a tournament to win. For those hoping he would suffer and suffer and suffer... sorry, but that's not my style. I'm not here to write a bash-fic; I'm here to write a story. I've enjoyed a bit of Bakugou bashing myself in the past, but I find most of it to be a disservice to a rather complex and interesting character too many people seem to simply denigrate as 'angry explosion bully' while ignoring his deeper flaws and redeeming qualities alike.
He will suffer. Everybody suffers. It's part of life. But he isn't going to be humiliated. He isn't going to be mocked. And he certainly isn't going to take anything of the sort lying down. He's going to fight back with everything he has in him because he's Katsuki Bakugou and that's what he does.
Izuku and Ibara are starting to work. Kind of. They've got a ways to go. Next chapter will be lots of Izuku and Blackmore angsting, brawling and generally solving their problems the Shounen way, which also happens to be my favourite way; spirited debate over superpowers fisticuffs.
And to conclude; here's a stupid joke conversation I wrote at eleven PM while trying to sleep. Hope you hate it as much as I do.
"No." said Shotaka Aizawa to the bathroom mirror, unable to do much more than sigh deeply after the figure standing beside her in the reflection didn't walk away immediately.
"Why not?" asked Funny Valentine... or at least, a reflection of Funny Valentine, who sounded like he was right next to her even though he was not. "You are intelligent, diligent, capable and mature. He is intelligent, diligent, capable and mature. He is a perfect partner."
"Why are you in a bathroom mirror?" she retorted, answering a question with a less ludicrous question.
"Why do you refuse to court Izuku Midoriya?" Funny Valentine fired back, bringing them to a three-question combo.
"Because he's almost half my age." said Shotaka. "And that's not normal."
"He is turning sixteen in a month, and you have already turned twenty-eight this year." replied Funny. "There is only a twelve year gap."
"That's two more years than my youngest sister has been alive." she replied, not certain if she still had younger siblings in this reality. "That's a big gap."
"Don't you Japanese have something called 'Shotacon' which is popular amongst older women?" interjected Funny. "Midoriya may not look that innocent, but I can assure you as one who shares his mind; the boys experience with the opposite sex is effectively nonexistent."
"I'm not dignifying that with a response." said Shotaka, turning on the faucet to wash her hands. To her right, a woman was staring at her with confusion and fear as she spoke to her own reflection. "Also, you're making me look crazy."
"You just did." said Valentine. "And furthermore, you have already proven yourself crazy in your refusal to court Izuku."
"It is morally, emotionally and legally wrong for me to engage in any sort of romantic relationship with a student twelve years my junior." said Shotaka, scrubbing her hands diligently with soap.
"Try telling that to some of the people reading this conversation." said Valentine.
Shotaka froze.
"Say again?" she said, before realizing Funny had disappeared. She groaned and rinsed her hands, making a mental note to speak with Midoriya about possible side effects of his Quirk.
Funny watched her from the reflection of the other woman's eye, and smiled. She would come around. She would have to be a fool not to.
"Isn't that right, dear reader?" he asked, before disappearing.