Summary: The break between the second and third rounds.
Notes: Art!
qubril X X
Fandomkitty8
Rain
Banilla Void
I'm totally a bee
Bees Playing Kazoos X
loserland
Bee BoyX Also, may I just say that I adore when fandoms just go off on their own? Cheat Code is support and therefore does not have a hero costume, but a bunch of creative people on my discord decided to design him one anyway.
Theojack16 X
Rain Memes!
X X X X X X X X X X X X
More memes at the end!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter TextShoto felt numb. Not that he ever let himself feel much to begin with, but everything just seemed so out of focus and the crowds were quieter than they should have been. How had he lost?
"Um, Todoroki?" Momo put a hand on his shoulder and it was all that Shoto could do not to flinch. "Are you ok?"
"I'll be fine." Shoto said firmly. He had to be fine. If he were to show anything but the utmost composure on television, Endeavor's punishment would probably be even worse. Not that he was looking forward to the increased training that would undoubtedly follow his failure, but...he'd endured this much. He could handle a little more if it meant rising to the top without his power. "I apologize for losing our points."
"It's not…" Momo hesitated. "I mean, yes, that's very unfortunate and I'm not happy about losing either, but that's not what I was asking. Um, do you need to see Recovery Girl?"
Shouto turned to her, slightly raising an eyebrow, "Why would I need to see Recovery Girl?"
"Um…" Momo hesitated. "The burns?"
Shouto's eyes widened slightly in shock. He'd only activated his fire for a split second out of instinct before he'd realized what he was doing and snuffed them out, but that shouldn't have been nearly enough to burn him especially
"It's just that with what Bakugo pulled with Ashido's acid, a lot of us have chemical burns, so we're all going together!" Momo explained. "Those tape grenades kinda exploded everywhere, you know? We're just lucky that Ashido didn't make the acid strong enough to do any real damage."
"Oh." Shouto looked down at himself, noticing for the first time that there were holes burned into his uniform from where Ashido's acid had splattered over the field as it fell. Sure enough, there were a few small burns trailing along his arms, but the pain wasn't anything more than what he was used to from his normal training. "I hadn't noticed."
"Understandable!" Iida joined the conversation, arms already swinging as he spoke. "The adrenaline in our systems was more than enough to keep us from noticing until the game was over as well! However, I believe that it is best to get these wounds, however minor they may be, taken care of quickly so we can focus on learning from the next rounds!"
Shouto thought about that for a moment. On the one hand, his father would consider going to the nurse for something so minor as a sign of weakness, but on the other...even if Endeavor managed to shove his way back into the student areas, he wouldn't do anything to cause a scene if there were other people around. If only he'd used his fire…
Shouto stomped down on that thought the moment it popped into his head. No. He wouldn't become like that bastard by using his power. In fact...Shouto forced himself to take a breath and almost smiled as a thought occurred to him. His father had failed too. He'd failed to become number one. Losing here just meant that he was better at failing than his father could ever be.
He hoped the bastard enjoyed what he'd created.
Izuku grinned at Mei and Shinso as Midnight cracked her whip to draw their attention to the screen where the brackets were laid out. They all had bandages covering various parts of their arms and faces from the cavalry battle, since Recovery Girl had insisted on only healing the worst of the damage so they wouldn't be too exhausted to do well in the rest of the festival. Izuku had even managed to get her autograph, even though Mei and Hitoshi hadn't stopped teasing him about geeking out over the school nurse. It was so weird having a friendship that included teasing that wasn't intended to hurt like the bullying he'd grown up with.
Izuku still couldn't believe they had actually done it! They'd gotten Shinso into the one on one rounds, which meant that they were one step closer to getting him into the hero course. All the training they'd done was paying off and they were now in the perfect situation for Hitoshi to really show the teachers that he deserved that spot!
Everyone was silent for a moment as they looked at the lineup.
"I'm fighting Pony Tsunatori…" Hitoshi muttered quietly… "She was on the team we took control of, right?"
"Yep!" Izuku said happily. "That'll be an interesting match. She's an exchange student, so the language barrier might make using your quirk more interesting. We haven't experimented with other languages yet, have we?"
"Nope!" Mei piped up. "But if worse comes to worst, he can always use my babies!"
"Wonderful." Hitoshi grumbled. "Who have you got, Midoriya?"
Midoriya started as he suddenly realized that he was going onto the one on one fights as well. Somehow, he'd been so focused on getting Hitoshi into the third round that he'd completely forgotten that being on the same team meant that he'd made it as well. He frantically searched the screen for his name, crossing his fingers that he wouldn't have to face Katsuki right off the bat.
"Umm, where…? Mina Ashido! Acid quirk" Izuku grimaced. "At least it won't be boiling this time…"
"Yeah, that sucked!" Mei said, tugging at one of the bandages on her arm. "Izu-kun! What's Monoma's quirk again?"
"Oh, his is a lot of fun!" Izuku grinned. "He has a copy quirk. I think he can copy up to three people's quirks at the same time? There's really no way to know who's quirks he's copied until you fight him though."
"Perfect!" Mei's eyes narrowed in on Monoma from across the crowd. "He'll be the perfect demonstration of how adaptable my babies are!"
"I don't know whether to pity him or just laugh." Hitoshi said, amused. "Oof, Uraraka's strong, right?"
"Yeah, she really is!" Izuku answered. "Why?"
"Because you better hope she wins her fight." Hitoshi pointed at the brackets. "Otherwise you're going to be up against Bakugo in the next round."
Izuku gulped and glanced over to where Katsuki was surrounded by his team from the cavalry battle. Kirishima was patting him on the back, but Izuku could feel his anger from all the way across the field. Katsuki had always been the best, ever since Izuku could remember, so it must be eating at him that he hadn't gotten first in either of the first two rounds and it must hurt even worse that he was beaten by Izuku of all people. He wanted to feel guilty about that. Years of standing in Katsuki's shadow had primed him to believe that if he wasn't helping his best friend, being a stepping stone on his way to greatness, then he was nothing. If he wasn't helping Katsuki be the best, then he really was the useless deku that everyone told him that he was.
But things had changed since middle school. For one, Izuku had found a new dream that didn't have anything to do with Katsuki and for another he knew what real friendship was like now. Friendship was comparing notebooks to figure out why Mei's latest experiment kept exploding. It was ganging up on Hitoshi to make him laugh when he hadn't gotten enough sleep the night before. It was curling up under a fluffy blanket after a villain attack.
It was winning the first two rounds of the sports festival when he didn't have to, just to make sure his friend made it to the third round.
"Don't worry." Izuku assured his friends. "Katsuki may be strong, but we're not friends anymore. He's lost the right to hurt me."
"So...uh...did you ever figure out how that gen-ed's kid quirk worked?" Ojiro asked Tokoyami. "You might have to fight him again, you know."
"I am aware." Tokoyami answered. "But first I will have to beat a fellow agent of darkness."
"...ok?" Ojiro looked at him strangely, but Tokoyami was more focused on his next fight and on ignoring Todoroki, who was brooding in one of the upper rows of their section of the stands. If he was being completely honest, he hadn't expected his team's last minute strategy to come to anything. He and his teammates had been fully prepared to embrace the dark void of empty failure when the buzzer rang, but somehow they had managed to pull through. Tokoyami couldn't stop wondering, however, why Todoroki had refused to use his fire. It had been obvious in that moment that Dark Shadow was weak to his left side and yet Todoroki had let him win. There must be some dark reason for his refusal, but Tokoyami wasn't one to reveal others' inner darknesses to the world.
But perhaps revealing it to a certain analyst who seemed determined to help their class wouldn't be the end of the world. Perhaps he should talk to Aizawa about peering through the shadows to implore the assistance of the mysterious Cheat Code?
"It is of no importance." Tokoyami said finally. "Dark Shadow and I will be victorious."
"I just hope the purple kid doesn't start singing again." Dark Shadow shuddered. "I think that was creepier than being brainwashed."
"Singing?" Aoyama looked at them curiously. "Why would the monsieur sing in the middle of a fight? He doesn't seem nearly gorgeous enough to pull it off!"
"I think it had something to do with his quirk activation." Kamakiri leaned over the wall dividing 1A and 1B. "Sorry to eavesdrop, but it's a tournament, so I might have to fight him again too. It was only after he started singing that he took control of us."
"But he didn't sing to me!" Dark Shadow complained.
"You did hear him sing, though." Tokoyami said. "Perhaps the best strategy would be to cover one's ears to prevent themselves from being pulled under by the siren's song."
"What the heck are you guys talking about?" Mineta yelled. He had an ugly purple black eye that Recover Girl had apparently refused to heal. "That purple guy doesn't sing! And covering your ears won't do shit! He takes control of you though punching you!"
"He only punched you because you were being rude, Mineta." Tsu pointed out bluntly. "He takes control of you through physical contact. He never made contact with me, so my head was clear the whole time, but I'm pretty sure he touched Shoji when he was going after you."
Everyone turned to look at Shoji, who gave a dignified nod. Tokoyami was starting to get more confused the more people spoke up, "But...I never touched him, at least not before he and his agents of chaos possessed my team."
"You're all idiots." Monoma said. "It's obviously eye contact."
"You didn't even fight him, Monoma, so pipe down!" Kendo slapped him over the head and shrunk her hand as she appeared over the wall.
"I think he's got kinda a sphinx quirk or something." She suggested. "He got us by giving us riddles. When we couldn't figure out the answer quickly enough, he took control."
"I hope it is not that." Pony jumped up and landed on the wall. "I have difficulty with riddles in my first language, I won't have no hope in my second!"
"Is his quirk truly that difficult to parse out?" Yaoyorozu piped up. Most of the class had joined the conversation by this point, understandably. "Surely the activation requirements must be obvious by now if he's fought so many of you."
Tokoyami sighed. "He is a mystery wrapped within an enigma."
"He's a weirdo, that's what he is." Dark Shadow grumbled. "Come on Fumikage, I want french fries."
Ochako forcefully reminded herself that she had nothing to be scared of as she waited for the match to start. If a group of students that weren't in the hero course could strand up against Bakugo and even call him Kacchan just because they thought it was funny, then she, a future hero, had no reason to be terrified of him. Now if only her heartbeat would get the memo.
Midoriya had offered to help her come up with a strategy to use against him, but Ochako already had the beginnings of a plan in her mind and she didn't want to only rely on the support course to get her though. If she succeeded here, then she'd know she was strong enough on her own merit and if she didn't then she'd know she still needed to improve.
The second that Midnight started the match, Ochako rushed forward, only to be brutally blown back. She kept going. It could have just been her imagination, but it felt like Bakugo was going even harder against her than he normally would. A couple of times, she even heard him mutter something about Deku as he forced her back, so she figured he was probably taking out his frustrations with Midoriya out on her. It wasn't fair, obviously, but this was Bakugo they were talking about, the guy who called pretty much everyone extras, so she didn't really have high expectations when it came to kindness or empathy.
Hopefully, however, she could use his anger to her advantage. When people were angry, they got hyper focused and missed things. She used the smokescreen Bakugo was creating to float as many small rocks as she could, only slowing down and stopping when she felt like there was no way he could avoid her meteor shower.
"What? Finally giving up?" Bakugo scoffed. "I should have expected that from anyone willing to partner up with Deku. "
"I think you still have a lot to learn about not underestimating people." Ochako panted. She was close to her limit now, but it had to be enough. She'd make it be enough. "Thank you."
Bakugo's eyes narrowed, "What the fuck for?"
Ochako smiled and brought her hands together, "For keeping your eyes on me."
She lunged forward, ignoring the sting as some of the small pebbles hit her on their way down. Bakguo's eyes widened and she saw a tiny glimmer of fear. She could do this! She reached out toward him. Just a little farther!
Bakugo's entire body tensed in determination and suddenly there was a loud boom as the loudest boom Ochako had ever heard rocked the stadium. It was enough to knock her completely off her feet and disintegrate her epic meteor shower to nothing but useless dust and pebbles. Tears prickled at the corner of her eyes as she struggled to stand, but Bakugo was right there, forcing her to the ground again with another explosion, "What was that Round Face, huh? Did Deku give you that strategy?"
"No, that was all me." Ochako smiled and pushed past her nausea as she finally managed to touch Bakugo. He tensed as his gravity was removed, but the effects lasted less than a second before Ochako started throwing up and dropped him. So much for that plan.
"Come on, Round Face! Fight Me!"
Bakugo's voice seemed muffled as she tried to force herself to her feet, but she was already beyond her limits and ended up collapsing on the floor.
"Uraraka is unable to continue!" Midnight announced. "Bakugo wins!"
Izuku swallowed nervously and ran though everything he knew about Mina Ashido, watching carefully as she stretched, limbering herself up for their match. She was kind, from what he'd seen, and had decent quirk control, but nothing too special. She could control both the acidity and the viscosity of her acids, which made her dangerous, but she didn't really have any ranged attacks from what he'd seen.
Then again, neither did he.
Unlike the first round, there wasn't really a convenient robot for him to hack. He could take control of the security systems, maybe, but that would be risky because that would take time and would leave him open to attack. His best bet for now was to keep her at a distance and then figure out something out as he went along. That was all assuming he even wanted to win this round to begin with, which he still hadn't decided.
"Begin!"
Ashindo immediately started skating toward him on her acid, "Honestly, I feel kinda bad for beating you. Bakubro said you were quirkless, so this is kinda a bad match-up for you, huh?"
Izuku couldn't help feeling annoyed as he ran away, "Every match-up's a bad match-up for me. That doesn't mean I should just give up."
"Oh yeah, more power to ya!" Ashido laughed. "But you're still gonna lose!"
It was weird because it felt like she should be making fun of him, but for some reason, Izuku felt like she just hadn't clued in that what she said might be rude, so he'd forgive her this time...but he also kinda wanted to prove her wrong. Actually, he wanted to prove a lot of people wrong. He wanted to prove, live on national television, that quirkless didn't mean useless and he wouldn't even need to rely on his tech to do it, just Ashido's quirk and maybe a loophole or two.
Izuku grinned and kept running around the stage, zigzagging around the small space and keeping just barely out of reach of Ashido. The crowd seemed to be getting bored with their game of cat and mouse, but it wouldn't last too much longer. Izuku was already having to jump half the time just to avoid the acid trails that Ashido was leaving everywhere as she ran. He waited until about 80% of the stage was completely coated in acid before taking off his uniform jacket and running toward the corner of the stage.
There was a small torch in each corner. They were mostly for decoration and Izuku honestly wasn't completely sure that they didn't count as out of bounds but he didn't technically have to cross the lines to reach them, so he was willing to risk it. He crumpled his shirt into a ball and shoved it into the flames until it caught, then ignored the gasps and screams of the crowd as he threw the now burning shirt onto the ground, smirking at Ashido as the acid on the ground caught fire and the flames started racing toward her.
Her eyes widened and she immediately jumped off of her acid trail, but there were only so many places she could go. Unlike Izuku, she hadn't been paying attention to what areas on the field were free of acid, so while she was busy trying to find a safe place to put her feet, he was able to pick his way around the flames and give her one final push over the line.
"Ashido Mina is out of bounds!" Midnight yelled. "Izuku Midoriya wins! Now both of you get off the field before you get hurt!"
"Did...did they seriously just knock eachother out?" Mic asked. "Well, I guess that's what you get when you're evenly matched, huh? Kirishima vs. Tetsutetsu will be decided via a tiebreaker once they finally wake up!"
Sero cracked his neck and grinned as Midnight announced the beginning of the match, "This is kinda a bad match-up for you, huh? I mean, it could be worse, like can you imagine if Todoroki had made it to this round? But, uh, still, you ever tried to vacuum up a piece of string? This is gonna be kinda like that…"
Kaibara shrugged and started rotating his fingers experimentally, "I guess you might be right, but what kind of hero would I be if I let a little thing like a bad quirk match-up keep me from fighting."
Sero shook his head and shot tape from both of his elbows. As he expected, the tape immediately started wrapping around his arms. It wouldn't be long before he wouldn't be able to rotate at all and Sero would win!
To his surprise, however, Kaibara suddenly started rotating faster than he was producing tape. Before Sero could speed up to compensate or cut off his tape, Kaibara had used his tape to pull them together and Sero's eyes widened as Kaibara's head started to spin. One devastating headbutt later, Kaibara was grimacing as he tried to free his arms from the tape.
"Sero is KO'ed. Kaibara wins!"
"Are you sure you don't want to use any of my babies?" Hatsume asked innocently. "Just to level the playing field, you know!"
Monoma scoffed, "Are you implying that I can't beat you on my own merit? Class 1B is superior, we don't need to rely on charity from other courses to prove our abilities, unlike some classes. Are you forgetting that it was my team that came in first during the cavalry battle? At least I didn't provide opportunities for those class 1A bastards to steal our points!"
"We just wanted everything to be fair!" Mei jumped up and down in excitement as she made a final mental inventory of her babies. "Taking away that many points and not giving anyone a chance to recover would have just been rude!"
"The best don't have the time to worry about the opinions of others." Monoma rolled his eyes. "You may as well give up now. Your babies aren't going to stand a chance against three quirks."
"Hmm…" Mei pretended to think about it for a moment. "Nah, I still haven't gotten what I came for!"
"And what is that?" Monoma sneered.
Mei grinned manically as Midnight told them to start, "The spotlight!"
Monoma huffed haughtily, rapidly growing his hand ten times its size and reaching toward her, "The spotlight goes to those that deserve it."
Mei tapped the mic that Izu-kun had programmed for her and smiled when she heard the sound echo through the stadium speakers, "Hello, ladies and gentlemen! I'm Mei Hatsume, the future CEO of Hatsume Industries and I'd like to introduce you to my babies!"
"What?!" Mic's voice echoed over the speakers as well. "How is she doing that?!"
"My best guess is that Midoriya helped her hack into our speaker system." Aizawa sounded amused. "Problem children."
"This first invention is one of my personal favorites!" Mei announced eyes zooming in on the booth where the support companies were watching with interest. "It's a multi-purpose capture net that can take care of even the most troublesome quirks!"
She shot the net toward Monoma, who might have been able to dodge if the extra weight from his larger hands hadn't thrown him off. He growled as the net wrapped around him, but his eyes shone with anger and determination as his hands shrunk and vines started growing from his head and reaching between the holes in the net.
"Ah! As my lovely assistant is demonstrating, nets aren't the best fit for every quirk heroes encounter. That's why each of my capture nets is controlled by magnets!" She pressed a button and the net fell apart. "One button control for easy capture and release!"
"I'm not your assistant!" Monoma's face turned bright red and he untangled his vines from the remainder of her net and shot them toward her. "Stop toying with me!"
Mei simply kept smiling and pressed another button. Legs shot out of her backpack and effortless helped her dodge, "My universal tripod senses and responds to threats in the environment and the multi directional control means that this nifty invention will help you dodge and weave no matter where your opponents attacks are coming from!"
"Stop monologuing and fight me already!" Monoma yelled. "Do you think support is better than 1B?! Is that it?!"
"Sometimes, however, you need a little more firepower!" Mei ignored Monoma's protests as she grabbed another invention from her belt. "And what's better for firepower than a flamethrower? Perfect for combating plant-based quirks or really any quirk that might be flammable!"
Monoma panicked as the vines caught fire, but he detached them quickly enough that the flames didn't manage to burn him. Mei was both curious and excited as she wondered what quirk he'd use next, since Izu-kun had said he could copy three. He'd also said that his quirk would limit the fight to about five minutes, since after that he'd basically be fighting quirkless and it wouldn't be nearly as entertaining, so she had to be efficient and show all the inventions she wanted to before his quirk ran out. Mei glanced up at the support booth again and smiled in triumph. They were eating this up.
"Fine! You wanna play dirty?" Monoma scowled at her. "Let's see how you handle this!"
The ground beneath her turned to mush, but Mei simply activated her hover boots and her jetpack, "I recommend using these two inventions in tandem, but they're both amazing on their own as well! When it's too dangerous to be on the ground, why limit yourself to obeying gravity?"
Monoma ground his teeth together and reactivated the quirk that made his hands larger as he attempted to swat her out of the air. She responded by shooting him with a portable taser.
The fight went on like that for a few minutes and Mei was careful to respond to each new threat with a different baby so that the support companies would be able to see the full variety of her arsenal. Monoma kept getting more and more angry until he stopped being able to call on the quirks he'd copied and his shoulders slumped. Mei finished off showing one more invention, then bowed.
"Thank you everyone! Just a reminder that it's Mei Hatsume, future CEO of Hatsume Industries!" She dusted off her hands and stepped over the line with a sigh. "Pleasure doing business with you!"
Midnight sounded like she was holding back laughter as she announced the match, "Hatsume is out of bounds. Monoma wins!"
Kamakiri started shooting his blades at Tsuburaba as soon as the match began, but, as predicted, his blades simply buried themselves harmlessly in an invisible shield of hardened air. He didn't let that intimidate him, however, and kept throwing his blades. The thing about Tsuburaba's air constructs was that they were fragile. Enough good hits and they were liable to shatter. He kept up his assault, but Tsuburaba didn't make it easy with how he kept moving around the stage to avoid his knives.
Kamakiri rolled his eyes as Tsuburaba made his way to his other side, visibly out of breath, "Are you done already? I was looking forward to a fight!"
Tsuburaba simply smiled and took a deep breath. It was difficult to see Tsuburaba's constructs, so when Kamakiri thought it was safest to dodge when it looked like his opponent was throwing something. He felt something similar to a spear fly past him, but that wasn't the biggest surprise. No, the surprise was the wall he ran into.
"You…" Kamakiri sent a few blades out from his body in every direction and for the first time, realized that Tsuburaba hadn't been moving around to dodge, but instead to create a maze of invisible walls that were now blocking him in on three sides. The only exit he had was straight over the line and Tsuburaba was running toward him, holding a shield of air in front of him that already had several blades buried in it.
Kamakiri tried to hold his ground, he really did, but it only took a few instinctual steps backward for him to officially lose the match.
"Kamakiri is out of bounds!" Midnight yelled. "Tsuburaba wins!"
Pony was really hoping that Shinso's quirk wasn't riddles.
She knew it was some kind of brainwashing, since she'd obviously spend a good portion of the second round under his control, but she had no idea how to protect herself, so the best thing to do would be to end the match before he had a chance to use it!
That was why, as soon as Midnight gave the signal to begin, Pony immediately began shooting her horns at him. He dodged most of them deftly, only getting a few grazes, but he just kept staring at her.
Present Mic's voice echoed over the field and Pony made a note to tell Vlad-Sensei that they might need a new speaker system, since the audio quality was super weird, " For those of you who don't know, Pony is an exchange student from...where was it again? Australia?"
"America!" Pony yelled. How did her english teacher not remember where she was from?! They'd talked about her hometown!
From across the field, Shinso smirked, still maintaining eye contact, "I win."
Pony felt her body relax with a jolt as Shinso took control. Oh no! It must have been eye contact! That was why he hadn't stopped staring at her!
"Turn around and walk out of bounds like a good little hero." Shinso ordered and Pony didn't have any choice but to obey.
"Well that was weird!" Present Mic spoke up again, but the audio quality was better. "She's just obeying him!"
"Pony is out of bounds! Shinso wins!"
"It is a pleasure to fight another servant of darkness." Tokoyami said seriously.
"Of course." Kuroiro responded. "It is an honor."
"Oh come on! Stop being edgelords and let's just fight already!" Dark Shadow complained, lunging forward and swiping at Kuroiro. The moment he did, however, their opponent completely disappeared.
"What?!" Dark Shadow yelled. "Where'd he go?!"
Tokoyami's eyes widened and he reared back as Kuroiro emerged from his chest right where he joined with Dark Shadow, "Boo."
Tokoyami stumbled back, but managed to get a hold on Kuroiro's arm and shove him away, "How…?"
Kuroiro smirked and ran toward Dark Shadow again. Just like before, he disappeared as soon as they made contact, but this time, Dark Shadow stifferened and started moving somewhat jerkily.
"Fumikage…" Dark Shadow made a clumsy swipe at him and Tokoyami felt a strike of fear. "I'm not doing this!"
Tokoyami's mind raced. What did he know? He knew that somehow, Kuroiro was able to disappear when he made contact with Dark Shadow, it was almost as if they were melding together, and he seemed to be trying to control him, which was bad. So, how could he counteract that?
"Dark Shadow!" Tokoyami yelled. "Return to me!"
Thankfully, Dark Shadow still had enough control of his actions to obey the order and within moments he had gratefully disappeared back inside Tokoyami's chest. As soon as Dark Shadow disappeared, Kuroiro became visible again right in front of Tokoyami.
"I guess I need a little more practice before I can really control dark objects, huh?" Kuroiro looked exhausted. "Oh well."
Tokoyami didn't want to have to do this without Dark Shadow, but he would do what it took to win and to protect his quirk. Taking advantage of Kuroiro's exhaustion, Tokoyami tackled him to the ground and pinned him. He struggled for a few moments, but then Dark Shadow emerged and braced Tokoyami so that he had extra strength, all while being careful not to touch Kuroiro. After a few seconds, it became apparent that he wasn't getting out of this and Kuroiro stopped struggling.
"Kuroiro is unable to move! Tokoyami wins!"
ummary: The second round of the one on ones
Notes: Art!
Blue Sky
PaOPaO X
PeachyPie
Loretta_HK1120
Coppery Copper
SalmonMeister Memes!
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X Also, I didn't bother writing the arm wresting match between Kirishima and Tetstutetsu because it's the same as canon.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter TextIzuku should be scared.
He was about to face the kid who had made his life miserable for ten years, the one who had given him more scars than anyone else, the one who told him to take a swan dive off the roof, and, of course, the one who as chomping at the bit to teach him a lesson. He should be absolutely terrified, but instead he was just angry.
Across from him, Katsuki was already popping tiny explosions in his hands threateningly. He looked absolutely pissed, but then again, Izuku had been doing things all day that he knew would set him off, so he supposed on some level he'd known this would happen, even if he didn't deserve it. No one deserved to have their dreams trampled on and told they were less than a pebble on the side of the road just because of the way they were born.
So what? Izuku had found friends and done well in the other rounds, but that had very little if nothing to do with his former bully, so Katsuki had no right to be angry. He'd won the first round by accident, and the second for Shinso, and even if annoying Katsuki had been a nice side effect, that wasn't why he wanted to do his best.
No, Izuku was doing this for himself.
He didn't allow himself to collapse in on himself like he would have back in middle school. As he waited for Midnight to begin the match, Izuku held his head high and threw his shoulders back, which seemed to annoy Katsuki even more. He probably wanted things to go back to the way they were, the good old days when he'd been the top of the food chain and Izuku had been nothing, and it was pissing him off that those days were over. Izuku had friends now. He had a new dream that he loved and that had nothing to do with Katsuki and he wouldn't give that up for the world.
"I'm gonna kill you, Deku!" Katsuki growled, quiet enough that it was almost completely drowned out by the roar of the crowd. "I'm gonna explode your quirkless ass so hard they'll have to send your ashes home to Auntie Inko in a takeout box!"
Izuku's glare hardened, but otherwise he didn't change his expression. Katsuki continued spitting insults as they waited for the fight to begin, but Izuku just let them wash over him, far too familiar with Katsuki's particular brand of verbal violence to be bothered when he knew that Mei was waiting with the rest of their class to see him after the fight. Maybe Katsuki should research trash talking to make his words a more effective weapon against villains, because they weren't going to work on Izuku anymore.
"Alright! I want a good clean match!" Midnight announced to the crowd. "Same rules as the last round apply! You win by forcing your opponent to leave the ring, knocking them out, or making them surrender to your will! Whoever wins these matches moves on to the semi finals! Begin!"
As soon as she cracked her whip, Katsuki immediately launched himself forward, using his explosions to propel himself as he anticipated the beatdown to come, "Die, Deku!"
The rules dictated that opponents must stay on their side of the stage before the match, but there was no rule on exactly where. Most students chose to wait in the middle of their space, giving themselves good options for both evasion and attack. It was a good strategy, but Katsuki was so concerned with beating him that he'd failed to notice exactly how close to the line Izuku was standing until he took a single step backwards over the line, maintaining eye contact the whole time.
It had never occurred to him that Izuku would rather forfeit the match than fight him.
The entire stadium fell silent as everyone processed what Izuku had just done. Even Katsuki's explosions stuttered to a stop halfway across the stage and he landed roughly as he stared at Izuku in confused disbelief. It was like someone had taken a snapshot of that moment and engraved it into glass to preserve it forever.
Then that moment shattered.
"No!" Katsuki immediately launched himself forward again. "No! You don't get to give up, Deku! You've been looking down on me all day, goddammit! Fight me!"
Izuku felt a small strike of fear. Were the teachers actually going to stop him? Or were they going to be just like the ones in middle school and turn a blind eye to their golden boy breaking the rules? Would they let Katsuki beat him up and then pull some bullshit reason out of their asses about how it hadn't been clear that Izuku had crossed the line or how it somehow didn't count, ultimately blaming him for Katsuki's temper being out of control? Either way, Izuku refused to move. It wasn't his responsibility to run away in fear.
The moment of truth came right as Katsuki was about to let loose an explosion to Izuku's face, but was met with a cement wall that suddenly sprang out of the ground instead. The explosion left a sizable dent in the wall and sent cement chunks flying everywhere, but Izuku only flinched slightly as he got hit with a few pebbles.
"Stand down, Bakugo." Cementoss growled. "The match is already over. Midoriya is over the line and you're moving on."
"No!" Bakugo growled and hit the wall with another explosion. "That's not a win, that's a gimme! You've been pissing me off all day, Deku, just shut up and fight me already! You owe me a fight, you quirkless piece of shit!"
The wall was practically destroyed at this point, but Katsuki's explosions were getting weaker as Midnight came up behind him and he started breathing in her quirk, "Fight me...Deku! You...owe...me...a fight…"
Izuku simply continued staring him down, an odd sense of power flooding through him as he said something that deep down, he'd always wanted to say, "No, Kacchan. Actually, I don't owe you anything."
Kirishima was kinda torn. On the one hand, it was kinda unmanly for that support student to just step out of the ring like that, but on the other it was super unmanly for Bakugo to keep going after him after the match was over. Honestly, Bakugo should have been prepared for that, considering that the other support student did basically the same thing, even if she'd played with Monoma for a while before surrendering, which would hopefully make him a little less smug and annoying next time the two classes had to work together, but still, the support course students didn't really have any motivation to win the sports festival, so it made sense to lose early on.
He shook his head and walked out of the tunnel for his own match. He couldn't afford to be thinking about Baku-bro when he had his own match to worry about. With the match-ups the way they were right now, if he won this match, he'd be fighting Bakugo in the next round and he could give him the fight he deserved. It probably wasn't what he wanted, but it would help to take his frustrations out on someone with thick skin.
But to help his friend, he needed to get to beat this drill guy from 1B. Sero would have been easier, since Kirishima would have been able to harden his skin and cut through the tape without much of an issue, but Kaibara had shown in the last match that he had a good head on his shoulders and was willing to fight creatively, even in the case of a bad quirk match-up, so Kirishima had to be on his guard. He could do this!
"Begin!"
Kaibara's fingers spun so fast that Kirishima could hardly even see him as they ran at each other. Kirishima dodged the attacks he could and paid close attention to Kaibara's movements to try and predict where the rest of his attacks would land and only hardened those parts of his body. This was going to be primarily a battle of stamina. If he could keep up his hardening longer than Kaibara could gyrate, then he'd win, but if he softened before his opponent got tired, he'd lose. It was simple, straight forward, and manly, just like he liked.
Kirishima stayed on the defensive as long as he could. Hardening his whole body was exhausting, but hardening small sections of his skin like this was almost instinctual at this point and was something he could do for hours before he had to stop. Kaibara, however, caught onto his strategy within a few minutes of starting the match. His stance changed and he started moving faster and launching multiple attacks at once, which made it a lot harder for Kirishima to predict where he needed to harden. Sometimes, he'd be all prepared for a hand to his ribs, only to be surprised by a foot trying to drill into one of his shins and had to harden as quickly as he could, just to keep from losing.
As soon as his opponent showed the slightest signs that he was getting tired, Krishima took his chance. Hardening his whole body, he lunged forward and grabbed his arms, wincing at the way Kaibara's limbs twisted beneath his hands as he tried to escape. Kirishima just dragged him toward the edge, tugging hard and relying on his slightly greater physical strength to pull Kaibara from where he was trying to anchor himself into the ground. The skin on his palms had been ground down to almost nothing by the time he finally managed to throw Kaibara from the ring with a roar.
"And with that spectacular move, Kaibara is out of bounds!" Midnight yelled. "Kirishima advances to the semi-finals!"
"It truly doesn't matter which of us wins this match." Monoma said. "Either way, we've shown that 1B is just as good as 1A in every aspect!"
Tsuburaba shook his head in amusement, "I really don't think that they're as high and mighty as you think they are, Monoma. Sure, they fought some villains, but we all took the same test, didn't we? We're all in the hero course, which is more than I can say for your last opponent."
Monoma's expression soured, "I was being chivalrous and that support witch took advantage of that. If I ever fight her again, I'll show her the true power of our class!"
Tsuburaba rolled his eyes, "Yeah, sure. More like she'll wipe the floor with you with even better gear. Seriously, dude, it's like she wasn't even trying."
"Just shut up." Monoma grit his teeth. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were starting to actually believe that 1B is inferior."
"Again, dude, that's literally just you." Tsuburaba muttered. "But whatever, let's fight."
Midnight gave the signal and Monoma immediately started letting out mushroom spores. He had planned on pulling that move out later in the fight, but he wanted to prove Tsuburaba and everyone else who ever talked about his stupid inferiority complex wrong. He wasn't inferior! He could end this fight before it even began!
Tsuburaba took a deep breath to start using his quirk, but before he was able to make any constructs, he got a lungful of the invisible spores and started coughing. That would show him! Monoma ran over to him and Tsuburaba tried to fight him off, but it was difficult to defend against a physical assault when it felt like his lungs were going to explode and all Monoma needed was one good touch.
He copied Tsuburaba's quirk and turned his head to the side he'd kept free of the spores so that he could take a deep breath. He made a sort of table floating a few feet above the ground and pushed Tsuburaba onto it, then welded him in place and took a few steps back.
"Tsuburaba, can you move?" Midnight asked.
Tsuburaba tried to wriggle around a little bit, but Monoma had taken care to anchor him well so that there was no way he could break out. Monoma smiled as he shook his head.
"Tsuburaba is immobilized! Monoma advances!"
"Are you sure you can do this?" Izuku asked. "I mean, of course you can, obviously, but it's just that Tokoyami is really strong and he already knows your quirk! Plus you have to brainwash him and dark shadow separately, so it's more like you're fighting two opponents instead of one. It's kinda unfair."
"Oh, come on! Have a little faith in our baby." Mei hit Izuku softly over the head and turned to Hitoshi. "But seriously, rely on the baby I made you and Izu-kun's analysis and you'll be fine. You've made it this far and bird-boy doesn't know how your quirk works, right?"
"Not that I know of." Hitoshi shrugged, burying his nervousness deep underneath his normal layer of apathy. "He's got a strong quirk…"
"But Mei-chan is right." Izuku smiled brightly. "You're stronger!"
Mei gave a manic grin and slapped him on the back, "Knock 'em dead!"
Hitoshi rolled his eyes, but still felt a little better as he made his way out of the tunnels and onto the field. Beating Pony was one thing. She didn't have an excellent grasp on the language, so it was easy to trick her into responding without her catching onto the fact that his quirk was verbal. He didn't think the same trick would work with Tokoyami, however. His support item could imitate voices, like he'd done with Present Mic, but with two sets of ears to hear the irregularities, it was twice as likely that Tokoyami and Dark Shadow would figure out the ruse and from there it wouldn't take much of a leap to figure out that it had something to do with his voice and then answering questions, so imitating someone else's voice was too risky.
Hitoshi ran through the fake requirements he'd used already. He'd done singing, touch, eye contact...he should try to switch it up, maybe. It would be difficult to get both of them to respond, but if the cavalry battle had proved anything, it was that if he had to choose between the two, Dark Shadow was the only option. It was too dangerous to take control of Tokoyami without taking control of his quirk and Shinso didn't know how to use their link to take control of both of them...yet.
He shoved his hands in his pockets, appearing carefully bored as he waited for the match to begin. Tokoyami was alone for the time being, or, well, as alone as Hitoshi thought he ever was, but Dark Shadow wasn't visible yet, which would make it way more difficult to take control of him. Hopefully the quirk would come out and start talking shortly after the start of the match, because if not…
Hitoshi took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. He'd be fine. If worse came to worst, he still had his support item and some physical training to rely on, right? Izuku and Mei had worked really hard to make sure he made it this far, so he wouldn't' disappoint his kidnappers by losing this early in the tournament. He had to get into the hero course and live up to his name of Extra-Credit-Kun.
"Are you boys ready?" Midnight asked, cracking her whip. "Begin!"
"So Hot Topic," Hitoshi started, "where's your better half?"
Tokoyami's eyes narrowed as he responded carefully, "We do not know what methods of darkness you employed to take control of us in the cavalry battle. It is better for Dark Shadow to conserve his strength for our moment of need."
Hitoshi let out a controlled breath of relief. One down, but he wasn't out of the woods yet, considering that Tokoyami had all but told him that the two were waiting for him to take control of the host and let the quirk save him. He let the connection he'd formed hang for the moment and thought. Tokoyami was treating him cautiously because of the unknown factors to do with his quirk and it didn't look like Dark Shadow was going to be coming out anytime soon, not unless he brainwashed Tokoyami and opened himself up to attack. If only there was a way he could use his link to Tokoyami to take control of Dark Shadow!
His face scrunched up in frustration and he could hear the confused and annoyed mummerings that were starting to come from the audience as two powerful students just stood still when they should be putting on a show. Even if HItoshi did end up brainwashing Tokoyami and risking Dark Shadow's wrath, he needed to do something , if only to disguise his quirk. The good thing was that whatever he did could be completely random.
Hitoshi laid down on the rough concrete, covering his face with his arm.
His lips twitched as the annoyed whispers turned to pure bafflement and Midnight sounded very confused as she questioned what to do next, "Shinso, what's going on? Are you surrendering?"
"Well, he hasn't attacked me yet." Hitoshi drawled. "So no, I'm not surrendering. I just figured I may as well be productive and take a nap. Now be quiet, I'm trying to sleep."
He could practically feel Tokoyami's confusion, "But why?"
Hitoshi gave an awkward half-shrug from his place on the floor, "Insomnia's a bitch."
He could hear the snicker in Present Mic's voice as he tried to commentate, "Well, folks, there you have it! Hitoshi Shinso from general education has decided to take a nap instead of fight! In all my years of announcing the sports festival, I honestly don't think I've ever seen anything like this! What do you think, Eraser?"
"I think he's leaving himself open to attack." Eraser said bluntly. "With the way he's covering his eyes, he might sleep better, but he won't be able to see it coming when and if Tokoyami decides to end the fight."
"Who knows, Eraser," Present Mic said cheerfully, "maybe the kid's got a plan."
Eraser scoffed, "If he does, it's probably not a very good one."
Ouch, but true. Hitoshi really didn't know what he was supposed to do. He might be able to take Tokoyami in a physical fight, but even with his support item, he didn't stand a chance against Dark Shadow. He sighed and tried to block out as much of the surrounding noise as he could so he could focus on the link his quirk had created with Tokoyami. Izuku said that his quirk put his victim's body under his brain's control, right? They were going to experiment more with partial control after he got into the hero course, but maybe the extra adrenaline of a stressful fight would give him some sort of edge and make him have a breakthrough?
He took a deep breath and let it out, reaching out along the link until he felt what he assumed was Tokoyami. He really needed to pay more attention to what people's consciousnesses felt like, didn't he. He carefully poked and prodded, but kept half an ear on the real world, knowing it was only a matter of time before Tokoyami took his teacher's advice to heart and just attacked Hitoshi no matter how strange and unpredictably he was acting.
He'd thought that he could almost feel Tokoyami's confusion earlier, but the more he explored their link, the more he realized that he wasn't just imagining it. He really could feel his confusion as it filtered across the link, but he could feel other emotions as well. Frustration, fear, hesitence, and...Hitoshi inhaled sharply. That wasn't Tokoyami.
What he felt was similar, of course, but it was like a different flavor of the same candy. Same base, but at the same time, Dark Shadow was completely unique. There was a slight barrier preventing him from reaching the quirk, but it felt more like the push that kept him from keeping his quirk active without taking control of someone, and Hitoshi knew he could push through that. He smiled.
"Oh, this is stupid!" Dark Shadow finally started talking. "Come on Fumikage! He's just laying there! Let's beat him!"
Tokoyami didn't respond, but based on his footsteps, he did start running. Hitoshi took another deep breath and pushed the link as far as it would go. He was starting to get a headache and he was definitely out of breath, but he could feel the link expanding to include everyone in his opponent's brain.
The footsteps got closer and there was a whoosh of air as Tokoyami made his move, but that was just enough warning for Hitoshi to roll to the side and rise to his feet.
"Ooh! It looks like sleeping beauty is finally awake and we're gonna see some action!" Mic yelled enthusiastically. "What's gonna happen next?!"
Hitoshi smirked quietly, "You loose."
Tokoyami furrowed his brow, "We have barely begun the fight, how have I already lost?"
"Dark Shadow." Hitoshi grinned at the look of shock and fear on Tokoyami's face as he activated his quirk and Dark Shadow stood at attention, patiently awaiting his instruction. "Drag Tokoyami out of the ring."
"No!" Tokoyami widened his stance, and tried to push Dark Shadow away, but there was only so much he could do against his own quirk. "Dark Shadow, listen to me! He is controlling your inner darkness! Stop this! Stop! No!"
Hitoshi felt like his vision was tunneling, only able to focus on Dark Shadow as his headache got worse and he had to concentrate with everything he had to keep control with how hard Tokoyami was hitting him. His control felt like it was fraying more with every passing moment, but right before the link seemed about to snap, Tokoyami's foot crossed the line.
"Tokoyami is out of bounds!" Midnight sounded shocked and it took a full five seconds for the crowd to start cheering. "Shinso advances to the semi-finals!"
Hitoshi released his quirk and grinned proudly, turning to face the place in the stands that he knew the support classes were watching. He only just managed to find Mei and Izuku in the crowd before his eyes rolled back in his head and everything went black.