It was a blur, Shoto had lost all sense at Ben's words and fired as much ice as he could at the other boy who did nothing but shake his head as the ice hit him.
It was like an earthquake hit as the stadium shook. Ice covered the entire portion of the stadium that was around Ben with the man in question nowhere to be seen with mist from the ice covering the field.
"D-Damn, I know Todoroki had serious power behind his Quirk but this?" Sero trailed off looking at the glacier in front of him and everyone else.
"Where is Ben anyway?" Penny asked worriedly.
CRACK!
Everyone in the stadium and watching from home started transfixed as more and more cracks appeared on the ice.
"YOU'VE GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!" Was the consensus of most of the attendees.
"Gurarararara!" Whitebeard chuckled. "Now THAT? Is how you make an impression!"
"Bwahahahahaha!" Garp bellowed. "My grandson certainly has powerful friends!"
In a flash, the entire iceberg collapsed into millions of tiny, harmless pieces of ice. There was a stunned silence no one knew what to do until clapping could be heard and the ice mist cleared to reveal a completely unharmed Ben surrounded by an aura of pure force.
"So that lad has Conqueror's Haki, eh?!" Whitebeard chortled. "I had a feeling there was a spark inside him. Even if he was birthed from THAT man, he's the farthest thing from being like him!"
Ben stopped clapping and smirked at the shocked Shoto.
"That was a nice try Todoroki but you're going to have to do better than that."
Shoto was breathing heavily, his breath visible and his right side covered in ice as he glared at Ben who had his arms crossed and an inpatient glare on his face.
"So are you done fucking around and ready to get serious?"
Todoroki snarled as he sent another wave of ice toward Izuku who could only sigh. As the ice approached, Ben's body suddenly erupted into flames...very familiar flames, at that.
"How did that boy copy my [Hellflame] Quirk?!" Endeavor thought in shock. "I know about his Quirk since as one of the Top 10 Pro Heroes, I'm privy to certain information, but I don't recall ever being in contact with him before!"
"LOOK AT THAT, PEOPLE! TOREKUROSHI, WITH HIS POWERFUL COPY QUIRK, WAS ABLE TO SNATCH ENDEAVOR'S LEGENDARY FIRE! TODOROKI BETTER TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT THAN ICE TO FACE OFF AGAINST THAT!" Present Mic cried.
"That is if he tries something different." Aizawa said calmly, much to Mic's confusion. "It's obvious that Todoroki's ice can't get past Torekuroshi's defense, a defense that costs him little if anything. Combined with the fact that Todoroki refuses to use his fire and has a limit on his ice it's pretty clear what Torekuroshi's plan is."
Mic gasped in realization. "HE'S GONNA WAIT UNTIL TODOROKI TIRES HIMSELF OUT THEN THROW HIM OUT OF THE RING LIKE LAUNDRY IN THE WASHER!"
"It's a no-risk strategy that has little if any flaws. It may not be that heroic but it'll certainly get the job done." Toshinori thought as he watched the creation of his hated enemy fight. "Still, the look of righteous anger in Young Torekuroshi's eyes...it doesn't hold the wickedness of All For One, it holds something different."
Ben meanwhile just sighed in annoyance as he looked at Shoto who shot another wave of ice that was countered by a searing blast of flames.
"What's wrong? You look triggered." Ben calmly said. "Do you hate your father so much that seeing other people use fire gets you pissed?"
Shoto gritted his teeth but said nothing. Taking a gamble by setting up a barricade of ice, Shoto suddenly shot forward riding on a wave of ice towards Ben, though he was moving much slower than normal from all the ice.
"Looks like we're doing this the hard way..."
Shoto meanwhile had made it to Ben and fired another torrent of Ice until the other boy was encased in a tower of ice gaining gasps from the audience. Shoto meanwhile had fallen to the ground gasping for breathe as his right side was covered in frostbite and blood as some of the blisters he got from the frostbite had popped from the pressure.
CRACK!
"No..."
CRACK!"
"It's not possible...!"
Shoto just stared in horror as the pillar cracked and shattered. Ben for his part just stared down at Todoroki, Conqueror's Haki blaring off him like a tsunami.
(A/N: *Play Holy F*ck by Tom Tom AKA Omni-Man's Theme)
"My turn."
Shoto couldn't react as Ben kicked him hard in the gut, sending him flying away and crashing into the barricade continued to tumble before stopping right before leaving the ring.
"That boy ain't pulling any punches!" Garp laughed.
"Grandpa, that is not something to praise in this instance." Fubuki noted.
"And talk like that is why you'll never surpass me." Tatsumaki smirked.
Shoto meanwhile was struggling to get up as he he couldn't stop shaking from the cold and pain. He growled, there was no way he could rely on his mother's ice anymore.
"LOOK AT THAT! EVEN AFTER EVERYTHING, TODOROKI IS STILL STANDING!" Present Mic exclaimed. "BUT WHAT CAN HE DO TO TURN THE TIDES?!"
"Use his goddamn fire. It's the only logical possibility he has left. Any more use of his ice could lead to permanent injury." Aizawa said as he glared down at his student who refused to use common sense.
"Stop it. Please, Just stop it." Ben said calmly to Shoto.
"What?" Shoto blinked, barely able to hear what Ben said.
"I said stopping acting like a self-righteous prick and start using your goddamn fire already!" Ben said, loud enough for Shoto to hear. "You could be on even footing with me and yet you're holding yourself back, over a stupid vendetta! It's honestly pathetic!"
Shoto gritted his teeth, clear offense, and rage in his mismatched eyes.
"I'll never use that bastard's fire!"
Shoto rushed at Ben and threw several sloppy, easily telegraphed punches. Ben blocked them all before kicking Shoto back.
"That's it. I've had just about enough of this." Ben spat calmly. "It's about time you gave up."
"I'm not giving up this match!" Shoto roared, racing back to his feet,
"I'm not talking about the match." Ben shook his head. "I'm talking about the ridiculous idea that you could be a Hero."
Dead silence. The whole world was shocked into silence by what had just been said.
"W-W-What did you say?" Shoto stuttered out in shock.
"Did I fucking stutter? I said you can't be a Hero." Ben repeated. "But then again no one as selfish or half-assed as you could ever be one."
"Selfish?! Half-assed?!" Shoto snapped. "Why do you care so much if I use my left side or not? Is it my old man? Did he bribe you or something to get me to use it?! Fuck off!"
Shoto suddenly hunched over as Ben appeared in front of him using Soru and struck him hard in the stomach with an Armament Haki-coated fist, the blow feeling like a block of tungsten had been thrown into him.
"This is your problem; Your refusal to use your fire is what's holding you back from ever being a Hero. What would happen if lives were in danger and you failed to save them because you refused to use your flames? Do you think that's going to cut it with their families?" Ben asked before going into a fake whiny voice. "'Sorry I couldn't save your friends and loved ones but my fucking daddy issues are more important!'"
Shoto could only get angrier but around him, the audience couldn't help but agree. A hero couldn't act like that and still expect to be accepted.
"Well, he's not wrong," Fumikage said simply gaining shocked looks from some of his classmates. "If he continues on like this one day he could be a hindrance and liability in the field. And we won't have the time or luxury to deal with him."
"That's true...but that doesn't mean I like it..." Ochako frowned.
"I would sooner use my mother's pure and kind ice than the flames of a darwinistic, hero ladder climbing bastard who never ounce showed us an ounce of affection!" Shoto snapped. "You have no idea how hard it is; waking up, training, walking on eggshells…seeing the one good thing in your life taken from you! How could you?! You're Midnight's son! At least she always cares enough to come home and shower you ungrateful existence with praise."
Ben's deadpan look did not change once throughout the whole rant…until his mother came up.
"Choose your next words very carefully." He quietly demanded, a chill filling the room.
Shoto, for all the ice he used, didn't pick up on this and continued ranting:
"You'll never have to work for care or hone your strength! You know NOTHING of a bastard using you for his own…!"
CRUNCH!
Ben had closed the distance and punched Shoto so hard some teeth came loose. To his credit, the wto toned boy threw a punch….But Ben caught and broke two fingers.
"Fine. What's fifteen more years?" Ben shrugged before punching Shoto across the face. "I'm sure your dear old dad can start over again; make another kid that probably uses their brain. He's still got some good years left in him."
Shoto could barely keep up as Ben began wailing at him with physical blows to every part of his body. He then grabbed him by the leg and swung him like a ragdoll before slamming him hard into the ground. Shoto could feel his ribs creak from the force of the impact before Ben got on top of him and began punching him in the face over and over again.
The crowd began wincing in fear and sympathy. Despite agreeing with the points Ben was making, it was still hard to watch him go this far. The strikes boomed through the stadium like roars of vicious thunder.
"Midnight, we need to stop this now!" Cementoss urgently said.
"I'm sorry, but I don't think my Quirk will work!" Midnight said. "Benny has a Quirk in his arsenal that makes him immune to certain Emitter Quirks!"
Shoto's vision was blurred red, the only clear thing he could see being Ben's rage-filled face as he continued to deliver blow after blow toward him…because it wasn't Shoto's face Ben was seeing.
No, the face Ben saw was that of a smirking man with pure white hair and eyes that screamed evil, which matched the smile on his face.
"BEN!"
A wave of Conqueror's Haki burst from the stands, knocking out several students and weaker pros. Those who withstood it turned to see it coming from Izuku and Marco, their eyes firm yet also pleading when Ben stopped in his attacks and spied them…and then his foe:
Shoto's face was bloodied and swollen now, several teeth knocked clean out and his right eye was swollen shut from the number of punches he had taken to the face.
Ben then stopped and began breathing heavily as he looked at his blood-soaked hands. Calming down, he realized he had almost gone too far, tears of grief and anger welling up in his eyes as he got off of Shoto.
He took a few breathes, then motioned Midnight to wait a moment as he zapped Shoto with an aura of some kind. In mere moments, Shoto's injuries were mostly healed and he struggled to get up, staring at his opponent….
"WHY DID YOU MAKE ME DO THIS?!" Ben roared, scaring many in the audience. "THIS PLEDGE OF YOURS IS ONLY GOING TO GET YOU AND EVERYONE AROUND YOU KILLED! THINK, TODOROKI, THINK!"
No one dared speak as Ben continued.
"YOU KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN, IF YOU KEEP THIS UP? YOU'LL BE EXPELLED! NOBODY WILL TAKE YOU SERIOUSLY! YOU'LL BE SEEN AS NOTHING BUT A SELF-RIGHTEOUS ASSHOLE WHO STUCK TO A POINTLESS CODE AND GOT SO MANY INNOCENT MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN KILLED BECAUSE OF IT! WHAT THE HELL WILL YOUR MOTHER THINK SEEING HER SON BECOMING ENDEAVOR BUT WORSE AND WITH ICE?!"
Endeavor felt those last words directed straight at him and, unable to bear it any longer, stood up.
"SHOTO!"
Shoto's left eye slowly opened as he could faintly hear his father calling out to him.
"I AM A FAILURE AS A PARENT, I ADMIT THAT! I FAILED YOU, REI, NATSUO, FUYUMI AND TOUYA…FOR SUCH STUPID REASONS…BUT WHAT YOU DENY? THEY'RE YOUR FLAMESQ! NOT MINE! THEY'VE NEVER BEEN MINE!"
For some reason, things began to click in Shoto's stubborn mind.
His body.
His quirk.
Not his father's.
Not his mother's ice.
His.
And then he recalled something he had forgotten. A line his mother:
'Only you can decide the kind of hero you want to be.'
"YOU WISH TO BECOME BETTER THAN ME? YOU ALREADY ARE! SO DON'T HOLD BACK! BECOME THE HERO YOU WANT TO BE; SUPRASS AND MAKE ME A FOOTNOTE! JUST PLEASE…DO YOUR ACTUAL BEST!"
Suddenly, Shoto unleashed a massive burst of flames from his left side. Despite how badly battered and dizzy he was, he pushed himself to his feet and felt a single tear leave his left eye.
"I never realized...how much I had forgotten."
Shoto could tell the air was chilled significantly enough from all the ice he had used beforehand. With him now using his fire, the air began rapidly heating and expanding as he let out a super-concentrated blast of pure flaming destruction at Ben...who simply stood there and took the full blast….But with a proud grin on his face.
When the blast cleared, everyone gasped to see Ben, badly scorched and embedded in the wall. Peeling off, he fell to the ground and didn't get back up. Midnight let out a scream of maternal fear and rushed to her adoptive son as Shoto fell to his knees, breathing heavily.
"Benio Torekuroshi is out of bounds! Shoto Todoroki manages to pull a last-minute victory with encouraging words from his father!" Present Mic announced for his friend, knowing she was too busy tending to Ben's wounds.
Toshinori had seen the violence Ben had used on Shoto earlier and despite it reminding him of All For One, he could tell from Ben's words how much guilt he felt. The Symbol of Peace realized to himself that Ben let Shoto unleash his full power on him without any resistance as penance for what he did.
"They'll be okay, right?" Melony worriedly asked Toshinori, having sat next to him in the VIP Seats with the other Pro Heroes.
"I hope so, Melony...I really hope so."
DEVIL
Shoto had been brought to Recovery Girl's office to be tended for his wounds. The old woman's [Heal] Quirk was a godsend and Ambrosia had even arrived to help with the healing process using her own [Bio-Repair] Quirk.
"You're lucky you have two of the best Medic Heroes on standby," Tsunade said as she finished patching up Shoto. "Otherwise, this all would have been much, MUCH uglier."
"Doesn't Torekuroshi have any Healing Quirks of his own?" Shoto asked. "Why isn't he using them on himself?"
Sure enough, Ben hadn't been healing even though he had plenty of Quirks on hand to heal himself. Instead, he was hooked up to a rebreather as his burns slowly receded.
As Shoto continued to ponder what Ben had to gain from all this, Endeavor entered the nursery. The youngest Todoroki child sighed bitterly as he looked at his father.
"What, not going to tell me you lost?"
"I was expecting you to be pissed off that your 'greatest masterpiece' failed." Shoto dryly retorted. "What's going on with you?"
"I've learned now it was foolish of me to shelter you from the outside world."
Shoto was shocked as his father's flames seemed to dim, a look of clear regret in his eyes.
"I will freely admit to you, Shoto; I'm a failure. A failure as a father, a hero, and a man. I let my pride and anger control my every action and took all of it out on those who didn't deserve it. Your mother, your siblings...and most of all, you. I kept chasing after All-Might blinded by my goal of surpassing him while looking down on all others."
"Well ayt least you realized."
Father and son turned to see Garp letting himself in.
"Not bad, you two." He smiled. "Not too bad at all.:
He then gavc Shoto a look over.
"…Not as big and fit as Enji was, but Koby was even way worse when I started and look how he turned out! So…if you want, Shoto? How'd you like to intern under me?"
DEVIL
"Man, Ben was absolutely savage back there! I was afraid he was gonna kill Todoroki!" Denki exclaimed.
"No, Ben wouldn't go that far. I know him." Hilda said firmly.
"Yes, I could sense Ben's anger at himself. He realized he almost went too far with Todoroki." Penny added. "I could hear the pain in his voice when he was yelling at him...he wasn't just upset at Todoroki...he was upset at himself as well."
The others all realized this as well. Hila gave the crew a look, wordlessly asking if she could reveal. They shook their heads and she realized that yes, that was probhably for the best.
Sumiko alone seemed uninterested in the whole affair; smirking at Penny the whole time.
"Awfully worried about Ben, eh Penny?" She smiled, raising a brow at the others, who picked up on it.
"Are you not?" Penny asked,
"Of course we are, but…" Marco began. "Your worry is a little more than friend."
Penny blushed at this, which got the the attention of everyone else.
"Awww, our first in crew couple!" Himiko and Kohaku cooed.
"TODAAAAAY IS THE DAAAAAY!" Yaato began to sing as he played an accordion. "IT'S A WONDERFUL A DAAAAAAAY!"
"I-Its not like that!" Penny mutter. "I do worry about you all too, but Ben is so sweet,,.Not that you all aren't…But he's a different kind of sweet and that was all so unlike him and why am I rambling and nas a matter of fact, Izuku worries abo…HICCUP!"
She covered her mouth. She the tried to speak
"I merely concerned for a friend…HICCUP!"
"…D….does Penny?" Chikara asked.
"I am merely stating an obvious concer…HICCUP!"
"Oh my god, you hiccup when you lie, that's SO CUTE!" Rosa gushed, Mina, Setsuna, Pony, Tooru, and Ochako doing the same.
Penny just hid her face in embarrassment, shooting Izuku a pleading look. Usually he would help, but considering what she'd stated to say about him and Ochacko? A small bit of revenge.
He'd treat her and Ben to something nice later.
DEVIL
Many people had been watching the fight between Ben and Shoto with bated breaths. However, one was simply watching with amusement. He was wearing a black leather hoodie that shrouded his whole face as well as black leather gloves.
"Heh, that little shit prized creation finally got taken down a peg, huh?" The man chuckled. "Guess your masterpiece failed you, Endeavor..."
His mood significantly improved, the man headed off, his hands in his pockets. He had a destination in mind...those League of Villains he was hearing about sounded like just the right crew to join to help him achieve his goals...
Knightmare Lord A/N:
This chapter was strictly for Ben and Shoto. We figured it'd have enough action for you all.
Anyway, I hope you liked what we did. We wanted to not go down the route of 'Endeavor is an irredemable monster' like so many other stories do. No, we wanted to portray Endeavor as Horikoshi most likely intended for him to be portrayed from the start; a flawed man who realized the harm he caused and strives to become a better person.
Besides, with Garp here, Endeavor didn't go nearly as bad as he did in canon, at least.