Bakugo looked around in mild irritation. That half and half bastard had gone of to talk to his brother somewhere, so he was stuck talking to shitty hair and some other extras. He sighed as his gaze wandered down to the field which was currently being repaired by Cementoss, after some serious destruction to the arena (mostly courtesy of Izuku's team's strategy).
Bakugo listened as the boys were talking about... something and did his best to restrain himself from murdering Kaminari and Mineta after it became apparent that they had tricked the girls into being cheerleaders as part of the intermission. That didn't stop him from leaving smoky marks on either of their shoulders though.
He glanced up at the tournament brackets. His first fight would be up against Round Face, and then up against Shitty Hair or Tail Dork, depending on who won. He sighed as he waited in boredom for the first match to start. He couldn't wait to see his brother kick the general education kid's ass.
Izuku, on the other hand, was currently standing in the tunnel with Todoroki, who was leaning against the wall, in a slight shock. "T-t-they're marriages w-with the purpose of creating a child with a hybrid q-q-quirk. W-why?" Izuku answered, gears in his head spinning.
"Well, my old man was, and still is, obsessed with becoming the number 1 hero. Through any means, and that includes if it is something of his own creation, rather than his own doing." Todoroki elaborated, a slight glare directed at the wall next to Izuku.
"S-s-so, you're-"
"Yes. I am my father's perfect 'creation', purely for the purpose of surpassing All Might. I apologize for earlier, it is clear that the one I should beat is not Bakugo, but in fact you. I will beat you with my ice alone, and prove that my old man is useless." Todoroki finished before walking away, a hardened stare once more not directed at Izuku but at the wall near him.
Izuku was in a slight daze, his mind wandering as he was preoccupied in his own thoughts, mindlessly walking to his designated waiting room.
He absentmindedly pulled out a notebook, this one numbered 16 (he wrote through them faster with his quirk, and with so many new people about there was an abundance of quirks to write and theorize about), and started making a few notes in a new section, when someone came through the door. "Ojiro? Why are you here?" Izuku said, the sudden entrance startling the boy who was previously entranced in the notebook.
"I have some information about your opponent." He replied, slightly irked.
"Shinso? Weren't you on his team for the cavalry battle?"
"Yes, but he wasn't on my team."
"Wha-"
"Shinso has a brainwashing quirk. I'm not sure how it's activated, but I believe it's deactivated by either him or some degree of a jolt to the brain, like a head knock or something similar."
"Okay, so when you're in that state, he has to order you to directly do things, correct?"
"Yes, it has to be fairly specific although there are minor actions that are natural that he doesn't have to order you to do, such as breath." Ojiro finished, backing out of the room.
"Hold on, how did you find this out?" Izuku said, stopping the other boy from leaving the room. Ojiro had a look of irritation and frustration on his face as he replied, "Shinso used it on us to make us team up with him, and throughout the calvalry battle. I don't even remember anything from it! In any case, I've asked someone from the team in fifth place to take my position, Tetsutetsu or something like that. Good luck Izuku, you'll need it." Ojiro finished, closing the door to the waiting room as he left.
Izuku returned to his notebook and with his pen in hand, he started making a profile for his opponent based on the information he was given so far. It was inconclusive, but with some notes on other similar quirks either memorized or in the book (he had memorized most basic information and a handful of other details for each quirk he could recall on the fly, but if he needed full information he'd rely on his notebooks) he was able to make a few theories about activation.
If it was eye contact like Aizawa-sensei's, it'd be impossible to maintain on multiple people, let alone people he was on top of. If it was contact based there was no reason for it to be activated before Ojiro and Shinso made contact. He concluded that it must be activated by a vocal response of some sort. Making note of the deactivation condition as well, he prepared a vague strategy, just in case he was to fall victim to the brain washing.
He finished the last note with a flick of the pen, finalizing the character he was writing and closing the book as he heard Present Mic's announcement of the field being ready, and the first match was about to start. "ALRIGHT EVERYBODYYYYYYYYYYY!" Present Mic screeched, much to the displeasure of... a lot of people, but most of all Aizawa-sensei who hissed slightly, "We have the first match of the tournament coming up now! Please welcome from class 1A, Izuku! And from class 1C, Shinso!"
Izuku whilst walking out let out a sigh of relief as he was thankful Present Mic didn't go all out with his introductions. Walking up the now fixed arena, he fixed eyes with his opponent. A very tired looking boy with purple hair, or Shinso. "Are both competitors ready?" Midnight yelled.
Both boys nodded in response, staring each other down. "FIGHT!" With Midnight's yell initiating them, Shinso started spouting words in an attempt to get Izuku to respond. 'Vocal activation, got it'. Izuku had started using some power in his legs and prepared himself to launch at the other boy, the lightning beginning to arc off of him. "Oh what an impressive quirk, you'll make a great hero easily!" Shinso started, taunting me to reply, "All flash, you'll make such a popular hero! You'd never have to save a soul, let alone try and work-"
"That's no-" Izuku snapped, only to remember the whole brainwashing thing. Damnit.
"Gotcha," Shinso replied with a smirk, "Now turn around, and walk out of bounds."
Izuku knew that he would be given control back the moment he was brainwashed, as there was no way Shinso would know that he was holding a small about of charge in his head. Hopefully it was charged enough to give him the sufficient jolt he needed to break the brainwashing.
And just that it did, the spectators watched in awe as Izuku's head briefly had lightning arc off of it and his eyes returned to the usual deep green as he turned around, smirking at Shinso. If he wanted to say something, now would be the time to do it as he wouldn't be replying.
Izuku took one look at Shinso, before breaking into a run towards the other boy as he prepared to take him out. "Shinso," Izuku started before they could ask any questions, "Being a hero isn't about the fame, or popularity," Izuku took a brief breath as he began charging the lightning through his body, his hair standing on end, with his eyes and hair both turning a vibrant green as lightning arced off his entire body, "It's about helping those in need. You could be a great hero, and no-one needs to know your name, you just need to help those that need it."
Izuku, with Shinso briefly distracted, braced himself and launched at the other boy, reaching in mere moments and pushing the boy out of bounds. Shinso stumbled over the boundary, and collapsed onto the ground. He was still in a state of shock as Midnight declared Izuku the winner. He looked at Izuku, who was offering him a hand. "You can be a great hero Shinso, your quirk would be perfect for hostage situations, or diffusing a villain without violence."
Shinso took Izuku's hand, with the green haired boy beaming at him. Shinso tried to play it off and be aloof, but inside he was ecstatic. "Yeah?" he asked nonchalantly, as he walked with the other boy, "So what if you believe in me, that's not enough to have an op-" Shinso tried arguing, only to be cut off by a hand over his mouth. The boy who did it was still beaming at him, and pointed towards the stands where many of the pro-heroes were, including teachers. All of them discussing how good Shinso would be.
Izuku knew Shinso was on the tears of joy, he could see the joyful light in the purple haired boy's eyes and the slight shimmer of water. "Oh, and Shinso?" Izuku added as he started walking away, "I look forward to seeing you in 1A." and with those closing words, Izuku walked through the tunnel and back up to his class's area, leaving a frozen Shinso behind.
Bakugo smirked as he watched his brother encouraged the support course boy. It didn't surprise him that his brother did that, he was that kind of person.
Once Izuku had returned, Bakugo congratulated him with a slap on the back and a threat, "You're one step closer to being beaten by me!" to which Izuku chuckled nervously and shrugged his brother off before going to sit with Four Eyes and Round Face, a notebook and pen forming out of seemingly thin air (Bakugo swore he had a second quirk that produces the aforementioned item).
Bakugo returned to his seat next to Shitty Hair, as Soy Face went down for his match against the Half and Half bastard.
It was no surprise to him, nor the rest of the class, when Icy-Hot won. However, what they didn't expect, was the excessive nature of the wall of ice that completely immobilized Soy Face.
It took 5 minutes for Todoroki to free the other boy, and a further 15 before the field was prepared for the next match. Now Bakugo wouldn't admit it out loud, but the extreme aggression displayed by Icy-Hot did impress him somewhat, and he couldn't wait to explode his ass.
But that would have to wait, right now, he had to shut his brother's mumbles up before Bakugo managed to drill a hole into that damned notebook with his glare.
Izuku was eager to write notes on the proceeding matches. Unfortunately, there were not many notes to make on Todoroki's and Sero's fight. 'Unless... Maybe Sero could've honed his tape into a sharper form, does he have the ability to control tape like that? Maybe he could create different brands or styles of tape, or individually control attributes like how much it sticks or may-' Izuku's train of thought was suddenly broken off when a small explosion appeared in front of him, startling him and causing the notebook and pen to go flying.
Thankfully, he did manage to catch it and with a look of exasperation directed at Kacchan (who was just smirking in victory), he shut his mouth and focused on the upcoming bout between Shiozaki and Kaminari. Returning to his seat and focusing on the match in front.
Present Mic introduced Shiozaki as a, quote, "assassin", which she did not appreciate and had a brief argument with him before returning to face the opposing combatant. With a sigh, Present Mic gestured to Midnight to start the match, which involved Kaminari short-circuiting after using 1.3 Million Volts, only to be blocked by a dense wall of Shiozaki's vine hair, which she then used to push the, now defenseless, boy out of the ring.
Izuku was writing in his notebook, without muttering this time, as he waited for the next match to begin. He was writing some theories regarding Shiozaki's quirk when he got interrupted by a blond haired boy from class 1B. "Oh! Look at that! Someone from 1B beat someone from 1A! Maybe-"
The boy in question was suddenly cut off when he slumped and fell to the ground. "Sorry about Monoma!" An orange haired girl called, "Hi! I'm Itsuka Kendo of class 1B!"
Izuku nervously waved back, as did some of his classmates, after watching the peculiar scene go down.
After the class watched that go down, they waited for the next match to begin with groups carrying out their own peaceful conversations. Izuku and Uraraka engaged in conversation whilst they waited for Iida's match to begin. He was up against Mei Hatsume, the girl they had worked with throughout the cavalry battle that was seemingly equipped for anything, so at this point it could go either way. Izuku kept the notebook and pen handy, whilst there wasn't really an awful lot he could write about there was probably going to be something. Right?
Boy were they wrong. Izuku and Uraraka both felt like they were going to die of second-hand embarrassment as they watched their friend being used as though he were a billboard advertisement. To make it worse for him, he did not win because he managed to beat his opponent but because Hatsume simply walked out of the ring. To say it was painful was an understatement, and even Present Mic could pick up on this and quickly moved the audience onto the next match, Aoyama vs Ashido.
This was, much to Aoyama's disappointment, embarrassing, if not equally. Whilst initially he was holding her back with spurts of attacks with his naval laser, he was eventually outclassed by her athleticism, and he fired for too long resulting a stomach ache, him doubling over and being subsequently knocked out by Ashido with an uppercut. He ended up going out on a stretcher with hardly a fraction of dignity left. By this point, Iida had returned with an incredibly downcast expression, and sat next to Uraraka and joined in watching Aoyama's defeat. It did help him feel less bad, and he joined in on the conversation with his friends as Present Mic announced the next match, between Tokoyami and Yaoyorozu.
Izuku watched as Tokoyami managed to cleanly move Yaoyorozu out of the ring as she took too long to react, indecision overwhelming her whilst Dark Shadow repeatedly attacked the raven-haired girl. It was clear she was frustrated by the swift loss, seemingly effortless on Dark Shadow's part, as the two returned to the class's area. By the time they had returned, Kirishima had already left for his match against Tetsutetsu and Uraraka had gone down to the waiting room to prepare for their match against Bakugo, who had gone down to their respective waiting room as well.
Watching the present match, it was like watching someone fight their reflection. Both Kirishima and Tetsutetsu had some form of hardening quirk, with the latter having a steel skin. Eventually both were knocked out by the other with powerful right hooks. As amusing it was to watch happen, both were carried out on stretchers and there would need to be a tie-breaker of some sort later on.
In the meantime, the next match, Bakugo against Uraraka, would be held. The two contestants walked onto the field, and with a crack of Midnight's whip, they began.
Izuku knew how both would fight as a result of knowing them both well, and they both had raw determinations as they stared each other down. Bakugo, he knew, would focus on counter attacks as a way to preserve energy until he saw fit, but Uraraka would be on the offensive to try and catch Bakugo off guard to float him out of the arena.
Uraraka, unrelenting, continued charging at Bakugo, who deflected her time and time again with an explosion, ripping the arena up more and more as he went. Uraraka was floating pieces of the arena up into the sky as a final attack, but Bakugo seemed oblivious to this. As did some pros who were getting annoyed that Bakugo seemed to be toying with the girl. "Boo! Finish it already!" some random pro called from the stands. Bakugo heard this and stiffened slightly, but before he could yell a choice selection of profanities, Aizawa-sensei responded with the microphone.
"He's doing the right thing, not underestimating his opponent. As a pro, you should know this," Aizawa-sensei reprimanded, "Besides, he's right not to. As a pro, I'm disappointed you haven't noticed yet."
Once Aizawa-sensei finished talking, he looked up to Uraraka's developing meteor shower, which effectively shut the pros up. Uraraka, taking advantage of Bakugo's momentary distraction, released the meteor shower in an attempt to distract him further.
The whistling of the falling rocks successfully caught Bakugo's attention, and bracing himself to use two hands, he released a massive explosion that managed to break all the rocks, but dust and smoke obscuring his view for a while.
Izuku watched as Bakugo reacted to Uraraka's attempt to catch him off guard, and he blew her away in the nick of time. Or at least, that's what everyone thought had happened until the smoke cleared, to show that it was only a decoy of her jacket, with Uraraka's quirk used on it to make it float.
Within seconds of it being blown away, Uraraka got centimeters away from touching Bakugo, but the boy managed to react in the nick of time, setting off an explosion on his back to blow her away. Bakugo and the crowd waited in tense silence as Uraraka got back up to her feet, only to collapse moments later when she passed out from exhaustion. Midnight declared Bakugo the winner, and called out Tetsutetsu and Kirishima to have their tie-breaker now.
Whilst they were clearing the arena for the tie-breaker, Izuku went down to his waiting room. On the way there, he noticed a disgruntled Endeavour, and a mildly pissed off Todoroki (but that was a bit of an understatement). He quietly walked past the father-son duo, hoping not to attract any attention. That didn't work, as he felt two hardened glares in his direction. Gulping, he hurried past and straight into his waiting room with a sigh.
Luckily there was a TV in the room, where he could watch the outcome of the current tie-breaker, whilst planning in slightly more peace. Pulling out his notebook, he began making notes as he watched Kirishima defeat Tetsutetsu in an arm wrestle, before extending his hand to help the steel boy who had fallen down.
After that, Present Mic announced it was time for his match against Todoroki. Steeling his nerve, he pocketed his notebook and pen, before making his way onto the stage.
Mirio watched in interest as the boys who could not be more copy-pasted if they tried, but he, as did the rest of the crowd, were all waiting in tense anticipation for the next match. The powerful son of Endeavour, Todoroki, and the hyped up Izuku whose quirk was still not fully understood, nor the full potential of it.
Midnight, for the 9th time that day, asked if the two competitors were ready. Both boys nodded, and the moment Midnight said go, Todoroki began building a massive ice wall. However, when it reached Izuku (who had hair standing on end and vibrant green eyes), Izuku simply held his hand out and seemingly caught the building ice wall.
With a flash of bright green, the ice structure was filled with green lightning and shattered, much to the amazement of the crowd, and the irritation of Todoroki, who did it again. Once more, it was shatter by the display of green lightning.
Mirio glanced sideways to see Nejire's reaction, who, much to his amusement, was completely captivated by the green haired boy. Whilst throughout the other matches she was constantly asking questions, in the ones involving the boy, she remained silent with wide eyes.
Izuku on the other hand, was growing in irritation with numbness beginning to overcome his hand, and the need to hold the freezing cold structure, albeit brief, was decidedly not helping.
But more irritatingly, was how uncaring Todoroki seemed about this, attacking without thinking, glaring at someone who was not there, focusing on an opponent who wasn't Izuku. Having had watched the attack a couple times himself, he knew the giant structure did not build up instantly, and there were a few seconds as it began building up. Coming up with a plan, Izuku decided next time that would happen, he would strike.
Having had just destroyed another ice structure, he let the charge flow through his body rather than focusing it through his right hand. He probably wouldn't be able to strike strong with that one, so he had to use his weaker hand, hopefully being strong enough with the lightning backing him up.
Todoroki began creating another ice structure, but before it could get higher than five metres, Izuku began running straight into it, moving faster with his lightning and used a powered up left punch to destroy the forming ice. As soon as the ice was destroyed, he continued running and once he got to Todoroki, he powered up his right fist and clocked the ice and fire user in the jaw with a powerful right hook. "WHERE ARE YOU LOOKING?!" Izuku screamed as his fist made contact.
Todoroki was flung to the side, his sharp gaze directing towards Izuku. Using his ice as a slide, he barely stopped himself from flying out of the arena, and directed the flow back towards the other boy in an attempt to freeze him. Todoroki did manage to catch Izuku's right hand with his own, freezing it before the boy broke contact.
Upon breaking contact, Izuku sent a small charge of lightning through his arm and shattered the ice, but his arm was so numb it was almost useless at this point. Keyword being almost.
"You can't beat me with just half your power Todoroki!" Izuku screamed, staring Todoroki down, "You can't become the best only trying half as hard as everyone else!"
Todoroki's only response was to send another ice wave at Izuku, who broke it with a flash of green from his left hand this time. "Come on! Are you trying to lose?!" Izuku yelled, this time with eye contact from the other boy, "Use your fire!"
"No!" Todoroki yelled, ice slowly forming on his right side as he launched another attack, "I will not use that... that bastard's power!"
"Who said anything about his power?!" Izuku yelled, bracing himself to launch at the boy once he destroyed the ice structure, "It's your quirk, so use it!"
Izuku finished his sentence before charging at the boy again, striking the boy's torso with an accelerated right cross. 'Annnnd there goes use of my right arm. God damn it' Izuku thought as after making contact, his arm fell limply to the side.
Todoroki was flying back from the hit, seemingly in a daze as Izuku returned to a reversed version of his usual stance with his right arm dangling by his side in numbness. Izuku began pooling power in his left arm instead, when Todoroki snapped out of his daze and landed onto the ground, a growing smile on his face.
"Izuku..." Todoroki started, "Thank you." And with those words, a spark lit from his red hair down to his torso, his left side in a brilliant orange flame. 'Wait I can't counter that. I mean in theory I could if I were able to disrupt the atoms of the flames but I don't think I have the ability to release enough charge into the-' "SHUT UP YOU SHITTY NERD AND FOCUS!" Bakugo shouted from the stands, his words cutting through the tense awe the crowd watched in as his brother's muttering in the middle of a fight clearly annoying him.
Izuku jumped with a start and focused on the boy whose ice was melting off and was, despite the situation, smiling broadly. Izuku smiled back, as he had achieved his goal. But now he would lose. 'Worth it' Izuku thought, charging up a large strike with his left arm, 'Might as well go out with a bang (pun intended, cause like, thunder). Wait, did I just pun to myself? Wow that's sad. Wait, Todoroki's doing something, I should as well'. With a decent charge stored and prepared in my left arm, I held it up, prepared to fire as Todoroki mirrored the action with his left hand, charging fire instead.
We locked eyes, and in silent agreement, we both fired our attacks. Lightning came out first streaking all over the place and Cementoss had to react quickly with a dome to protect the audience. It was bright, green, and powerful as even the small arcs that made contact with the ground or dome resulted in small cracks.
The main lightning arc moved in a jagged line in the direction of Todoroki, who had started firing their flames like a flamethrower. Cementoss tried putting up several barriers to block the attacks, and Midnight had started releasing her gas but to no avail as Izuku's attack shattered the barriers, Todoroki's powerful and unruly flames simply bored straight through.
The attacks met somewhere in the middle, resulting in a powerful blast that kicked up dust and left the arena in ruins. In the brief moments of collision, a large explosion of fire filled with specks of green lightning.
Mirio watched in awe as the attacks hit, despite Cementoss's barrier they still hit with extreme force and resulted in a spectacular display of green and flames. Looking over to his friends, they had an equal expression of awe as the display died down.
However, Nejire seemed incredibly restless, clearly worried about her green haired savior that only recently she was able to prove was real. That blow alone probably would've put any of them sufficiently out of commission, all the attacks dealt beforehand almost definitely would've made it worse, let alone the fact that Mirio and his friends were The Big Three, not a couple of fresh-faced juniors.
What impressed Mirio most was the fact that Izuku was trying to help his opponent throughout the match, trying to save Todoroki from his self-imposed restrictions, trying to save a friend at the cost of the match.
As the smoke was clearing, Midnight was able to see two figures, only one in the ring, the other flung into a wall. "And the winner of the match is..." Midnight began, holding Mirio and the audience in suspense, "Todoroki!"
As she announced that the smoke finished clearing, Todoroki standing with burns on the hand of his left half and barely held in the arena by some ice. Izuku was buried in the wall opposite him, burns up to his wrist on his left hands, both hands twitching slightly. It was clear that was his body reacting after powerful outbursts from his quirk and the burns inflicted by the final attack, clearly unconscious.
The medical bots showed up to take both boys to the infirmary, Todoroki in the lead as they tried to pry the other boy out of the concrete wall.
At the sight of this, Nejire suddenly shot up and before Mirio or Tamaki could say a word, had started walking down the stairs towards the infirmary. Mirio and Tamaki glanced at each other, before rising and following the blue-haired girl.