Izuku's fingers drummed on the railing as he leaned forward in his seat. He watched as Todoroki emerged from the waiting area to raucous applause. He frowned, thinking of what he and Uraraka had spoken about. He still felt a little uneasy about their disagreement, but knew that it probably wasn't as big a deal as it felt like. They'd just gotten along so well so far that their first real clash of ideals came as such a shock. He shouldn't have been surprised, of course, because Uraraka was just as much a smart and capable hero in training as he was, but he couldn't help but feel bad about it. He wanted to apologise to her, but she'd had to go off and prepare for the match. Almost as if responding to his thoughts, Uraraka emerged from her own waiting area and approached the arena with a hardened determination on her face. Izuku's chest tightened as he unconsciously held his breath in anticipation.

"Hey, man! Are you good or what?" Kirishima asked, tapping him on the shoulder from behind.

Turning back to the class let Izuku know that they were all looking at him with varyingly smug, knowing expressions. He looked around and realised that they had to know what the deal was with him and Uraraka. He sat back in his seat and sighed heavily, not knowing what he was going to say. Would he be honest and say that he was a little bit worried about what Uraraka is going to do during the match, or just suck it up and say that he's all good? He opened his mouth to respond without having found an answer.

"No," Izuku said, surprising both himself and his classmate. "It's not a big deal, though. Private stuff."

"Oh, that's cool then," Kirishima said. He leaned back in his own seat next to Ashido, who gave him a sceptical look.

"Are you kidding me? That's cool then?" Ashido whispered harshly.

Izuku could hear her clearly, and frowned as he tried to tune out her bickering with Kirishima. Midnight called the start of the match, and the two combatants started moving. Everyone in the audience went silent, and leaned forward to get a good look at what would happen next.

Todoroki made his move first, with the sweeping wave of ice surging from him towards Uraraka at the exact moment the match started. Izuku almost looked away, but couldn't. He, and everyone, noticed with interest that the attack wasn't as overwhelming as his others. This ice attack was slower than the ones he'd used previously, and more narrow. This allowed Uraraka to dodge it, using her Quirk to momentarily untether herself from gravity's pull and leap out of the way. She touched down on the ground and with a second flash of pink, her momentum and returned weight bringing her back down to the ground. Izuku felt lighter as he watched this, a little bit of the anxiety poking at his heart being released. He leaned forward again, looking closely at what happened next.

It seemed that they were both thinking. Todoroki looked like he'd seen a ghost, and was staring at Uraraka, who was grinning right back at him with focused, almost angry eyes. Izuku saw the expression on Uraraka's face and felt his heart skip a beat. The festival really had a way of bringing something out of each of the participants, and Izuku was not disappointed with its effect on Uraraka. She said something that the cameras couldn't pick up, and Todoroki blinked at her in shock. On one hand, Izuku had been glad the audience didn't get to hear what the fighters said, since it would've been pretty damning for people like Shinso and Kaminari to have their fight talk heard by all. If the world saw Shinso call someone with a tail mutation a monkey, that'd probably be used against him by some of the more proactive political activists on the internet. If anyone heard Kaminari's confidence before Izuku had utterly destroyed him, then he'd probably never show his face again out of his own volition. Now, though, Izuku lamented not being able to hear what they were saying. He sighed and started fidgeting with his hands, watching with a focus he didn't think he'd be able to conjure at a time like this.

Todoroki sent another ice wave at Uraraka, which she dodged again with the same method as before. She stumbled to a stop this time, tripping over herself for a moment as she landed back on the ground. Her shoulders were hunched as she crouched, and Izuku thought she may throw up from the looks of it. He knew that it strained Uraraka much more to use her Quirk on herself, rather than other people and objects, so using her Quirk in this way had to be draining. He'd never seen Zero Gravity used this way, and it was impressive, but it looked difficult to maintain. Izuku hoped that she'd be able to keep it up until she could come up with a way to do whatever she'd committed to, either helping or fighting Todoroki.

Uraraka said something, and from the large-screen view of her face, it looked something like, "Come on, Todoroki!"

Izuku didn't know exactly what she was saying to him, but it looked like something had spooked him. The close-up shot showed that Todoroki was shaking, and not just because he was cold. Don't get it twisted, Todoroki looked freezing cold, with patches of frost on his arm making Izuku wince. Izuku had never been the kind of cold that hurt his bones until he met Todoroki, and he already knew that he never wanted to experience that kind of thing again. He couldn't imagine that cold coming from inside himself. He didn't know how Todoroki managed it, but remembered with a quiet gasp. That's what the fire was for. Izuku remembered that the fire side of his Quirk, the Endeavor side of him, was supposed to fix this problem from what Todoroki himself had told them earlier, but he didn't use it in combat due to his feud with his dad. If Uraraka had noticed that, too, then she could use that to her advantage. She had a shot. Izuku felt the anxiety keeping his chest wound tight become something more like anticipation, and started bouncing his knees up and down as he leaned forward even more and silently watched the match like a hawk.

Todoroki said something like, "Shut up!"

Another surge of ice rushed at Uraraka, but it was slower than ever, and she dodged it with a considerable amount of time to spare. She landed a few metres to the side, and properly stumbled this time, dropping to one knee. Her head hung and her lunch spilled onto the ground in front of her. Despite that, she stood back up and looked Todoroki right in the eye and screamed.

"You're better than this! Defy him by letting yourself move on! Don't let him just control you anyway by handicapping yourself and being miserable!" she yelled, this time audible to Izuku and his classmates even over the distance.

"Don't talk like you know my situation!" Todoroki yelled back, at an equal volume. They were both getting angry at each other, evident in how harsh and raw their screams were, and how far their words reached into the audience.

"I don't! But I know my own! I haven't seen my mom in months! It sucks! I'm doing this for her, though, so I can always keep her in my heart! Who do you keep in your heart, Todoroki?" Uraraka screamed as she broke out into a sprint at Todoroki.

He didn't defend himself. Todoroki simply stood there, and from the looks of it, he repeated Uraraka's question to himself, "Who do you keep in your heart?" Izuku had to admit, it looked like it was working. Todoroki was, at the very least, listening to her arguments. Maybe Uraraka would be able to help him after all. Izuku had been optimistic for Uraraka's sake, but he hadn't truly thought Todoroki would be open to having this discussion at all, much less in broad daylight under millions of eyes.

Uraraka reached Todoroki and attempted to slap him. However, Todoroki came back to himself at the last second and froze her. They clashed and her whole body, except for her arm extended out toward Todoroki, was covered in ice in a flash, but a flash of pink almost hidden under his own blue surge caught Izuku's eye. He stood up on instinct and gripped the handrail. He watched with his breath caught in his throat as Todoroki was lifted off the ground from the force of Uraraka's contact with his shoulder, his entire body rising up and softly drifting into the air. It was slow, but he was already off the ground and there was no way to correct his trajectory, so Uraraka was free to try escaping from the ice. This is exactly what she did as the crowd roared in applause, watching as Uraraka used her free arm to chip away at the ice.

As Uraraka tried to break the ice apart with her hand, Todoroki only rose higher. It looked like he was still trying to recover from the question posed to him, but he did snap out of it as he rose just over the height from which he could land safely. He brought his icy hand up to his face and whispered something to himself. A chunk of ice then appeared surrounding his hand, and his whole body suddenly flipped, with the ice being the only thing weighing him down now and it dragging him down by the hand. Todoroki began to slowly fall back to the ground, and Izuku looked back at Uraraka, seeing that she hadn't broken any of the ice with just her bare hands. He felt the unbearable anxiety and anticipation mix into something even worse than the panic but even more exhilarating than the hope, and couldn't help himself. He looked at Todoroki, who was touching down on the ground, and at Uraraka, still trapped, and called out.

"You can do it! Go, Ochako!" he yelled. He didn't know where the first name came from, but he didn't truly care at that moment. He just needed her to hear him.

Uraraka's head turned toward him, and he thought he could see the wide grin on her face even from up in the stands. As Todoroki was still getting himself balanced—Izuku would admit it was creative that he encased his feet in ice just enough to weigh himself down but not enough to dramatically impact his mobility so he could still walk, even if it looked like a penguin waddling across the snow—Uraraka looked down at herself, trapped in the ice, and seemed to hesitate. Then, her whole body jerked in the glacial prison, and on the screen showing a close-up shot of her, Izuku could see that the ice cracked the smallest amount. He felt his breath escape him as he watched intently. Uraraka tried again, and the crack in the ice deepened, joined by a few others. Soon, she had broken the ice at her waist and was thrashing around, trying her best to break out. Izuku cheered her on, joined by others from his class. That caused a chain reaction in the audience, where most of the crowd ended up cheering for Uraraka to break out, yelling words of encouragement. Izuku didn't hear any of them, though. All of his senses were honed in on Uraraka, and as Todoroki finally began to carefully step toward her, the base of the ice shattered and she toppled back, the remainder of the frosty cage breaking upon impact with the concrete arena floor.

She rolled around and leapt to her feet, turning to face Todoroki, who was slowly sliding toward her on his makeshift ice skates that doubled as anchors. Uraraka wiped something from her face, and picked up a hefty piece of the ice that had broken off from her escape. She swung and threw it at him with a seemingly herculean effort, and it soared through the air to collide with Todoroki, who lost all his momentum and fell over due to the slippery nature of his skates. He seemed to lose patience and flip back over onto his hands and knees, and thrust his right hand onto the ground in front of himself, sending a rush of ice at Uraraka once again. Izuku watched as she noticed the attack, pressed her hand against her own chest, and then froze. The ice barrage was halfway to her when she went limp, and she hadn't begun to fall over yet when it consumed her, but she was out. Uraraka was frozen in the ice with no way to escape, the only thing poking out being her head so that she could breathe.

Todoroki stood up and broke the ice on his feet. He had his weight back, which was the real indicator of Uraraka's defeat. Izuku sighed and felt all the tension in his body drain out, and he fell back into his chair with a tired groan. He was smiling, though, because Uraraka had been amazing. She'd given Todoroki, everyone's favourite to win, an actual fight when nobody else had. He was capable of instantly ending anyone, but his refusal to use his powers properly had given her a shot, and she'd done so well. Izuku felt a hand shaking his shoulder, and looked back to see Kirishima looking at him with worry in his eyes.

"Hey, are you good? For real?" Kirishima asked.

"Yeah, I just … I need to go and see if Uraraka's okay. She'll probably be going to Recovery Girl, so I'll meet her there!" Izuku said, excitedly standing and beginning to power-walk toward the hall.

"Don't you mean Ochako?" Ashido said with a tone Izuku didn't really get.

"Yeah, her!" he said, grinning madly and almost jogging away from the class's seating area.

Izuku took off running down the hall as he parted with his classmates. Even without the memory from earlier in the day of visiting the nurse, all the students had been told where Recovery Girl's office was ahead of the festival, so Izuku easily navigated the halls of the stadium on his way there. He thought about the match on his way over. The pride brimming in Izuku's chest left him grinning as he journeyed toward his destination. It felt like seconds, but it was probably a few minutes later that he arrived at the door to Recovery Girl's office and pushed the door open to enter. Inside, Uraraka was sitting on the single bed with a bucket in her lap. Recovery Girl was beside her, rubbing small circles on her back. They both looked up at Izuku, with the older of the two ladies grimacing and the younger smiling.

"Hey," Uraraka said. Her voice sounded dull and tired.

"Hey!" Izuku almost yelled, but brought down the volume to avoid getting yelled at.

"I almost had him, huh?" Uraraka laughed. She looked like she was taking defeat well, but there was something in her eyes that gave Izuku pause.

"You did. You were amazing out there," Izuku said, sitting in the chair next to the bed. "On both fronts. Sure, you almost beat him, but I could see Todoroki's face. He was listening!"

"He was. I saw the look in his eyes as I spoke to him. I don't think he liked it, but he was listening," Uraraka said. The facade of an upbeat girl fell away and Izuku saw the introspection going on in her head on full display. Her eyes were pointed at the bucket resting in her lap and she looked like she was putting together a grand conspiracy in her head. "I wish I could've had more time to talk to him. I guess I was just outmatched."

"Todoroki is stupidly powerful. You were incredible, though. I don't think I could've done what you did. Both the fighting and the talking. You were right. It's worth it to try and help him if we can. I didn't get it until I was watching you try and reach him on the battlefield, but you were right. I think I want to give it a try, too," Izuku said.

"Really?" Uraraka asked. "That's great!"

"Yeah. I saw the look in his eyes when you were talking to him and it reminded me of myself a little bit. Seeing you try to break through to him made me think a little bit, and I think you were also right about us being similar, more similar than either of us gave any thought to before. I'm going to try and talk to him if I end up against him," Izuku said, sending Uraraka a smile, which she returned.

"That's awesome, Izuku!" she said, giving him a thumbs up. When his face turned red at her calling him by his first name, she laughed. "What, you can break out the given names but I can't? That's not very fair, Izuku."

"Okay, I get it," Izuku said, unable to look her in the eye all of a sudden. Hearing her say his name like that, seeing the warm look in her eyes while she said it, gave him butterflies. He put a shaky smile on his face and pushed through the embarrassment to make eye contact with Ura—Ochako. She was smiling playfully, but he did notice that she had a light pink hue to her cheeks as well.

"Oh, sweet mother of Christ. If neither of you are in need of medical attention, get out," Recovery Girl groaned from beside Ochako.

Izuku and Ochako both jumped at the voice, both having forgotten that she was there. Standing up, Izuku rushed to the door and stepped into the hall, followed quickly by Ochako. He saw that she couldn't exactly run after him, and guessed that she still had to take it easy due to overusing her Quirk to the point of nausea. Izuku saw the way she wobbled on her feet, and put an arm around her shoulders to keep her from tipping over and falling. She looked up at him as the door behind them closed, and smiled shakily. Izuku still felt the creeping heat on his face from before, but he felt more calm now that he wasn't being watched while being embarrassingly smitten with Ochako. The two of them began to walk down the hall, toward their class's viewing area, and struck up a conversation on the way.

"You did kick some major ass, though," Izuku said.

"Thanks! I did go in wanting to talk, but I also wanted to show everyone what I was made of. Glad it worked," Ochako said with a wide grin on her face that infected Izuku with his own.

"Absolutely. I especially liked that move you did to break out of the ice. I feel like most people would give up before resorting to full-on body-slamming themself on the ground," he said.

"Well, there was no shot I was giving up. I had a goal and I sort of did it," Ochako said.

"I'd say more than 'sort of'. You rattled Todoroki. I don't think I've seen anybody do that," Izuku said with a smile.

"Except you, of course," Ochako joked with a gentle nudge.

"What, during the cavalry battle? I think I made him angry, but you shook him to his core. He thought about what you said. All that I've said has just gotten him mad at me. You changed the way he looked at you," Izuku explained. The smile slipped off his face and he looked down at her as they stopped walking. Ochako put her back to a wall so she wouldn't fall, and so that they could look at each other head on. "You do that to people. Change them. You're kind of a force of nature with how relentlessly positive and optimistic you are. It's inspiring. You inspire me."

Ochako smiled and laughed under her breath. Izuku saw her face flush again, and she smiled at him in that way that made his heart beat like a jackhammer in his chest. "Are you kidding? You inspire me. All the times I've seen you get knocked down only to get back up? That's why I'm doing this. I've seen you fight more than you should've had to, but you never stop. I've seen you pushed past the point where other people would've and probably should've given up. The reason why I'm so stuck on this is because you've inspired me to never back down from a fight I think is worth it. So, yeah. Don't think you can get away with ignoring your part to play in this."

Izuku looked at her with watery eyes. He blinked away the overwhelming need to cry his eyes out. He really didn't know how he'd gotten lucky enough that she stuck by his side, but he was grateful for the universe throwing him one of the few bones it had bothered to in his fifteen years of life. He didn't deserve her. Izuku straightened his posture and tried his best to collect himself, sniffling and wiping his eyes furiously as he tried to calm himself. He smiled at her, a wide grin feeling like it would split his face if it were any wider.

"Right. Thank you for saying that," Izuku said, trying not to go over there and … he didn't know. He felt the urge to do something right then, but he didn't know what. Or he did, but he didn't want to spontaneously combust then and there, so he didn't think that.

"Thank you. You've been so kind to me since the second we met, and I just wanted to really, properly thank you for that. It does make me wonder, though, why you can't be nice to anyone else," she said, a cheeky smile on her face as she giggled.

"Nobody else deserves it," Izuku said automatically, but rolled with it when it made Ochako's face go bright red. "I do want to get better about that, though. I'm cool with Kirishima and Ashido, and Iida and Asui. Beyond that, though, it's … rough. Maybe this thing with Todoroki can be a practice round."

"You really are going to do it, aren't you?" Ochako asked, looking at him with hopeful eyes that made his stomach squirm.

"Yeah. During your match, I think I saw the version of him that you see. He's sad, and in pain, and I would be turning my back on all the promises I've made if I just let him be that way. So I'm going to talk to him," Izuku sighed.

"I think you could do it. I buttered him up, of course—"

"Of course."

"—but I think it could really make a difference if the person he's projected all this stuff onto was the one who reached out to him, especially after what I said to him," Ochako explained.

"Yeah, what did you say to him? He did look pretty shaken," Izuku asked at last. It had been bugging him since the match, but there hadn't been a good opportunity to ask, so he took the shot when he could.

"Oh, I told him about how I moved away from my family for UA, and that I can empathise with him not having the family life he wants. I said it was silly to rebel in a way that still made him miserable. I asked him who he thinks about when he imagines the person he wants to make proud. I asked him who he keeps in his heart," Ochako said, her eyebrows pushing together as she remembered what she'd spoken about in her match.

"Did he give you any answer?" Izuku asked.

"No, he just said that it wasn't my business. Man, if only I had an evil dad, too, so I could get in on the vibes you two send each other through psychic powers or whatever," Ochako said with a laugh as she put her hands behind her head. She suddenly tensed and started waving her hands in front of her, as if to get rid of smoke or something. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to joke about both your situations!"

"Oh, that's fine. It was funny. When I said I don't really care a whole lot about the stuff with my dad, I meant it," Izuku said in a steady voice, hiding how he wanted to laugh a little bit at Ochako's … enthusiasm. "I would gladly give you the spotlight if I could. If your dad was secretly evil, what do you think he'd be doing?"

"Nothing lucrative, that's for sure," Ochako said, laughing at herself. The little snort she did when she laughed left Izuku with no choice but to smile.

After a moment, Izuku asked, "Do you want to get back to the others?"

"Yeah. Oh, but your match is probably going to be coming up in a few minutes. You've gotta go prepare, don't you?" Ochako asked.

"It's fine. I'll help you back to your seat," Izuku said, stepping forward and holding out his hand.

"Okay," she said, taking his hand and using it to pull herself off the wall and to her feet.

The two of them started making their way back, Izuku's mind on the match ahead with probably his best and worst matchup so far, and totally not on the way his hands wrapped around Ochako's shoulder, touching the slightest bit of skin on her arm and turning him fire truck red. He would be fine as long as he had the support of the greatest girl he knew. He turned to the future with a smile, and walked toward it fearlessly. It was time for the semi-finals, and then he'd be winning the festival in no time.