Author's Note: So, here's what always happens when I sit down to write. I always think, "Oh, man, I'm not feeling the creative energies today. I'll probably only write like 1k words or something." And then I end up with this 5k chapter. Oh, well, what do y'all care? It's more content. Enjoy!

Leaving Ochako was hard, as she'd become very affectionate in the aftermath of his declaration that he'd try his best to help Todoroki, wanting to constantly be holding his hand or leaning into him as they sat in the audience. However, his match was coming up, and he needed to get down to the ground level so that he could be ready when they called on him. So, he'd left with a few minutes to spare and headed down to the hall leading onto the battlefield.

On his way, he thought about how he was going to fight Yaoyorozu, who seemed unstoppable so far. He hadn't gotten to see how her match with Ashido had ended, since he'd been talking with Ochako inside during the latter half of it, and he hadn't gotten to ask about it before he'd had to leave. He was just going to have to figure it out. It was a shame that he hadn't gotten to see how well Ashido's acid had held up against Yaoyorozu's creations, but he was probably going to go with the same overall strategy either way—Decimate any projectiles Yaoyorozu sent his way and get in close for the knockout. He'd had the same general plan in every match, and it had served him well so far, but he wasn't sure that it would hold up against Yaoyorozu's superior mind. She was smarter than him, better at planning and strategy, and just better at thinking. Izuku had a tendency to go with his heart when things got serious, which had given him mixed results, so he had to end this before he could get angry or desperate and just follow his gut, which Yaoyorozu could likely count on. Izuku had seen her in training, and in the festival so far, and she was a force to be reckoned with. Not a force like Todoroki, but a force nonetheless.

Izuku heard Yaoyorozu's name called from Present Mic as he hyped up the match. He'd be next, he knew it, and so he started walking toward the opening of the hall where it took him out onto the grass. Taking deep breaths, Izuku wondered what she'd open with. She'd opened with a net against Ashido, and she'd known what her opponent's Quirk was, so it was likely a test to see what she'd do. Izuku was the same type of fighter, so she wasn't likely to deviate from that opening move. He thought back to the last time he knew Yaoyorozu could've eaten, which was lunch two hours ago. She'd used her Quirk sparingly in her first match, only creating a taser to shock Shoji. Then, in her match against Ashido, Izuku knew for sure that she'd used a net and a few other things, like a bo staff she seemed familiar with. He didn't know what else she'd created, though, and Izuku had no idea how much of her energy it used to create an object of any given size. She'd spoken about how it took from her fat stores, meaning she had to eat well to recharge her Quirk, but he didn't know how much it took from her to create a staff or a net. For all he knew, those things were nothing in the context of how much she could create, and she was more or less at the top of her game.

Hearing his own name ring in his ears, Izuku sighed. He stepped out onto the grass to applause, which made him smile, but that smile quickly vanished from his face as he stepped up to the arena and saw Yaoyorozu. She was already standing at her starting point, and was looking at him intensely, almost studying him from across the distance. He sent her a confident grin, which did nothing to shake her focus, at least on the surface. Izuku could already tell that this was going to suck. He ran through his thoughts once last time, and took both his gloves off as Midnight was finishing up with the crowd work. He stuffed the gloves in his pocket and flexed his fingers, coming up with a strategy he thought could work if he did it right. He wasn't sure he could, but that training with Aizawa had to amount to something other than self-restraint, right?

"Are you ready, fighters?" Midnight asked.

"Yes," Izuku said, his voice low and steady. He tensed his legs and his arms, ready to move in any direction when the match started.

"I am," Yaoyorozu called, clear and confident. The self-assuredness didn't calm the snake-like dread coiling around Izuku's chest.

"Okay. Go!" Midnight yelled, and the fight began.

Yaoyorozu opened the fight, predictably, with a net. Her forearm sparkled pink and blue and it shot out of her as she flung her arm, soaring toward him with surprising speed. Izuku threw his hands up and caught the net between his fingers, where it then crumbled to ash and fell to the ground in a heap of dust. Izuku looked back at Yaoyorozu and didn't move, still keeping his body ready to react to anything that came his way. Yaoyorozu looked at him sceptically, and seemed to pause to think of something. That's when he took a few rapid steps forward, stopping when she stumbled back and put her hands out in front of her for a fight. She knew how dangerous he was in close quarters combat, so that was good to know. She wanted him at a distance. He was cool with that for now, as he had enough of that distance to dodge anything she threw at him.

Another net, another heap of ash spreading in the faint breeze blowing through the arena. Izuku took another few rapid steps forward, negated by Yaoyorozu backing up. The steps she'd taken shifted to the left slightly, so that when they continued the back and forth, she wouldn't eventually be pushed out of bounds and they'd circle around each other instead. That was smart, and Izuku nodded and smiled at the confirmation that she was thinking about everything. He could probably use that to trip her up if he gave her too much to think about at once, but he wasn't in a position to do that. Maybe if he had things to throw, but Izuku didn't have the Quirk that could magically make whatever she wanted.

This time, she threw out a little cylinder. It was matte black, and it looked like a grenade. The pin had been pulled. Izuku balled his fist up and backhanded it away, hitting it with his fist and batting it to the side as it came near him. It clattered across the concrete floor of the arena and a cloud of purple gas expanded from it, swirling around and growing to be a few metres across, the cloud hanging low over the ground. Izuku looked at it and smiled, looking over at Yaoyorozu and sending her a questioning look.

"You tried to gas me?" Izuku asked, putting on an offended tone as he looked at her with a faint grin.

"Sleeping gas. Sorry, Midoriya. I'm winning," Yaoyorozu said, her arms already glittering again.

Izuku's gaze was pulled toward Midnight. He wondered if gas attacks were legal, both in the sense of being allowed in the festival and in the sense of literally being a crime. Midnight wasn't doing anything to stop her, so it must have been approved. Then again, of course Midnight would approve, since sleeping gas was her Quirk's primary function. For her to use her Quirk even a little bit as a hero meant that they were allowed in some capacity, as she'd once competed in the sports festival herself. Izuku sighed, and steeled himself to fight against extreme tactics.

"Same here," Izuku said, preparing himself for whatever came next.

A sturdy looking rod of metal appeared in her hands. It was the staff she'd used on Ashido, which he'd seen out of the corner of his eye when leaving his seat during their fight. He could Decimate this easily. All she had to do was attack him and he could reduce it to atoms. Izuku stayed still and silent, yet ready for a fight as Yaoyorozu ran at him. She closed the gap quickly, and Izuku wondered what her workout routine was like. She was probably as fast, if not more so than he was, and she was much bigger than him. Not in a bad way, of course, but Izuku was much shorter than Yaoyorozu, and he put his focus on being very athletic and lithe, so it shocked him that someone who was both taller and carrying around a lot more weight was … forget it.

Izuku tried to catch the first swing of the staff, but he couldn't get his hand there in time and it hit his forearm. He forced the staff away and threw a stray punch at Yaoyorozu's shoulder, mostly just because it was open with both her hands on the staff. His fist connected with her collarbone and she grunted in pain, pulling back to get out of his reach. Izuku shrugged off the hit to his forearm and shook it out. He looked over at Yaoyorozu and grinned. He beckoned her forward, but she simply circled around him partway while spinning the staff in her hands, swapping which end she was holding toward him. Izuku didn't know what she was trying to do, but he kept his guard up.

Yaoyorozu went in for another attack, and Izuku started his grab earlier this time, reaching out when it was still a fair way away from his body so that he could catch it in time. Suddenly, just as it was about to crash into Izuku's hand, the other end of the staff was poked into his ribs, and the end he'd been reaching for was pulled out of his reach by the attack. Izuku groaned as his side ached, but got the staff's end in his grasp, curling all his fingers around it and watching it crumble. Yaoyorozu pressed a small button on the other end of the staff and it split in half, ejecting the end that was being disintegrated before it spread to the other half. Now it was a baton in her left hand, and the ashes of the other half were pushed away by the breeze. Izuku sent a punch at her again, but she side-stepped him to the left and swung the baton at him, which he blocked with his forearm again. It hurt, since it was still solid metal hitting him at full force, but it was better than losing teeth.

That wasn't all, however. Izuku didn't see it until it was right next to his face as he blocked it, but Yaoyorozu had to have done something else to the staff when she'd split it in two. The end of the baton was different, sparking blue. His whole arm then went numb as the left side of his body spasmed, forcing him to kneel. She'd made a stun baton and disguised it as her regular staff. Izuku couldn't help but respect that, and smiled at the clever trick she'd pulled on him. However, he had a match to win. He pushed himself forward and rammed his elbow into her stomach, getting himself back onto his feet and attacking at the same time. He dodged another swing of the stun baton, stumbling away out of her reach. He couldn't fight her properly when his arm was still numb, and his leg ached every time he did anything with it. He could use them, but he felt like he was wearing an impossibly thick glove over his hand, and his fingers only halfway did what he told them to do.

"That's a good trick," Izuku said, talking to distract Yaoyorozu while he shook some feeling back into his arm.

"I made it specifically to deal with your Quirk," she said, sending a cold look his way as she pointed the stun baton at him.

"Aw, thanks!" Izuku said with a wide grin. He saw her tensing for another attack, and figured out what he wanted to do about it before she was even moving.

When Yaoyorozu rushed forward once again, swinging the baton, Izuku dodged to the side and kicked up at her hand, now outstretched, with his bad leg. He would've used his good leg, but that would sacrifice his balance, so he used his aching, burning leg to kick Yaoyorozu's wrist so that she'd drop the baton, which she did. It fell to the ground and rolled far enough away that trying to retrieve it would leave her open to attack. So, she stood tall against Izuku, not quite towering over him with their three-inch height difference. Still, Izuku did have to refocus himself as she looked down at him with those cold eyes. Yaoyorozu was normally kind and polite, but Izuku thought that image was probably going to be ruined for him now, after seeing her be this intimidating.

Yaoyorozu conjured another staff, this time with no buttons or electrified ends—none that Izuku could see, anyway. She thrust the end at him straight on, and he caught it with both hands, though he had to take a few steps back to avoid being pushed over by Yaoyorozu's momentum. The staff turned to ash in his hands, but that didn't stop her. She simply made another, and kept doing the same thing. It was almost like she was trying to push him out of bounds. As he destroyed the new staff, he took a fraction of a moment to glance behind him, and figured out what Yaoyorozu was trying to do. She'd circled around to put the cloud of knockout gas at his back and then started pushing him toward it. That was pretty smart, and he was absolutely going to congratulate her on that killer strategy when the match was done, but now that he knew what was happening, he had a plan to use that to his advantage.

When she rushed at him again, Izuku kept himself focused and did his best not to show on his face what he was thinking. Yaoyorozu thrust the staff right at his chest, and Izuku dodged backwards. He was only a few steps away from the edges of the still spreading knockout gas, now. He planted his feet just outside the low-hanging cloud and faced Yaoyorozu head on, holding out his hands to pull off his plan. She came at him again, pushing the staff against him with a cry of effort.

"I've got you!" she yelled, a triumphant gleam in her eye.

Izuku said nothing, just pivoting on his toes and letting the staff thrust through the space that was now under his arm. He grabbed onto the staff with one finger not touching the cool metal, and yanked it toward himself, pulling Yaoyorozu with him. He then kicked out at her shin, taking one of her feet off the ground as his pull brought her forward. Yaoyorozu stumbled, the momentum of both her attack and Izuku's pull bringing her into the crawling fog. She held her breath as she entered and immediately turned back to him, but was met with a punch in the face that sent her stumbling even further into the gas she'd made. Yaoyorozu yelped in pain as the hit connected, breathing in harshly while still inside the cloud. Yaoyorozu's whole body jerked, and she sprinted in what looked like a random direction. She exited the cloud to Izuku's right, and fell to her knees, coughing and breathing hard.

"No!" she said, her eyes beginning to close against her will. She slowly stumbled to her feet. "I'm not losing to my own attack!"

Her whole body looked like it was trembling. Izuku hesitantly put his hands up to fight, but it wasn't needed. Yaoyorozu blinked, but her eyes didn't open again, and her arms hung at her sides. She was mumbling something, but Izuku couldn't hear what. She was still standing, but it looked like she was unconscious, or at the very least only semi-conscious through sheer force of will. Finally, her legs gave out as she slumped to the ground, asleep. Izuku stood and caught his breath, savouring his victory. Izuku dropped to one knee, the leg that had been zapped giving out after being forced to bear his weight for too long.

He smiled, and shifted so he could sit properly and take in the fact that he'd made it to the final. He was going to go up against whoever won the other semi-final. Part of him hadn't even registered that this was the second last fight he'd have to win. Part of him had been so caught up in the rush of all these fights that he had kind of forgotten that they were all leading him to something, to the end. The final fight was upon him, and whoever won the next fight in the semi-finals was going to be his opponent. It would probably be Todoroki, but maybe Tokoyami would take him down. He still didn't know if he could Decimate that Dark Shadow of his. But still, he was there, and that realisation made the excitement build in his chest, but it was quickly extinguished by the dread of having to confront whoever won between Todoroki and Tokoyami. If Todoroki won, he had an additional challenge of talking him out of his own trauma, but if Tokoyami won, then it was like he'd be fighting two whole opponents. Only time would tell which one he'd face off against, though, and Izuku couldn't do a whole lot about that. He could only wait, and see what happened between then and now.

Izuku was checked out by the little robots that came out to take Yaoyorozu to Recovery Girl, and they said that he should probably see her about his knee, which he then realised he'd scraped up on the concrete floor when he'd fallen on it both times he'd been forced to the ground. He got up to follow them, and when he had to limp now that the adrenaline had worn off, grimaced. He'd likely get to watch the next match from Recovery Girl's office, but it was a shame he was going to miss seeing it live, only through a screen. Oh, well. At least he was awake to see it. He looked over at Yaoyorozu and cringed at the big red mark on her cheek that had puffed up a little bit after the solid punch he'd thrown at the last second, but she did look like she was sleeping peacefully, more or less, so that was good. He didn't get to tell her how cool he thought her plan was yet, but that could wait, too. For now, as he walked to Recovery Girl's office with Yaoyorozu on the stretcher beside him, he could think.

He thought he was more or less screwed, but he was at the finish line. The least he could do was see it through.

Izuku sat on the chair in Recovery Girl's office while Yaoyorozu occupied the bed. She'd healed Yaoyorozu first, giving her a chaste kiss on the non-swollen cheek and leaving her face to almost deflate, returning to the refined prettiness that all the boys talked about behind the girls' backs. She started breathing a little more regularly after the healing, too, and it made Izuku think that the gas did more than just put her to sleep. Since it was still on his mind, he asked as Recovery Girl came around and pressed her lips to his hand and the skin on his knee pulled itself back together.

"Was she allowed to use a gas attack at a school event?"

"Hmm, she was worried about that, too, so I'm told she went to the judges a few weeks ago. She got it all cleared, boy, so don't fret," Recovery Girl said.

"Oh, okay. Wait, a few weeks ago? She can't have been planning that since the festival was announced," Izuku said, looking at Yaoyorozu's sleeping form with wide eyes. "She didn't even know what events there would be, or who she'd have to fight."

"That's right. Seems like she put a lot more thought into the festival than most. More than even her classmates, who know her, thought she was capable of," Recovery Girl said. If Izuku wasn't mistaken, there was a little bit of satisfaction in her tone.

Izuku couldn't help but chuckle at the insane amount of planning Yaoyorozu had to have done for this. More planning than he'd done, for sure. All of his planning amounted to telling himself he could do it and actually coming up with strategies on the spot. She was on a whole other level, though. He sat back, but doing so aggravated his still healing knee, making him hiss in pain as he clutched it.

"Guess that's what I get for underestimating her," he muttered. "Even if she is top of the class."

Recovery Girl sighed, and said something Izuku couldn't hear under her breath. He stayed quiet after that, thinking about how that match had gone, how Yaoyorozu had busted out custom strategies for him specifically, and tried not to let it go to his head that the smartest person in their class thought he was such a threat. It made him feel a little bit cooler than he really was to see that the top student try so hard to beat him. It also made him feel a little bit bad that he'd had to beat her. The plan was truly brilliant, and Izuku knew that if he were her, he'd be extremely disappointed in himself if they hadn't worked. Would Yaoyorozu be upset at him when she woke up? Would she be upset at herself? Izuku didn't want her to feel bad about losing, or hate him for beating her, but he didn't really know her all that well, so he couldn't predict how she'd react to loss. It probably wasn't even his place to be thinking about her like this, like a toddler being coddled after stubbing her toe. They all knew that everyone was going into this festival with the intent to win. Losing was part of playing the game. She had to know that. Izuku couldn't make himself responsible for the nature of the sports festival. Someone had to lose, and it was Yaoyorozu. That's just how it went. He still didn't feel good about that, but he didn't exactly feel bad anymore. He sighed as he forced himself to think about something else.

He noticed that the displays on the television in the corner were changing. Izuku didn't ask for the volume to be turned up, because Yaoyorozu was sleeping, but he did focus in on it. He found that the next match was already being announced, even though only a couple of minutes had passed. Izuku guessed that they wanted to get through to the final battle quickly, since it was just this one and then the last fight of the day. He watched as they called the two fighters to the arena, Fumikage Tokoyami and Shoto Todoroki showing themselves to an uproarious welcome from the crowd. The two of them stared each other down and scowled, though there was no animosity there. They were just obstacles to each other. Izuku wished that was the case for himself.

As the introductions continued, the door opened and Ochako entered the nurse's office. Izuku looked up and smiled, but gestured over to Yaoyorozu, who was still sleeping, and motioned for Ochako to not yell anything. She walked over and sat on the other seat next to his, and quickly checked that Izuku was wearing his gloves, which he was after putting them back on during the walk over, before taking his hand in hers and quietly congratulating him on his win.

"You were so incredible!" she whispered.

"Thanks," Izuku whispered back. He looked back up at the screen and watched as the match began.

The match between Tokoyami and Todoroki was shorter than the one between Izuku and Yaoyorozu. It was over in a few moves. Tokoyami immediately summoned his Quirk, but Todoroki sent a gargantuan wave of ice at his foe, larger than Izuku thought he was capable of at this point. Sure, Todoroki had broken out a bunch of massive moves at the beginning of the festival, and even in the first round of the tournament, but he'd been wearing himself out by relying on his ice only and refusing to warm up with his fire. Izuku suspected he wasn't even doing it outside of combat between the matches, which had to be hell on his body sustaining what was probably deadly cold for anyone else for hours on end. So when he started the match already shaking and pulled out this big move to start things off, it wasn't a good sign for Izuku about where Todoroki's head was at.

Tokoyami did manage to break out of that glacier, similar to the one he'd used on Aoyama in the first round to end the match immediately with an overwhelming mountain of ice, but Todoroki simply did it again. He had to be pushing his body and his Quirk to the limit, but he covered that entire half of the stadium—not just the arena but the stadium —in ice. Once again, Dark Shadow broke out, but it was slower this time. It took Dark Shadow a few moments to break through the ice wall, but when he did, Izuku's heart sank into his stomach. Todoroki pulled off that big move again, and Izuku could see that the entire right side of his body was frozen near-solid, with only the joints remaining uncovered, but only because he had to break the ice off those spots to move. Izuku watched this and grimaced, knowing that it had to be torturous to withstand that level of sheer cold, even for Todoroki. He'd admitted to them that he was not immune to the cold, only resistant, and that he could succumb to frostbite. He hadn't said that exactly, but his explanation of his left side's fire confirmed this to be the case. Why would he need to warm up if he didn't worry about the cold? Izuku and Ochako watched Todoroki freeze himself over to stop Tokoyami, who stopped struggling as Dark Shadow seemingly couldn't break through the ice anymore. There was a dull, muffled pounding noise, but then nothing, and the match was called due to incapacitation in Todoroki's favour, even though he could barely move himself.

Izuku felt the sharp, cold dread pierce his chest once again. He was going to be fighting that? He silently stood and began walking out into the hall, since he was sure Tokoyami was probably going to need Recovery Girl's attention and he didn't want to get in the way. Ochako walked with him, looking at him with clear worry in her eyes but not saying anything until they were out in the hall and out of anyone's range of hearing.

"That didn't look great, but you'll be fine," Ochako said.

"Sure. I guess since he's not warming himself up, he's gonna start off the fighting in pretty bad shape. Knowing he has a limit, even if that limit is crazy high, is one thing. If he's not even being conservative with his ice anymore, I don't think I have much of a shot," Izuku said, voice flat.

'"I know you can do this. He's only attacking with ice, yeah?" Ochako asked, putting her hands on his shoulders so that he'd look her in the eyes. "You can destroy his ice no problem. He's refusing to use the only thing he has that you can't negate. You've got this."

"I don't know if I can Decimate that much ice, though. I mean—a coating on the ground, sure. I can't Decimate Mount Everest!" Izuku said, grimacing as he reluctantly made eye contact.

"You haven't, yet. You haven't tried, yet, either," she said with a grin.

"I normally appreciate your optimism, but I think this is stepping over into denial," Izuku said, hanging his head.

"I've watched you do amazing things, things I thought were impossible until you showed me how. I know you can do this. You've got …" Ochako said, pausing seemingly to find the right word.

"The power of love?" he asked, mostly sarcastically, though there was a part of him that felt giddy thinking of that while looking her right in the eye.

Ochako smirked, and said, "I was gonna say 'the power of kicking major butt', but the power of love works, too."

Izuku sighed, but smiled. Echoing his compliment from her fight against Todoroki back at him was nice, and in that moment he felt that urge again, the instinct to do something that he couldn't name, but ignored it. He simply turned to the arena entrance, grabbing Ochako's hand in a silent request for her to keep him company before the match. She started walking along with him, and he sighed, grateful.

"Thank you, but I don't think either of those can make my Quirk more powerful," Izuku whined.

"I don't think that's the way you're gonna win. I think it's about endurance, now," Ochako said, her eyes drifting around in thought. "Think about it. Todoroki looks like he's about ready to fall over and pass out, doesn't he? And he's not gonna heat himself up, or let anyone else do it. He's too stuck on the path he's chosen. But you've just been healed and you're walking around just fine."

"Right. It doesn't really matter if my Quirk can Decimate all the ice, it just needs to Decimate enough to keep me in the fight. If I can put up with the cold, I could outlast him and he could just freeze over. He could defeat himself, and all I'll have to do is just stand there," Izuku said, his mind moving a mile a minute to come up with how in the world he could do that.

"See? You always figure it out! That's why I like you. You're so smart!" Ochako said, gently squeezing his hand.

"That's why? I always thought it was that hoodie," Izuku said with a smirk.

"Oh, stop it," Ochako said, though she wore a smirk of her own.

The two of them walked off toward the arena entrance, trying their best to strategise for the final fight ahead of them. And a bit of light flirting, can't forget that. All in all, Izuku felt as ready as he ever would. No matter which way it went, he'll have tried his best. That was all he could do.