35

Izuku should be scared.

He was about to face the kid who had made his life miserable for ten years, the one who had given him more scars than anyone else, the one who told him to take a swan dive off the roof, and, of course, the one who as chomping at the bit to teach him a lesson. He should be absolutely terrified, but instead he was just angry.

Across from him, Katsuki was already popping tiny explosions in his hands threateningly. He looked absolutely pissed, but then again, Izuku had been doing things all day that he knew would set him off, so he supposed on some level he'd known this would happen, even if he didn't deserve it. No one deserved to have their dreams trampled on and told they were less than a pebble on the side of the road just because of the way they were born. 

So what? Izuku had found friends and done well in the other rounds, but that had very little if nothing to do with his former bully, so Katsuki had no right to be angry. He'd won the first round by accident, and the second for Shinso, and even if annoying Katsuki had been a nice side effect, that wasn't why he wanted to do his best. 

No, Izuku was doing this for himself. 

He didn't allow himself to collapse in on himself like he would have back in middle school. As he waited for Midnight to begin the match, Izuku held his head high and threw his shoulders back, which seemed to annoy Katsuki even more. He probably wanted things to go back to the way they were, the good old days when he'd been the top of the food chain and Izuku had been nothing, and it was pissing him off that those days were over. Izuku had friends now. He had a new dream that he loved and that had nothing to do with Katsuki and he wouldn't give that up for the world. 

"I'm gonna kill you, Deku!" Katsuki growled, quiet enough that it was almost completely drowned out by the roar of the crowd. "I'm gonna explode your quirkless ass so hard they'll have to send your ashes home to Auntie Inko in a takeout box!"

Izuku's glare hardened, but otherwise he didn't change his expression. Katsuki continued spitting insults as they waited for the fight to begin, but Izuku just let them wash over him, far too familiar with Katsuki's particular brand of verbal violence to be bothered when he knew that Mei was waiting with the rest of their class to see him after the fight. Maybe Katsuki should research trash talking to make his words a more effective weapon against villains, because they weren't going to work on Izuku anymore. 

"Alright! I want a good clean match!" Midnight announced to the crowd. "Same rules as the last round apply! You win by forcing your opponent to leave the ring, knocking them out, or making them surrender to your will! Whoever wins these matches moves on to the semi finals! Begin!"

As soon as she cracked her whip, Katsuki immediately launched himself forward, using his explosions to propel himself as he anticipated the beatdown to come, "Die, Deku!!!"

The rules dictated that opponents must stay on their side of the stage before the match, but there was no rule on exactly where. Most students chose to wait in the middle of their space, giving themselves good options for both evasion and attack. It was a good strategy, but Katsuki was so concerned with beating him that he'd failed to notice exactly how close to the line Izuku was standing until he took a single step backwards over the line, maintaining eye contact the whole time.

It had never occurred to him that Izuku would rather forfeit the match than fight him. 

The entire stadium fell silent as everyone processed what Izuku had just done. Even Katsuki's explosions stuttered to a stop halfway across the stage and he landed roughly as he stared at Izuku in confused disbelief. It was like someone had taken a snapshot of that moment and engraved it into glass to preserve it forever.

Then that moment shattered. 

"No!" Katsuki immediately launched himself forward again. "No! You don't get to give up, Deku! You've been looking down on me all day, goddammit! Fight me!"

Izuku felt a small strike of fear. Were the teachers actually going to stop him? Or were they going to be just like the ones in middle school and turn a blind eye to their golden boy breaking the rules? Would they let Katsuki beat him up and then pull some bullshit reason out of their asses about how it hadn't been clear that Izuku had crossed the line or how it somehow didn't count, ultimately blaming him for Katsuki's temper being out of control? Either way, Izuku refused to move. It wasn't his responsibility to run away in fear. 

The moment of truth came right as Katsuki was about to let loose an explosion to Izuku's face, but was met with a cement wall that suddenly sprang out of the ground instead. The explosion left a sizable dent in the wall and sent cement chunks flying everywhere, but Izuku only flinched slightly as he got hit with a few pebbles.

"Stand down, Bakugo." Cementoss growled. "The match is already over. Midoriya is over the line and you're moving on."

"No!" Bakugo growled and hit the wall with another explosion. "That's not a win, that's a gimme! You've been pissing me off all day, Deku, just shut up and fight me already! You owe me a fight, you quirkless piece of shit!"

The wall was practically destroyed at this point, but Katsuki's explosions were getting weaker as Midnight came up behind him and he started breathing in her quirk, "Fight me...Deku! You...owe...me...a fight…"

Izuku simply continued staring him down, an odd sense of power flooding through him as he said something that deep down, he'd always wanted to say, "No, Kacchan. Actually, I don't owe you anything."

Kirishima was kinda torn. On the one hand, it was kinda unmanly for that support student to just step out of the ring like that, but on the other it was super unmanly for Bakugo to keep going after him after the match was over. Honestly, Bakugo should have been prepared for that, considering that the other support student did basically the same thing, even if she'd played with Monoma for a while before surrendering, which would hopefully make him a little less smug and annoying next time the two classes had to work together, but still, the support course students didn't really have any motivation to win the sports festival, so it made sense to lose early on. 

He shook his head and walked out of the tunnel for his own match. He couldn't afford to be thinking about Baku-bro when he had his own match to worry about. With the match-ups the way they were right now, if he won this match, he'd be fighting Bakugo in the next round and he could give him the fight he deserved. It probably wasn't what he wanted, but it would help to take his frustrations out on someone with thick skin. 

But to help his friend, he needed to get to beat this drill guy from 1B. Sero would have been easier, since Kirishima would have been able to harden his skin and cut through the tape without much of an issue, but Kaibara had shown in the last match that he had a good head on his shoulders and was willing to fight creatively, even in the case of a bad quirk match-up, so Kirishima had to be on his guard. He could do this!

"Begin!"

Kaibara's fingers spun so fast that Kirishima could hardly even see him as they ran at each other. Kirishima dodged the attacks he could and paid close attention to Kaibara's movements to try and predict where the rest of his attacks would land and only hardened those parts of his body. This was going to be primarily a battle of stamina. If he could keep up his hardening longer than Kaibara could gyrate, then he'd win, but if he softened before his opponent got tired, he'd lose. It was simple, straight forward, and manly, just like he liked. 

Kirishima stayed on the defensive as long as he could. Hardening his whole body was exhausting, but hardening small sections of his skin like this was almost instinctual at this point and was something he could do for hours before he had to stop. Kaibara, however, caught onto his strategy within a few minutes of starting the match. His stance changed and he started moving faster and launching multiple attacks at once, which made it a lot harder for Kirishima to predict where he needed to harden. Sometimes, he'd be all prepared for a hand to his ribs, only to be surprised by a foot trying to drill into one of his shins and had to harden as quickly as he could, just to keep from losing. 

As soon as his opponent showed the slightest signs that he was getting tired, Krishima took his chance. Hardening his whole body, he lunged forward and grabbed his arms, wincing at the way Kaibara's limbs twisted beneath his hands as he tried to escape. Kirishima just dragged him toward the edge, tugging hard and relying on his slightly greater physical strength to pull Kaibara from where he was trying to anchor himself into the ground. The skin on his palms had been ground down to almost nothing by the time he finally managed to throw Kaibara from the ring with a roar.

"And with that spectacular move, Kaibara is out of bounds!" Midnight yelled. "Kirishima advances to the semi-finals!"

"It truly doesn't matter which of us wins this match." Monoma said. "Either way, we've shown that 1B is just as good as 1A in every aspect!"

Tsuburaba shook his head in amusement, "I really don't think that they're as high and mighty as you think they are, Monoma. Sure, they fought some villains, but we all took the same test, didn't we? We're all in the hero course, which is more than I can say for your last opponent."

Monoma's expression soured, "I was being chivalrous and that support witch took advantage of that. If I ever fight her again, I'll show her the true power of our class!"

Tsuburaba rolled his eyes, "Yeah, sure. More like she'll wipe the floor with you with even better gear. Seriously, dude, it's like she wasn't even trying."

"Just shut up." Monoma grit his teeth. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were starting to actually believe that 1B is inferior."

"Again, dude, that's literally just you." Tsuburaba muttered. "But whatever, let's fight."

Midnight gave the signal and Monoma immediately started letting out mushroom spores. He had planned on pulling that move out later in the fight, but he wanted to prove Tsuburaba and everyone else who ever talked about his stupid inferiority complex wrong. He wasn't inferior! He could end this fight before it even began!

Tsuburaba took a deep breath to start using his quirk, but before he was able to make any constructs, he got a lungful of the invisible spores and started coughing. That would show him! Monoma ran over to him and Tsuburaba tried to fight him off, but it was difficult to defend against a physical assault when it felt like his lungs were going to explode and all Monoma needed was one good touch. 

He copied Tsuburaba's quirk and turned his head to the side he'd kept free of the spores so that he could take a deep breath. He made a sort of table floating a few feet above the ground and pushed Tsuburaba onto it, then welded him in place and took a few steps back. 

"Tsuburaba, can you move?" Midnight asked.

Tsuburaba tried to wriggle around a little bit, but Monoma had taken care to anchor him well so that there was no way he could break out. Monoma smiled as he shook his head. 

"Tsuburaba is immobilized! Monoma advances!"

"Are you sure you can do this?" Izuku asked. "I mean, of course you can, obviously, but it's just that Tokoyami is really strong and he already knows your quirk! Plus you have to brainwash him and dark shadow separately, so it's more like you're fighting two opponents instead of one. It's kinda unfair."

"Oh, come on! Have a little faith in our baby." Mei hit Izuku softly over the head and turned to Hitoshi. "But seriously, rely on the baby I made you and Izu-kun's analysis and you'll be fine. You've made it this far and bird-boy doesn't know how your quirk works, right?"

"Not that I know of." Hitoshi shrugged, burying his nervousness deep underneath his normal layer of apathy. "He's got a strong quirk…"

"But Mei-chan is right." Izuku smiled brightly. "You're stronger!"

Mei gave a manic grin and slapped him on the back, "Knock 'em dead!"

Hitoshi rolled his eyes, but still felt a little better as he made his way out of the tunnels and onto the field. Beating Pony was one thing. She didn't have an excellent grasp on the language, so it was easy to trick her into responding without her catching onto the fact that his quirk was verbal. He didn't think the same trick would work with Tokoyami, however. His support item could imitate voices, like he'd done with Present Mic, but with two sets of ears to hear the irregularities, it was twice as likely that Tokoyami and Dark Shadow would figure out the ruse and from there it wouldn't take much of a leap to figure out that it had something to do with his voice and then answering questions, so imitating someone else's voice was too risky. 

Hitoshi ran through the fake requirements he'd used already. He'd done singing, touch, eye contact...he should try to switch it up, maybe. It would be difficult to get both of them to respond, but if the cavalry battle had proved anything, it was that if he had to choose between the two, Dark Shadow was the only option. It was too dangerous to take control of Tokoyami without taking control of his quirk and Shinso didn't know how to use their link to take control of both of them...yet. 

He shoved his hands in his pockets, appearing carefully bored as he waited for the match to begin. Tokoyami was alone for the time being, or, well, as alone as Hitoshi thought he ever was, but Dark Shadow wasn't visible yet, which would make it way more difficult to take control of him. Hopefully the quirk would come out and start talking shortly after the start of the match, because if not…

Hitoshi took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. He'd be fine. If worse came to worst, he still had his support item and some physical training to rely on, right? Izuku and Mei had worked really hard to make sure he made it this far, so he wouldn't' disappoint his kidnappers by losing this early in the tournament. He had to get into the hero course and live up to his name of Extra-Credit-Kun.

"Are you boys ready?" Midnight asked, cracking her whip. "Begin!"

"So Hot Topic," Hitoshi started, "where's your better half?"

Tokoyami's eyes narrowed as he responded carefully, "We do not know what methods of darkness you employed to take control of us in the cavalry battle. It is better for Dark Shadow to conserve his strength for our moment of need."

Hitoshi let out a controlled breath of relief. One down, but he wasn't out of the woods yet, considering that Tokoyami had all but told him that the two were waiting for him to take control of the host and let the quirk save him. He let the connection he'd formed hang for the moment and thought. Tokoyami was treating him cautiously because of the unknown factors to do with his quirk and it didn't look like Dark Shadow was going to be coming out anytime soon, not unless he brainwashed Tokoyami and opened himself up to attack. If only there was a way he could use his link to Tokoyami to take control of Dark Shadow!!!

His face scrunched up in frustration and he could hear the confused and annoyed mummerings that were starting to come from the audience as two powerful students just stood still when they should be putting on a show. Even if HItoshi did end up brainwashing Tokoyami and risking Dark Shadow's wrath, he needed to do something , if only to disguise his quirk. The good thing was that whatever he did could be completely random. 

Hitoshi laid down on the rough concrete, covering his face with his arm.

His lips twitched as the annoyed whispers turned to pure bafflement and Midnight sounded very confused as she questioned what to do next, "Shinso, what's going on? Are you surrendering?"

"Well, he hasn't attacked me yet." Hitoshi drawled. "So no, I'm not surrendering. I just figured I may as well be productive and take a nap. Now be quiet, I'm trying to sleep."

He could practically feel Tokoyami's confusion, "But why?"

Hitoshi gave an awkward half-shrug from his place on the floor, "Insomnia's a bitch."

He could hear the snicker in Present Mic's voice as he tried to commentate, "Well, folks, there you have it! Hitoshi Shinso from general education has decided to take a nap instead of fight! In all my years of announcing the sports festival, I honestly don't think I've ever seen anything like this! What do you think, Eraser?"

"I think he's leaving himself open to attack." Eraser said bluntly. "With the way he's covering his eyes, he might sleep better, but he won't be able to see it coming when and if Tokoyami decides to end the fight."

"Who knows, Eraser," Present Mic said cheerfully, "maybe the kid's got a plan."

Eraser scoffed, "If he does, it's probably not a very good one."

Ouch, but true. Hitoshi really didn't know what he was supposed to do. He might be able to take Tokoyami in a physical fight, but even with his support item, he didn't stand a chance against Dark Shadow. He sighed and tried to block out as much of the surrounding noise as he could so he could focus on the link his quirk had created with Tokoyami. Izuku said that his quirk put his victim's body under his brain's control, right? They were going to experiment more with partial control after he got into the hero course, but maybe the extra adrenaline of a stressful fight would give him some sort of edge and make him have a breakthrough?

He took a deep breath and let it out, reaching out along the link until he felt what he assumed was Tokoyami. He really needed to pay more attention to what people's consciousnesses felt like, didn't he. He carefully poked and prodded, but kept half an ear on the real world, knowing it was only a matter of time before Tokoyami took his teacher's advice to heart and just attacked Hitoshi no matter how strange and unpredictably he was acting. 

He'd thought that he could almost feel Tokoyami's confusion earlier, but the more he explored their link, the more he realized that he wasn't just imagining it. He really could feel his confusion as it filtered across the link, but he could feel other emotions as well. Frustration, fear, hesitence, and...Hitoshi inhaled sharply. That wasn't Tokoyami. 

What he felt was similar, of course, but it was like a different flavor of the same candy. Same base, but at the same time, Dark Shadow was completely unique. There was a slight barrier preventing him from reaching the quirk, but it felt more like the push that kept him from keeping his quirk active without taking control of someone, and Hitoshi knew he could push through that. He smiled. 

"Oh, this is stupid!" Dark Shadow finally started talking. "Come on Fumikage! He's just laying there! Let's beat him!"

Tokoyami didn't respond, but based on his footsteps, he did start running. Hitoshi took another deep breath and pushed the link as far as it would go. He was starting to get a headache and he was definitely out of breath, but he could feel the link expanding to include everyone in his opponent's brain. 

The footsteps got closer and there was a whoosh of air as Tokoyami made his move, but that was just enough warning for Hitoshi to roll to the side and rise to his feet. 

"Ooh! It looks like sleeping beauty is finally awake and we're gonna see some action!" Mic yelled enthusiastically. "What's gonna happen next?!"

Hitoshi smirked quietly, "You loose."

Tokoyami furrowed his brow, "We have barely begun the fight, how have I already lost?"

"Dark Shadow." Hitoshi grinned at the look of shock and fear on Tokoyami's face as he activated his quirk and Dark Shadow stood at attention, patiently awaiting his instruction. "Drag Tokoyami out of the ring."

"No!" Tokoyami widened his stance, and tried to push Dark Shadow away, but there was only so much he could do against his own quirk. "Dark Shadow, listen to me! He is controlling your inner darkness! Stop this! Stop! No!"

Hitoshi felt like his vision was tunneling, only able to focus on Dark Shadow as his headache got worse and he had to concentrate with everything he had to keep control with how hard Tokoyami was hitting him. His control felt like it was fraying more with every passing moment, but right before the link seemed about to snap, Tokoyami's foot crossed the line. 

"Tokoyami is out of bounds!" Midnight sounded shocked and it took a full five seconds for the crowd to start cheering. "Shinso advances to the semi-finals!"

Hitoshi released his quirk and grinned proudly, turning to face the place in the stands that he knew the support classes were watching. He only just managed to find Mei and Izuku in the crowd before his eyes rolled back in his head and everything went black.

Notes:

Next update: 2.19.2021