Chapter 63: UA Sports Festival (VII)

"SMOOOOCH!"

In the infirmary, Izuku and Shoto was both given a kiss by recovery girl to fully heal them. Shoto wasn't very injured and only had some minor bruises and cuts. He felt more pain than there were actual injuries since Izuku mainly aimed for his stomach.

Izuku on the other hand, felt a jolt of pain every time he walked around since his body still could not take the brunt of thirty percent of One for All yet. But it wasn't anything serious compared to when he first got it and broke a finger or two everyday to get used to his new quirk.

With one kiss, both of them were back to full health.

While they were in the infirmary, the other matches went by, with Tenya outmanoeuvring Shiozaki's thorns and throwing her out of bounds.

Fumikage was better at close combat compared to Mina, so he also won.

Kirishima could harden himself and block some damage from Katsuki's explosion. But Kirishima had not planned properly, and pitched a war of attrition against Katsuki. He could not keep up his full body armour and in the end, Katsuki managed to blast him unconscious.

"And Bakugo advances to the third round through a downright nasty carpet bombing!! With this, the top four have assembled!"

Just before Izuku was about to go on stage, Shoto came up to him.

Both of them didn't say anything and just stared at each other.

"...Don't you lose. And don't forget, I'll be the one who beat you next time."

Izuku didn't reply and just gave him a look of determination.

No words had to be said. They could be seen in his look of determination.

Izuku wasn't planning to lose today. Not today, not ever.

Shoto got his desired answer and went back to the stands where the rest of the class were.

*****************

That's it for the quarter finals! On to the next match, it's a battle between someone who hails from an elite hero family, against the number one student who has proved himself over and over again! Iida Tenya versus Midoriya Izuku!!"

As they faced each other on the stage, they didn't say anything and just waited for the match to begin. In Izuku's mind, however, various strategies and plans were swimming around.

'Iida-kun usually dashes in one direction very quickly immediately and starts off with a recipro burst. Then there will be about ten seconds before his engine stalls.'

Thus, he made up a plan in his mind.

"Start!"

As expected, the moment Tenya heard the signal, he dashed forward.

What Izuku didn't expect was that, instead of a straight line dash, Tenya did a long jump using his engines to propel himself forward. But apart from that difference, Tenya's next move coincided with what Izuku had planned.

Doing a recipro burst, Tenya boosted his engine on his left leg and did a middle sweep from left to right. Izuku immediately dodged downwards, barely avoiding the strong kick.

Even though it was very fast in the eyes of many people, to Izuku who had experienced Shido's [Aleph] many times before, it was considered snail's pace. Of course, not that he could see Shido move, but his instinct that was built over many battles was more than enough to avoid Tenya's kick.

After he ducked down, he immediately rolled to the ground in case he decided to launch another kick at that spot.

His guess wasn't correct, but it was close. The moment Tenya landed, he tried grabbing Izuku from that spot before realising that Izuku had dodged.

'5 seconds left...'

Tenya didn't waste a single second before dashing to where Izuku was. Izuku wasn't slacking off either. Although he knew Tenya was fast, he knew one major weakness of his.

'Iida-kun's fastest speed is when he dashes in a straight line.'

And since Tenya only had about four seconds before his engine stalls, his only hope was to dash in a straight line in hope of reaching Izuku fast enough to throw him off the stage.

And that's where the major weakness comes in. When a person travels in a straight line at a very speed, he won't be able to change direction or stop his own dash immediately. And since the direction is a straight line, it was easy to predict the movement.

Tilting his body slightly to the right to dodge Tenya's right hand which was reaching out, his left hand formed a fist and pushing it forward, it successfully reached it's target.

"Urgh..."

Tenya's sudden acceleration was stopped forcefully when the punch landed on his stomach. Furthermore, due to the strong impact, he couldn't help but vomit a little.

When an object travels at the speed of 40 metres per second, or 144 kilometres per hour, and comes to a sudden stop because of an outside interference, the impact wasn't small and Tenya directly fell unconscious.

Midnight immediately ran next to him and checked his injuries and condition before declaring,"Iida fell unconscious due to the impact and cannot continue. Midoriya advances to the next round!"

Since the stage wasn't damaged much, the next match immediately began after Tenya was sent to the infirmary.

"Bokugo versus Tokoyami! Bakugo's onslaught can't be stopped! Tokoyami advanced through the unmatched close-range power of his quirk to this point! But this time he's being driven completely on the defensive! Not a single opening!"

Both of their quirks were melee-orientated, so that was what both of them did. They engaged in a close-combat battle. However, the audience could clearly see that Fumikage wasn't attacking at all. In fact, it seemed as though he couldn't attack at all.

"His quirk is weak to light." Shido concluded after seeing the battle from the VIP area.

Eri, who had her face plastered to the window, heard Shido's words and thought for a while.

"Since he's a chuunibyou dark shadow, his element is dark. So the opposite element, light is his weakness!" She linked the dots and came up with her own analysis.

"..." Everyone who was present and heard her were speechless, but nobody decided to go against it.

It sounds stupid, and if this was a game, it would make a lot of sense, but unfortunately, this was not.

"You've been playing too many games lately, Eri. It seems it's time to send you to school." Shido decided. She had too much free time recently, and it wasn't good for her growth.

This was her childhood, and since Shido decided to pick her up in the middle of the alley, it became his responsibility to ensure that she led a happy childhood and make a lot of memories. Childhood only came once per person after all.

[A/N: This is a lie. Both Eri's quirk and Shido's angel are related to time. Age, to them, is just a number. Who cares whether they are ten or twenty? Just increase their age and boom! Legal.]

"Eeehhh! I don't want to go to school!" Eri refused adamantly.

"Sigh, why not?" Shido looked very tired having this conversation.

"We had this conversation before. No means no."

"But you need friends..."

"You too."

Both of them looked at each other, each refusing to back down. In the end, Shido just sighed and looked out the window as he saw Katsuki blasting Fumikage into oblivion. He had no excuse to send her to school to find friends when he himself doesn't have one (human) friend.

On stage, Katsuki managed to create a stun grenade in the middle of his explosion. The sudden change in light intensity causes Fumikage to panic and weaken, allowing Katsuki the opportunity to be on top of him, one hand on his neck and the other crackling with explosions.

[A/N: This sounds so wrong...]

"Checkmate." On top of him, Katsuki grinned wildly and said.

Seeing that he had no way to counter the pending explosion on Katsuki's right hand, he decided to give up.

"Tokoyami-kun surrenders! Bakugo-kun wins!!" Midnight announced her final verdict.

"And so, that means...Midoriya and Bakugo will face off in the finals!" Present Mic announced excitedly.

*****************

At the waiting room, Shoto was sitting down on a chair. Suddenly, the door was kicked open and an annoyed face came into view.

"Hm? What are you doin' here, you loser?!"

Shoto's eyes twitched a little at that insult but didn't reply back to him.

"Damn you half and half bastard! You got into my waiting room and you got the guts to ignore me?! What kinda attitude is that towards a finalist?!"

Once again, the final point hurt him, but he didn't reply to that. Instead, he started a conversation on a completely different topic.

"That's something Midoriya also yelled at me for. That guy...seems compelled to drag peoples' problems out of them and blow them right open." Turning to face Katsuki, he continued,"You're his childhood friend, right? Has Midoriya always been like this?"

When Katsuki heard his words, a phrase appeared in his mind involuntarily.

'You...looked like you wanted to be saved.'

"Grrr...do I look like...I give a shit about a nerd like him!?" He screamed at Shoto as he kicked the table.

"I don't care about his yammering...or your problems at home. Or your feelings! None of that matters. I'll make that runt bow before me when we meet later." After he said that, he left the room before coming back inside immediately.

"Hey! Why am I the one who is leaving when this room is mine?! Get the hell out of my room!"

Meanwhile, in the room next door, Midoriya heard everything and was trembling from all the noise and commotion he heard. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but he could tell that a violent confrontation was happening.

*****************

"We reach the finale at last! The top student among Yuuei's freshman class will be decided right here! Our final match - Midoriya versus Bakugo!!"

"Start...now!!"

Katsuki and Izuku stared at each other without saying anything for a while.

"Kacchan..."

"Since the beginning...you've been trailing after me. Even after I kept beating you up...you continued chasing after me..."

Explosions were dancing along Katsuki's palm.

"You...fucking nerd..."

He propelled himself forwards using his explosions and tried to hit a point-blank explosion on him.

Unfortunately, Izuku didn't stay at his position. He side-stepped to the right to dodge the explosion coming from his left, grasped Katsuki's left arm and tried to backflip him.

Katsuki's battle instincts were, however, superior to that of Izuku. The moment he felt Izuku's grasp on his left sleeve, his left palm immediately exploded as well, forcing Izuku to let go and back away.

After that short exchange, they had swapped their original position.

'It had always been like that...' Katsuki didn't waste a single moment in one position. Ke kept dashing here and there, propelling himself forward, upwards, to the side, preventing front to front exchange with Izuku.

As much as he hated it, he knew that Izuku's strength was abnormal. The moment Izuku got his hands on him, he wouldn't lose, but he would at least be injured or take some damage from his punches.

Izuku wasn't doing too well. His role model had always been All Might and like any other people, he wished to imitate his idol.

All Might's greatest forte was his overwhelming strength. And that was what Izuku subconsciously copied.

Katsuki was very agile and dexterous, while Izuku was very strong and stable.

Each had their own forte, and neither could force one another to make a mistake.

'Why...'

In every area they fought, destruction was left in their wake.

'Since when...'

Katsuki decided that it was enough. He went straight to Izuku without any other intention other than to beat him up. No more jumping around, no more blasting around.

'...did you...'

Izuku was momentarily startled at Katsuki's unexpected action. In all his strategies and plans, he didn't expect him to suddenly change all his plans and just dashed straight at him.

Katsuki placed the base of his palms together, facing his palm outwards.

'...become...'

"FULL BLAST!!"

BOOOM!

A massive explosion was unleashed from Katsuki's palms.

Half of the stage was engulfed in flames and black smoke.

'...so...'

Izuku had dodged the point blank explosion. Well, he barely managed to dodge it but his right arm was burnt when he tried dodging it, but the rest of the body was fine.

Twisting his body to the right, his left hand clenched into a fist.

'Full cowl: 30%'

Green lightning crackled around his body as he put his entire strength behind his left fist, aiming it at Katsuki's right mid-waist.

'...strong...'

"DAMN YOU!! DEKUUUUU!"

Katsuku however, wasn't about to just let Izuku hit him. Twisting his body to the left, his right arm crackled with another explosion.

Just as Izuku's fist reached Katsuki, Katsuki's explosion reached Izuku's front at the same time.

BOOOM!

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A/N: I just finished the Meta Liberation War, it's only one chapter long so yeah. Next is Endeavor agency arc, then paranormal liberation front arc then I would probably start on the next world then! We're close to finishing MHA!

Yay.

Woohoo.

You want me to start some kind of challenge for more chapters? like every 100 powerstones for one extra chapter of something.

And give me suggestions for new title as well. Something like Fable of Spirits or Spirits' Fable or something. No 'multiverse' word in it or anything like that. Something unique.

If you want to support me or/and want 14+ chapters in advance, link:

https://www.patr eon.com/spirits_everywhere