Chapter 41 - Torneo VI

A/N: Well I have news, not exactly good news. Remember that thing I said I would try to upload chapters except on Tuesdays and Saturdays, well, that went to shit, college is kicking my ass pretty hard so now I can't ensure consistency of updates (At least the Festival arc is almost done).

I think I'll update at the same time I manage to stabilize my Patreon updates, but it's not for sure.

Lastly: I hate Mathematics with all my soul and my being, well, more than everything I hate it for having a motherfucker teacher that doesn't accept different methods that give the same result, you old bitch.

On the other hand: God I love Programming with all my soul.

Now after that completely justified hate note.

The chapter!

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<Lena vs Todoroki>

Lena came out of the preparation room with confident steps, minutes before she had again congratulated Kyoka for her victory while comforting Toru with some little jokes.

Uraraka, Lida, Tsu and Karishima went to see Midoriya after his fight against Todoroki, after all his arm looked like it was going to come off at any moment due to the great effort he made during the battle.

Although Midoriya was not a person Lena was particularly fond of, she had to admit that the nervous green-haired man had an iron will to look at a monster like Todoroki and keep smiling.

Even if the smile looked more like a grimace than a smile.

Waiting in the darkness of the tunnel Lena waited for her name to be called while feeling a bit tired from the Festival in general, despite only lasting a few hours, for Lena it felt like days.

At least she had managed to get enough rest to be fit enough to fight Todoroki. Unfortunately, being fit to fight doesn't mean she's at 100%.

The wear and tear of constantly using her Quirk, knowing that she is not getting the most out of it because she can barely use it without Slipstream and that calming the "waves" of her Energy brings with it an exhausting fatigue, not for her body, but for her mind.

It will make this battle incredibly complicated, but he's not going to take a step back until he can't get off the ground.

"ON ONE SIDE WE HAVE THE RULER OF ICE AND EMPEROR OF FLAMES!!!! SHOTOOOO TODOROKII!!!" Announced PresidentMic as the crowd went wild for Shoto, he was easily the favorite of civilians and heroes alike.

Mic's announcement made Lena put her thoughts aside as she rolled her neck, making it crackle in the process. 'Let's do this...'

"ON THE OTHER SIDE WE HAVE THE SPEED MANIPULATOR! OXTOOON LENAAA!!!"

And with that Lena walked slowly towards the platform, the crowd cheering her with a euphoria of shouts, praise and flattery. None of that mattered.

Lena's only concentration was on the Son of Endevor.

"So this is where it's all decided huh?". Lena said with a relaxed attitude as she stretched her arms and legs a bit. "You know... I owe you an apology."

"...For what?" Todoroki finally said with confusion though he still kept his face expressionless.

"At first I thought you were one of those jerks who think they're better than everyone else just because they have a powerful Quirk" Lena said as she remembered the days in Class and how Todoroki was a lonely bastard "Now I see that's not the case, you just suck at talking to people."

Without Lena realizing it that was a low blow to Todoroki, who although he didn't show it inside felt as if an arrow was piercing him. "And what does that have to do with combat...?".

"Nothing, I just wanted to give you the advice to stop being so... ice lord" Lena replied while laughing lightly which irritated Todoroki for some reason. "Anyway, shall we dance?"

"Gladly" Todoroki replied ignoring the conversation as he took a stance with his palms pointing downwards.

"Fufu, I look forward to it!" Lena said as she took an offensive stance leaning her body forward a bit.

"BEGIN!"

Immediately after the announcement Todoroki unleashed a strong blast of ice all over the arena covering it with icy spikes and freezing the entire ground along with the legs and part of the Lena chunk.

"That was easy" Todoroki muttered feeling disappointed, he thought Lena could find a way around it like in the old Test but it seems he was wrong.

However, seeing Lena's smiling face a little more smiling than usual, Todoroki knew it wasn't over, quickly Todoroki used some of his flames to thaw himself before Lena tried anything.

And a second after Todoroki noticed the smile on Lena's face, with a strong movement in her legs she broke free from the ice as if it was nothing as he ran towards Todoroki like a truck at full speed.

Todoroki responded by creating ice spikes to try to stop her, but Lena dodged them by moving quickly between the ice spikes, jumping from time to time avoiding Todoroki's attacks as if she were an ice skater.

Todoroki clicked his tongue as he kept sending ice blasts, his arm was starting to freeze again and-.

Then Todoroki could feel a presence behind him and instinctively ducked to dodge Lena's kick, the latter seemed surprised by Todoroki's dodge.

The latter seeing that she was wide open for an attack, threw a strong blast of ice at point blank range.

In less than a second a huge iceberg of ice appeared covering much of the stadium.

'That should-'

Soft footsteps approached behind him, but Todoroki could still hear them when he turned around. From between the snowy peaks came the female figure of Lena with an annoyed look on her face.

Todoroki noticed that her arm was partially frozen.

'That must mean she doesn't have superhuman reflexes...' Todoroki thought as he looked at Lena's arm.

"I didn't expect you to dodge that... have you practiced martial arts?" Lena asked as she moved her left arm as best she could to see if it was still useful, unfortunately it didn't seem to be the case. "This might be a problem..."

"My father taught me a little" Todoroki nodded reluctantly. "How did you escape my attack?"

"In case you're not blind you'll know I didn't escape fully" Lena grunted as she pointed to her frozen arm. "I can move fast can't I?"

"How fast-"

"Very fast" Lena whispered softly into Todoroki's ear as she gave him a hard kick in the back that sent him crashing into a pillar of ice. She looked back down at her frozen arm with a sour face.

Out of the rubble came Todoroki with his clothes a little torn and a few small cuts.

Upon seeing Lena, he immediately waved his hand in a vertical motion creating a blast of ice progressively, creating another mountain of ice in his wake.

Lena opened her eyes wide and immediately used another Accleration.

Lena ran to dodge the attack and noticed something.

Her energy was starting to get agitated, which meant she couldn't keep up this game of cat and time for long.

'But I can't easily kick him off the platform with all these ice structures around...' Lena bit her lip as she came out of her Acceleration ready to kick Todoroki.

Todoroki was immediately aware of Lena's presence, but having used two large ice blasts in a row his right side was completely frozen.

He was tempted to use his fire.

But he wouldn't give that satisfaction to the old bastard....

So he decided to finish this the old school way.

With blows.

Todoroki quickly began to assume a defensive stance as Lena attacked with a kick aimed at Todoroki's ribs, Todoroki managed to parry it with his right forearm although the force pushed him back a bit.

Lena attacked again with another kick but Todoroki managed to dodge it while throwing a punch at Lena that hit her in the shoulder and-.

Nothing, it felt like hitting a concrete wall.

Lena took advantage of this and punched him in the face that knocked him back a few steps.

Todoroki felt as if his head was spinning back on itself before he used fire to forcibly regain his senses. When he came to, he had barely managed to dodge Lena's next punch.

'This was a bad idea' Todoroki thought with a heavy breath. 'I didn't know she was so fit... Plan B then...'

Lena approached like a predator and began to unleash a full combo of kicks on Todoroki.

Todoroki managed to dodge most of them thanks to Lena's movement being limited by her frozen arm, but a feint got him a blow to the chest. "GUF!"

Lena didn't stop there and quickly went to punch him in the head, as he was wide open.

"This ends here!!!"

But Todoroki did something unforeseen.

He threw himself to the ground dodging Lena's kick and making her lose her balance for a moment.

Taking advantage of this, Todoroki got up quickly took distance from Lena.

Lena was not going to let Todoroki breathe.

As she quickly approached Todoroki, who was a couple of meters away, she saw Todoroki's mouth twist upwards slightly and knew at that moment that something was going on.

Then he saw Todoroki's arm thaw enough to throw another blast of ice at him. As Lena and Todoroki fought, Todoroki sent small activations from his left side to his right side gradually thawing his arm without Lena noticing.

Todoroki immediately launched a blast of ice towards Lena.

Lena saw the ice blast in slow motion.

And then she made a decision.

With a war cry Lena ran forward like a bull.

FUSSSSSSSSSSSH!

A large blast of ice was created in front of Todoroki as a result of his last attack.

Taking a deep breath she looked up at the large blast with a small smile of victory.

Which quickly died as he felt the presence of a person next to him.

'HOW?!' Todoroki thought. 'Shouldn't I be able to... dodge...?'

Looking at Lena who had appeared beside him she seemed... different.

Her hair seemed to have a life of its own as it floated slightly upwards, her skin seemed paler, her clothes which had some cuts from the battle between them, but most noticeable were the completely light blue eyes made up of hundreds of lightning bolts.

For Todoroki.

Lena looked exactly like a God of Thunder... of course if she had been female and 175cm tall.... But it was still strangely terrifying. 

Lena raised her fist. 

Todoroki noticed that the world seemed to twist around her fist, which made him feel strangely helpless.

Closing his eyes Todoroki accepted his defeat with pride.

And a second passed... Then two...

Todoroki opened his eyes again to see that the lightning surrounding Lena was beginning to fade rapidly. 

Lena's body slumped forward falling completely unconscious.

The latter froze as he quickly held Lena, his mask of expressionlessness had broken to reveal a perplexed and stunned face.

"SHOTOO WINS!!" PresidentMic announced as the crowd went wild from the intense battle that took place.

Quickly the robots arrived with a stretcher to take the injured Lena to the medical room, leaving Todoroki a bit dazed as he walked towards the stands.

He couldn't get the image of Lena's glowing eyes out of his head, it was as if he wasn't seeing Lena, but something else.

What... was that?

...

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