Chapter 62: UA Sports Festival (VI)

On stage, both Ochaco and Katsuki didn't hear what Shido had said, but they could tell that the audience fell silent. They didn't know what caused the silence, but they didn't have time to think about it.

Their fight was reaching the climax.

"Thank you, Bakugo...thank you for not letting your guard down."

"Huh?"

As she clasped her hands together, Katsuki looked up and saw hundreds of pieces of rocks and concrete floating above him.

"Stockpiling her weapons, huh? Great finale..." Shido muttered as he looked at Katsuki's reaction,"If it was anyone else, they would have lost. But against Katsuki and his beast-like instincts? It won't work."

As the hundreds of pieces of rocks and concrete regained their gravity and fell on Katsuki,Katsuki was forced to unleash a massive explosion aimed at the sky.

"He must be content with himself with that explosive showing!! He took Uraraka's secret stratagem and unreservedly crushed it!!" Present Mic commented.

While what he said hurt for those supporting Ochaco, it was undeniably the truth that Katsuki took almost no effort to destroy all of her plans.

However, just as they were about to dash towards each other again, Ochaco found herself falling to the floor face down.

"My...my body...won't do what I tell it to..." Ochaco muttered as she tried her best to get up.

Midnight quickly went towards her side and checked her condition. After seeing that she wasn't able to move anymore, she announced,"Uraraka is unable to move. Bakugo advances to the next round!"

As two robots carried Ochaco towards Recovery girl, Shido got up from his throne as well.

"The first round is now over. Let's go back to the VIP area. I'm not sitting here anymore." Shido decided as he started making his way up.

As he travelled within the shadows, he overheard a conversation between Katsuki and Izuku.

"The plan...all of it was what Uraraka herself came up with to beat you. So if anyone was 'busting your balls'...then it was Uraraka who was tossing you around."

"Oh? Seems like your judgement was wrong, Shido." Yoshinon turned to face Shido and said.

Shido was unfazed by his mistake as he continued his way up,"Yep. Seems like I need to review my judgments...Uraraka is a lot smarter than she looks. It seems that pressure can help some people perform over and beyond their original limits."

While Shido was making his way up, the two people, Tetsutetsu and Kirishima, continued where they left off. After a close battle, Kirishima finally managed to put Tetsutetsu in his place and won...in arm wrestling.

As soon as Shido reached the VIP area, the second round had begun.

"And now for this go-round of the sports festival, both competitors are at the top of their class!! And the world ain't big enough for the both of them!! Midoriya!! Versus!! Todorki!!" Present Mic started the match off.

Shoto knew that he couldn't let Izuku come close to him and hit him with that powerful force, so as soon as the whistle was blown, a huge ice blast was created towards Izuku.

However, Izuku was no slouch either.

'Full cowl: 5%'

As green lightning sparked throughout his body, Izuku felt his body filled with strength. As the ice blast came towards him, he rushed forward and punched the blast, successfully destroying the ice blast.

Shoto wasn't about to let Izuku come into his range, so he kept firing off ice blasts of greater and greater magnitude each time Izuku destroyed one.

For a minute straight, Izuku was on the defending side, destroying each ice blast that came to him one after another. Shoto gave him zero rest time, forcing him to be on the defensive.

Izuku knew he couldn't keep this up, thus he decided to increase his power.

'Full cowl: 10%'

With the increased strength, Izuku managed to destroy the ice blast with relative ease before immediately dashing towards Shoto in an attempt to get into melee range. However, just as he was about to reach Shoto, Shoto created a wave of ice.

Unlike before, the ice produced this time didn't have much power behind. It was more to distract Izuku and push Izuku away from himself.

'Urgh...the ice is cold and annoying...my hand is going numb...' Izuku thought to himself as he observed his hand going red from the cold when he punched the ice.

Although his strength was immense, his defence wasn't up to All Might's standard yet. The sharp edges of the ice was enough to leave various cuts and bruises on his fist and, subsequently, his arms and legs as he tried kicking, punching, or just tossing the ice around in order to reach Shoto.

It was clear that Shoto had practiced martial arts. Though he didn't really focus much on it and concentrated on improving his quirk instead, he was able to keep Izuku away from him with various martial arts.

'Wait...' Izuku suddenly realised.

He saw how Shoto had good defence and he could never reach him in time before an ice shield or ice wave would sweep him away to the side.

'Full cowl: 15%.'

Changing his tactic, he used fifteen percent of One for All and aimed his fist at the ground.

BOOOM!

The ground cracked into pieces as huge amounts of dust and small pieces of rocks rose, successfully blocking the vision of Shoto.

Unfortunately for Shoto, he didn't expect the action, and lost his balance due to the shaking and cracking of the stage. Making use of that temporary distraction, Izuku immediately circled behind Shoto quietly and quickly.

Shoto could sense that someone was coming towards him in the midst of the dust, thus he immediately put up an ice wall in front of him. However, it wasn't a person. It was just a slightly bigger piece of rock that was thrown at him.

'If it's not him, where is Izuku?'

As soon as he realised that it was a decoy, he immediately turned back and found himself face to face with Izuku.

"What?!"

Before he could create an ice shield, he realised that his shirt was grabbed by Izuku and saw that the earth and sky was upside down.

But Shoto didn't want to fall by himself.

Halfway through the flip, he also grabbed Izuku's arm and dragged Izuku along with him. He created an ice block about one meter high which helped him land without any damage. As he landed on the block, he continued dragging Izuku over to the other side of the block. Both of them had landed on their backs: one on an ice block while the other on the cracked down.

Both of them didn't stay down for long. The training had taught them how to recover quickly and efficiently, and both decided to retreat to opposite sides of the stage.

"Hah...hah...no matter how many times we...hah...had fought, a winner had never been found." Izuku said as he panted.

"You...have received professional training...even better than that man's....I wonder who taught you..."

No matter how much he hated his father and the 'training' he got from him, they, undeniably, had benefited him. Because of the training, he managed to keep up with Izuku's own martial arts, even if his was not better than Izuku's.

Izuku didn't reply. He was busy strategizing on ways to beat Shoto. It wasn't easy. It wasn't just Shoto's quirk that was powerful. His analyses, counters, agility, reflexes, everything about Shoto's abilities was powerful.

Furthermore, Shoto was just using half of his powers the entire time.

Izuku wasn't very happy.

"You're shivering, Todoroki-kun. Quirks are just another one of our physical functions, so there's a limit to how much of your own generated cold you can take, isn't there? If that's the case, then you could just solve that problem yourself by using the heat from your left side, am I wrong?"

Izuku faced down, the shadows covered his eyes,"Everyone's...they're giving everything they've got! They're doing it so they can get that much closer to victory! They're doing it so they can someday become number one! You think you can win using half of your power, but you haven't been able to put a single scratch on me yet!!"

"I'm strong? I'm going to do everything I can right now! Right here! So get over here and fight me with everything you got!"

Shoto didn't appreciate what Izuku had said.

"What do you think you're doing? Did my shitty old man pay you off...? With all my might...? When you yourself don't use your 100%? Now you're pissing me off...!" After saying that, he immediately ran towards Izuku.

Izuku saw his actions and realised that his speed had declined.

'Huh? Wait...his body must have formed frost from the cold...'

Taking advantage of that fact, he leaned towards the left, effectively dodging the straight dash Shoto did, and the second he raised his left leg, Izuku leaned towards the right again and punched him in the guts.

"OOO, AND A BITTER BLOW ON A BRITTLE BODY!! BET YOU ALL FELT THAT ONE!!" Present Mic's extra commentary reached the ears of everyone.

"The power of your ice is weakening!" Izuku shouted.

Dashing diagonally, he evaded the ice shard aimed at him and within a second, he reached Shoto and aiming one more punch at his gut, he managed to get Shoto to the very edge of the boundary.

"FULL COWL:30%!!"

Using twice the limit of his powers he could use, he immediately crouched down and inserted his fingers in the gap between the pieces of broken concrete.

"Todoroki-kun!!! I'm going to defeat you now!!!"

After he finished saying, he lifted the huge concrete and flipped it over. Shoto, who was standing on the concrete without balance, immediately felt himself in the air without any support.

'So is this how I lose? Is my resolve to be a hero weaker than my hatred of that damn man?'

Time seemed to slow down for Shoto. He could see Izuku frowning, he could see himself almost out of the stage. He thought back on all his memories...

He remembered himself watching the majestic figure of All Might behind a screen with his mother beside him. He remembered his mother saying to him,"It's okay, Shoto. You...you aren't a slave to your blood. You can become the man you want to be."

"NO! I...I'm going to be a hero!!"

Flames soon emerged from his left side, and he immediately propelled himself upwards, landing on top of a concrete, just within bounds.

'Very good...'

As Izuku saw flames bursting from his left side, he smiled unconsciously as he continued dashing towards him without any hesitation between each of his actions.

"But I'll be taking the win this time round, Todoroki-kun."

Shoto heard his words and before he could direct his flames towards Izuku, he felt pain from his stomach once more and he didn't have a stable footing this time round, he couldn't resist Izuku's full cowl, thirty percent punch.

He flew towards the wall and slid down. He lost all his strengths in his legs, and buckled to his knees.

"Todoroki...is out of bounds. Midoriya...advances to the third round!!"

After midnight announced the results, Izuku's shivering body fell limp as well while he deactivated One for All.

"Urgh..." He groaned in pain as he had exceeded his limits this time round to beat Shoto.

The audience fell silent for a while because of the many twists and turns within the fight. One moment, Izuku was going to win when suddenly Shoto revealed his left side, but contrary to their expectations, Izuku once again punched Shoto, sending him out of bounds and earning himself the qualification to enter the third round.

When the first audience recovered and started cheering, the others also followed him and started cheering.

"Oh my god! Such a strong high schooler! Is he really just fifteen?!"

"That was close though! Those two were fantastic!"

Although Shoto had lost, apart from some disappointment from those who thought the son of the second rand pro hero would win, the rest all cheered. It didn't matter who they cheered for, both of them had displayed a very fantastic performance.

Both had shown amazing strategising, counters and pure power.

They were someone whom everyone wanted as their sidekick.

Midnight arranged for the both of them to be sent to the infirmary for recovery.

Shoto didn't reject the robots' help and just lied on the stretcher, his hand over his eyes.

Though nobody could see it, tears were glistening in his eyes. No matter how mature or indifferent he acted, he was still a young, teenage boy in his puberty. The loss had hit him hard.

Todoroki Shoto: Top 8.

Eliminated.

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A/N: I'm currently stuck on how to write the damn Meta Liberation Army arc...I'm lost...I'm planning to just let it be one chapter only since it's basically villains vs villains, before turning into one huge villain army...

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