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CHAPTER START---
"BEGIN!" Ms. Midnight yells as she lowers the flag.
Tokoyami lunges forward, as does Bakugo.
Before Tokoyami can do anything Bakugo swings his right arm forward and releases a concentrated explosion.
Tokoyami raises his arms to block with his forearms as he takes the hit directly.
The force is enough to knock him out of the small dust cloud it made and send him hurtling across the arena.
He's still far from the boundary of the arena, but while he's still lying on the floor trying to recover, Bakugo rockets out of the dust using his explosion to fly directly at Tokoyami.
Tokoyami tries to sit up, propping himself up with his right hand as he thrusts his left hand forward, "Dark Shadow!" he yells out, and the shadow creature rushes out of his torso toward Bakugo.Bakugo holds out his right hand, creating bright light by constantly setting off tiny explosions in his palm, forcing the shadow creature to retreat into Tokoyami.
Bakugo lands in front of Tokoyami and holds out his bright hand, "just like last year, I'm still a bad matchup for you," Bakugo says with a vicious smile.
There is a tense moment between the two students as they glare at each other.
Tokoyami sighs, "Bakugo, you---"
In one instant the arena below them shatters and erupts into the cloud of dust and concrete, blocking the audience from seeing exactly what's happening.
From in the dust they hear Bakugo screaming and shouting, and as it clears they all understand why.
He'd been wrapped tightly in a void black energy of some sort, his body was completely bound aside from his head, and both his hand were being held directly against the sides of his head.
"Void Body: Shadow Binding," Tokoyami says proudly as he's still laying on the ground.
As he gets up with his forearms still damaged, his right palm that was touching the ground is revealed to have released Dark Shadow to tunnel into the ground.
"Quite clever, don't you think?" He asks Bakugo. "There is no light underground, and Dark Shadow is strong enough to burrow, all I needed was to raise my mastery to expel him from any part of my body so you wouldn't notice."
"ARHG!" Bakugo screams, struggling with all his might but unable to get out of the trap. "Since when the hell could you do this, and why does your stupid Quirk look so different now?!"
"You aren't the only one that's been training," Tokoyami says as Dark Shadow's head manifests out of his shoulder, staring at Bakugo with its glowing red eyes. "Now, surrender."
"Never!"
"I figured as much, but if you use your Quirk you'll blow your own head off, so I'll just wrap this up," Tokoyami says as he waves his hand.
The energy extending from his hand moves on its own and rips out of the arena, breaking apart more concrete to show the exact path it took underground to cocoon Bakugo.
Then gently lifts Bakugo and turns him upside down, touching his head to the outside of the designated combat area, all while he's kicking and screaming.
"Katsuki Bakugo is out of bounds," Ms. Midnight announces. "Tokoyami Fumikage moves on to the finals!"
---Horizon's Observation Room...
"That was over so quick, we barely even got to see anything," Sero whines as they see Tokoyami and Bakugo leaving the arena for Cementoss to begin repairs.
"Bakugo must be beyond angry," Shinso says. "First he has to fight Awase which provided no challenge, then he gets defeated this quickly in the next round."
"Yeah, but what did you three think about Tokoyami?" Horizon asks.
"Honestly, that was pretty smart," Juzo says. "He knew Bakugo's Quirk was a counter to his so he went where the light couldn't reach and when he grabbed him he put Bakugo's palms against his head so Explosion couldn't be used."
"I wonder what he said at the end that got him so mad," Sero says since they crowd couldn't hear the fighters speaking.
"He asked Bakugo to surrender," Horizon chuckles. "As if anything could make that happen."
"Dark Shadow looks much different now, why is that?" Shinso asks. "I thought that version of the Quirk was only used during the Summer Camp Attack, and it was uncontrollable."
"I gave him some pointers, about not fighting as Tokoyami and Dark Shadow, but as Tsukuyomi instead, let two become one and realize Dark Shadow is just an energy construct."
"So he was using it as kind of like an imaginary friend this entire time?" Sero asks.
"Basically," Horizon shrugs. "He put some pieces of himself that he was either unaware of or ashamed of into it, that's why it would always act like a totally different person, now he should be more whole, and able to draw out more of its power."
"Did you actually think it was a separate living entity this entire time?" Juzo gives Sero a disappointed look.
"Hey, that's what it said on his paper, who am I to judge when this guy has 'Hand Of God' on his Quirk License, and that's apparently completely accurate," Sero raises his hands in frustration. "Quirks can be weird man."
"This means his Quirk is more like that guy from Belgium, the one who retired a few months back," Shinso says.
"Lion Surge," Horizon says. "Yeah, but I think Tokoyami's Quirk is more complex than making energy crystal lions, but that remains to be seen..."
"The next match is about to start," Juzo says as Present Mic begins announcing Todoroki.
As he enters the arena with a fresh PE Uniform, some of the marks and bruises from the previous fight are still visible on his face and arms, leading Sero to look over at Horizon.
"You didn't heal Todoroki?" he asks.
"Part of the event is being able to conserve your energy and health for the next round, the only reason I healed Tokoyami was because I was targeting him during the obstacle course, and I healed Bakugo to make it even."
"Well, I guess that makes sense," Juzo says. "So, who wants to make a bet on who wins this match?"
Moments later Midoriya enters the arena and is standing opposite his friend, both looking at each other as nothing but combatants in the ring.
They're so focused that the noise from the crowd doesn't exist to them, only Ms. Midnight's words reach their ears.
"BEGIN!" she announces and immediately is raised away from the arena by a cement construct as Todoroki's flames roar to life.
Luckily Midoriya had activated One For All: 45% at the same time, allowing him to react in time to leap to the very edge of the stage.
With his heels almost touching the edge of the legal area he raises on foot and stomps down onto the stage.
At the moment just before impact his power jumps up to 75%, and as it makes impact returns to 45%.
He felt the muscles and bones in his leg sting slightly, but easily worth the massive blastwave of wind that pushed back against the flames.
Todoroki was forced to stop using his flames and instead create a massive barricade of ice from behind his back to the edge of the stadium but even then the wind pushed him so hard he skidded off the stage.
Had he not been standing on his ice he would have already been considered out of bounds and lost the match.
By the time he looks up, still wondering 'when did Deku get this strong', Midoriya is only a few meters away with a fist reared back aimed directly at his face.
Todoroki's eyes widen as the flames roar to life once again, and Midoriya pushes off the rapidly melting ice and lands back in the arena.
Todoroki feels his feet sinking and looks down to see the ice melting away, revealing the grassy out-of-bounds area below, and focuses his flames with his left hand and foot to fly back to the arena.
As he gets back onto the stage he lowers his flames and begins cooling off his body with ice.
And the instant Midoriya notices that he rushes forward yet again, clearing the few dozen meters between them so fast that Todoroki is forced to simply push more energy into his ice rather than swapping to his flames.
'He's taking advantage of my inability to simultaneously use elements during intense moments like these...' Todoroki realizes too late as the massive torrent of ice he creates is easily smashed through by Midoriya.
Suddenly Midoriya's fist was once again closing in, this time only a meter from Todoroki's right shoulder.
Todoroki tried to manifest roaring flames once again, but this time he was too slow and instead had to roll with the glancing blow.
"Agh!" he yells as the graze ragdolls him across the stage.
Just a mere touch from Midoriya using 45% and he could feel his shoulder and arm aching.
He sees Midoriya about to fly out off the stage, but his hopes are dashed when his friend twists his body and stomps his foot into the concrete, entrenching himself ankle-deep and carving out a small trench that stops just before the out-of-bounds area.
As Midoriya stops they both take a moment to assess the battle, but Todoroki is slower to formulate a plan and is forced to react instead.
He sees Midoriya raise a hand, ready to flick his finger forward just like last year.
Watching the finger he sees Midoriya flick it forward, and before the motion can be complete a massive column of ice surges across the stage directly at Midoriya.
But no air pressure collides with it, instead, there is no response at all.
Todoroki looks forward and realizes what he'd done, created an ice structure that blocked his vision of an immensely faster opponent.
Exactly as Midoriya wanted.
Suddenly the ice shatters, sending a sleet storm along with dust and debris toward Todoroki.
In response, he manifests flames from his left side, and as they roar to life he uses them to push himself toward his right, away from his opponent.
He couldn't see through the sleet and dust, so he raised his defenses and made some distance between them.
But before he could realize what was going on he noticed in the corner of his eye that something was moving toward him, not through the smokescreen of ice and dust, but from where Midoriya had launched that very attack.
When he'd dodged to the right, Midoriya wasn't actually in the smokescreen, but still hidden behind the ice, and now he was less than a meter away from punching Todoroki's right side, his ice side, while all his energy was focused on the flames of his left side.
Midoriya took the instant Todoroki dodged to the right to rush directly toward his right side and land a decisive blow.
In this moment Todoroki felt a surge of adrenaline and fear, for the second year in a row matched against someone he instinctively recognized as a monstrous threat to his life.
And in response, his Quirk ran wild.
BOOM!
An explosion of heat and snow erupts on the stage, destroying the entire stage, leaving parts melted and others frozen solid.
Todoroki has frostbite on parts of his body and burns on others as parts of his uniform are once again ruined.
He breathes heavily, sweating profusely, and with a wave of his hand creates a surge of heat that clears the air.
Ms. Midnight and the crowd looks around, only seeing Todoroki in the arena.
"Uh, Midoriya is..." Ms. Midnight keeps looking around, confused, until Todoroki explains.
"It's hard to see if you weren't at the heart of it," he says. "But when he saw what I was about to do," Todoroki points at the sky. "He jumped away..."
Everyone looks up, seeing Midoriya over 200m above the stadium and rapidly diving down toward Todoroki.
He has one armed cocked back, in a very familiar pose to any All Might fan as he grits his teeth.
"If I can't get close to you, I'll just blast you away with one massive attack!" Midoriya screams loud enough for everyone to hear, and now they're all even more thankful that the arena was much larger to compensate for these massive clashes.
Todoroki smiles, looking up at his friend, "Don't think it'll be that easy for you."
He creates his most powerful flames yet, so hot that the entire stage begins melting away around him.
The crowd begins feeling this immense heat for a moment before it's contained, being pulled along with the flames toward his left fist that was cocked back while he looks up at his friend.
Feeling his thoughts fighting themselves, Todoroki decides to forego cooling his body with his ice, deciding that he wanted all of his focus on this attack instead of keeping his body cool to continue fighting afterward.
Raising his heat to the absolute limit the flame condenses onto his fist, heat still melting the ground directly around him, showing his lack of mastery when compared to his father.
"Flashfire Fist---!" he punches toward the sky, releasing all the focused heat and flames in one pillar heading directly toward Midoriya. "JET BURN!"
END CHAPTER---