Chapter Text
Rumi grinned from her seat as she looked down at the stadium floor, her excitement for the round to begin, and to hopefully see the first proper fight of the third event, was eating her from the inside. The first fight had been interesting but rather short in all honesty. And the less said about the second fight the better, in her opinion.
Turning to her boyfriend to see what he thought about this upcoming fight, the sight of furrowed brows and thinned lips surprised her. Though now that she actually paid attention to the rhythm of his breathing she could hear the telltale pattern of his ‘anti-mumble’ breathing.
“What’s got you in such a mood nerd?” She teased him, getting a soft smile from him in return as he turned his eyes away from the stadium floor and to her.
No. Her heart did not flutter like some prissy girly girl at seeing him smile the moment he looked at her. Shut up.
“Not really a mood I’m just trying to figure out who will win.”
“What? Not explodo out the gate?”
Izuku shook his head, his curls swinging around with the movement.
“From what I can tell. Rin’s Quirk gives him a defense that’s not quite as strong as Kirishima’s or Tetsutetsu’s but as a trade off he gets effective means of long-range offensive capabilities from it as well.” Izuku explained, making small hand-movements as he did.
And now that he’d explained, Rumi could see the issue. Both combatants had advantages over the other in one way or another. Rin had the defensive advantage. Bakugou had the melee advantage. Rin had the long-range advantage. Bakugou had the mobility advantage.
Everything about the fight came down to variables, something that Rumi loved in terms of combat. Could Rin keep it at the range that he had an advantage in, could his defense withstand Bakugou? Could Bakugou outmaneuver Rin’s attacks, could his attacks overwhelm Rin?
“Damn! And I thought I was excited before! Dammit Izuku you know how to get me raring! I want this fight to start even sooner now!”
“So, you’re saying I ‘work you up’?”
A laugh that was very obviously Mina’s sounded off behind her, though Rumi was a little too busy glaring at her boyfriend to glare at the pink skinned girl.
“You word-twisting little-!”
“Love you~”
“-aaklgneeeep. Shut uuuuuuuuup!” A strangled amalgamation of noises left Rumi’s mouth as she blushed as red as her eyes, using her uniforms collar to hide her blush even as she punched him in the shoulder.
“AND HERE WE ARE FOLKS!” All of the students turned towards the stadium floor now, a sense of excitement growing amongst them.
XXXxxxXXX
“ON ONE SIDE! THE CHAMPION OF 1-A! THE HIGHEST RANKING STUDENT SO FAR! KATSUKIIIIIIII BAKUGOUUUUUUUU!”
Bakugou’s walk up the steps to the stadium floor was full of exaggerated swagger and an ego that continued to be ever fed by the cheers around him. His hands in his pockets and a grin that oozed both battle-lust and arrogance spread his lips just enough to show the teeth beneath as he caught sight of his opponent.
“AND ON THE OTHER SIDE! THE SCALED WONDER OF THE SISTER HEROICS CLASS 1-B! HIRYUUUUUUUU RIIIIIIIIIIIN!”
Opposed to Bakugou’s obvious excitement for the upcoming battle between the two of them, Rin was almost serenely calm in his ascent of the stairs. His braided ponytail swaying in the breeze behind him. Despite his calm demeanor though, his face was hard and stony, evidently taking this seriously.
‘Good. If this shithead looked down on me after all this I’d blow him to kingdom come and back before he even got to fight back.’ Bakugou grinned to himself, his hands leaving his pockets as he got to the top of the stairs.
Getting into position, the two of them stared each other down. One clearly more excited than the other but both equally prepared.
“STAAAAAAAART!”
‘I’ll rush right in and crush this serene little fu-‘ Movement from Rin stopped Bakugou’s thoughts short, his hands rushing beneath him and blasting himself straight up into the air to avoid the scales that rushed past.
Even then, the edge of his pants around his ankles still got torn up by the sharp edges of the other young man’s scales. Zeroing his eyes back onto Rin with a near on obsessive gaze, the spiky haired student brought his hands up and released another set of explosions, rolling in the air and bringing him back to the ground.
Katsuki launched himself forward in the gap in scale-fire granted by the other fighter needing to change his aim. The angle of his arms changing to one more diagonal, aimed towards the ground, as he pressed off the ground with both feet and transitioned into a twist flip over the hail of scales.
“See ya, fucker!” Bakugou’s glowing hot palm impacted the raised ‘X’ guard of Rin and he pressed down with his entire body weight.
The following explosion shattered the nearby floor beneath them, the reversal of momentum letting Bakugou complete a short backflip and land two or three meters from his smoke covered opponent.
“WHAT AN EXPLOSIVE START TO THE MATCH! Pardon my pun! THAT WAS MORE ACTION THAN BOTH OF THE FIGHTS BEFORE IT! HAS BAKUGOU TAKEN OUT HIS OPPONENT OR HAS RIN WITHSTOOD THE PAIN BENEATH THAT SMOKESCREEN! Those of you watching at home will find out after a short ad sponsor!”
Red eyes caught a flash of green and dual explosions had the spiky haired teen hurtling out of the way of his opponent’s fire once more, though this time slightly too late. The stinging of multiple scales stabbed into his legs making Bakugou scowl in annoyance and fling himself at Rin before he even hit the ground.
More scales whizzed passed him as he hurtled towards Rin at quite frankly dangerous speeds, leaving tears along his uniform and near papercuts along his skin. The stinging in his legs throwing him off just enough to let Rin get another volley in before his next set of explosions flung him out of the Chinese young man’s attack.
Finally feeling his sweat production get to a satisfactory level, Bakugou began to fire on all cylinders. The young man beginning to fling himself through the air around Rin in more and more complex patterns, masterfully manipulating his speed and velocity through smaller emphasizing explosions or large, ground shattering bang’s that ground him to a halt no matter where or who he was heading towards.
The reason for his immediate lack of offensive quickly became clear for the spectators as the camera’s zoomed in on the chaotic storm of scales that was leaving Rin. Each of his arm’s moving independently of each other to fire scales at where Bakugou was, is and will be all at once and being blown all over the stadium by the ashen-blonde’s oversized explosions.
The Chinese student spun on the balls of his feet, his entire body on a constant rotary swivel as he and Bakugou played the worlds fastest, most aggressive game of ranged cat and mouse.
Finally, Bakugou shot himself straight up into the sky, using the sun to blind Rin and throw off the other student’s impeccable aim. Having noticed that Rin seemed to focus far more on precision rather than coverage in terms of his near-machine gun scale fire. Putting both hands to the sky Katsuki fired, allowing both gravity and his Quirk to pull him towards the ground at a speed that not even Rin was willing to try and tank. The combatant leaping back to avoid the falling meteor of heat and battle-lust that was Katsuki, which was exactly what he was hoping for.
“Gotcha now you stupid fuck!” Katsuki roared in glee, firing powerful explosions with both of his hands to not only negate all of his downwards momentum but also to close the gap between Rin.
He tried to bring his arms up and his scales to the surface in time, but unfortunately for him Bakugou was far too warmed up for Rin’s hasty defenses to do anything. The palm strike slamming into him with the force of a freight train and the following explosion lifting his feet from the stadium floor and flinging him all the way across the surrounding grass and into the stadium wall.
“Bakugou wins!” Midnight called out, getting a cheer from the crowd even if a few of them looked at the clearly pained form of Hiryu with worried gazes.
At least the damage to Rin was nothing highly serious based on the fact that he was standing and able to move everything. But despite the lack of strenuous or serious damage on Rin’s end, the animosity that Bakugou had displayed was quite worrying.
“WHAT A MATCH FOLKS! RIN HIRYU PUT UP A GOOD FIGHT BUT IN THE END HE WAS JUST NO MATCH FOR 1-A’S POWERHOUSE STUDENT!” The crowd was whipped into another frenzy by Present Mic, getting a grin from Bakugou as he relished in the knowledge that he was number one.
Placing his hands in his pockets he looked up at the stands, waiting to see what sort of look that Quirkless loser would have on his face. And instead of finding anything, he saw izuku facing Rumi and talking to her. As if….As if Bakugou was beneath his attention!
Quickly his expression went from arrogant enjoyment to downright pissed. His steps speeding up but also growing heavier and more forceful, transitioning into stomping somewhere halfway between the stairs and the hallway beneath the stands.
‘You think you’re so fucking high and mighty? You better hope you don’t end up fighting me Deku. Otherwise I’ll crush your fucking ass.’
“UP NEXT IS KOMORI KINOKO AND BONDO KOJIROOOOOO!”
XXXxxxXXX
“Your glue won’t do anything to my shrooms, Bondo!” Komori giggled, holding horizontal peace-signs over both of her eyes.
“When covered with glue, even your spores will be unable to move, Komori.” Bondo replied, widening his stance in preparation to ground himself.
“BOTH COMPETITORS SEEM READY! SO, LET’S STAAAAAAAART!”
Bondo’s Quirk gushed out of all seven of his face holes. Heading directly for Komori like a tidal wave of quick-dry cement. The weight of the liquid causing some of it to stick to the ground even as the main wave surged through the air towards Komori.
The Mushroom themed girl rushed to the side to dodge it, knowing that even her largest mushrooms wouldn’t have the time to grow enough to save her from Bondo’s surging entrapment. The girl grinning and waving her arm towards Kojiro as she escaped the glued zone, a wave of spore’s following the motion of her arm and beginning to sprout towards him.
Only Bondo had no reason to worry, unlike his opponent, merely spinning his head to the side to warp and bend his glue in the direction he was now facing. Suppressing her spores in an overwhelming wave of glue and drowning her in a small flood of quick-drying glue as she squealed in fear.
“AND WITH ANOTHER QUICK ROUND THE WINNER IS BONDO KOJIROOOO!” The applause this time wasn’t quite as deafening as with Bakugou’s round, but far louder than the first two rounds of the event.
“I’m sorry for overdoing it Komori.”
“Ahhhh! It’s fine, shroom. I just hope it didn’t look too embarrassing.”
In fact, it did. Enough so that the clip of her at the end of the match became a meme by the end of the hour.
XXXxxxXXX
A few minutes later
“APPROACHING THE STAIRS NOW! WHEN IT RAINS IT FALLS AND WHEN THE RAIN COMES OUT SO DOES, SHE! CLASS 1-A’S VERY OWN ASUI TSUYUUUUUU!” Tsuyu just waved politely as she got to the fighting platform of the stadium floor, watching her opponent rise from the opposite set of stairs.
“AND FROM THE OTHER STAIRS IT’S CLASS 1-B’S VERY OWN IN-HOUSE MECHANIC! THE MAN THAT CAN MAKE ANYTHING STICK, EVEN A BAD NICKNAME! AWASE YOOOOOOOOOSETSU!” Unlike Tsuyu who seemed pretty calm about all this, Awase couldn’t help but scowl at the introduction he had been given.
“Man. Screwing up all my rep with a few bad words. What the hell Present Mic-sensei?” He mumbled, getting an inquisitive tilt of Asui’s head.
“Are the both of you ready? You both know the rules?” Midnight asked them with a pretty relaxed stance, humming when they both nodded and tapping an earpiece twice.
“ALRIGHT EVERYONE! THE FIFTH MATCH OF THE UA SPORTS FESTIVAL BEGINS IN FIVE. FOUR. THREE. STAAAAAAAAART!”
Both students jolted and nearly collapsed at the sudden start, neither of them having been expecting the fake out, similarly to the crowd it seemed as even they were taken off guard by the fake-out count down. Though it didn’t stop Tsuyu for long as she was quick to regain her wits and shoot forward.
A foot whizzing past Awase’s chest as he yelped and leapt back, ducking under a swipe from her tongue and giving her a hard look as he straightened back out.
“Not cool Asui.”
“Call me Tsuyu, kero.” She whipped her tongue towards him again, making him lean to the side to dodge it.
‘Dammit. How do I beat her? Can I beat her? This match up is bullshit.’ Awase groaned as he ducked and weaved out of the whipping path of Tsuyu’s tongue, knowing that she’d figure out his trick sooner rather than later.
Finally, Tsuyu noticed the immovability of his legs and targeted them, her tongue striking true and wrapping around both of his legs tightly.
‘Fuck. I’ll have to do that won’t i?...’
“Got you, ker- oh?” Tsuyu began to move her head to try and swing Awase out of bounds only for her head to jerk back towards him so fast her neck actually hurt a little.
Looking back, Awase looked a little off balance but still his feet were firmly in the same place they’d been since-
“You stuck your shoes to the floor, Kero.” She noted, getting a sardonic smile from Awase as he grabbed her tongue with both hands.
‘oh no.’ Tsuyu’s eyes widened and she jerked forward as he began to reel her in by her tongue, trying to pull it back and jerking forward once more.
Looking for the cause, it couldn’t be his grip; her tongue was too slick for that. she blinked when she saw her own tongue somehow stuck to one of the pant legs of Awase. The jerking of him pulling her in by her tongue snapping her out of her thoughts.
Deciding that if she couldn’t get away from him and couldn’t pull him out of his shoes with her tongue strength alone. She’d come at things on her own terms and with her physically strongest asset. So, stopping her pulling back from Awase’s tugging, she took two strong steps towards him and leapt. Closing the gap between them in a frighteningly short amount of time.
But unlike the hardened or scared expression she was expecting from her rapid approach, in perfect dropkick form as well, she instead got a morosely serene look from her opponent instead. Like the look of a man who had come to accept his death and was now staring it in the face.
“Sorry Tsuyu.” His grin became something slightly more rogue-ish in the few moments before it scrunched inwards with pain, his arms coming up to grab both her shirt and his.
The sheer force of impact sent Awase hurtling back, his shoes tearing themselves open from the forces that she put them under. And now with their newly fused shirts, Tsuyu was brought along for the ride. The frog-like girl widening her eyes in shock as the two hurtled closer and closer to the boundary line with nothing that either of them could do.
“I couldn’t beat you…” Awase muttered at a volume that only she could hear, evidently having trouble breathing.
Both students passed the boundary line.
More than that both students flew until Awase hit the grass, sending the both of them tumbling painfully over each other until, simultaneously, they struck the wall and both of them went limp, extremely dizzy.
“C-couldn’t beat…ugh….you so…so I made sure that a-at least we….both lost together.”
“Good fight…..kero.” Tsuyu mumbled miserably, small ache’s pounding from all over her body and her vision swimming from the chaotic spinning that they had just finished.
“UH. ONCE AGAIN WE HAVE…A DUAL LOSS! SO….NEITHER STUDENT GOES ONTO THE NEXT WAVE! Give them uh…..Give them a round of applause everyone!”
“This applause is meaningless.”
“Ahhhh! Come on Eraser! They did their best!”
“Their best was pitiful.”
The announcer’s booth was met with a not insignificant number of glares from both the Hero students and even some of the spectators themselves. It seems that not everyone was a fan of Aizawa’s opinion.
XXXxxxXXX
“Heh. No hard feelings when I win right?” Sero taunted his opponent, getting the slightest tightness in Honenuki’s cheeks and a small twinkle in his eyes that Sero recognized as amusement.
“I will not hold it against you once you win, do not worry.” He assured his opponent calmly, getting a small frown from the young man across from him.
“Aw hey man. Don’t be like, come on. You’ve got to have a bit of faith in yourself.” He tried to pump his opponent up, feeling a bit bad about his comment before.
“I am confident in my abilities, do not worry about that Sero-san. I am just a realist at heart, I can recognize when I will lose.” He shook his head gently, getting a deeper frown from Sero.
“Would you like to forfeit then?” Midnight asked, getting both males to look over at her “You’re allowed to forfeit before the match, there’s no shame in that.”
“I may lose, but I still wish to show off what I can in the time that I have Midnight-sensei. I will not forfeit.” Midnight just nodded quickly while Sero hummed and grinned a bit.
Yeah, sure it was a bit disappointing that his opponent was going into the match with such a defeatist mindset but he could at least respect the guys decision not to forfeit off the bat.
“NOW THE SIXTH ROUND OF THE UA SPORTS FESTIVAL……STAAAAAAAAART!”
Sero cracked his neck and threw both of his arms forward, a strand of tape from each elbow wrapping around the kneeling form of Honenuki and tying him up in the surprisingly strong material. His grin growing wider, and his victory so assured in his own mind that he didn’t even pay attention to whatever Honenuki’s Quirk was doing.
With a grunt of effort, he snapped off one strand of his tape and put his entire body into a rotation to swing Honenuki towards the boundary line. Succeeding in getting the initial momentum but very quickly realizing that he couldn’t complete the full rotation thanks to the ground beneath his feet suddenly refusing to be a solid substance.
Falling and slipping back into the mud that the stadium floor had become, snapping his tape as he fell, the young man tried to flounder around for a moment. The boy attempting to regain his sense of direction and get up out of the viscous liquid, finally managing to grab something solid and pull himself up with a gasp of air.
Shaking his head to try and clear both his face and ears of the thick liquid ground, the sound of cheers slowly filtered back into his senses, making him look around confused. And then the ground re-solidified and so did half of Sero, the liquid having still coated basically everything except his head.
“Can you move Sero?” Midnight called out, getting a nervous laugh from the young man.
“Uh, not really teach!”
“Just hold on, ok? We’ll get Honenuki to free you.” Sero just nodded as best as he could, unable to turn his head much to see from the position that the ground around him had solidified in.
“You fought well.” Juzo’s voice filtered into Sero’s ears getting a laugh out of him.
“And you said you wouldn’t win.” He joked, getting a huff of laughter from the other boy as the dirt on him began to liquify.
“I did not win. You bested me by throwing me out of bounds, I just managed to trap you after I had already lost.”
“Ah….damn that sucks, I really couldn’t move then.” Sero blinked at the sight of the hand in front of his face and clasped it, letting Honenuki pull him up to his feet.
“Yes, I am aware.” The tape-using man just snorted at the tinge of amusement in his ex-opponent’s voice.
“Good match!”
“And you as well, Sero Hanta.”
“AND WITH THAT RESPECTFUL DISPLAY OF COMRADERY THE SIXTH MATCH COMES TO A CLOSEEEEE! ISN’T IT JUST HEARTWARMING FOLKS?”
“That is just the amount of hot tea you consume. Kuroiru Shihai and Midoriya Izuku make your way to the field.”
Within Class 1-A’s booth many of them looked towards the seat that Izuku had vacated a few moments earlier to go wait in the prep rooms. It was finally time for Izuku’s first 1v1 fight in the Sports Festival.
‘Hah. Like that nerd would have trouble.’ Rumi snorted and rolled her eyes, standing up.
“Hey where are you going? Your boyfriend’s match is about to start!” Mina cried out, getting a twitch of Rumi’s eye before she smirked.
“I already know the damn outcome. I’m going to see where the fuck everyone is getting popcorn so I can get my own bucket. This fights gonna be a riot!”