33 Trial of Fools: Ch 12

-Rain of Sins-

-Trial of Fools: Ch 12-

The crowd cheered as the horn blew, and let out a scream for violence that drowned out Kirishima's own battle cry as he rushed forwards.

He flung his arms up, already as hard as stone, to defend himself as his opponent threw something at his face. The red head grinned toothily as the small gray metal ball bounced off his defenses harmlessly.

He was already Rock Hard! Nothing could take him out now!

Then the ball exploded.

Kirishima let out a very manly cry as the flashbang went off directly in front of his face, downing out his vision with white that persisted even when he closed his eyes, and ringing in his ears that tuned out the thundering crowd.

But he wouldn't let anything stop him, especially when it wasn't even a real injury! He was Red Riot! He continued forward! Charging at his opponent like an unstoppable force and an immovable object! He was the spear and the shield!

He held his arms out to his aides, and bent down as he ran. If he couldn't see his opponent to throw a punch, then he'd just have to turn his body into a net and a battering ram, to crash into his foe and knock them out of the arena!

…

…

Kirishima's grin dimmed, and he began to gradually slow down. Why hadn't he hit anything? Was the arena really this long? He didn't remember it being this long! Had he already run out of bounds!?

He came to a stop, and began frantically rubbing his eyes. As his vision cleared, he had a gut clenching moment of both relief and terror, as he looked down to find the white out of bounds line only a scarce foot or so in front of him.

Spinning around with his arms in a boxing pose, he saw a very serious Momo kneeling where he'd started the match, a large metal barrel resting on her shoulder.

Kirishima only had a moment to register the information his foggy eyes were giving him, before Momo pulled the trigger, and a large black cylinder shot out of the barrel.

He held his hands up, but this time it didn't protect him as the cylinder exploded into the same thick metal capture wire that Heroes used for top of the line Villains, and wrapped around him so tight he could scarcely move a muscle.

But Red Riot wouldn't relent! He was unbreakable!

"Is that all you've got!" Kirishima flashed his shark-like teeth at Momo as he flexed his arms under the wire, his skin sharpening into edges as he got even HARDER! "All you did was give me more armor! I'm HARDER THAN EVER! Come and fight me like a man!"

A second later, a rocket with the end of the wire attached to it sailed over his head, and Red Riot made a very unmanly sound as his line went taut and he was yanked off his feet & out of bounds.

-Rain of Sins-

"Has it occurred to you that air is one of the worst conductors in existence, and that whatever your electrical discharge hits will only be delivered a fraction of the initial wattage?"

Denki blinked. Then blinked again. Then, when it became clear that this wasn't a rhetorical question, and the doctor was waiting for a response, he was a very intelligent "Uhh…", and stared at him with a blank expression, as though he only understood maybe three words in that sentence.

"Oh, for the love of-" Izuku shoved a medical form in the student's face, and motioned for the kid to leave.

"Use your quirk physically the next time you're in a fight! Make contact as you shock them! Just hit them! Or better yet, literally just go to a local convenience store and buy a plain, normal, everyday, civilian grade copper pipe, and I swear to you on the basis of all common sense and rationality, that if you just smack someone with it, it'll work a million times better than whatever bullshit waste of taxpayer money the support class is trying to sell you for long range attacks."

The blond student said something as he left the office, but Izuku wasn't listening, he was to busy having a mini mental breakdown

"His quirk is literally electricity, and he hasn't gone out of his way to learn about how electrical science works!" Izuku cupped his face in his hands, and rubbed his temple, letting blood vial roll slowly across his desk, it clinked as it hit his coffee cup. "Society is doomed. Our 'glorious protectors' will all die from using their electric quirk in the rain. The education system has failed us."

Izuku let out a weary sigh, befitting someone twice his age, and slowly reached out for his vial.

It wasn't completely Denki's fault, Izuku's mood had been… less than stellar, ever since he found out that Ochako had lost her fight with minimal injury.

No injury meant not being sent to the medical wing, and a loss meant no future chance for injury, which meant that he didn't get to study her quirk!

GRAVITY! One of the four most fundamental forces in the universe, and one that they didn't even fully understand why it worked! It had been at his fingertips, and it had just disappeared! A key to understanding the secrets of the universe was now out of his grasp for the foreseeable future.

He was genuinely half tempted to pull the fuse early, and see if he could get her in the confusion, he only needed a tiny amount of blood!

But he held his hand. Endeavor was well known for wandering, and there was no way of 100% knowing if he'd be at his seat for the virus, until the awards ceremony.

Besides… even if number 2 on his quirk list was out of his reach for now, he still had number 1.

Izuku glanced up at the screen in the corner of his office, and smirked as he saw Shoto entomb a student with large elbows, in an entire glacier.

Shoto Todoroki could create ice. That was nothing special. What was special was what happened when he did.

He got cold.

The way air conditioner units and refrigerators make things cold, is by running cold liquid along the interior, which evaporates into a gas and absorbs heat, which is then pumped outside, where it's pressurized back into a liquid to have the heat radiated off.

The energy of heat is absorbed and moved, and the resulting lack of that energy makes it cold. It's simple physics.

But when Todoroki makes ice, where does the heat go? He's not absorbing it if he's freezing over, and it's not being dispersed into a wider radius, Izuku had thermal cameras set up to check.

His initial theory was that the quirk absorbed the energy to release it later as fire, but again, using the ice causes Shoto to become colder, not hotter, so he can't be absorbing it.

Which leaves only one possibility. The most terrifying, and delightfully intriguing possibility.

That this quirk wasn't just "making ice" like everyone seemed to believe, but was violating the law of conservation of energy. One of the most concrete and foundational laws of the universe, the idea that energy can not be created or destroyed, only transferred from one form to another, was being broken everytime that kid so much as made an ice cube.

Total energy nullification.

Izuku shivered just by thinking about it.

And if that was true, then the flip side of the quirk, the "fire" part, might not consume the body's chemical energy to create thermal energy, but actually be creating energy from scratch!

He smiled as he carefully slid the blood vial into his jacket.

Denki's energy quirk was just a pale imitation of what Shoto's was, and if he could get his hands on that, if he could have the opportunity to use it to its fullest potential, rather than the shameless waste that was being displayed on TV…

-Rain of Sins-

"I'm sorry, but I need to get to the finals." Ibara said sadly.

"Yes, well, so do I!"

The horn blared, and Ida shot forward, his engines burning as he pushed them to their absolute limit, rocketing towards Ibara at maximum speed.

His Recipro Burst was his only chance in this fight, against most others except Todoroki he was confident he could hold his own in a fair fight, but Ibara's reach was far too wide, and could come at him from far too many angles. She could corner him, and there'd be nothing he could do.

The audience's normally deafening noise faded into nothing as the air pressure popped his ears, the wind howling louder than a siren, stinging his exposed skin and pushing his ears flight against the sides of his head.

Colors blurred as the world around him blended together, the only thing clear was the straight shot directly in front of him. It was real tunnel vision.

He couldn't turn, couldn't change course, the whiplash would be so intense that it would break his legs, but that was fine. He'd accepted that risk every time he did this move, it was why it was his last resort. But even with the drawbacks, it was all he needed.

Closer. Closer!

Exactly one half second had passed from the start of the match, and he was three quarters the distance from his target. Her eyes were wide, her brain only now registering what was happening.

One half second, three quarters of the way there, and only now could his opponent react. It was too late, no part of the human body could move fast enough to react, it took time for the brain to send a signal down the spine, and through the nerves of a limb. It was the physical hard cap of what was humanly possible, even restricting All Might himself.

And it just so happened that the legs, the things needed to dodge, especially the feet, were the farthest limbs from the head. It took time for the brain to send, the nerves to deliver, and the muscles to flex. A fraction of a second, sure, but time nonetheless, and at speeds as fast as this, a fraction of a second was all the difference in the world.

Closer!

But, as green encroached his blurred vision, he had the realization that Ibara, unlike most people, had her most powerful limbs directly rooted as close to the brain as possible.

Ida slammed into the wall of vines at maximum speed, and slumped to the ground, not from injury but out of exhaustion. Oh, he'd definitely bruised some ribs, but as he took ragged gulps of oxygen, he didn't really care.

He slammed a fist into the stone ground in anger, before waving over Midnight to signal resignation.

He'd lost.

-Rain of Sins-

Bakugo couldn't help but chuckle at the "fight" on display down in the arena, as he munched away on some chips he'd bought from a snack stand, occasionally offering some to Momo as she scarfed down one of the largest hamburgers he'd ever seen.

"Uhh, hold on a moment folks!" Present Mic's voice was accompanied by the sound of rustling paper. "It says here that Shinso has a type of mind quirk, and that Monoma has a copy quirk! They must be engaged in an EPIC MIND BATTLE!"

"'Epic battle' my ass, we might as well have two rocks fight it out! Hell, we might actually get more action that way!" Bakugo smirked and tossed a chip into his mouth, getting far too much entertainment from watching two people stand completely still across from one another.

"If this is the best the other classes got, then 1-A's gonna wipe the fucking floor with 'em."

Momo snached the next chip out of the air, before he could catch it, and popped it into her mouth. He reached for her burger in retaliation, but was cut off by a serious look on Momo's face.

"What happened to the whole 'not looking down on other people' thing?"

Bakugo immediately froze, "N-No, Momo! I genuinely didn't mean it like that! It was an actual, normal, sarcastic joke! I didn't-"

Seeing the bewildered and sheepish expression on Bakugo's face, Momo's facade fell and she began to chuckle.

-Rain of Sins-

All for One hummed a positive tune as he listened to Ujiko's report. The doctor's successor had been doing a wonderful job in the "behind the scenes" work of his grand plans. Izuku taking such a prominent role in Ujiko's little science empire, and spearheading development of quirk and biology research had propelled them much further in their nomu project than their initial expectations.

Soon, now that AfO himself wasn't needed to create the high end nomu, they would be able to mass produce an army of perfect soldiers. Soldiers who would never question orders, who all had incredibly powerful quirks, and who could be tailor made to perfectly counter anyone who would stand against him.

Even All Might.

Especially All Might.

All for One considered himself a smart man, and part of being intelligent was learning from your own mistakes. He'd lost against All Might in a one vs one, it would be stupid to try the same thing again, especially considering he was now crippled, and "One for All" only grew stronger as time passed.

(His Brother had given his quirk such a dumb name- it was litterly just a off-brand rip off!)

He wouldn't mind fighting All Might again, per say, but he also wouldn't mind doing it after swarming him with an army of unkillable super soldiers that were tailor made to counter his strength.

But what was most exciting about the Nomu project being pushed so far ahead of schedule, was the fact that it let the doctor focus on other things… just other … slightly important things.

LIKE GETTING HIM OUT OF THIS FUCKING CHAIR!

"-And while that regeneration quirk we found you almost a decade ago was a bust, because it couldn't repair things that were no longer there, like your eyes, nose, or… general facial structures, I believe that it will finally come in handy! You see, I had Izuku tailor grow some organic parts that we can use to replace your missing organs. And combined with these new cybernetics I've developed, I personally believe-."

All for One smiled menacingly in his chair, letting the doctor ramble on, in favor of fantasizing about being able to stare evilly out into the distance again after all these years.

At least until he was abruptly pulled from his fantasy.

"-nd of course, if that fails, we always have the quirk parasite project you drafted!"

"Ujiko." All for One sighed, wishing for the unpteenth time that he had a forehead to massage in exasperation. "I would rather not risk my life on a poorly documented and poorly understood pseudo-scientific phenomenon, that we have no idea how it actually works!" He scowled. "We tried experimenting with the concept with Six, if you remember." He paused, face twitching at the dumb face he could feel the doctorl giving him.

"It failed, Ujiko!"

"Yes, I do remember that." Ujiko coughed. "The resulting specimen was phenomenal, but his mental state degraded too quickly towards the end, and the final product was, erm, less desirable than predicted."

"He exploded, Ujiko!"

Ujiko tried to say something, but couldn't find the words, and eventually just shrugged in an "oh well" gesture.

"If I give my quirk to Tomura, it doesn't matter how well I've molded him, or even if whatever shadow of me that goes with it manages to take control of his mind! I!" AfO pointed to himself, "Die!"

Ujiko scratched the back of his head, and winced back slightly, but All for One didn't relent.

"That plan is the backup for our backup plans, for if I'm permanently incapasitated in some way. It's how I plan to make sure that that demon quirk is destroyed, even if its holder takes me out before I do! It's not," He stressed the word, "Our number one go to plan for every tiny thing that goes wrong. I will not be giving up the power that I've worked centuries to cultivate, because someone forgot to tie their shoes! It's a last resort!"

All for One leaned as forward as he could, wires and tubes straining against him, and threatening to tear out of his skin.

"Do you understand, Doctor?"

"Yes Master!" Ujiko saluted. "I understand perfectly!"

-Rain of Sins-

"Please stand down!" Ibara begged, her voice carrying across the arena like a delicate melody, threatened to be drowned and torn apart at any moment by the cries of the bloodthirsty crowd. "I have to get to the finals!"

"Yeeaah, sure kid." Bakugo yawned and popped his neck as Present Mic went on about something unimportant on the speakers. "Listen Poison Ivy, everyone and their fucking dog, wants to get to the final round, it's kinda why we're all fighting for it."

"No, you don't understand!" She cried. "Something's come over Shoto! He's hyper focused on this tournament! He hasn't been eating, hasn't been sleeping if the bags under his eyes are anything to go off of! He's been acting cruel and rude! He won't listen to me when I try to talk to him about anything but this infernal competition!"

Bakugo paused, and looked at her. That desperation in her voice, that look on her face…

For a brief moment he wasn't looking at a green haired opponent in UA's festival, but a green haired friend on the playground, desperation in his voice and tears in his eyes as he tried to save some kid.

"Please Bakugo! Let me through to the finals! It's the only way I can get him to listen to me!"

Bakugo debated it.

Bakugo Katsuki, the kid who had been so obsessed with winning that he threw away his friends to be the strongest, genuinely debated it.

Eventually he dropped his arm from the back of his head with a heavy sigh.

"That's not gonna work."

"Why not!?"

The genuine hurt in her voice made him wince.

"Because Icy-Hot's not making it to the finals Ibara." He looked her dead in the eyes. "He'd have to get through Momo for that, and if he's in the state you're saying he's in, then he doesn't have a chance."

The vine haired student brought a hand to her lips, mulling over Bakugo's words.

"You truly think so?"

"I know so." He nodded. "And if he thinks you got to the finals without 'earning' it, while he falls short, you're never gonna get through to him."

"And you know his state of mind this well… how?"

Bakugo winced and glanced off to the side. "Just because I'm not nice, doesn't mean I'm stupid."

It was a weak excuse, especially compared to the real reason. That what she was describing was him, or at least who he was trying to not be as bad as anymore.

Ibara just stared at him thoughtfully, and he got the distinctive feeling that she understood more that he felt comfortable with.

"Thank you for taking me seriously Bakugo." She eventually said, a sad but honest smile on her face. "No one leading up to this, be it last round, the team battle, or even the race, would even hear me out. They've all become too obsessed with victory, and vainglory."

"Y-Yeah don't worry about it." He winced again at her cripplingly pinpoint words. "Listen, I'll even talk to Todoroki for you between matches, maybe I can snap him out of it."

"I truly thank you for your offer, but he won't listen to reason." She warned.

"Oh don't worry about it." Bakugo smirked. "I've been told I have a charming personality.

"May Round One of Round Two of Round Three, BEGIN!"

-Rain of Sins-

"You know, your girlfriend said some interesting things during our fight."

Shoto stopped mid step, his expression twitching, as he turned to face the annoying voice.

"She said you have your fucking panties in a twist, but I dunno, from what I've seen you've kinda always had 'em like that."

Leaning up against the wall of the tunnel that led out to the arena, was a very singed, and unbearably smug Bakugo. He was mostly obscured by shadows, and had ash dusted all over him, but nothing could have covered up that damn smirk of his.

"She's not my girlfriend. What do you want?"

"Nothing much! Really!" He closed one eye and held up a thumb at an angle, as if to measure his classmate. "I just wanted to say that I think she's wrong… That expression you've got right now, makes you look more like you're constipated than anything else."

Shoto scowled in disgust before turning and resuming his walk towards the arena.

"Hold up, hold up, I'm kidding!"

"Well then stop kidding and tell me!" Shoto snapped as he glared over his shoulder. "If it's nothing important, then I have a tournament to win."

"Oh don't worry, it's about that!" Bakugo grinned sharply. "But if you're that damn impatient I might just not fucking tell you."

The youngest Todoroki hesitated, weighing the pros of just walking off, before eventually snarling and turning around to face his proclaimed enemy.

"Tell me."

"Well, I dunno." Bakugo shrugged. "You kinda seem like you don't want to know."

"Tell me or I freeze you!"

"I'm pretty sure that'd get you disqualified." The blond laughed. "But nah, it's about that fucking bet of yours, the one you shouted at me in the lockers. I'm calling it off."

Shoto blinked. "You lost?" He scrunched his brow. "But you had the best scores in class, how-"

"Nah I won." Bakugo waved him off. "I won pretty fucking awesomly too, might I add, but that's not why I'm calling it off."

He held up his arms in mock surrender, dipping his head, and closing his eyes."You're right, I won't beat you. There's no way."

"...what?"

"Yeah, you know that girl out there?" Bakygo's eyes opened, his red irises glowing dangerously in the dark tunnel. "She's gonna do it for me."

The temperature in the tunnel dropped drastically as Shoto grit his teeth and resumed his march towards the arena, Bakugo's laugh echoing after him.

"Momo's gonna take you out long before I even get the chance, so try to to at least give her a warmup before she faces me, yeah?"

…

"...Smack him upside the head for me, will ya Momo?" Bakugo muttered to himself as he began trekking back towards the stands.

That look on Todoroki's face… It was all too familiar, but seeing it on the face of someone who looked so similar to Endeavor. To the man who killed Auntie Inko…

Ibara was too nice for her own good. Shoto didn't need a friendly intervention, he needed to be poked, mocked, and knocked off his high horse to be shown he wasn't the best.

"I sure as Hell know I needed it when I was younger."

-Rain of Sins-

The air was heavy as Momo stepped into the arena, well aware that the temperature around her dropped considerably every step she took towards her opponent. She took a deep breath to calm herself, but flinched slightly as the freezing chill stung her lungs.

Shoto for his part looked just as serious, despite the crowd shamelessly crying for him to end the match just as spectacularly as he did the last one. To bury her alive under a continent of ice. His continuously neutral face was drawn into a stern frown, his eyes periodically gl;ancing towards the crowd to glare at something behind Momo, but she didn't dare turn around and see what.

Letting her opponent out of her sight, would be the end of her.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! WELCOME TO THE LAST MATCH BEFORE THE FINALS! ARE. YOU. READY!?"

Present Mic's already powerful voice was amplified over the speakers, so loud that it shook the ground beneath Momo's feet. And yet, almost impossibly, the crowd seemed to roar back even louder, making her ears ring and her head hurt.

"THREE!"

Momo dropped her jacket to the ground, and spread her arms out in front of her, as the world outside the ring began to fade away, the crowd's noise muffling into background static.

"TWO!"

Shoto leaned forward, his hands flexing in anticipation, but Momo couldn't help but mentally criticize his lack of a real fighting stance… not that he needed one with his quirk's power.

"ONE!"

A subtle but sharp sting of pain hit her eye as a bead of sweat rolled down her forehead and into it, but she refused to blink, refused to take her eyes off Todoroki.

"GO!"

At the blare of the horn Shoto stepped forward, frost shimmering in the air behind him, and ice consuming the ground around his foot, threatening to trap him. His arm swept down and forwards, concrete cracking from the sudden immense temperature drop as his fingertips traced atop it. But as he completed his underhand throw, no ball flew from his hand, instead he blinked… and the world froze.

The air in front of his attack shimmered and froze as the very elements that composed it, oxygen, helium, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, dropped to such incredibly low temperatures that they began to solidify.

The ground cracked apart and tore itself apart as the immense cold caused it to contract on itself, pulling itself apart from the inside out.

Chemical and atomic reactions began to grind to a halt as the temperature dipped lower and lower, and the energy necessary to perform even the most basic of functions was stripped away.

All was quiet.

…

Then the crowd erupted into cheers as the blast of frigid air hit them, and they were again greeted to the sight of another huge iceberg towering over the arena, and reflecting the sun's rays like a prism.

Shoto sighed, frost coming out of his mouth instead of air, and ran a hand through his hair.

He'd done it. Now he just had to beat Bakugo in the finals, just like he said he would, and he would finally prove his father wrong, after all these years.

He didn't need his fire. He didn't need his curse.

…

The thought was peaceful, calming.

…

Calm…

Too calm.

Why couldn't he hear the crowd?

His eyes snapped open. Something was wrong!

His head pivoted back towards where his opponent had been, suddenly so much more aware that Midnight hadn't called the match.

"Impossible!" He rasped. "No one can tank that!"

At the center of his glacier, where Momo should have been frozen solid, was a giant metal shell.

In the pitch blackness inside the metal ball, Momo struggled to breathe ragged breaths, the very oxygen that she'd die without, threatening to freeze the sides of her lungs, and kill her all the same. Her bare skin stung merely from contact with the air, the remainder of her clothes torn apart as the metal shell had expanded out of her skin. Her teeth chattered, and she clutched her knees to her chest desperately to conserve heat, as she created thick sheets of fur to swaddle herself in.

Alright, phase one of "don't die horribly against Todoroki" was done. She'd survived the initial blast, and had successfully bought herself time to make the things she needed to win this fight.

The metal room was illuminated by a dim yellow light as Momo put a heat lamp down by her side.

"T-Time for ph-phase two!"

-Rain of Sins-

'One hundred and five mississippi. One hundred and six mississippi. One hundred and seven mississippi.'

Shoto counted in his head, keeping his own count as Midnight watched a watch on her wrist.

After the initial shock that Momo had managed to shield herself from his ace move, there had been… not anything.

Aizawa had come on speaker and said that if Momo couldn't get out after two minutes they'd call it as her being "pinned", and the match would go to Shoto.

The half & half boy yawned and rubbed his left arm. Whatever, if this gave him more time to defrost before the final match, he'd take it.

"What's this!?" Present Mic's sudden shout caused Shoto to jump. "I see movement! Ladies and Gentlemen, this match might not be over!"

Shoto narrowed his eyes at the metal ball, and while "movement" was a stretch, there was a small yellow light gliding along the side of the metal ball.

Was she… welding herself out?

Lacking much else to do, Shoto simply watched as the small flame cut its way from the top down to the floor, in a large rectangle shape. Once it was done, it flicked off for a short second before reappearing towards the middle to cut a small circle the size of his fist.

It was clear to him that Momo was trying to make a door, but what was the circle for? She knew that a door handle was useless if the door didn't have hinges, right?

Well, evidently it wasn't a hole for a door knob, because she cut three more, in the shape of a big triangle around the first one.

Shoto tapped his foot impatiently and glanced at midnight. It'd been several minutes now, and Momo was still trapped, why couldn't she just call it?

Suddenly, the circular cuts in the metal fell away, and four rabbit sized drills shot out of them, burrowing through the ice with little problem. What he found odd, however, was that they traveled at different speeds, with the center one being the fastest. They quickly fell out of formation, and were at wildly different lengths along the ice wall.

But just as the first drill was about to breach the surface, it exploded. They all exploded.

He waved away the smoke from his face, and when it cleared he scowled. The explosions at different points of the ice had blown a tunnel right out of his glacier.

The metal ball creaked, and slowly, oh so slowly, the impromptu door fell forwards.

Shoto raised his arm to attack again, but cursed and was forced to throw up an ice wall, as he was met by a hail of extremely dense rubber bullets, various low-level explosives, and what looked like sponges soaked in half dry concrete.

He swore, and reached to freeze the ground, but was thrown backwards as something blew his wall to smithereens. Ducking into a roll, he kicked himself back up to his feet in time to barely dive away from the same wire shot he'd seen her take out Kirishima with.

Walking defiantly out of the ice, a wall of empty guns and launchers still clicking behind her, and covered in thick fur and leather gear that would have looked right at home in the most far flung frigid reaches of the Siberian tundra, was Momo Yoayorosu.

"I apologize for taking so long." Momo's grin was feral as a jet of flames lashed out of the heavy weapon she held with both hands, melting away any remaining ice from her tunnel. "I want to get into the habit of doing all this before a fight, but the tournament rules are a bit picky about what I can bring." She winked at him, adrenaline making her head light. "So sorry for keeping you waiting."

The crowd went ballistic.

"You plan to use fire against me?" Shoto growled as his eyes narrowed in on the flames, his scar itching, throbbing in tune with the flames as they swayed in the wind. "I'd call it poetic, if it didn't make me sick."

"Oh, I'd say napalm has a lot more oomph to it, than just fire!" She squeezed the trigger, and a jet of incredibly hot flaming liquid shot forward, crashing into and melting the human sized wave of ice he shot at her. "I was actually hesitant to use it at first, but a certain helpful doc mentioned you're immune to heat!"

"Yes… Yes I more or less am." He hissed.

If only that part of his quirk had finished developing sooner.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he dragged his attention away from the tingling pain in his right side, and focused on his opponent.

Her thick fur and leather gear wouldn't help her much against any piercing attacks, but skewering her guts on an icicle probably went against the "non lethal" rule. It would easily protect her from any low level attacks, however, and probably even some more powerful ones if she'd put proper industrial insulators underneath the fabric.

She had thick boots, with small metal spikes on the bottom to gain purchase on ice.

In her hands was a large metal contraption, that was apparently a flamethrower, which had a tube running from its side that connected to a metal clamp on her arm, where she was most likely feeding it fuel.

And finally, attached to her left shoulder was the same launcher she'd used against Kirishima, which he'd seen was capable of firing capturing gear, as well as rockets, and who knows what else.

"So Shoto." Momo grinned in a way that he'd only seen Bakugo do before. "Remember how I lost to you in our one v one, during that training exercise?" The gun in her arms whirled and launched a volley of dense rubber bullets at him, explaining why it didn't look like a normal flamer. "How about a rematch?"

-Rain of Sins-

The maintenance hallways running under the coliseum were unique in the fact that, unlike the rest of the building, not a single inch of them would be seen by visitors or the cameras. As such they were exempt from the usual "UA shine" that the school blew so much of its budget on, to keep up appearances.

Flashy colors, oversized doors, giant windows, overhead arches, fake gold lining on everything- You know the look.

It's not that the halls were poorly maintained or anything, just… dingy.

Old yellow lights dotted the ceiling at uneven intervals as different hallways crossed with one another, and the symmetry was pushed even further out of whack by all the lights that had gone out and never been replaced. The unpainted concrete walls were barren, except for the occasional patch of mold, and the slightly rusted green pipes that would run along the ceiling before dipping back into the concrete. Off to deliver who knows what to who knows where.

The Pro Hero Water~Whip despised these tunnels with a passion, and wanted with all her might to be literally anywhere else on the planet.

Well, that wasn't necessarily fair. It wasn't just because of the tunnels that she hated this place, mind you, they were kept clean, and had ac. No, she just couldn't stand her "partner".

"This has gotta be the dumbest fucking position I've ever heard of! Why the fuck would any villain want to get down here? If anything they'd take one look at this, and then go back upstairs where all the action's at!"

Leaning on the wall across from her, was the needlessly tall Pro Hero Alpha, a large girl with wolf ears, dog tail, and claws, who's outfit was some straps of fur that would make Midnight blush, and clearly showed who her "target audience" was.

"Yeah, well maybe if you stopped complaining like a bitch about every job you get, people might think you're mature enough to graduate from grunt work." Whip clicked her tongue in annoyance, "Or rather, be tricked into thinking you're more mature than you are."

"Oh, honey. I'm plenty mature." Alpha chucked, cupping her arms under her considerable breasts. "And besides, you're stuck with the same positions as I am."

"That's just because I graduated from a less known Hero school! I have to work my way up the rings, from the bottom!"

"We graduated from the same school you dit! We literally sat next to each other, you couldn't possibly have forgotten!"

"Hmph!" Whip crossed her arms and looked away with a pout. "Doesn't ring a bell."

"Mara, we dated!"

"I said. It. Doesn't. Ring. A. Bell!"

"Shut up."

"No you shut up!" Whip, or rather Mara since any job professionalism was long gone, stomped her foot in frustration. "You don't just get to ditch me the morning after, and leave me in that hotel room bed alone, to find out that you maxed out MY credit card on those stupid sock puppets while you were drunk! Then the next time I see you, you don't just get to pretend nothing happened!"

"Mara, shut up."

"NO, Jess! You don't get to ignore me! It's been three fucking months!"

"No, Mara, seriously shut up!"

Mara was about to slap her ex in irritation, but paused as she noticed her wolf ears stuck straight up in the air, pivoting more like a cat's than any dog she'd seen.

"Jess?" She whispered, unnerved at the panicked expression on her face. "What's wrong?"

"Shh!"

The rookie water Hero flinched as Jess forcefully clamped a hand over her mouth.

But then… she heard it.

tap.

tap.

tap.

tap.

tap.

A soft tapping noise, like the tip of a screwdriver against a wall, was echoing down the hallway.

…A hallway that's lights were completely out.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

And it was getting closer.

"Something's coming." She whimpered through the hand in horrible realization.

"Get behind me."

Jess stepped protectively in front of her, claws extended, and Mara summoned her signature whip of water. Together the two Heroes stared out into the dark, prepared to face anything their combat school had taught them about, but stepped back in hesitation as a black mist wafted out of the shadows, gliding over the floor like an ethereal carpet.

The fog, if it could even be called that, spread over the floor rather quickly, and reached the Heroes with little time for debate, but it only went to their ankles. But they didn't have time to think about it, as the noise grew louder, and soon emerged from the hallway.

Stepping out of the shadows, the fog flowing around him like a river, was a man in a thick black coat, with black gloved hands, whose metal toed boots clacked loudly against the concrete floor. He had some sort of slick black rebreather mask that covered the bottom half of his face, hanging at an angle from his back was a large tube like thing with metal caps on both ends, a handle on one side, and a squid-like creature suspended in a blue liquid.

What stood out to Whip the most however, was his dark green hair, and piercing emerald eyes that seemed to almost be looking through her.

"A fog machine, and a Halloween costume? What are you, some sort of shitty ghost cosplay?" Jess joked, trying to mask the edge in her voice. How had he gotten down here? What happened to the other guards!?

The figure just stared at her, unimpressed by her joke. "I assure you that ghosts don't exist. I however, do. But I'm not a fan of needless violence. If you stand down and let me tie you up, I promise that you'll suffer no harm."

"Yeah right!" Whip pulled her whip between her hands to make a 'snapping' sound. "You're a Villain, you guys lie all the time!"

But as she said that she coughed, and for a moment her whip almost seemed to deform slightly, threatening to slip from her fingers, but Mara just shook her head and tightened her grip on it, forcing the water back into its proper shape.

For some reason, however, the Villain's attention seemed to beeline on it, and he furrowed his brow. He muttered something under his breath, but she only caught "-ious form must be too diluted to-".

But Jess' wolf ears clearly heard it, going from how her expression went pale.

"Mara, get back! This guy's dangerous!"

"Yes. Yes, I suppose I am." The man sighed, stepping forward as he took his hands out of his coat pockets, his metallic footsteps clearly audible even under the fog. "Now stand down, or you'll regret it."

"Fat chance!" Jess forced a grin and stepped forward to meet the Villain, pushing Mara back as she did so. Why was she so concerned about her being near him? "I'm the Pro Hero Alpha! You're the one who's gonna regret messing with me!"

Izuku just raised an eyebrow as he looked up at her, his somewhat tall stature being dwarfed by the mutant. "Did you know the whole alpha-beta theory to power structure in canine packs, was completely debunked as far back as 2008, and has been proven wrong in every level of the scientific community? The man who originally wrote the theory spent the rest of his life trying to get it pulled from textbooks."

Alpha snarled. "These fists seem pretty real to me!" She lashed out with a punch, but the Villain weaved back, avoiding them.

Again and again, she swung, never letting up her assault, and the Villain was forced to jump backwards, duck, and desperately dodge everything, sometimes only avoiding the swings by a hair's breadth.

Whip watched from the side, confusion worming its way through her mind as she watched the fight. She'd seen quite a few fights before, and while she hadn't necessarily been in all that many, considering she was a rookie, she was pretty sure your opponent was supposed to fight back. Usually people only did what this guy was doing if they were buying time for something… or waiting for something…

And then Jess overextended.

The Villain leapt on the opportunity, smashing a fist into her stomach, and Jess stumbled back as two black syringes buried themselves into her gut. Then the fight immediately shifted into one that Whip was familiar with, a Jumble of limbs, punches, kicks, blocks, and dodges.

Both were decent at combat, but neither was anything close to an expert, relying more on strength than form, which resulted in back and forth of both of them wailing on each other.

Jess roared as she brought both her hands down together in an overhead smash, but growled as her opponent caught her arms with his. Granted, he barely managed it, and he was visibly struggling as he held her away, but he still managed it.

"What's up with you punk?" She panted. "I thought you had something to do with the fog, but your quirk feels like a strength one!"

"Yeah, sure." Izuku grunted as sweat beaded his brow. "Something like that!"

Jess kicked his leg, breaking their stalemate, and giving her the opening she needed to sock him in the gut. Izuku coughed as the air was kicked out of him, but responded by using the proximity to bury another dose of Entropy into her shoulder.

"Give up." Izuku demanded as they stumbled away from each other.

"No!" She growled, baring her teeth and trying to ignore the weight that was seeping into her bones and eyelids. Those syringes had to have more to them than just what he'd muttered about earlier, 'cuz they sure as Hell felt like tranquilizers!

"Surrender. You're going to faint sooner or later!"

"Fuck you!"

Izuku caught the sluggish punch with his braced left arm, and swung out his right with a poor imitation of a karate chop. A bad enough imitation to be useless in a traditional fight, but perfect for directing as much force as possible to a specific location.

The attack flew horizontal, and Whip was worried it might be aiming for the neck, but it dived down at the last second.

Jess let out a scream in pain as the right side of her collarbone was cleanly snapped in two. Izuku took advantage of the brief stun to deliver an untrained but brutal uppercut, snapping her jaw shut, cutting her tongue, and rocketing the force from the impact up into her skull.

"JESS!" Mara screamed as she saw her friend topple back, barely managing to stay on her feet as her eyes went cross.

Cursing herself for not acting sooner, she swung her whip up, and threw it forward, wrapping it around the Villain's arm as he went for a followup swing. She gave a heavy pull, the line snapped taut and he stumbled to the side from the force.

This was it! She grinned smugly and morphed the water so it wrapped around her arm and couldn't be pulled from her hand. If she incapasited his arms, Jess could beat him silly without any problems!

"Mara, no! RUN!"

But Jess' warning was too late. Izuku clenched the fist of the arm she'd pulled in her direction, and three black syringes shot out from his sleeve.

Tied to him as she was, Whip couldn't dodge, and could only raise her arms uselessly as the needles dug into her skin. Almost immediately she fell to her ass as her rope that she'd been pulling on dissolved.

Jess let out a scream of bloody rage and pain, and threw the meanest haymaker on record, but the attack was too wound up, too choreographed, which allowed Izuku easily to dodge it.

Her fist flew by fast enough to kick up wind as he ducked forward. But as the punch reached its full extension he grabbed her forearm and stood up so that her elbow was braced against the back of his neck.

Then he pulled.

And Jess screamed as her arm was broken in half.

Just like last time, he took advantage of the time where she was stunned with pain, shooting her with two more syringes before socking her so hard in the temple that she crumpled to the ground.

"NO!"

The scream of desperation gave Izuku all the warning he needed to turn and catch the fist before it could hit his face.

"You monster!" Mara spat, voice dripping with venom.

"I told you to stand down!" He grunted as he yanked her arm forwards, pulling her into a knee to the ribs strong enough to crack bone.

Whip heaved, spittle flying from her lips, before she was pushed back, and a punch sent her spinning, blood flying in an arc out of her now broken nose. As she slammed into the ground, her body reflexively gasped for breath, drawing in a lungful of black fog that made her vision go fuzzy.

Bloodied and beaten, Mara whimpered as she began crawling towards Jess, desperately trying to outpace the sound of metal footsteps.

"I told you to stand down." Izuku said again, sounding emotionally tired as he slowly walked forwards. "I told you, I promised, I wouldn't harm you if you did, but you made the conscious choice to resist. You have no one to blame but yourself!"

He flipped her over with his foot and knocked her out with a swift metal-toed boot to her head.

Izuku sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, his body aching with bruises.

The hall was empty now. Completely quiet save for the sound of his rebreather rasping as it filtered the chemicals out of the air when he breathed.

"Dammnit, why couldn't they have just listened!" He cursed, slamming a hand into the wall in frustration.

He'd hoped that by dialing up his entrance, he could scare them enough to accept his offer, but noooo! They just had to have a last stand!

He dragged his hand from his hair to massage his forehead, but huffed and forced himself to move on. They weren't dead, he wasn't a murderer. The only one who truly deserved to die was Endeavor.

"It's a good thing I stored the blood vials away before coming down here. Now… where's this building's ventilation room?"

-End Chapter-

Aww, Bakugo's genuinely trying to help. Granted, it's in a very Bakugo way.

(Also, did you know he  ranked 3rd in the first Popularity Poll, and ranked 1st in the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh Popularity Polls?)

Apparently people want more Bakugo, I just don't know to what degree that mirrors my audence.

*Sips Hot Chocolate*

Yeah, when you take Shoto's quirk and look at it without the "fantasy" lens, and you start actually thinking about how the physics behind it work… yeah it's really fucking BS.

Well, lucky for y'all, and specifically set up by me, we have two of the  most powerful quirks (when you look at them from a SCIENCE! And common sense perspective) going head to head!

*Sips Hot Chocolate*

Well, obviously there's Stars & Stripes, and Eri, but shhhh, they haven't been introduced yet! Izuku's having a hard enough time figuring out how quirks work as it is right now.

Speaking of Izuku, I just now realized I never explained why I went out of the way to make him taller so long ago! My God, I'm an idiot!

He lives in a world of Mutants, Super Heroes, Giants, Nomu, and All Might. Being a flat 6 foot might be on the taller end in IRL, but it's gotta be barely average- maybe even below average, in the MHA verse.

Him slowly developing into this terrifying foe, but being stuck craning his head up at 80% of the cast is funny for a joke or two, but bad for horror. Him slowly emerging from the fog all decked out, just doesn't seem as scary when he's half the size of the person he's fighting.

*Sips Hot Chocolate*

And remember, he's a scientist who's spent most of his time in his lab. His serum may have made him stronger and more durable, but the only fight training he has is the big burst he did before and after the entrance exam. Although knowing human anatomy certainly helps in any fight.

(The body's weird. You can jump off a 15 foot wall, roll properly, and be mostly alright. But then the next day you can hit your leg the wrong way on a stair, and shatter your knee.)

He doesn't just magically get better at fighting because "plot". He had a decent amount of trouble dealing with two low level rookie Heroes from a budget school because that's the level he's at, he's not some combat efficianoto, and relies on his creations as well as his intellect. That being said, he can make some pretty nasty things, and he's damn smart, so holding his own against fourth year graduates with a hundred fold more training than him, is definitely on the table and still pretty impressive.

Well… on the table as long as they're not on Mirio & Co's BS level.

*Sips Hot Chocolate*

Anyway I had to snap this chap in half because it was getting so long, we're already at 8.5k.

Next up is the second half of the grand finale for the longest arc in this fic!

Momo and Shoto's semifinal showdown, The final happens, Izuku and Stain make their move! I finally get to write real action after 4 arcs of setup! And Cannon starts to derail!

The Trial of Fools ends and Blood Burns!

NEXT TIME ON DRAGON BALLS-  Fuck wrong show!

-Next Chap Sep 23rd~25th-

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