Rather than stewing in his own juices in the preparation room, Minoru lingered near the entrance to the arena, and thus had front-row seats to the horrific pummeling that Bakugo inflicted on Tsuyu.

  It was honestly kind of distressing. Tsuyu gave her best, but although she managed to snag Bakugo with her tongue once, the boy simply clapped both hands around it as she started to whip him towards the edge of the arena, firing off a brutal series of explosions directly into the delicate appendage, then tossing his hands behind himself and course-correcting in mid-flight as she let him go with a shout of pain.

  Tsuyu tried to jump into Bakugo to throw him out despite the injury to her tongue, but he just kept coming, slamming explosions into her face and body while managing to keep himself in mid-air.

  The match ended with Tsuyu being carted off by the medical robots and Bakugo snarling toward the booing stands.

  “…uh, and now for our next match!” called Present Mic, sounding honestly shaken. “It’s two students who just want to stick you in place: Todoroki versus Mineta!”

  Minoru and Todoroki entered the stage and took their places on opposite sides.

  While Present Mic attempted to hype the crowd up, Minoru observed Todoroki closely. The boy looked pensive and fatigued. If he whipped out another massive iceberg the way he did against Sero, Minoru honestly didn’t think he had much of a chance, but Todoroki not only didn’t look like he had another one of those in him, he was barely paying Minoru any attention at all.

  Hm. Normally, Minoru would rank Todoroki as one of his classmates he had the least chance of beating in a one-on-one, but a worn-out Todoroki? Minoru followed Todoroki’s gaze and could clearly make out the flaming Endeavor in the stands. He couldn’t remember any details, but he was pretty sure Todoroki had an extremely bad relationship with his family. He might be trying to prove something, which meant perhaps there was a reason he had been avoiding using his fire side until now.

  Minoru could use that. He had two win conditions: there was no way he was going to be able to out-fight Todoroki given the difference in size and general athletic capability between them, so that meant he either had to immobilize him or force him from the arena. Immobilization was out, because as soon as he was sufficiently threatened he would probably break out the fire, and Minoru had absolutely no counters for that.

  That meant Minoru needed Todoroki to underestimate him, he needed him off-balance so that he could position him properly, he needed to close with him while Todoroki was near the edge of the arena, and he needed to do all of that without getting caught out by Todoroki’s ice.

  Minoru rolled his eyes at himself. No problem at all, right?

  “START!” called Present Mic, and Todoroki seemed to wake up, lifting a leg and slamming it down to send a sheet of ice careening across the ground towards Minoru.

  But that was all it was; a sheet, barely big enough to cover a double sized mattress. Minoru leapt to the side, grabbing grapeshot and throwing them off near Todoroki’s right side in what he hoped looked like a frantic and futile effort, as he worked his way around the boy’s left side.

  Minoru landed, stepping quickly to keep his balance, and then paused. Todoroki was looking from him to the grapeshot he’d thrown. “What were you even aiming at?” Todoroki said.

  Minoru scowled, intentionally making the expression larger than it needed to be. “Hey, you try throwing stuff while you’re jumping through the air! Besides, you’re not doing so hot yourself. Where’s the iceberg, like you threw at poor Sero?”

  “I don’t need that much ice to deal with an annoyance like you,” snorted Todoroki, sending another sheet of ice Minoru’s way.

  Minoru vaulted this one successfully, as well, throwing out more grapeshot but this time to Todoroki’s left, some of it landing on the ice that had almost hit him.

  Todoroki didn’t give him a moment to rest however, sending yet another sheet his way as soon as he touched down. Minoru jumped to avoid it, bounced off a pair of the grapeshot he’d stuck to the previous ice floe, and flew onwards further to Todoroki’s left, forcing the boy to turn to track him.

  “Who am I fighting, Bakugo?” he called. “Way to be an arrogant prick. You’re both so intensely focused on being the best you treat the rest of us like worthless stepping stones.” He tossed out a few more grapeshot, shutting off another potential avenue of movement for Todoroki. Hopefully that was sufficient setup; time to push things into the next phase. “Well, I guess you are Endeavor’s son, after all.”

  “I am nothing like Endeavor,” Todoroki snarled, and raised his foot for what was clearly going to be a much more aggressive stomp.

  Minoru pitched a grapeshot directly towards Todoroki’s face as hard as he could, put his head down, and sprinted forward, aiming not for Todoroki but for where he inevitably had to end up as he moved to dodge the oncoming grapeshot without stepping on the other grapeshot Minoru had scattered around the arena.

  A much larger wave of ice raced toward Minoru; too big to dodge. This was what he’d been aiming for when he taunted the boy, granted, but he found himself doubting his life choices.

  Minoru snatched a pair of grapeshot off his head and dove forward in an attempt at a forward handspring. As the grapeshot impacted the burgeoning ice, the purple balls flexed, the ice already starting to shoot up around them and towards his hands. Minoru let go at the last possible second, bounced into the air just above the ice, and desperately tried to whip his legs over his head.

  He didn’t quite make a complete revolution, instead landing on his back on the ice and sliding down its incline straight towards a shocked looking Todoroki. He tucked his head into his arms just in time before he collided with Todoroki’s legs, sending the boy sprawling over him.

  Minoru desperately struggled to his feet, scrambling to stay behind Todoroki and away from his right side as Todoroki, too, reclaimed his feet. Darting forward, he punched Todoroki as hard as he could, and thanks to the height difference accidentally landed a perfect kidney shot.

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  Todoroki doubled over with a grunt, but even as he crumpled he managed to spin in place and launch a pillar of ice at Minoru. Minoru danced around him to avoid getting frozen in place, ending up again with his back to the main portion of the arena and Todoroki standing near the edge.

  This was his chance! Minoru scattered grapeshot around them to help cut off Todoroki’s ability to safely maneuver, wincing at the burn he felt from his scalp. He was getting awfully close to his limit.

  Unfortunately for him, Todoroki didn’t give Minoru time to set anything up, forcing himself upright past the pain of the kidney shot and lashing out with his right hand just as Minoru threw a grapeshot off to the side. Minoru desperately tried to redirect, but the two were too close and Todoroki brushed his hand, sending ice shooting up towards his shoulder.

  Minoru desperately threw himself backwards and completely by luck landed on a set of his grapeshot that he’d thrown out in the beginning of the fight. The grapeshot bounced him right back towards Todoroki, and Minoru swung his iced-over arm toward the boy’s face as he ripped off a grapeshot with his remaining hand without a clear idea of what to do with it.

  Todoroki, lacking anywhere safe to step without hitting a grapeshot, skipped back a step to avoid the hit, raising his right hand as he did to grab Minoru again and fully immobilize him. However, his foot came down on the grapeshot that Minoru had originally thrown at his face when Minoru was trying to force him to reposition while closing with him, and unexpectedly the purple ball compressed under his sole and then rebounded, sending him off-balance.

  As Todoroki’s right hand swept past inches away from Minoru, Minoru’s iced-over arm smacked him directly in the chest, and the boy stumbled another half step back.

  “Todoroki is out of bounds!” cried Present Mic. “Mineta advances to the final round!”

  Todoroki froze in place, a look of absolute disbelief on his face as he looked down. Sure enough, one of his feet was just across the line.

  Minoru collapsed to a seat in pure relief, casually tossing the grapeshot he held to the side in favor of cradling his iced-over arm. “I can’t believe that actually worked.” It wouldn’t have worked, actually, if that stray grapeshot of his hadn’t repelled Todoroki, and Minoru found himself staring at it. It hadn’t stuck to him, but it hadn’t stuck to Todoroki, either. What was different about that particular—

  Todoroki broke him out of his reverie. “I can’t believe this. I just lost to Mineta?!”

  Minoru simply shrugged at him where the boy towered above him.

  Todoroki visibly struggled with himself, before frowning and reaching down to thaw off Mineta’s arm. “I’d never have lost if I weren’t exhausted from my previous fights.”

  Minoru shook his head. “You’d never have lost if you were fighting me directly instead of fighting with yourself. I’ve got absolutely nothing I can do against your flame side.”

  Todoroki froze, looking like he swallowed a lemon, and Minoru stood up before pausing. “For whatever it’s worth, I honestly don’t think you’re anything like Endeavor, aside from your obsessive focus with being the best. I was trying to keep you off-balance so I’d have a chance to get close.” Todoroki also stood with a conflicted look on his face, and Minoru found himself looking up at the boy once more. “I wasn’t lying about you being arrogant, though. If you’d taken this fight seriously from the start, I probably wouldn’t have had a chance even just against your ice. If you’d iced over the whole arena again, I’d be just as trapped as Sero was.”

  Todoroki gazed at Minoru for a moment more, an expression on his face Minoru couldn’t quite place. “…Good luck in the finals,” he eventually said, and strode off towards the waiting rooms.

  Right. The finals. Minoru gingerly headed towards the side of the arena, as well. Either history was going to repeat itself and he’d have to contend with Bakugo, or else he’d be facing Yaoyorozu, and neither was feeling particularly winnable at this point.

  Those last several grapeshot had tingled like crazy coming off. He just didn’t have much left to give.

  Despite his ultimate match-up depending on the next fight, after watching Bakugo’s brutal beat-down of Tsuyu, he didn’t want to see him fight Yaoyorozu. Maybe it wasn’t very heroic of him, but Minoru was feeling completely beat, and he had the sense that if he saw a student he liked as much as Yaoyorozu getting abused he’d want to do something about it…which would inevitably lead to him getting exploded, and likely necessitating a visit to Recovery Girl. So he stayed in the waiting room with his head on the table, trying desperately to snatch what rest he could.

  Eventually, however, the match concluded with a victory for Bakugo and the crowd was still going nuts as Minoru trudged back towards the arena. From what he’d heard over the loudspeakers, the match between Yaoyorozu and Bakugo had been just as vicious as his fight against Tsuyu, but had gone on much longer. Unfortunately, Yaoyorozu wasn’t able to properly contend with Bakugo’s unrelenting aggression, and in the end was carted off the stage unconscious.

  Minoru walked up the stairs like he was approaching his execution, and Bakugo was waiting for him like the angriest executioner ever.

  “What the hell are you doing here, pipsqueak?!” snarled Bakugo as soon as Minoru came into view. “I expected I’d need to face Todoroki, or even maybe Midoriya, not one of the weakest people in our class!”

  “At last we’ve arrived!” shouted Present Mic. “The best of the best among U.A.’s first-years will be decided.”

  “Best nothing!” continued Bakugo. “You’re nothing! I’ll kill you! I don’t know how the hell you tricked Todoroki into losing, but it’s not going to work on me!”

  “It’s the final match! Mineta versus Bakugo! START!”

  Despite his trash talking, Bakugo did not come flying toward Mineta right away, and the two boys stared at one another over the open expanse of the arena.

  Minoru considered Bakugo. Today he’d been exploded by mines, electrocuted, axe-kicked into the ground, frozen, and repeatedly pummeled.

  Yeah, screw adding a second round of explosions to that list. Minoru reached up and casually pulled a grapeshot off his head, maintaining eye contact with Bakugo the whole time and doing his best not to wince. “Big talk,” he said. “But there you stand. Scared?”

  Bakugo sneered, the expression twisting his face up so much he looked like a two-bit villain. “DIE!” he screamed, launching himself into the air with one arm as he pulled back for a right hook.

  Minoru ducked the hit, did a somersault under the resulting explosion and sprinted for the nearest edge of the arena as fast as he could pump his legs, tossing the grapeshot back over his shoulder for good measure.

  Just as Bakugo successfully re-oriented himself for another pass, Minoru stepped across the line and turned to wave cheerily at the furious teen. “I forfeit! Congratulations on the win, Bakugo!”

  “WHAT?!” shrieked Bakugo, completely losing what little composure he had left. “You can’t FORFEIT! GET BACK HERE AND LET ME KILL YOU, YOU DISGUSTING PIPSQUEAK!”

  Minoru paled as Bakugo came barreling at him. With his back up against the edge of the arena, he really didn’t have anywhere else he could—

  A whip shot into the arena from off to the side, striking Bakugo mid-flight and sending the teen collapsing to the ground in an ungainly tangle, where he failed to stand back up. Minoru gradually relaxed. He’d forgotten about Midnight. She must have put Bakugo to sleep.

  The woman in question strode onto the arena. “Mineta forfeits! Bakugo wins!” She shot Minoru a look of disappointment which caused him to cringe, but he didn’t move from where he stood.

  “And that concludes our contest!” yelled Present Mic. “The first-year winner of U.A.’s sports festival is Katsuki Bakugo of Class A!”

  Minoru sighed in relief. Disappointing Midnight was upsetting, but he’d take second place without a need for Recovery Girl over being beaten to within an inch of his life any day.