Instead of stepping off the arena though, what he did was much worse. He took a running start and then jumped his way up the stands.
Yes. The stands. But not just any other stand, no. This place? Is exactly the place where where Class 1B resided in. He dropped squatting on the ledge with an infuriating smirk looking at them.
Immediately, the tension rose and their glares intensified. He looked at each and everyone before dropping into their midst.
"What? Going to stop me?"
He chuckled and shoulder checked the nearest person as he brazenly walked off. Their eyes followed him unable to do anything.
To be completely honest, there was no reason for him to be this arrogant towards these people.
Or is there?
It was a few days ago during training when he encountered Class B for the second time. They were mad about the brainwash thing, especially Tetsutetsu who felt like he was lied to. Of course nothing happened then, until this blonde guy opened his mouth, that is.
Saying something about watching out and that Class 1B "would beat them".
The result? Almost none of Class 1B got in if not for the Battle Tournament needing 16 participants and the need to replace Iida. It is shameful of course, and Yoshiki was there for it. On another note, the guy he shoulder checked was also that same dude. Monoma Tate... something was his name? Quite frankly he doesn't care.
He was almost out of range but suddenly, his shoulders were grabbed. He doesn't feel any threat so he let it be. As he looked back, he saw Tetsutetsu holding his shoulder. He raised an eyebrow as if asking 'what is it'.
Tetsutetsu's grip hardened and with gritted teeth, he asked.
"Was it necessary?"
"Huh? What was?"
His grip tightened so Yoshiki grabbed and squeezed. Tetsutetsu's Quirk activated but everyone could hear the metal groaning under pressure. Tetsutetsu was the most shocked out of all them, of course.
"You were already this strong... and I know for sure you have combat training." he said, taking a breath.
"Was it really necessary for the follow up hits?!" he all but roared in Yoshiki's face.
Yoshiki headbutted him, his head being blown back and his grip slipped, letting Yoshiki free. His classmates gathered around him glaring daggers at Yoshiki, they were ready to fight him but a big hand blocked their path.
"That's enough." she looked at him with hostility but still managed to form a cool head.
"Please leave." she said to him, even bowing slightly.
"Ha!" Yoshiki couldn't help but let out a laugh. "Whatever, losers." He turned around and waved them off with his middle finger.
---
{FOOOOLLLLKKKSSSSSSSS!!!! ARE! YOU! READDYYYY?!!!!!}
YEEEEAAAHHHH!!!!
{I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!!!}
YYYEEEEAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!
{I STILL CAN'T–}
There was a sound of a thick skull being hit by another mic which silenced the loud man on the mic.
{Ahem!!! Okay, let's start with the Semi Finals!!!}
Whatever that was, it seemed to mellow down Present Mic's voice.
Everybody was rearing to go. The following fights are gonna be great.
Present Mic had called the next fighters in.
The stadium lights burned across the arena floor as the crowd roared with restless anticipation. Heat shimmered above the concrete battlefield from the scorching afternoon sun, Present Mic's voice thundered through the speakers, but the audience barely listened anymore. Every eye had settled on the two boys stepping through opposite gates.
On one side stood Todoroki, calm and unreadable, red and white hair stirring faintly in the breeze of the open stadium. Daddy issues by the way.
On the other stood Bakugo Katsuki.
In another universe, he's just an arrogant asshole who bullies people for fun and thinks so highly of himself. That universe is this... Well then, he's not the hotheaded.. erm... forget it.
This is Katsuki.
His shoulders stayed loose. His breathing remained measured. Even his palms, already sweating nitroglycerin, hung relaxed at his sides instead of twitching with impatience. The years of martial arts training had carved away every wasted movement. Since he was a kid, he had spent years learning how his explosions worked alongside his body instead of simply erupting around it.
His Quirk had evolved so much. It is now a weapon of mass destruction unlike his child counterpart that could only cause sparks.
Yoshiki watched from the stands with narrowed eyes. He looked slightly tense, Izuku beside him gripped the railing hard enough for his fingers to ache. He knew Katsuki better than anyone there. Or he'd like to believe he does. Perhaps Yoshiki?
And he knew Todoroki had no idea what was coming.
"BEGIN!"
The instant Midnight dropped her arm, ice exploded across the arena.
Todoroki wasted no time. A glacier burst forward like a tidal wave, jagged towers of frost surging to swallow the battlefield whole.
The crowd gasped.
Katsuki vanished.
A sharp explosion cracked through the arena, not from panic but from controlled propulsion. Katsuki shot low across the ground at blinding speed, one hand grazing the concrete for balance while the other blasted him sideways. The ice missed him by inches.
Another explosion.
Another angle.
He moved like a ricocheting bullet. Or... a bouncing bomb..?
Todoroki's eyes widened slightly as Bakugo closed the distance almost instantly. Most opponents retreated from his ice, or perhaps get overwhelmed by it but Bakugo used it like terrain.
A spinning kick came first.
Bakugo launched himself upward with a burst from his palm and rotated violently through the air, heel slamming toward Todoroki's temple with explosive acceleration behind it.
Todoroki blocked with an ice wall.
Bakugo grinned.
"Too slow."
BOOM.
The explosion erupted not from Bakugo's palm but from the instant his heel connected with the ice. Sweat ignited from the sole of his boot, detonating point blank. The wall shattered apart.
The crowd gasped.
"He can use explosion from his feet?!"
Even Yoshiki seemed resigned at this point. "I know right? How fucking unfair, really."
Bakugo emerged through the debris already striking.
Elbow powered by an explosion.
Palm strike that became miniature explosions.
Knee boosted by another explosion.
Every hit flowed into the next with terrifying fluidity. Small explosions burst alongside his attacks, not wild enough to destroy but timed perfectly to amplify impact and momentum. Todoroki barely managed to retreat, his defense crumbling as Bakugo pressed into his guard relentlessly.
The crowd erupted.
"He's fighting up close against Todoroki?!"
"No, look closer!"
"He's using the explosions to boost his strikes!"
Todoroki slid backward on fresh ice, creating distance at last. His right side flashed white and another massive wave surged outward.
Katsuki slammed both palms downward.
BOOM.
The explosion launched him high into the air before the ice could trap him. Midair, he twisted sharply, explosions firing in short controlled bursts behind him. You could say he is now flying. It's like Gran Torino but Muslim.
Todoroki tracked him carefully now with gritted teeth. He thought it would be easy to bait Katsuki due to his explosive behavior.
He can see that he was wrong this time.
Bakugo was not charging recklessly.
He was like a predator hunting its prey.
A spear of ice shot upward toward Katsuki's blind spot.
Katsuki spun in midair and blasted sideways, avoiding it by centimeters before diving directly toward Todoroki. His right hand exploded once behind him like a jet engine.
Acceleration screamed through the stadium.
Todoroki crossed his arms.
An enormous ice barricade erupted upward.
Katsuki hit it head-on.
The audience expected another explosion.
Instead Katsuki planted one foot against the ice and ran across the vertical surface. His heated feet from explosions provided traction on the ice.
Gasps spread through the crowd.
Controlled detonations burst from his hands and feet in alternating rhythms, allowing him to sprint along the frozen wall sideways. He looked menacing from that angle but it looked like he was a lizard to Yoshiki.
Then he descended.
Axe kick.
BOOM.
The ice beneath Todoroki fractured apart from the amplified strike, forcing Todoroki off balance.
Katsuki instantly capitalized.
His shoulder slammed into Todoroki's chest with an explosive burst behind it.
Todoroki flew backward. Before he could recover, Katsuki appeared again.
Too fast.
Too aggressive.
Too disciplined.
Bakugo's fists blurred through combinations sharpened by years of sparring. Hooks driven by explosions. Feints masked by smoke bursts. Sweeps enhanced by propulsion.
Todoroki blocked what he could, but each impact forced him farther backward.
Then Katsuki changed rhythm.
Mid-combination, he dropped low and swept Todoroki's leg.
The half-cold half-hot prodigy hit the ground hard.
Katsuki's palm ignited instantly toward Todoroki's face.
"Use your fire."
The words came cold and absolute.
Todoroki froze.
Bakugo's eyes burned with fury.
"I'm not here to beat half of you."
A smaller explosion detonated beside Todoroki's head, scorching the concrete without touching him.
A warning.
The stadium fell silent.
Memories flashed through Todoroki's mind. His father's expectations. The years of abuse. The promise to reject Endeavor completely.
But beneath all of it stood the boy glaring down at him now.
Bakugo was acknowledging him completely.
Not looking down on him.
Not pitying him.
Demanding everything.
Another explosion burst as Todoroki rolled away from a follow-up strike. Ice pillars erupted around Katsuki, but this time he did not evade immediately. He blasted straight through one, debris shredding across his shirt.
"You think I trained all these years to fight someone holding back?!"
He launched forward again.
Todoroki countered with ice faster than before, sharper than before. The arena transformed into a frozen maze.
Katsuki dodged them all and blasted off what he can't.
He weaved through narrow openings with explosive bursts. Every movement conserved momentum.
Then Todoroki saw it.
Sweat vapor.
Bakugo had filled sections of the battlefield with lingering explosive residue during his movements.
The realization came too late.
Bakugo clapped both hands together.
"AP SHOT."
A concentrated explosion ripped through the air like a cannon round, detonating the trapped vapor around Todoroki in a chain reaction. Smoke and fire engulfed the center arena.
[Hell yeah, it's not magic. It's??]
(Science!!!)
The audience screamed.
Out of the smoke, a wall of flames exploded upward.
Heat crashed across the stadium.
"SHOOOOOTOOOOOO!!!!"
Yeah, I wonder who that was?
Todoroki stood within the inferno, fire roaring violently from his left side at last.
Katsuki grinned ferociously.
"There you are."
The final clash shook the stadium.
Ice and fire surged together while explosions tore through the air like thunder. Katsuki blitzed through pillars of flame using explosive propulsion while Todoroki unleashed overwhelming waves of heat and frost to corner him.
Neither gave ground.
Katsuki's combat efficiency and animalistic instincts gave him an advantage in forcing brutal close combat exchanges. Todoroki answered with increasingly devastating quirk output, reshaping the battlefield itself.
Concrete melted due to the heat.
Steam engulfed the arena.
The crowd could barely follow the movement anymore.
Then both attacked at once.
Todoroki unleashed a massive dual-sided eruption of ice and fire.
Katsuki drove himself directly into it with a deafening explosion behind his back, every ounce of stored sweat igniting simultaneously.
The collision detonated across the stadium.
For several seconds nothing could be seen beyond smoke and steam.
When the haze finally cleared, both boys stood barely upright near the edge of the ring.
Katsuki's uniform was in taters, burn marks across his body and his hands were throbbing in pain.
Todoroki breathed heavily, frost and heat flickering unstably around him.
They stared at each other.
Then Katsuki moved first.
One final step.
One final explosive burst.
A straight punch slammed into Todoroki's guard with perfect precision and explosive force concentrated into a single point.
The impact launched Todoroki backward out of bounds.
Silence hit the stadium.
Then the crowd erupted so violently the arena trembled.
Katsuki stood alone in the ring, chest heaving, smoke rising from his body.
"RRRAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!"
Winner: Bakugo Katsuki!!!
––––
Man, the explosion on feet thing was kinda nice isn't it? I mean, I saw in the last arc, his explosions had nowhere to go so those explosive speed happened due to it exploding inside him... which made no sense whatsoever. He should've died from it to be honest. So I thought, huh. It's just sweat right? Nytroglycerin sweat but sweat nonetheless. Then I thought about Soldier Boy and was like "Oh shit, he can be a nuclear boy can't he?" but like, that's optimistic, that would amount to a Vegeta Last Stand type of thing so I thought about this one instead. Feet propeller. I believe some fanfics already done this. At least those who cared about Katsuki.