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Beginning of Chapter
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The stadium trembled with noise. Todoroki's match had left the arena in ruins, and the officials had called a twenty minute break while Cementoss and the other staff frantically repaired the battlefield.
Even with the downtime, the crowd hadn't calmed. They roared with conversation, chants, and heated debate. Some praised Todoroki's bravery and the powerful super move he displayed, others could only mutter in disbelief about Gojo's regeneration and his own super move.
A twenty minute break before the last and final round. Enough time for the crowd to get snacks, breathe, and brace themselves for what was next.
GOJO SATORU VS. BAKUGO KATSUKI
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Bakugo sat on a bench in the locker room, elbows resting on his knees, palms sparking faintly as he flexed his fingers. He stared at the tiled floor, jaw tight.
"Doesn't matter what that bastard did to Half and Half," he muttered under his breath, teeth gritted. "I'll blow him to bits. I'll win. I'll—"
The door creaked. Midoriya peeked in, his usual nervous smile plastered on his face as he entered the room.
"Bakugo… that was, um, really intense earlier. Congrats on your win against Hatsu—"
Bakugo didn't even look at him. "Shut it, Deku. I do not have the time for your pity chatter. That was not even a real win, but this time, I'll show them, Ill show you and Ill show him that Im the best.."
Midoriya froze, awkwardly shifting before forcing a shaky grin as he went to his locker to put away his notepad. As he headed out of the room, he turned one final time and spoke to Bakugo, "…Good luck, then."
With those few words, he closed the door behind him, leaving Bakugo once again alone in the locker rooms with only the company of the faint buzz from the light above him.
"But... how much luck will it take?" He subconsciously said before realising what he said aloud and slapped himself.
After he slapped himself, Bakugo exhaled sharply, sparks dancing in his palms. "Damn nerd. Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I'll crush him. I'll crush Gojo."
He took a deep breath and let it out as he calmed himself down. He mentally prepared himself, going over everything he knew, what he observed, what he learnt and what the plan would be for his opponent.
He took out his phone, replaying the videos of Gojo using red and blue. Noticing how he fought and drawing conclusions from his observations.
'Keep him cocky till he slips... then he'll be nothing but another extra I put in the ground.'
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Gojo sat on a bed within the infirmary, wearing a new U.A. tracksuit jacket and a spare black shirt he had brought. Recovery Girl had practically yelled herself hoarse ordering him to at least take a check-up when he came there to ask for a favour.
On the bed nearby, Monoma layed down on one of the other beds, body and head in pain while he had bandages wrapped around his head as he stared at the ceiling. "Oi, Satoru." He called out suddenly to get his attention.
"Whats up copycat?" Gojo gave him a lazy wave as he replied.
"Fuck you." Monoma said with a flat tone, turning his head to Gojo, and even with the pain he felt in his body, he lifted his hand and gave him the middle finger.
Gojo looked at this at first before laughing. "It was simply an experiment, and it's your fault for being so trusting of me when I offered you my quirk."
Monoma looked at him with narrowed eyes before he turned around, not wanting to see his face and willing to sacrifice a few seconds of pain just to forget about the boy before him.
Suddenly the doors burst open. Endeavor stormed in, flames licking off his body, carrying Todoroki's limp form in his arms. Medical staff swarm behind him. For a heartbeat, Endeavor's glare locked onto Gojo, eyes like molten steel.
Gojo simply gave a small shrug. "Don't look at me. Kid fought well." And got up off his bed, taking a roll of bandage with him and walked out, leaving them to attend to the Pro Hero's son.
As he walked down the hallway, he unravelled the bandage. 'Damn, didn't think I could regenerate that well... could have been bad.' He chuckled to himself as he continued walking around a corner.
"Shoto Todoroki, pretty good I must say, should visit that pink-haired support girl for blindfol–" As he turned came around another turn, Gojo collided with Uraraka, who dropped the water bottle in her hand.
"Ah! Gojo! Sorry, I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking!"
Gojo patting her shoulder and gave her a thumbs up before creating a small blue orb that dragged the bottle right into his open hand. "No worries. No harm done; if I'm not wrong, I believe this is yours." He handed her the bottle.
She blinked, then grinned nervously as she accepted it. "Thanks, Oh and by the way, that fight was insane. You had everyone worried when Todoroki used that big fire move; it swall–."
Gojo laughed as she took a pause to look at him. "Worried, huh? Or were you worried?"
Her face turned pink. "I mean, we all were worried!" She tried to defend herself against the statement, clearly amusing Gojo as he had a smirk on his face.
Gojo tugged at the bandages in his hand, and started to lift them toward his eyes. Uraraka tilted her head before she spoke. "Why the bandages? Something happen to your eyes?"
He paused, smirking. "…If I don't cover them up, you might get lost in them."
She rolled her eyes, but laughed. "Wow, that was smooth as Kirishima's hardening."
They both laughed at the joke before Uraraka cleared her throat. "Well, I anyway was looking for you. You need to close your eyes, though, for this."
Gojo raised an eyebrow at her request before he shrugged. "Alright, let's... not see what you're about to do?" He let out a chuckle as he smiled.
Once Gojo closed his eyes, Uraraka reached into her pocket and pulled out the dark sunglasses he had given her before.
She activated her Quirk on the shades, making them float up. With a gentle motion, she guided the sunglasses onto his face.
Uraraka thought for a second before telling Gojo to open his eyes. As he opened his eyes, he smiled as he chuckled. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Well, when you walked off the stage, you were covering your eyes and avoiding looking around. Guessed you were overwhelmed or something without the blindfold." She explained with a smile.
Gojo adjusted them with a grin. "Seems like someone's pretty observant. This is much easier than wrapping myself like a mummy."
She laughed at that as she smirked. "Much better. Was starting to get tired of those eyes of yours, anyway."
For once, Gojo actually blinked. Then he burst out laughing. "Aw really? Now that's a jab to th–"
Before he could say more, Present Mic's booming voice echoed through the halls. "NEXT UP, GOJO SATORU VS. BAKUGO KATSUKI! FIGHTERS TO THE ARENA!"
Uraraka took the bandages from Satoru's hand. "Good luck! Now go before you lose by forfeit!"
Gojo shook his head as he chuckled. "Save it. Bakugo's the one who'll need luck." And with that, he vanished, nothing but a faint hue of Blue and a ripple in space she felt and he was gone.
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"INN THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE STAGE FOLKS, WE HAVE OUR FIRST CONTESTER FOR FIRST PLACE, THE EXPLOSIVE STICK OF DYNAMITE HIMSELF! BAAKUGO KATSUKII!" Present Mic shouted into the microphone, hyping up the crowd.
Bakugo stomped out first onto the stage. He stood with his arms crossed against his chest. The crowd gave a mixed reactions as few gave cheers, some gave boos, with plenty of dismissive voices shouting things like 'Just hand Gojo the medal already!'
Bakugo ignored them, jaw tight, eyes burning with fury. 'I'll show all these extras I'm the one who'll get the medal...'
"AAAND ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE BATTLE FIELD, WE HAVE YOUR FAVOURITE OVERPOWERED FIGHTER, SOMEONE WHO MAKES THIS CROWD GO INSANE, SATORUU GOJOO!"
Prsent Mic screamed with all his might into the microphone, not concerning himself with the trivial things of whether people having gone sightly deaf with the constant shouting.
Gojo stepped onto the stage. Wearing his new tracksuit jacket and sunglasses that gleamed beneath the stadium light. The crowd's reaction was instant, deafening cheers, chants of his name, like he was a superstar.
Bakugo's lip curled.
At the booth, Midnight raised her whip. "FIGHTERS, ARE YOU READY?"
Gojo smiled across the arena. "I'll keep Infinity off. Make it more fun."
Bakugo's eyes widened. "The hell? Use it, bastard! I'll beat you at your best!"
Gojo shook his head. "Nah. How about this; make me use it? What do you say?"
Bakugo's snarl turned into a grin. "Fine. Don't you dare regret it."
"AND FIGHT!" Midnight announced.
In an instant, Bakugo blasted forward, explosions propelling hinself forward like a missile. Gojo sidestepped casually, tapping him in the ribs with an open palm. Bakugo staggered, then launched another blast point blank as he spun around.
The stage shook with smoke and noise. The crowd gasped as smoke flooded the field, only for Gojo to be seen bending backwards, still smiling as the smoke cleared. Sunglasses already been blown off as well as his hair moving around due to the wind from Bakugo's explosions.
"You're fast. But not fast enough." Gojo threw a punch into his gut; Bakugo too close to blast himself away and instead braced himself for it.
Bakugo felt the pain from the hit, he blasted himself backwards before dashing across the stage to clear the distance.
As he turned around and looked back, he wiped blood from his lip. 'Okay, need to get back to hand to hand combat; he can't use those flashy red or blue in close quarters. They leave him wide open,' he thought to himself.
Gojo motioned for Bakugo to come closer with his hands. "Come on, man, don't leave me hanging."
Bakugo growled before he flexed his fingers and detonated multiple smaller explosions to dash at him, Gojo running towards him as well with an enormous grin spreading across his face.
When they met in the middle, Bakugo let out a roar as he trusted an open palm to Gojo, firing a massive explosion to push him back; all it did was give Gojo an opening as he warped behind him. The crowd screamed as the two began trading blow after blow, like a street fight cranked to inhuman levels.
Bakugo used his explosions to keep up with Gojo's hand to hand combat speed and strength, Gojo directing each of his palm strikes to the sides to avoid the hits.
Then Gojo caught Bakugo's wrist in one hand. His other hand glowed crimson, the telltale sign of Red.
Bakugo's eyes widened, but at the last second he used his free hand to detonate a blast to send him flying above Gojo and yanked his hand free, dodging as the beam shot past. "HAH! Thought I wouldn't notice? That thing only goes straight, dumbass!"
The crowd erupted, bakugo had actually read him.
Gojo's grin widened. "Oh? You've been paying attention." He ran a hand through his hair, his glasses long time blown off his face from Bakugo's explosions.
Once again, the two then rushed at each other, the two monsters of Class 1-A fighting one another for the first place as if a territorial battle between two bears being unfolded right before the spectators' eyes.
As the clash turned brutal, Bakugo slowly adapted. His wild swings tightening, his explosions became sharper. He even started managing to block some of Gojo's strikes, though he still couldn't land a clean hit.
Until Gojo's foot slammed into his stomach. Bakugo's body lifted off the ground, the air forced out of his lungs.
Then the air shifted. Bakugo felt it, the pull. Behind him, a Blue orb tore open the air, sucking violently as it ascended upwards.
"Shit!" He turned and saw Gojo on the other side of the stage, realising in the moment he kicked him. He fired that behind him as well.
Bakugo gritted his teeth and began blasting his explosions in his hands towards it, using the force of the explosions as thrusters to stabilize himself mid-air and try to escape its pull.
The orb suddenly vanished, and he dropped to the ground, able to land kneeling down using his explosions from his palms. Sweat dripped down his face as he was kneeling on the ground; the pain from his arms finally screamed to him for the moment.
He panted, forcing a grin. "Youre pretty good, like you said. Guess you're not all talk. This is fun."
Gojo tilted his head. "Fishing for compliments? Or stalling to rest your arms?"
Bakugo's eyes widened as he tried to play it off. "What do you–"
Gojo tapped his temple. "I'm not stupid. You're a fighter. Why would you suddenly wanna chat?"
Bakugo clicked his tongue. "…Tch. Damn it." Still, he smirked. "Then I'll end it with one move."
Gojo stretched and rolled his shoulders, a smile on his face. "Fine. Just remember, you're going to lose."
"I'd love to see you try to take the gold away from me!" he shouted. With a guttural roar, he blasted towards Gojo.
In response, Gojo quickly created a red orb and flung it towards him, but Bakugo expected this and suddenly changed his direction skyward, rising high above the arena with each explosion propelling him forward.
Bakugo soared, smoke trailing behind him as he propelled upward with explosions above the stadium, then twisted in the air. His palms sparked violently, the nitroglycerin sweat igniting in unstable bursts. Fury and resolve twisted his face, and he bared his teeth like a wild beast.
"I'LL KILL YOU!" he roared, flames detonating against his own skin as he began his descent, spinning like a corkscrew, with both palms sparking violently and channeling everything into this single, devastating strike.
From below, the crowd gasped. Some were already on their feet, eyes locked on Bakugo as he descended like a blazing meteor.
Satoru stood on the ground looking up with a massive grin on his face; he threw his arms to the side as he let out a crazed laugh.
"HOWITZER—" Bakugo began shouting at the top of his lungs.
'This is it... This is my perfect victory...' Bakugo thought to himself as he descended down to fire the final blow.
People in the stands leaned forward as one, holding their breath. When Bakugo was expected to land, the stadium itself seemed like it would split apart.
"HE'S GOING FOR IT!" Present Mic screamed into the mic, voice cracking with hype. "SATORU GOJO IS STANDING AND LAUGHING LIKE A MADMAN, WAITING FOR WHAT APPEARS TO BE BAKUGO'S ULTIMATE!"
'That's right... I win!'
"IMPAAC–"
In the instant before Bakugo unleashed his finishing blow, his body jolted midair. A crushing force slammed into his side, back, forcing his dive to accelerate out of control as he lost full control of his explosions.
His body flung to the side uncontrollably, and he plummeted to the ground, doubling his momentum. His arms suffered when he slammed into it, but it didn't spare him a second before dragging him into the air.
A large blue vortex pulled him into the air high above Gojo. Bakugo was clearly pain and weak. The violent explosions he showed earlier were smaller and weaker than before.
Once the blue vortex disappeared once again, he headed straight for the ground and tried to use his numbed arms to brace himself.
Suddenly, Gojo's hand grabbed him before he crashed into the air, and spun him around before once again throwing him upward using a detonating red to his chest, blasting him into the air again.
Bakugo struggled to breathe as that last attack took out all the air he had. He could do nothing but free fall onto the stage once again, desperately trying to activate a strong enough explosion to at least buy him a few seconds.
Bakugo was stuck in his thoughts, thinking where he went wrong, where everyhing went wrong, to where he was being used like a yo-yo in the air, being flung up and falling down. 'Damn it… I almost had him... no, I'll–!
Satoru stood directly below him, his right arm having a faint blue hue to it as he readied a punch to the falling bloodied Bakugo.
"Do not fear Bakugo. Why?–" he began speaking, with a low and feral tone, the large grin plastered across his face would be the last sight Bakugo saw.
Bakugo tried desperately to move his arms to blast himself away from Satoru, but the pain numbed his arms to the point he couldn't even feel his fingers.
"Because... I. Am. Here."
Gojo's punch met Bakugo's chest mid-fall, cutting short his scream of rage. The impact cracked like thunder; the combined force of Bakugo's dive and Gojo's punch gave the force needed to basically take out Bakugo in one hit in that moment.
Gojo stood with one arm in the air, Bakugo's body folded over his raised fist, his other arm down at his side and hair covering his eyes as Bakugo's limbs dangled down from his limp body.
People gasped, winced, and some even turned away from the brutal finish Gojo did to Bakugo.
Gojo put his hand down; Bakugo fell onto the ground beside Gojo, not moving at all.
Silence.
And suddenly the stadium exploded in cheers.
"SATORU GOJO, IS THE WINNER!" Present Mic's voice shook the stadium as the crowd cheered on.
"GOJO! GOJO! GOJO!"
"He's unstoppable!"
"That was amazing!"
Some screamed his name in awe, others in terror. Others screamed out comments and opinions they had.
"Is this kid even human?" a parent asked as she held her child.
Pro Heroes exchanged wary looks, surprised at the brutality and perhaps even at the humiliation of his victory over Bakugo.
Up in the stands, Midoriya gripped his notebook he ran to grabb during the fight from the locker rooms so tightly his knuckles went white. "He… he manipulated the Red to curve around… like a boomerang… then Blue to destabilise his mobility and increase the momentum… that was… a perfect finish."
"That was so insane! He matched him; Bakugo came so close but so far away from victory." Kaminari exclaimed, the intensity of the fight making him overloading with excitment in his chair.
Even Aizawa couldn't hide a faint twitch of surprise. "…He didn't just win. To bait him into using that move, to even saying the one line he probably knew would piss off Bakugo." He shook his head.
Gojo straightened his jacket and dusted off his shoulders, eyes glinting under the lights. He turned around and used a small blue orb and threw it to the side to drag the sunglasses to him, seeing the one eyeglass cracked.
He put it in his pocket and walked off the stage, raising his fist to the air as the audience roared louder than ever
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End of Chapter
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