Chapter 44: The Father's Curse, The Son's Fire
The battle of attrition had reached its brutal, grinding zenith. The arena was no longer a simple concrete stage; it had been utterly transformed into a hostile, alien landscape. It was a glacial labyrinth, a chaotic forest of towering, razor-sharp ice pillars and treacherous, frozen canyons. The air was frigid, and the breath of the hundred thousand spectators plumed in the air as if they were watching a battle at the summit of a winter mountain.
Through this frozen hell, a single, crimson blur moved with a relentless, desperate energy. Rock Lee, his body wreathed in the fiery red aura of the Third Gate, was a force of pure, kinetic will. He leaped from one icy precipice to another, his feet skidding but never failing, his fists and feet shattering the smaller ice constructs that erupted in his path. The effort was immense, and a thick cloud of steam billowed from his overheated body, a stark contrast to the frozen world around him.
But for every wall he broke, Shoto Todoroki created two more.
The prodigy of ice stood in the center of his frozen domain, a remote and untouchable king in his castle of ice. But the king was beginning to falter. A thick, tell-tale layer of frost was creeping up his right arm, covering his uniform in a crystalline shell. It snaked its way up his neck and onto his right cheek, a beautiful but terrifying sign of his own power turning against him. His movements, once so fluid and economical, were becoming sluggish, his reaction time a fraction of a second slower. His breath came in ragged, white puffs, and a violent, uncontrollable shiver wracked his body. He was reaching his limit.
He watched Lee, who was also panting, clearly exhausted, a small cut bleeding on his cheek from a stray ice shard. But his eyes… Todoroki stared into those dark, utterly resolute eyes from across the battlefield, and he saw no sign of yielding. There was no fear. There was no doubt. There was only the same, insane, unwavering fire that had burned within them from the very start. Lee was in pain, but he was not stopping. He would never stop.
And in the face of that unbreakable will, the ice around Shoto Todoroki's heart began to crack.
The image of Lee, tired but relentless, blurred and shifted in his mind's eye. Suddenly, he was no longer in the stadium. He was a small, terrified child, standing in a sterile, white training room. He saw his own small hands, one covered in frost, the other sparking with tiny, uncontrolled flames.
He saw his mother, her face streaked with tears, her eyes filled with a pain that he was too young to understand. He heard her desperate whisper on the phone, the words that had been seared into his soul: "I can't take it anymore… his left side is sometimes unsightly to me…"
He felt a phantom, searing heat on his face. The smell of boiling water. The sound of his own childhood scream.
Then the vision shifted. He saw his father. Not the Number Two Hero the world saw, but a monstrous, terrifying figure made of roaring, possessive flame. He felt the phantom pain of their brutal training, the roar of Endeavor's voice shaking his very bones. "Stand up, Shoto! You are not some fragile doll! You are my masterpiece, destined to surpass All Might! You will use the power I have given you!"
His entire life had been a rebellion against that voice, against that fire. His vow to use only his mother's ice was his singular act of defiance, the foundation of his entire identity. He would become number one using only his own power, rejecting the cursed blood that flowed through his veins.
But as he stood there, shivering, his body failing him, he looked at Rock Lee. He looked at the Quirkless boy, the anomaly, the boy who had been born with nothing. And yet, that boy was fighting with his entire being. He was holding nothing back. He was offering every last drop of his sweat, his will, his very life force, for the sake of victory.
My pride, Todoroki thought, a wave of cold, startling clarity washing over him. My vow… it's just another chain. I built a prison for myself to spite him, and I have been sitting in it my entire life. He looked at Lee, who had just shattered another ice wall and was now closer than he had ever been. And this boy… this boy with nothing but his own two hands… he is freer than I have ever been.
A single, desperate thought, simpler and more honest than any he had allowed himself in years, rose from the depths of his soul.
I… I want to win, too.
He looked at Rock Lee, and for the first time, he did not see a stepping stone, a nameless obstacle on his path of rebellion. He saw a rival. A true rival, who deserved nothing less than everything he had to give.
He took a deep, shuddering breath, and made his choice.
"Thank you, Lee," he whispered, the words lost in the wind.
And then, he unleashed the storm.
It was not a gradual warming. It was an eruption. A violent, cathartic, and utterly magnificent explosion of pure, untamed power. A brilliant, swirling vortex of orange and red fire erupted from his left side, a power that had been suppressed for a decade, a raging inferno that had finally been set free.
The effect was instantaneous and absolute.
The frost covering his body vaporized in a hiss of steam. The colossal, arena-spanning forest of ice that he had created, his beautiful, frozen fortress, melted in a matter of seconds. The glacier turned into a flash flood, a raging torrent of boiling water and thick, billowing mist that engulfed the entire stage. The sudden, violent shift in temperature created a massive pressure wave that rolled through the stadium, a hot, humid wind that washed over the stunned faces of the hundred thousand spectators.
The crowd, which had been watching the grinding stalemate, let out a collective, disbelieving roar.
"FLAMES! HE'S USING HIS FLAMES! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! TODOROKI IS USING HIS FIRE!"
In the stands, Endeavor, who had been watching with a frustrated scowl, shot to his feet. His own flames flared violently, his face contorted into a mask of wild, possessive, and terrifyingly proud triumph.
"YES!" his voice roared, a sound of pure, unadulterated victory that overpowered even the crowd. "SHOOOOOTOOOOO! FINALLY! YOU HAVE FINALLY ACCEPTED YOUR TRUE PURPOSE! YOU HAVE CAST OFF YOUR PETTY REBELLION! IT ALL STARTS NOW! GO FORTH! SURPASS ME, AND FULFILL THE AMBITION I PLACED WITHIN MY OWN BLOOD!"
On the far side of the now steaming, water-logged arena, Rock Lee stood, the boiling water swirling around his ankles. He raised an arm to shield his face from the intense, suffocating wave of heat. The red aura of the Third Gate pulsed around him, fighting against the oppressive temperature.
He watched as the last of the great glaciers turned to mist, revealing Shoto Todoroki standing in the center of it all, a living yin and yang of power. His right side was still coated in a faint, frosty aura. His left side was wreathed in a brilliant, raging inferno. He was no longer a prodigy of ice. He was a master of the elements, a perfect and terrible engine of destruction.
Lee saw the fire. He saw the raw, untamed power that could incinerate him in a second. But more than that, he looked at Todoroki's face. He saw the tears steaming on his cheek, he saw the look of agonizing release, of a boy who was finally, for the first time, fighting with his whole being.
And Rock Lee smiled.
It was not a smile of confidence. It was not a smile of arrogance. It was a wide, thrilled, and utterly fearless smile of pure, unadulterated joy. This was what he had wanted. Not a victory against half an opponent, but a true battle, a true test of his will against his rival's absolute, full power.
He raised his hands, his dark eyes burning with a fire of their own. Slowly, deliberately, he began to unwind the white bandages from his wrists, letting the streamers fall into the steaming water at his feet.
He was accepting the challenge. And he was about to raise the stakes one last, glorious time.