Chapter 29: Ice vs Explosions.
The fifteen-minute intermission felt like fifteen seconds.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" Present Mic's voice boomed, the speakers trembling with the sheer volume. "WELCOME TO THE MAIN EVENT! THE PINNACLE OF THE FIRST YEARS! THE FINAL BATTLE!"
The crowd roared, a wave of fifty thousand voices screaming in anticipation.
"FROM THE EAST TUNNEL! THE MAN WHO FROZE THE MONSTER IN The USJ! THE ICE BOY WHO STOPPED TODOROKI'S FIRE! THE UNBEATEN KUZAN AOKIJI!"
Aokiji walked out. He wasn't slouching. His hands were out of his pockets. His UA suit was torn and singed from the Todoroki fight, a testament to the fact that he was no longer untouchable. His expression unreadable, but his black eyes were sharp.
"AND FROM THE WEST TUNNEL! THE KING OF DESTRUCTION! THE MAN WHO BLASTED HIS WAY TO THE TOP! THE EXPLOSION MONSTER, KATSUKI BAKUGO!"
Bakugo stomped onto the field. His eyes were glowing crimson, radiating a killing intent so palpable it felt like heat. He stopped ten meters from Aokiji, baring his teeth in a feral grin.
"Finally," Bakugo growled, small sparks dancing from his palms. "I get to melt that smug look off your face, Ice Scum."
"You're loud," Aokiji said quietly. He cracked his neck, the sound echoing strangely in the vast space. "Let's get this over with. I badly wanna back home."
Midnight raised her whip high. The tension was agonizing.
"START!"
BOOM.
Bakugo didn't take a step. He blasted the ground behind him with both hands, launching himself forward like a missile. He cleared the ten meters in a fraction of a second.
Aokiji's eyes widened slightly. Fast.
Bakugo was in his face. His right palm, glowing like a miniature sun, slapped onto Aokiji's face, covering his nose and mouth.
"Gotcha!" Bakugo roared.
Aokiji tried to sublimate. His skin began to crack into ice shards.
"NO YOU WON'T!" Bakugo screamed. "DIE!"
KABOOM!
A massive, point-blank explosion engulfed Aokiji's head. Black smoke billowed outward. Aokiji was lifted off his feet and thrown backward. He tumbled end over end across the concrete, sliding toward the boundary line.
"HE BLASTED HIM IN THE FACE!" Present Mic yelled. "WHAT A START!"
Bakugo landed, grinning. "How does that taste, huh?!"
The smoke cleared around the tumbling figure. Just before Aokiji could cross the line, his hand slapped the ground.
SWOOSH.
A ramp of smooth ice instantly formed beneath him. Instead of tumbling out, he slid up the ramp, skating across the ice as it is continuing to grow and flow beneath him. Then launching himself into the air in a wide arc. He was twenty meters up, looking down at Bakugo.
Aokiji wiped a small trickle of blood from his nose with his thumb. His eyes were annoyed.
"Arara," Aokiji murmured, "You really are a barbarian. No finesse at all."
The air around him began to shimmer, glinting with diamond dust as the temperature plummeted.
Bakugo looked up, sparks flying from his hands. "GET DOWN HERE AND FIGHT, COWARD!"
He aimed both hands at the sky, ready to blow up everything.
Aokiji didn't wait. He thrust his hand down.
"Ice Block: Crystal Ball!"
The air around Bakugo glimmered with cold.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK.
Bakugo was instantly encased in a thick, crystalline sphere of ice. He looked like an insect trapped in amber, his face frozen mid-scream, hands aimed at the sky.
"FROZEN!" Present Mic yelled. "BAKUGO IS A POPSICLE! IS IT OVER?!"
The crowd gasped. It had happened so fast.
Aokiji landed softly on the arena floor. He walked toward the ice sphere.
CREAK.
A spiderweb crack appeared on the surface of the ice sphere.
Aokiji stopped.
The cracks glowed orange.
BOOM!
The ice sphere shattered from the inside out, exploding into a million glittering shards. Bakugo burst out of the wreckage, surrounded by steam and smoke, breathing hard but grinning maniacally.
"NICE TRY, ICY!" Bakugo shouted, blasting himself forward again. "BUT YOUR FRIDGE TRICKS DON'T WORK ON ME!"
"Annoying," Aokiji muttered.
Bakugo was on him again. He unleashed a flurry of rapid-fire explosions, aiming high, low, left, right.
Aokiji was forced on the defensive. He raised walls of ice, but Bakugo blew them apart instantly. He tried to dodge by turning into mist, but the heat of the explosions kept forcing him back into solid form.
He was being pushed back, step by step.
"What's the matter?!" Bakugo taunted, landing a glancing blow on Aokiji's shoulder, singeing the suit. "Where's that big talk now?! Fight back!"
Aokiji blocked an explosion with a thick arm of ice, which shattered on impact. He used the momentum to backflip away, creating distance.
He stood near the edge, analyzing.
He's different from Todoroki, Aokiji thought, his eyes scanning the frost on the ground. Todoroki's fire was external. He could melt the ice on his skin. But Bakugo...
Aokiji noticed something. On Bakugo's shoulders and legs, there were patches of thin frost that hadn't melted yet.
He creates explosions from his sweat, Aokiji realized. But his body itself isn't immune to cold. He can blow up the ice, but he can't melt it smoothly. If I can freeze him faster than he can ignite his sweat...
"Hey, Bakugo," Aokiji called out, his breath a white cloud. "You're sweating."
Bakugo paused, wiping his forehead. "So what? It just means more ammo!"
"Well," Aokiji said, raising his hand. "Let's see about it."
Aokiji flicked his wrist.
"COLD STORM: PRISON VORTEX."
The miniature tornado of absolute zero, the same move that defeated Todoroki, formed in Aokiji's hand. He hurled it at Bakugo.
"HE'S USING THE FINISHER!" Present Mic shouted. "THE VORTEX THAT EXTINGUISHED TODOROKI!"
Bakugo didn't try to dodge. He stood his ground, facing the oncoming storm.
"YOU THINK THE SAME TRICK WILL WORK TWICE?!"
The cold vortex swallowed Bakugo whole, and a brittle crust of ice began to spread across his arms and clothes.
Bakugo stretched his hands out wide—one to the right, one to the left—forcing his frozen muscles to move.
BOOOOM!!
The blasts tore into the cold vortex. They didn't just hit it; they ripped it apart. The sheer concussive force overwhelmed the cold air, disrupting the spiral and blowing the storm into harmless mist.
"HE BLEW UP THE STORM!" Mineta shrieked from the stands.
"His firepower is insane!" Midoriya gasped. "He overpowered the cold with brute force!"
"This blasts are a big problem for Kuzan-kun. I'm not sure if he can win this one." Yaoyorozu said.
Bakugo blasted through the dissipating mist, closing the distance again. "I TOLD YOU! YOUR TRICKS ARE USELESS!"
Aokiji stood his ground. The cold air was swirling around him, a physical aura of frost.
"Useless, huh?" Aokiji murmured.
He crouched low, placing both hands on the concrete floor.
"Let's see you blow this up."
"ICE AGE: PERMAFROST WAVE."
This wasn't a projectile. This wasn't a storm. It was an environmental shift.
Aokiji released a massive, omni-directional wave of ground-based freezing. The concrete floor instantly turned white. The frost spread faster than a running man, racing toward Bakugo, covering the entire arena floor in a split second and climbing up the stadium walls toward the terrified audience.
The air temperature in the entire stadium crashed to sub-zero levels.
Bakugo was mid-charge. His feet touched the ice.
FLASH.
The freeze was instantaneous. The ice didn't just grab his feet; it surged up his legs, encased his torso, covered his arms, and sealed his face in a thick, jagged coffin of ice.
For the second time, Katsuki Bakugo was a statue. But this time, he wasn't in a sphere. He was frozen mid-stride, a monument to his own aggression.
The stadium went silent, save for the howling of the cold wind.
Present Mic's teeth chattered violently into the microphone. "H-H-H-HE'S FROZEN AGAIN! THE WHOLE ARENA IS A ICE RINK! IT'S... IT'S SO COLD!"
Aokiji slowly stood up. Thick frost covered his neck and shoulders. His breath was a dense fog. He walked toward the frozen Bakugo, his shoes crunching on the ice.
"I figured as much," Aokiji whispered, looking at Bakugo's frozen face. "Your body can't keep up with my ice. You can blow it up if it's coming at you, but if I freeze the environment... you're stuck."
He tapped the ice statue.
"Well, referee? Is he immobilized?"
Midnight looked at the statue, shivering. She raised her hand.
CRACK.
A sound came from the statue.
Aokiji paused.
CRACK-SNAP-POP.
Spiderweb fractures appeared all over Bakugo's icy prison. But they weren't white cracks. They glowed a deep, angry orange.
Steam began to hiss from the cracks.
"No way..." Kaminari breathed.
KABOOOOOOOM!
The statue didn't just break; it detonated. A massive explosion, centered on Bakugo's body, blasted the ice outward in a shower of deadly shrapnel. Black smoke billowed up, obscuring everything.
Bakugo stood in the crater, panting, his uniform torn, frost clinging to his hair. He was shivering violently, but his eyes were burning brighter than ever.
"DID YOU THINK..." Bakugo wheezed, grinning like a demon. "THAT A LITTLE COLD... WOULD STOP ME?!"
He blasted himself forward, ignoring the cold.
"You're persistent," Aokiji sighed.
Aokiji raised his hands. Moisture in the air condensed rapidly.
"ICE BLOCK: PARTISAN GIANT!"
He created four massive, telephone-pole-sized spears of ice and launched them at Bakugo.
Bakugo blasted them out of the air with precision, not slowing down.
"DIE! DIE! DIE!"
He reached Aokiji. He threw a right hook, heavy with explosive power.
Aokiji stepped back, his body dissolving into mist to let the punch pass through. He reformed behind Bakugo.
Bakugo spun around instantly, landing a backhand blast that caught Aokiji on the side of the head, sending him reeling.
"I can see you!" Bakugo roared. "You can't hide!"
Aokiji wiped blood from his lip. "This is getting annoying."
He snapped his fingers.
Five perfect ice clones of himself rose from the floor surrounding Bakugo. They weren't detailed; they were faceless blue ice sculptures, each holding an ice saber.
"GET HIM!" Aokiji ordered.
The clones rushed Bakugo simultaneously.
"TRASH!" Bakugo yelled. He jumped straight up, spinning in the air. "HOWITZER IMPACT: OMNI-DIRECTIONAL!"
He released a blast in a 360-degree radius. The five ice clones shattered instantly into snow.
Bakugo was high in the air now, looking down at Aokiji near the edge of the ring.
"I'm finishing this!" Bakugo shouted.
He began to spin, gathering momentum, creating a massive vortex of wind and explosions. He was a human tornado of fire, descending rapidly toward Aokiji.
"He's using the big one!" Kirishima yelled. "Kuzan has to move!"
Aokiji looked up at the descending destruction. He didn't run.
He placed both hands on the ground in front of him.
"ICE WALL: GIGANTES!"
A massive, thick wall of ice roared upward from the ground, towering twenty meters high, directly in Bakugo's path.
KABOOOOOM!
Bakugo's Howitzer Impact slammed into the top of the ice wall. The collision shook the entire stadium. Ice shards rained down like meteors.
The wall held for a second, then began to crack under the insane pressure and heat.
"BREAK!" Bakugo screamed, pouring everything into the blast.
The wall shattered. The explosion blasted through, hitting the ground right in front of Aokiji.
The shockwave blew Aokiji backward. For not leaving te arena, he created an ice wall behind him, then crushing it with his back. He slid down, sitting near the white line, coughing. His suit was in rags.
Bakugo landed in the center of the ring, panting, smoke rising from his entire body. He glared at the fallen Aokiji.
"Get up," Bakugo growled. "I know you're not done."
Aokiji slowly pushed himself up. He looked at Bakugo, then at the stands, then at his sister and father in the VIP box who was watching with stony silence.
"You're right," Aokiji said, his voice hoarse. He stood up, swaying slightly. "I'm not done."
Bakugo grinned. "Good. Then let's—"
"Bakugo."
Aokiji interrupted him. The temperature in the stadium began to drop again, but this time it felt different. It wasn't a violent freeze; it was a deep, quiet, bone-chilling cold.
Aokiji's breath came out in thick white clouds that lingered in the air. Frost began to creep up his neck, covering his jaw.
"I don't have ambition like you and the rest of the students. But now, in this moment, I remembered someone, and I want her to watch brother winning.."
He raised his right hand slowly. The air around his fingers began to distort, as if reality itself was freezing.
He looked up, his black eyes piercing through the smoke. Then he spread his fingers wide.
Bakugo felt a chill run down his spine. It wasn't the cold air; it was pure instinct screaming at him that something terrifying was about to happen.
"I'm going to end this," Bakugo yelled, trying to shake off the fear. He aimed both hands at Aokiji, sparks flying, ready to unleash his biggest explosion yet. "I'll incinerate everything!"
His hands glowed brighter than ever, two miniature stars of orange destruction.
Aokiji didn't move. He just whispered a name.
"Sayuri's Flower."
He closed his hand.
The wind in the stadium HOWLED. It wasn't a normal wind; it was a vacuum, sucking all the heat, all the energy, all the sound out of the air.
From the ground beneath Bakugo, something began to grow.
It wasn't a spike. It wasn't a wall. It was beautiful.
A single, massive, intricate flower made of diamond-hard ice blossomed from the concrete. Its petals, each one thick and razor-sharp, unfurled with terrifying speed.
Bakugo tried to fire his explosion, but the cold hit him first.
FLASH.
The flower consumed him. The petals wrapped around his body, closing in on him like a giant, frozen Venus flytrap. The cold was absolute. It froze the sweat on his skin instantly. It froze the nitroglycerin in his palms. It froze the very air in his lungs.
Bakugo's eyes widened in shock. He couldn't move. He couldn't speak. He couldn't ignite a spark.
The flower kept growing. It towered over the stadium, a glittering, crystalline monument that reached higher than the stands. Its icy roots cracked the arena floor from end to end. Its frozen petals spread out, casting a shadow over the entire audience.
The stadium was dead silent. No one breathed.
Outside the stadium, Mt. Lady dropped her sandwich. She stared up at the ice flower that was visible even from the street, glittering in the sunlight.
"What in the world is that?" she whispered.
Inside the VIP box, Sayuri Kuzan stood up, tears streaming down her face. She recognized it. It was the same little ice flower her brother used to make for her when she was sad—only this one was the size of a building.
Beside her, Soichiro Kuzan stood up slowly. A rare, genuine smile spread across his face.
"Magnificent," he whispered. "A perfect demonstration of the product."
In the ring, the giant flower stood silent. Inside its translucent center, Katsuki Bakugo was visible, frozen in a pose of pure rage, his glowing hands dimmed to nothing.
Aokiji stood at the base of the flower. Half of his face was covered in a thick mask of ice. His UA sport suit was frozen stiff.
He touched a petal of the giant flower gently.
"This..." Aokiji whispered, his breath frosting the air. "Is my love. It's not passionate like fire. It's not loud like an explosion. But it endures."
He looked up at the frozen Bakugo.
"It won't break easily."
Midnight stared at the spectacle, stunned. She checked her monitor. Bakugo's vitals were dropping rapidly due to the extreme cold. He was completely immobilized.
She raised her hand, her voice shaking.
"B-BAKUGO KATSUKI IS IMMOBILIZED!"
The silence held for one more second.
"KUZAN AOKIJI WINS! HE IS THE CHAMPION OF THE U.A. SPORTS FESTIVAL!"
The stadium erupted. It wasn't just cheers; it was a release of pure awe and shock.
Class 1-A jumped to their feet, screaming. Midoriya was smiling. Uraraka was cheering. Mineta was fainting.
In the ring, Aokiji let out a long, shaky exhale. The ice mask on his face cracked and fell away.
He slumped down, sitting on the cold concrete, leaning his back against the giant ice flower he had created.
"Finally," he murmured, closing his eyes as the adrenaline faded. "Now I can sleep."
His final, calm smile became the image of the day, broadcast across all of Japan.
.
.
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