Another wall suddenly shot forward at his right side, enclosing him off, with only the way behind him open to the air.
He understood what was about to happen next.
...
Then, as the wall in front of him began shooting towards him, preparing to push him towards the edge of the arena, he sprang sideways to the left, into the first wall of ice, and putting his entire strength into it, he hit the wall with a punch of the same force he had used when he hit Rhino in the face.
The wall of ice, a solid mass of frozen liquid exploded from the impact, and, Izuku sprang through the hole, barely avoiding the surging wall.
Then, he jumped up, and unto what was essentially now a giant block of ice. At the side of the arena, the wall of ice Todoroki had pushed forward below trying to force Izuku out of bounds, crashed to the ground outside the arena.
As he landed on top of the wall, he had expected Todoroki to be standing ready for a new attack. Instead, the boy was moving quickly to the right, and as he jumped across the edge of the block, he created a block of ice that in Izuku's opinion looked like a frozen wave, one which he rode down unto the arena, turning around in the process, facing Izuku as he stood on top of the block of Ice.
Right by where he now stood facing Izuku, Midnight was standing slightly to the side, looking strangely excited by the battle in front of her. In the background Present Mic was saying something loud, the crowd cheered, and somehow Izuku once more managed to single out the voice that was Mina Ashido, though in this case, he could also hear Uraraka.
As he stood there looking down at Shoto, Izuku took in the sight of the boy.
Izuku had considered attack Todoroki as he moved, but instead had halted his attack, letting him move. He had thought he had seen something in Shoto's movements, and now as he looked down at him, he had confirmed what he thought he had seen.
The boy was shivering.
-Seems he wasn't as much of a pushover without his fire as we thought he'd be.-
Izuku narrowed his eyes.
No… He saw the path forward. The path to victory.
He muttered his plans to Venom, asking a question. Venom replied in an affirmative, then gave a quick summary, to which the teenager nodded.
"Midnight-Sensei!" Izuku called out the teacher who judged the match.
As he talked, the mass around his hands began to expand, bubble, compress and prepare for what he was planning next.
"Please get behind Todoroki-San! It is the only place that will be safe in a bit!"
Midnight stiffened, then, her grin became a strange mixture between curious, and excited, and she promptly walked behind Shoto, not asking another question.
Shoto for his part stood on alert, standing ready for whatever Izuku was planning. He seemed to be on the defensive now, not eager to attack as he had just been a short while before. Izuku was pretty sure he knew why that was.
Izuku stood there, letting the liquid around his hands expand freely.
Shoto watched his hands, clearly worried about what it was Izuku was planning.
Izuku was counting on it.
Quick as a snake, Izuku ripped his leg upward, a chunk of ice still stuck to the bottom of it thanks to him still willing the black piece of his suit to hold to the ice he was standing on, the way it did when he was climbing.
The ice that he ripped out wasn't that large, maybe a bit smaller than a basketball.
Izuku let go, then using quite some force, he kicked it, shattering it into a hundred pieces, all of them aimed in the direction towards Shoto.
Instantly, a wall of ice shot up in front of him, making the pieces of ice bounce off of it harmlessly.
That was fine though. The ice attack had just been a distraction.
Izuku whirled his hands to the sides and downwards, spraying the ice block, not with a thin but solid line of web, but instead a much thinner, less compressed layer of black.
The entire top was coated, but instead of that being it, the black mass instead kept expanding, moving around the block of ice, coating the sides in a thin layer of black.
Izuku jumped down the side Shoto was, hitting the ground, as the wall of ice Shoto had used to protect himself fell forward, having been pushed to give Shoto clear sight.
Again, he didn't immediately attack, as he had at the start. Chunks of ice clung to his skin, in particular his right arm.
Amazingly, this entire fight had only gone on for 2-3 minutes tops so far. In those two minutes, Izuku had now glimpsed a fatal weakness in Todoroki Shoto's ice abilities.
"You're not used to firing off massive attack after attack in rapid succession are you?" Izuku said. Loudly.
Todoroki tensed but didn't reply. Behind him, Venom kept replicating around the block of ice through a line of black from Izuku's leg, slowly but surely painting the entire block of ice into a dark, black color.
"I never really noticed it before now, because you always tend to finish things in a flash, but after each exercise or battle I've ever seen you do, you use your fire to melt your own ice."
"You aren't able to handle the cold without it overwhelming you. Your powers work in a symbiotic way. You use your fire to make sure the cold in your body doesn't overwhelm you. I'm guessing your fire powers work in the same way with your ice."
-We're done.-
Izuku quickly stepped back, his arms shooting up and backwards, his palms landing flat against the giant block of ice.
His hands dug into the ice, and he slammed his right foot forward, putting the upper part of his body into it, as he pulled with his arms and, heaved. With relative ease, he lifted the entire block of ice up, and over his head. The black mass coating everything but the bottom, as Izuku had hoped, prevented the thing from just breaking apart under it's own weight along the lines of the 4 pieces of ice the block was made off.
As Izuku stood there, lifting the entire thing over his head, he couldn't help but think that this thing was surprisingly light, given it was essentially the size of his family's apartment.
To his credit, Shoto made his next move before Izuku was done throwing the gigantic mass of ice at him.
A giant wall of ice shot up in front of him, as a shield against the flying pieces of ice.
The projectile and the wall, both exploded into a gigantic shower of ice, coating the part of the arena Izuku had been standing on, in a hail of sharp pieces of frozen liquid and dust.
Not that Izuku had anything to fear, as he jumped up high, avoiding the entire thing.
As he slammed into the ground again, he jumped backwards, putting some distance between him and Shoto.
In front of him, the gigantic piece of ice Shoto had summoned to protect himself, had held, but was also massively cracked.
Then, as he watched, the entire thing shattered as another burst of moving ice shot forward at him!
He dodged to the side, avoiding the attack, which just kept going out of the arena, slamming into the wall before it finally stopped. It did so at a much slower pace than his previous attacks.
In front of him, at the other side of the arena stood Shoto, and behind him Midnight, who again seemed to be rather impressed with the battle so far.
The projectile hadn't done any physical damage to either of them, just as Izuku had known it wouldn't, but his goal with it had been reached.
Shoto, who had just now been shivering, and covered in ice, was now full-on shaking, with chunks of frost and ice stuck to his entire right side.
While the size of the wall was probably a factor, the main problem as Izuku had already determined, was the way he fired off huge scale attacks, rapidly, without any time in between.
If he just used his fire to heat up his right side, none of this would be a problem of course, but just like endeavor said, he wasn't using his flames at all during this battle.
Izuku could see the way to victory. All he had to do was keep forcing him to use his powers in rapid succession to defend himself, and sooner or later Shoto would be left defenceless.
Easy, simple, and safe.
And yet…
"Why aren't you using your fire powers?" He asked loudly, just a bit of anger creeping into his voice.
Shoto stiffened, then, the normally stoic boy growled.
'Why do you care?"
"You're going to lose. Badly. You've got NO chance of winning this fight without using your fire powers."
Shoto's expression turned from a stoic look, into something feral, his teeth gritted, and his face and eyes becoming a beacon of anger.
"I'm NOT going to use my fires for battle. I'm gonna reach the top without giving my father an inch of satisfaction!"
"What, so you're gonna half-ass it instead?" Izuku said, real anger beginning to boil in him.
...
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