Chapter 46: Ice and Sand, Heart and Legacy
The moment Midnight's signal was given, the temperature in the stadium plummeted. Shoto Todoroki did not wait. He did not posture. He attacked. With a single, decisive stomp of his right foot, he sent a colossal, jagged glacier of ice screaming across the ring. It was not a wave; it was an avalanche of crystalline spears, each one as sharp as surgical steel, designed to overwhelm, impale, and utterly dominate his opponent in the first second of the match.
The crowd roared, a sound of awe and shock at the immediate, overwhelming display of power.
Gaara stood his ground. He did not move. He did not flinch. He simply raised a hand, and the sand answered. A golden tsunami erupted from the ground before him, a chattering, hissing wall of grit and stone that met the charging glacier head-on. The sound of the impact was a deafening, grinding shriek, the sound of a thousand panes of glass being ground into dust. Ice shattered. Sand scattered. A massive cloud of frigid, gritty mist filled the air, obscuring the ring from view.
When it cleared, the battlefield had been transformed. The pristine concrete stage was gone, replaced by a chaotic, alien landscape of shattered ice mountains and rolling, miniature sand dunes. The two combatants stood on opposite sides, their expressions unchanged, the sheer scale of their opening exchange having created a palpable, heavy silence in the arena.
Todoroki attacked again, this time sending a more focused barrage of sharp, piercing ice javelins. Gaara's sand flowed like water, forming a series of layered, shifting shields that caught and absorbed each projectile. It was a beautiful, terrifying dance of absolute offense versus absolute defense.
In a brief lull between attacks, Gaara spoke, his voice quiet but carrying clearly across the ravaged ring. "Your father is Endeavor. His power is flame. Yet you only use ice." He tilted his head, his gaze analytical. "Why do you fight with only half of yourself?"
The question, so direct and logically sound, struck Todoroki harder than any physical blow. His face, which had been a mask of cold focus, twisted into a snarl of pure, unrestrained fury. "You know nothing.." he said, and the ice he unleashed was different. It was more vicious, more chaotic, less controlled. "I will never," he added, sending another glacier tearing across the ground, "give that man the satisfaction of using his power!"
The sand rose to meet the assault, a silent, impassive guardian. "Power is power," Gaara replied, his tone as flat and unchanging as a desert horizon. "Its purpose is to protect the body. Its origin is irrelevant."
"Don't worry," Todoroki spat, a bitter, arrogant edge to his voice. "You haven't even been able to overcome my ice yet."
High in the stands, Endeavor watched, his massive arms crossed, his face a mask of simmering displeasure. Foolish child, he thought, his own flames burning hotter with irritation. Stop this petulant display and crush him with the power I gave you! Show the world your true, undeniable superiority!
In his private viewing box, Toshinori leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his expression deeply troubled. He saw two boys, both trapped by their pasts, fighting a battle that was about so much more than a school festival.
Down with the Class 1-A students, the tension was unbearable.
"They seem so evenly matched!" Uraraka said, her hands clasped nervously. "This is so intense…"
Midoriya, his bandaged hands resting in his lap, shook his head, his analytical eyes darting back and forth, tracking every shard of ice, every ripple of sand. "No…" he said, his voice low and worried. "Look closer. Gaara-kun is at a disadvantage." Uraraka looked at him, confused. "Todoroki-kun's ice is sharp and piercing. It's not like my smashes, which are blunt force. Gaara's sand is made of individual particles, so it's naturally weaker against thousands of sharp, piercing points than it is against a single, powerful blow. To block every single one of those ice spikes, his sand has to be denser, faster, and more responsive. He's using far more energy just to maintain a stalemate."
In the ring, Todoroki felt his own frustration mounting. This boy… this impassive, untouchable wall of sand… it was infuriating. Fueled by Gaara's probing questions and his father's burning gaze, he decided to end it.
He drew upon his power, pulling the heat from the air around him. The temperature dropped even further. The ground around him was covered in a thick, creeping layer of frost. He was gathering everything he had, all of his cold fury, all of his rebellious pride, into one final, overwhelming assault.
He thrust both of his hands forward, and unleashed a tidal wave of jagged, crystalline spears, a blizzard of pure, destructive intent that covered the entire width of the ring.
Gaara saw it coming. A massive, perfectly formed wall of sand, thicker and denser than any he had created before, rose to meet the charge. For a moment, it held. The sound of a million ice shards shattering against the sand was a deafening roar.
But this time, it was different.
As Midoriya had predicted, the sharpest, densest points of the attack did not break. They pierced. Hundreds of tiny, dark spots appeared on the surface of the golden wall as the tips of the ice spears punched through.
Instinct, older and faster than thought, took over. The sand of the wall collapsed, flowing back and instantly forming the seamless, perfect sphere of his ultimate defense around Gaara's body.
The sound of the remaining ice shards impacting the sphere was like a hailstorm on a metal roof. Inside, Gaara was encased in a world of quiet, swirling sand and absolute safety. He was untouchable.
Then came a high-pitched, resonant CRACK.
He felt it before he saw it. A sudden, sharp, and impossibly alien cold blossomed in his left shoulder. He looked down.
Protruding from his own flesh was the jagged, crystalline tip of an ice spear. It had found a micro-fracture in his sphere, a single, momentary point of lesser density, and had punched through. Dark, crimson blood, a color he had not seen on his own body in years, was welling up around the point of entry, staining the shoulder of his gym uniform and dripping onto the sandy floor of his private world.
The world outside, the crowd, the fight—it all vanished. His entire universe contracted to that single, impossible point of violation.
A sound ripped its way from his throat, a sound that was not a roar of anger, but a raw, terrified, and agonized scream of pure, psychological horror that was broadcast across the entire stadium.
"My blood…! IT'S MY BLOOD!!!"
In the announcer's booth, Aizawa's body went rigid. His eyes widened in horror. A fractured, chaotic memory of the USJ—of that same, broken scream, of the sand raging with a murderous, uncontrollable will—flashed through his mind.
No… this is the trigger. The breaking point, Aizawa thought, his heart pounding with a sudden, dreadful certainty. If he loses control now… if he rampages, just like at the USJ… then it's all over.
This is where he fails the test.
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