Feeling Hot And Cold With A Hint Of Floating(Completed)

2| Teamwork makes the scheme work

They get paired up by Aizawa for their next school battle.

For a school like U.A. the training activities can be as extreme as the USJ or as simple as the sports festival. This particular project required the two-person teams to be the last ones standing under a specific time limit. The catch: the room was split into different terrains.

Shoto glanced over at Ochako who was sitting next to him looking increasingly nervous and unsure.

"Let's do our best, yeah?" she offered with a smile.

It was definitely an interesting match-up that he hadn't expected. He hadn't had much exposure to her anti-gravity quirk, either.

Though to be honest he didn't really know if their quirks were compatible, or how they could be used together.

"It looks like the goal is to use the environment to our advantage and work together to either stay hidden or fight," Shoto mused.

Her eyes widened with realization. "As expected of Todoroki to have figured it out so quickly!"she praised. The cute brunette looked fired up, her eyes flashing with determination.

"We can do this!"

______________________

The next few days were filled with duch intensity and unspoken competition between the students in Class 1-A. Bakugou looked especially fierce and explosive as he paraded around the school, sneering at anyone he crossed paths with. Even Midoriya managed to seem even more resolute than usual.

So on the day of the terrain battle, everyone was eager to show off their teamwork and power.

As the starting bell sounded, Shoto and Ochako bolted deep into the forest, away from the open clearing. "Todoroki! Right here!" she yelled, grabbing his hand and activating her quirk, floating with him to the higher branches of a particularly tall tree.

Aizawa had stressed teamwork and quick thinking, as he thought some students did extremely well when faced with situations head-on but struggled to work smarter and not necessarily harder (or more explosively, he had pointedly added making Bakugou growled in response).

The half icy half hot boy was well aware that Bakugou wasn't the only student who used combat as a crutch for thoughtlessness. He had brought it up very early in their discussions of possible game plans. Ochako, who was very much the type to shy away from head-on fights, suggested that they lay low until confronted with the need for a head-on fight and allowed the others to find and take each other down first.

But first, she defended Bakugou saying "He's far from being thoughtless when it comes to combat! Actually he's quite the tactician. Unlike Deku though who writes his plans out, Bakugou just... Thinks for a quick minute and then very soon he's got a brilliant strategy formulated"

"Right" was all Shoto managed to say.

They landed safely on a branch and climbed over the top layers of leaves to look over the terrain of the battlefield. Uraraka had suggested using her quirk to rise to the nearest tall object and understanding the layout of the room before making other decisions.

She thought Todoroki using his ice to fly was too dangerous, as other teams would be able to find traces of their location easily with the amount of evidence he left behind.

With a better view of the whole terrain, Shoto could now see that the room was split into four sections.

A forest, a lake, a rocky mountain, and a desert. The teams had been placed in different areas of the room to start, and he could spot some explosions already happening near the desert area and some freak lightning storms at the lake area.

"We aren't going to be very useful near the lake, and we should probably avoid the desert as well," Shoto commented. "They're already fighting."

Ochako nodded in agreement. "Bakugou's gonna hunt down as many teams as he can with brute force," she added tendely. "We have to let him do the work for us"

During their team meetings, the young Todoroki was pleasantly surprised to find how observant and shrewd Uraraka was about understanding people's psyches and reactions to different situations.

She had been particularly vocal about what she thought to be the "smartest way to win the battle" which was to piggyback on Bakugou's extremely headstrong nature

"Bakugou's not gonna hide," Uraraka had insisted. "He's going to plunder around until he finds another team, and basically provide an open invitation to his location! But he's strong so he'll find a way to break those that he fights head-on."

"Midoriya, on the other hand, is really smart and tactful. He'll find a way to defeat the teams that he encounters. Plus, he has Yaoyaorozu, so they'll be quick and efficient." Shoto had realized.

"Exactly" Uraraka had nodded. "And in the end, Bakugou's always unconsciously looking to fight Deku! So that'll bring the final fight right to us" she had finished.

"8 minutes left on the clock!" Present Mic's voice boomed through the building. "Only 6 teams left in the running!"

"6 teams? Bakugou's relentless" Todoroki muttered under his breath.

Uraraka surveyed the area. "The forest was my first choice to hideout," she stated. "But we really have to watch out for--!"

A hawk quickly swooped by, almost hitting the dual haired boy in the face before he dodged, ice springing from his fingertips and knocking the bird down beneath them.

"--That! They found us!" The brunette shouted, pointing in the direction of a distant rumble. "Koda got his animals to find us, and Tokoyami's on our tail!"

Dark Shadow emerged from the forest, heading straight for Todoroki. Ochako jumped and floated out of the way, as Todoroki felt the beginnings of the flames licking his left arm. "I guess you've forgotten about your weakness, Tokoyami" Todoroki deadpanned.

He released a torrent of fire so bright Uraraka had to look away before running toward the clearing out of the forest.

She panted, slowly looking around her.

The rocky mountain area.

It didn't seem inhabited, though.

"They're down" he stated, running up from behind her. Dark Shadow had been easily incapacitated by his burning fire.

She turned to look at him, before the color started draining from her face.

"Uraraka?" he looked confused at her response, before pivoting to look behind him. The entire forest was burning with bright, orange, angry flames.

"Did you have to burn the entire forest down?" she asked, exasperated. "We have a bigger problem now, they know where we are."

Crap. He didn't really think of that while he was incinerating Tokoyami's team. "There must be something we can do with this terrain," he said, looking around.

Uraraka looked conflicted for a moment, before meeting his eyes determinedly. "I think I have an idea," she said.