Era

39

Todoroki Shouto was cold. Really, really cold. Ever since his first match he'd felt that insistent chill build up in the spaces between his joints, numbing his fingertips, freezing even the air in his lungs until he swore that the next time he breathed it would be in billowing puffs of cool mist.

But that was just discomfort. The cold wouldn't hurt him, burn him in the same way his father's quirk had so many times before. Between matches he warmed himself as much as he dared, allowing the faintest burst of heat to flare along his left side before smothering it just as quickly. Not long now, anyway. It was almost over, and he could prove once and for all that he didn't need it. Even as it festered in his blood and burned feverish at his skin he didn't need it.

Shouto tuned out the crowd the moment he stepped out onto the field. Their excitement was unwarranted anyway—this match was going to be an embarrassment. Tokoyami and Iida, at least, had put up a fight. But the former had an extremely impressive and versatile quirk, and the latter had both power, and the blood and bearing of a hero.

What did this Suzuki have, he wondered? A couple of flashbangs and a paint gun at her back? That might have helped her in the first two asinine events but here it was about power. He had it, she didn't. That was the way of things.

He sounded like his father. The thought brought an unwelcome flash of heat along the left side of his face and he swiftly stomped it down. So what if he did? Just because the man was a monster didn't mean he wasn't right about some things. He was, after all, almost the top-ranked hero in the country.

Todoroki repressed a smirk at that. Almost.

Looking across at Suzuki revealed nothing to him. She was of average height and bearing, although beneath her gear she did appear a bit bulkier than most, more well-muscled. Her skin was an almost sickly pale, as if she didn't get enough sunlight, and her hair was not only mussed and tangled with dirt from the previous events but was also a complete mess to start with—hacked short with little finesse. She looked mostly Japanese, but there was a touch of something else in there that he couldn't identify. After the introduction of quirks features had begun to fluctuate wildly and... it became difficult to tell. The eyes, though, those stood out to him. Pale blue and ice cold.

In those brief moments before the match began, she looked angry. Not the snarling rage of Bakugou or the righteous fury of his father... it was quiet. Betrayed only by the faintest twitch of muscle on her face.

Probably distraught because she knows she will lose this fight. Shouto abandoned his brief analysis and sought out his father in the stands.

He'd thought her a support student in the obstacle course, but had later learned that she was actually from General Studies. Because of course she was. Of course he couldn't face Midoriya in the finals, or Bakugou or Tokoyami or any number of strong, qualified candidates. Of course he got stuck with the gen-ed student who hadn't presented a quirk to the crowd all festival.

It wasn't difficult to find his father, but looking at him... Shouto felt heat flare up along his side before clenching his jaw and forcing his gaze away. It was just so... so unfair.

How was he supposed to prove himself like this? Against a gen-ed student who seemed to have broken her only weapon, if the unnatural twist of metal at her back was anything to go by? This match was going to be over in a second, and then he'd just be left feeling the same way he did after his fight with Sero; cold and tired and weak and shaky and just so... angry. A restless sort of heat that simmered beneath his skin until he smothered it with ice and frost.