Pressure || Shoto Todoroki x Reader

Chapter Nineteen

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You knew that the U.A. sports festival was supposed to be challenging. But not lightning-fast lazer-drone challenging. You quickly jumped, before stepping on one that whizzed by. Unfortunately, another one just bowled you over. You breathed in and out. Remember the plan.

You quickly concentrated on gathering as much water as you could. Ribbons of water rose up around you like snakes as you held your hands in a praying-like fashion. Quickly, you focused on pushing the particles close to each other. Now the density was increased, you closed your eyes and focused on weaving the water ribbons together. That was one thing you were grateful that the boarding school had taught you. Quickly, you tied the ribbons' ends around the tall pillars. However, just as a drone launched itself at the wall, it shot a laser, evaporating just enough particles to make an opening to pass through.

"WHAT?!" You exclaimed in disbelief.

You gathered the water again, trying another strategy. If you couldn't trick them, you'd have to manually catch them. Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed that Shoto was having the same melting problem. In the distance, a pink-haired girl from the support course was grinning as she was lightly picking them up with an invention. She was announcing it to the audience.

"AND THIS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, IS MY NEW BABY, THE CLAWS 3000! FULLY EQUIPPED FOR EVERY SITUATION, MADE BY ME, MEI HATSUME!"

You tried to drown her out, propelling yourself towards a disk. With accuracy, you stepped on it so it couldn't escape, and quickly shoved it in your bag, where it instantly deactivated. You sighed - one down. However, with only three minutes out of the five given ones, time was running out. You were going to have to go all out.

This was going to make you very dehydrated, but you had no choice. Even Shoto's bag was starting to look full. You made a finger gun with one of your hands, and gathered a solid mass of water particles. They were small, but you had to be accurate - these were potentially dangerous.

A drone launched itself at you. You aimed, and shot the solid metal of the disc. Luckily, it wasn't dented, and instead went flying into the air. You quickly used a bubble to capture it and put it in your bag. It took you ten seconds. 

You rose in the air, moving at almost the same speed as the discs. You continued the process, quickly catching the creatures. It wasn't long until there were only 30 seconds left on the timer. You suddenly felt yourself being thrown back by an explosion, hitting the ground and skidding across the ground. That's when you realised - where was your bag?!

Your felt light-headed from the impact, but began to search rapidly. You needed it... you'd lose without it! As the last ten seconds counted down, you saw it - sitting on top of a disc. In your weakened state, you propelled yourself forward. You could almost reach it... If you just jumped for it... using up the last of your energy, you spurted forward and grabbed it just in time.

"Tiiiiiime's up, competitors!" Midnight announced. "Please don't try to put any more in your bag. We fitted counters so we'd know if you cheated. Now, to announce the winners! Please gather according to your classes."

You sighed, standing up. Only now were you aware of a dull throbbing in your forehead. You noticed a surprised Shoto jogging over to you. You didn't realise why he looked suprised until you saw your reflection in a puddle. There was a cut across your forehead, slowly dripping blood. Shoto looked concerned.

"(Y/N), are you okay? What happened?"

You smiled.

"Oh, it's nothing. I'll just go see Recovery Girl in a minute - shall we go see the results?"  

Shoto nodded, and you both walked over to the scoreboard. You smiled - Shoto was in fourth place, and you were the eleventh. In first place was Mei, the loud inventor from the support course, and surprisingly, Mineta had come in second. In third was Momo. You didn't really look at the rest, but noted that Bakugo, Izuku and Ochaco had made it through. Midnight spoke up.

"Well done everyone! Now, we're going to take a ten-minute break due to the amount of injuries we have here, so please go get yourself patched up. Then we'll continue with the next round!"

You sighed in relief, before walking over to the line in front of Recovery Girl. Usually you'd just bandage it and brush it off, but you needed to be in peak physical condition for the next round. Many people in front of you had worse injuries - one girl seemed to have agressive burns on her hand. She had obviously tried to grab a disc. You noticed Shoto looking at your injury.

"What is it?"

"There are no burn marks, so it wasn't a disk. How did you cut yourself?"

You shrugged your shoulders. You were trying to play it down like it didn't hurt, but it did hurt, a lot. Even now your vision still wasn't clear. 

"It's not that bad - an explosion threw me backwards and I hit my head. I almost lost my bag of discs."

You realised that it was probably Bakugo that unintentionally did it. An emotion flashed across Shoto's face - too fast for you to decipher - but you noticed it. Shoto had a dark patch slowly growing on his arm.

"Shoto, what's that?"

"It's nothing."

You grabbed Shoto's wrist and pulled back his sleeve. A bruise was showing up underneath a nasty graze, and blood was seeping out. It was too painful to not notice - you blushed as you realised that he was probably too concerned about you to deal with his own injury. You let go of his wrist as Recovery Girl beckoned you forward. You and Shoto walked to her, healing in preparation for the next round.