Chapter 13

₊˚⊹✷ 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐄𝐍.
⤷ ice versus gravity.

THE STADIUM VIBRATED with an electric buzz as Odasaku Edogawa stepped into the arena, the sunlight slicing across the concrete in long white bars. The crowd roared, but their voices felt far away, muffled behind the dull rush of blood in Oda’s ears. His hands remained shoved deep in the pockets of his uniform pants, thumbs hooked against the seams.

Across the ring, Shoto Todoroki emerged from the opposite tunnel.

And even from a distance, Oda could see the exhaustion clinging to him. Todoroki had been given a new uniform, cause his last one hadn’t been fire proof and had nearly burned away in his fight against Midoriya. His left side radiated nothing—not a flicker of heat, not a wisp of steam.  As though he’d shoved every part of his father into a locked box and thrown away the key.

Present Mic screamed something about “TWO POWERHOUSE RECOMMENDATION STUDENTS, BOTH IN THE FINAL FOUR” but Oda barely heard it. His gaze locked on Todoroki’s in the center of the stadium while the crowd chanted both their names.

Todoroki stopped walking ten paces from Oda and inhaled, long and measured.

Midnight raised an arm, the whip at her hip gleaming in the sun. 

“BEGIN!”

And Todoroki didn’t hesitate.

A wave of ice exploded from beneath his right foot, erupting forward like a glacier tearing out of the earth. Oda had seen that attack four times already today—saw how it swallowed half the arena when Todoroki had launched it at Midoriya—but it still hit with such sudden, violent force that the ground shook beneath his shoes.

Oda reacted instantly.

The concrete cracked under him as his quirk roared to life in a vein of red light, and a circular slab of arena floor tore upward like he’d yanked it free by invisible chains. Gravity bent around him as he levitated with the slab, letting the ice smash harmlessly beneath him, sending shards exploding into the air.

“Predictable,” Oda muttered under his breath.

But Todoroki didn’t pause.

A second wave of ice surged out, taller and sharper, and Oda was forced to fling himself backward. He pushed a foot through the air, bending the gravity around himself to shoot off the slab of concrete and land lightly on a second piece he’d torn free with a ripple of power. Todoroki’s ice tower struck the first slab midair, shattering it into powder.

All around them the temperature plummeted. Students in the stands pulled up collars and huddled together. Breath fogged. The arena floor crackled with a spreading sheet of frost until almost half of it looked like a frozen lake.

Todoroki advanced with mechanical precision, his shoes slipping for half a second before the ice beneath them hardened to support him. Every movement was low and controlled, as if he were deliberately keeping the cold compressed through the right half of his body to prevent another buildup like earlier.

Oda exhaled, watching that restraint. “Still refusing to use the fire, huh…” Todoroki’s power was endless, but his stamina had limits. And without his fire, he was choking himself with his own quirk.

But restrained or not, the kid was still terrifying.

A wall of jagged ice spikes ruptured from the ground, arching toward Oda. Oda dropped the gravity around him to free-fall downward, slipping between two spikes with an inch to spare. The wind sliced past his ears as he twisted, red light engulfing his outline as he flipped and caught himself on another chunk of concrete that he yanked midair.

“Your style is wasteful,” Oda called across the field, though his voice was steady rather than mocking. “All offense. No thought to how fast you’re draining yourself.”

Todoroki didn’t blink. “I said it. I will win without using his fire.”

A sharp crack echoed as Todoroki slammed his palm to the ground and sent another flood of ice racing forward. This time the attack split into branching paths, weaving around Oda’s attempted escape routes, trapping him against the edge of the arena.

From the stands, Kaminari yelped, “He’s cornering him!”

Midoriya muttered under his breath, hands clenched in front of his chest, “But Edogawa’s barely attacking back… what’s he doing…?”

Oda felt the wall of ice at his back—cold radiating through his skin—and realized Todoroki was trying to force a ring-out. A clean win. A tactical win. The kind of win that didn’t require fire.

“Fine,” Oda breathed.

His eyes sharpened.

And the arena floor buckled.

A shockwave of red-lit gravity rippled outward, making the cement around Oda implode inward. Todoroki’s advancing ice shattered under the sudden change in force, bursting open in a cloud of glittering white shards. The rupture ruined Todoroki’s footing, forcing him to slide backward as the ground warped and churned beneath him.

It was Oda’s turn to counter. 

He tore up a dozen uneven chunks of arena floor with a sweep of his knee and hurled them at Todoroki in a scattered spiral. Todoroki tried to block with a wall of ice, but gravity didn’t throw the slabs straight—they curved midair, slamming around the shield from multiple angles, forcing Todoroki to drop to a knee as he reinforced his ice with a thick layer.

His breath fogged as he exhaled sharply. Too sharply. He was cold. Very cold.

Up in the stands, Tokoyami leaned forward, voice low. “He’s still fighting with his hands in his pockets. Fascinating.”

Midoriya’s eyes widened. “That has to be on purpose. If his quirk is gravity manipulation, then touching something directly might make the output too strong or unstable. If he overdoes it, he could crush Todoroki—or himself.”

Bakugo scoffed, though his eyes never left the fight. “Or maybe that’s just how he fights, nerd.”

Down below, Todoroki clenched his jaw and rose again, ice spiraling upward around his body. He breathed cold air, exhaled colder air, and tried to mask the faint tremor forming in his right hand.

His fire stayed dormant.

His eyes lifted.

And with visible strain tightening his expression— He charged.

Oda shifted his stance, gravity spiraling outward from his feet, the red glow climbing higher up his arms like a warning flare.

Todoroki’s charge was fast—faster than someone who had just fought a war with Midoriya should reasonably be able to move—but Oda knew better than to underestimate a prodigy fueled by sheer stubborn pride. Ice crawled along the ground beneath Todoroki’s boots, accelerating him like he was skating along his own frozen runway, the temperature dropping in a violent spiral around him. The stadium lights overhead flickered as the cold dragged moisture from the air.

Oda planted a heel against the concrete, letting a subtle gravitational ripple pulse through the floor, a warning tremor barely visible to anyone beyond the first row of seats. His hands stayed buried in his pockets, fingers curled into fists.

Todoroki swung his right arm out and a jagged arc of ice tore forward, wider and denser than his earlier barrages. It smashed toward Oda in layers, like overlapping waves trying to bury him all at once.

Oda didn’t dodge.

He inhaled once, slow and deep, and the air around him warped.

Gravity folded inward, hooking itself around every shard and spike of ice in midair, dragging the mass to a dead stop with an audible crack. The frozen blades trembled in the air as though suspended by invisible wires.

In the stands, Jiro leaned forward until she nearly slid off the chair. “He just… caught it?”

“More like captured,” Midoriya whispered, eyes wide. “He’s altering the force acting on the ice. Changing its vector. That means he’s—”

Before he could finish, Oda flicked his knee.

The trapped ice whiplashed backward.

It returned, spiraling toward Todoroki with twice the velocity he’d sent it. The spikes spun like polished daggers, illuminated by the harsh glow of the stadium lights, forming a storm of Todoroki’s own creation turned mercilessly against him.

Todoroki’s eyes widened a fraction and he raised a thick wall of ice, bracing his arm against its surface a moment before the barrage hit. The collision shook the arena, sending a dull thunderclap rippling through the seats as shards exploded outward.

A few slivers skidded across the ground behind Todoroki.

“Incredible…” Ojiro muttered. “He weaponized his ice…”

“And did it without touching it directly,” Tokoyami added, sounding oddly impressed. “If Todoroki refuses to use his left side, then Edogawa is the worst opponent he could face.”

Oda’s red outline softened for a heartbeat as Todoroki shoved off the crumbling wall, frost trailing down the side of his face. He was breathing harder now—not from exertion alone, but from the cold. His right side was working overtime to compensate for the imbalance in his temperature, and without fire, the cold spread too fast.

Todoroki plastered one palm to the ground and sent a creeping sheet of ice outward, trying to trap Oda’s footing and cut off his mobility entirely. It was a clever strategy—if Oda couldn’t move, he might not be able to redirect gravity with the same fluidity—but Oda stepped lightly onto the ice as if it were no more slippery than asphalt.

And with a twist of his shoulders, he sent another gravitational ripple rolling across the battlefield.

This time the wave didn’t break Todoroki’s structures.

Every jutting spike, every uneven growth of frost, every shard embedded in the ring—Oda pulled them upward. The air filled with suspended ice fragments, hundreds of them drifting in a swirling orbit around him.

Mina, watching from the stands, let out a strangled laugh. “Woah!”

Kaminari leaned forward, eyes wide. “Dude, this is unfair. Todoroki’s ice is practically a free arsenal for him. He’s not even using the concrete anymore.”

And that was exactly the problem.

With every technique Todoroki used, Oda simply refused to let the attack end. Ice only grew when Todoroki willed it—but gravity acted on it forever.

Todoroki stepped forward, colder than before, right arm trembling slightly from the strain of overexertion. He gathered power at his palm, building another glacier-sized construct.

But Oda’s eyes narrowed.

“You’re freezing yourself,” he muttered quietly—though Todoroki could hear him. “You can’t keep this up.”

He took a single step, allowing his feet to glide as gravity softened beneath him.

The orbit of ice spiraled.

And with a kick of Oda’s leg, the entire frozen storm hurled itself toward Todoroki in a violent cyclone.

Todoroki responded with force—slamming his hand down, sending a towering iceberg up like a mountain erupting beneath him. It rose so fast it created its own wind, slicing through the air to meet Oda’s redirected attack head-on.

Shards slammed into the ice tower, embedding like bullets. But there was a problem— Gravity curved the barrage into a spiral that bent behind Todoroki, bypassing his defense and hammering the ground at his back. The explosion of force nearly took his legs out from under him, and he staggered forward, breath sharp from the sudden shock.

Todoroki pushed off the ground again, sliding backward on a fresh patch of ice. His jaw was clenched so tightly the muscle trembled. He was cold—frozen through, beyond what any normal body could withstand. And still, he refused to even glance at the left half of his quirk.

Oda saw it clearly now.

The self-imposed handicap. The pride. The fear. The weight of everything Todoroki refused to let burn.

The ring cracked beneath Oda’s feet as he summoned another gravitational surge, far more concentrated than the last. Oda straightened slowly, his red aura pulsing in a steady rhythm, and the final pieces of ice Todoroki had created drifted upward—hovering in a loose cluster above the battlefield.

Todoroki inhaled sharply. His breath fogged white. And the truth hit him— He had run out of ice.

Every shard he created became another weapon for Oda. Every attack fed Oda’s arsenal. Without fire, Todoroki had no way to counterbalance the cold creeping into his limbs. His movements had slowed noticeably—hesitant, almost stiff—and the tremor running through his fingers had become impossible to hide.

Oda exhaled, “You can’t beat me without your fire.”

A downward pulse slammed into the battlefield like a shockwave, striking only the ice Todoroki was standing on. The frozen ground fractured beneath him, collapsing as gravity multiplied in a sudden, crushing burst. The instability forced Todoroki to stumble, his footing breaking apart as shards of his own quirk turned brittle and fragmented.

And Oda sent the suspended ice storm downward to overwhelm his defenses faster than he could rebuild them.

Todoroki raised his arm, desperate to summon another glacier, but only thin frost spiraled up from his palm—weak, translucent, exhausted.

His right side had nothing left.

The ice storm struck.

It shattered around Todoroki like a crashing wave, knocking him backward so hard he slid across the arena floor. His back struck the boundary with a hollow thud, and he fell to one knee, breath shaking, frost coating every inch of exposed skin.

The stadium went silent.

Then Midnight stepped forward, voice clear and ringing:

“Todoroki is out of bounds! Edogawa advances to the final match!”

The crowd erupted.

Todoroki stayed kneeling for a long moment, staring at the ice dust melting beneath him, unable to deny what the entire stadium had seen—

Against someone who could bend gravity… An ice-only Todoroki never stood a chance.

The moment Midnight’s voice echoed through the stadium— “Edogawa advances to the final match!”— the crowd erupted in a roar that rattled the metal railings under Bakugo’s palms.

He didn’t cheer. He didn’t blink. He didn’t even breathe for a second.

Because Bakugo Katsuki was pissed.

Not the explosive kind of pissed, not the kind that made him bark across the classroom or threaten Kaminari just for existing— No, this was quieter. Coiled.

Kirishima let out a low whistle next to him. “Damn. That was brutal, man. Did you see—?”

“Shut the hell up.” Bakugo didn’t look away from the arena.

Kirishima blinked, taken aback. “Uh—sure?”

But Bakugo wasn’t even talking to him, not really. He was talking to the stadium, to the sky, to whoever designed quirks in the first place—

Because what the hell was that?

Oda hadn’t just won. He had just completely overpowered Todoroki. He had dismantled him. Until the strongest recommended student at UA was kneeling in frost he couldn’t even maintain anymore.

The kind of thing Bakugo wanted to do with his own hands.

He grit his teeth.

Down below, Oda walked off the field with that same damn blank look he always had, hands in his pockets, shoulders relaxed like he hadn’t just manhandled one of the strongest kids in the entire school.

Kaminari let out a shaky laugh. “Uh—so I’m not the only one who didn’t realize Edogawa was that strong, right? Like—holy crap.”

Bakugo turned on him so sharply Kaminari squeaked.

“That wasn’t strength,” Bakugo snarled.

“Oh. Uh—okay?”

“That was strategy. And quirk control.” His voice dropped into something harsher, more jagged. “And icy-hot being a complete dumbass.”

He jabbed a finger toward the field where Todoroki was still struggling to his feet.

“He didn’t use his fire. Again. After all that shit in the last match, after Deku practically beat it into him, he still didn’t use it. He fought with one hand tied behind his back and he got what he deserved.”

He huffed out a frustrated breath through his nose.

“But Edogawa—” His lip curled, “—that bastard saw it the second he stepped in the ring. He knew Todoroki wouldn’t use fire. He knew he only had to deal with the right side.” He scoffed. “And joke’s on him. Ice is literally just ammunition.”

Tokoyami, sitting one seat away, nodded slowly. “He turned every attack Todoroki made into a resource. A looping arsenal.”

Bakugo inhaled sharply. His hands twitched like he wanted to detonate something, just to vent the pressure building in his chest.

Sero leaned forward over the seat. “Are you, um—nervous?”

Bakugo rounded on him like an animal. “Don’t be stupid! I’m not nervous!” But his knee bounced. And his jaw clenched. And his eyes never left Oda.

Kirishima glanced between them. “Dude, you’re totally nervous.”

Bakugo exploded—loudly. “I’M NOT NERVOUS, YOU EXTRA-GRADE IDIOT! I’M THINKING.”

“Oh. My bad?” Kirishima winced.

Bakugo clicked his tongue, leaning back but never relaxing. Before today, he had thought Todoroki was the only real obstacle. The one idiot in this school with the kind of raw firepower that could threaten Bakugo. But that freak down there—had just proved that all it took to loose to Odasaku Edogawa was one mistake. One moment where you give him material. Ice, concrete, debris—anything he can manipulate. Because once he gets his quirk on something, it’s his. You don’t get it back.

But Bakugo didn’t make mistakes like that. 

Especially not after his fight with Uraraka. 

Sero cleared his throat. “God, and he can control the ground too. And the air pressure. And gravity. And he doesn’t even have to move his hands—”

“Shut up, I know what he can do!” Bakugo’s heart thudded hard once—just once—in something that felt a little like excitement.

And a little like dread.

“He’s strong. Fine. Great. Good for him.” Bakugo forced a breath through his teeth. “But the second he steps into that ring with me, I’ll come at him so fast that he won’t have time to think.”

“Um, ya sure about that?” Kaminari asked, both nervously and teasingly. 

Bakugo didn’t blink. “I’m done watching everyone else show off.” He stood abruptly. “Now it’s my turn.”

He stalked toward the stairs, fury and ambition crackling in and around him.

𓏵

ONLY TWO BATTLES LEFT. The entire Sports Festival had been building toward this moment—two more collisions, two more names to carve into the stadium floor before it was over. Yet as Oda sat alone in the waiting room, staring up at the wall-mounted screen, the weight in his stomach was heavier than the atmosphere outside.

Bakugo vs. Tokoyami.

The winner vs. him.

And Oda didn’t know which outcome he feared more.

Tokoyami was a nightmare matchup for anyone. Dark Shadow was a force of nature, immune to damage, immune to the physical laws Oda bent. Fighting him would be like trying to wrestle smoke—no surface to grip, no bone to break, no form to leverage. Oda had spent most of the afternoon running scenarios silently in his head, and the math simply wasn’t good.

Bakugo, on the other hand… Oda exhaled a slow breath through his nose. Fighting Bakugo would be like taxing. The boy was a constant engine of movement, loud enough to rattle nerves and smart enough to adapt rapidly. A long fight against him would be draining. Bakugo was exhausting just to observe.

And now they were both on the field.

The match began. Tokoyami commanded Dark Shadow forward, the shadow creature roaring as it lunged, its claws slashing and its form swelling with aggression. At first it seemed overwhelming—Dark Shadow had Bakugo on the defensive, pushing him back with sharp arcs and sweeping strikes.

But the longer the fight dragged on, the more Oda’s eyes narrowed.

Dark Shadow flinched.

Not from Bakugo’s explosions, but from the light they produced. The pulses of brightness from Bakugo’s palms were weakening Dark Shadow, bleaching the edges of his form until the creature’s roars took on a strained, trembling quality.

Bakugo saw it too.

He was grinning now, sharp and wicked and triumphant, the kind of grin he wore only when he understood that victory was not only possible, but inevitable.

“Tell me, Bakugo,” Tokoyami’s voice cracked from the floor where he’d fallen, Dark Shadow shriveled behind him like a whimpering shadow-pup. “Did you know of my weakness before?”

“I figured it out by attacking over and over again.” Bakugo’s voice dropped into a sneer as he held Tokoyami by the beak, explosions sparking continuously in his other palm. “It was a pretty bad match up for you. Almost feel bad, but you’re done.”

Dark Shadow cried out, recoiling from the light.

Tokoyami lowered his eyes in defeat. “I surrender.”

And just like that, it was over.

“Tokoyami gives up.” Midnight announced. “Bakugo’s the winner of this match!”

“THAT MEANS OUR FINAL FIGHT WILL BE BETWEEN EDOGAWA AND BAKUGO!” Present Mic roared. “DON’T GO ANYWHERE, FOLKS—we’ll be right back after these messages!”

The TV cut to commercial, leaving Oda alone with the echo of crowd noise vibrating through the floor and an ache in his chest that felt suspiciously like dread.

Then— His phone vibrated.

Oda froze.

Only a handful of people had his number. Even fewer used it. And only one called with this sort of timing. He swallowed hard and checked the screen.

Ango Sakaguchi.

His stomach dropped.

He answered anyway, “Hello?”

“You’ve done well for yourself,” Ango said immediately, his voice as smooth and controlled as ever. “Did it feel nice to show up Endeavor’s son after all these years? I’m sure that was cathartic for you.”

Oda’s jaw tightened. “Sure, I guess. Why are you calling me?”

“To congratulate you, I suppose,” Ango sighed, sounding thoroughly uninterested in the concept. “But also to tell you… you’re done. Throw the final match.”

Oda felt his pulse spike, anger rising so fast it made his vision sharpen.

“What?” he snapped before he could think better of it. “What do you mean throw the match?”

“I mean what I just said,” Ango said, irritation threading into his tone. “You’ve debuted yourself and drawn enough attention. I let you defeat Endeavor’s son because I figured it’d be a good outlet for your frustration, but your time on stage ends here.”

“But I… Bakugo won’t just let me—”

“I’m not saying to give the boy an easy win. We both know that if you wanted to, you could kill him in an instant.” His voice sharpened, cutting Oda’s protests off cleanly. “Give him the fight he wants and then give him the win. Better not to give them too much to remember you by in case this all goes up in flames.”

“That’s not fair,” Oda muttered before he could stop himself.

“I could care less what you think is fair, Odasaku,” Ango snapped, each word cooled to steel. “Do as you’re told, or there will be consequences.”

Oda’s throat tightened. His fingers curled around the phone so hard it creaked. He felt like shoving it through the wall, or crushing it outright, or screaming down the line—

But none of those things were options.

“Yes sir,” he ground out.

He hit end call before he could hear Ango’s voice again, resisting the urge—barely—to throw the phone across the waiting room.

The screen above him replayed highlights of his earlier battles, announcers shouting his name, commentators calling him a prodigy, fans in the stands waving signs they’d drawn just today.

And now he was supposed to walk out there and lose.

Oda shut his eyes, one sharp breath cutting into his lungs.

He had never wanted to win something this badly.

But he’d have to give it up.