A Boy and His Dragon.

ⅩⅥ

For the familiar 1v1's, the bracket was being made as everyone was granted a thirty-minute interlude, hydrating their familiars and themselves. Izuku was laying on the smooth, cold tile floor, all of 1-A's familiars laying around him, save for Aoyama's peacock who was plucking dead feathers and preening their tail, glimmering tail sparkling in the artificial light coming from the lights in the cafeteria.

All of the cats were laying on or around Izuku, Jirou and sero curled up with each other, resting between his front paws. Kirishima was pressed against his side, resting as Izuku curled around him, Sato laying next to him. Tokoyami seemed content with resting on Izuku's folded wings, preening his feathers, and idly making conversation with Sato. Uraraka was with Mina, who was feeding her food, her puffy cheeks stuffed with sunflower seeds. Hagakure's chameleon clung to Izuku's shedding tail, almost fully bare of fur, save for the soft, thin bunches of fur. Lucifer, Shinso's familiar, was laying on Izuku's back, in between his folded wings, idly kneading Izuku's back muscles.

The group of teens watched their familiars laze around, eating and reenergizing. Recreational games were being held, and it was honestly hilarious to watch general students and business class students brawl and run over people in giant hamster balls; the crowd seemed to agree with them, cheering and laughing. Tetsutetsu's familiar trots over to the pile of lazing familiars, lying near them. The group of familiar's didn't seem to mind, but Kirishima urged the silver dog closer, Izuku moving his tail to accommodate the dog, who graciously plopped by Kirishima's side and fell asleep as they waited out the break.

Tetsutetsu looked over fondly at his dog while tuning out Monoma's incessant blabbering about how they were better than 1-A, wishing Kendo would stop talking to a friend down the hall and knock Monoma out. The top ten winners of the obstacle race with familiars had their familiars pass to the 1v1's. Soon enough, all of the familiars and their pairs were called out, their pairs standing next to them or holding them. The bracket popped up on the screen, showing the familiars who they were up against.

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The event would take place in five minutes, everyone heading back up to get their familiars calm for battle. Nurses and officiators were making sure that no familiar was doped with enhancement drugs, like TRIGGER or SERPENT. SERPENT was an enhancement drug, similar to NOX, a quirk enhancement drug made for humans. SERPENT was like an ability booster, used in familiar fights and events like the sports festival. The more powerful the familiar, the more powerful the student. Meaning more recognition and more potential internships. All of them were cleared and healthy, only Lucifer was lacking a bit on sleep, but it was his drawback for his quirk.

The checkups went quickly due to no problems from the pairs of familiars, although Izuku looked apprehensive when they mentioned he might need claw caps. Luckily, Katsuki overruled it; since he was Izuku's pair, he didn't allow it. He knew Izuku hated claw caps; it was obvious due to the fact he burned the claw caps off of his claws the last time they put him in them. Izuku was exceedingly careful with his claws, he never used them unless it was on Kirishima, who could easily take the sheer sharpness of Izuku's claws without damage - only some scrapes and a few tiny cuts that bled; like papercuts. He did use them for other purposes; intimidation, opening boxes - he was a glorified box cutter at this point - climbing, and playing.

After a long and annoying conversation with one of the officiators voicing their worries for Izuku and his sharp claws, Katsuki put his foot down, hissed malice with looking like a seasoned serial killer, stating his case Izuku has never hurt anyone before with his claws intentionally, and he stalked off, throwing them the finger before the matches started. Katsuki gave Izuku a few warm head pats, allowing Izuku to toddle away, the same size as Lucifer, the giant Maine coon cat Shinso had as a familiar and into the tunnels as Mic called out the match. "FOR THE FIRST 1V1 BATTLES OF THIS YEAR, WELCOME IZUKU, THE SLEEPY DRAGON WHO HAS TAKEN MORE NAPS THAN SHOTA TODAY!!"

You could hear Mic's voice cut off with a squeal, the grunt from Aizawa's mic sent feedback around the stadium, as it sounded like Aizawa had elbowed Mic in the side before Mic started up again, "AND ON THE OTHER SIDE, WELCOME LUCIFER, THE CAT WHO HONESTLY HAUNTS ME IN MY NIGHTMARES SINCE HE ALWAYS STARES AT ME...!" Mic's nervous giggles echoed around the arena as he finished his commentary, taking a sip of his water before sitting on his chair next to the window he screamed out of. The two familiars stood in front of each other, Lucifer looking like death itself, unruly hair sticking out, shaggy grey fur and cold gold eyes stared into Izuku's soul.

Izuku's claws dug into the concrete, anchoring himself down. Everyone watched, quiet and waiting for Midnight to call the start of the match. Shinso was watching carefully, standing up as he held onto railing, just as Katsuki was doing, watching attentively.

Midnight raised her whip with one swift motion, the handcuffs around her wrist jingles as the tassels from the whip shifted and moved as she brought the whip down, snapping through the air and creating a sound like thunder cracking as she yelled 'GO'. Lucifer's golden eyes started to pulse, shades of violet mixing in with the rings of gold, activating his quirk 'Haze'. While maintaining eye contact for a few seconds with his victim, Haze allowed Lucifer to pull their mind into a sort of foggy haze and persuade them to follow his will. It was similar to Shinso's, but different where he didn't need a verbal trigger, mere eye contact for a few seconds and that's all it took to take over.

Izuku's mind clouded over, eyes droopy and glossed over, everyone watching with bated breath as Lucifer suddenly let out a meow, and Izuku's body started to turn, only for it to jerk back. His claws anchored deep within the concrete, unable to pull free. Lucifer meowed once more, irritated, tail swishing, and ears flicked with annoyance. Izuku halted his turning and started to pull his claws out of the concrete, unlatching from the holes in the ground before his eyes glowed again, the haze clearing in his mind. Lucifer stepped back as Izuku's second set of eyelids slid over, fogging his vision to Lucifer.

Lucifer needed eye contact where he could see the eyes, so if someone had glasses over their eyes, his quirk wouldn't work, so Izuku's second set of foggy eyelids acted as glasses for Izuku, rendering Lucifer's quirk useless. Izuku was also at a disadvantage, seeing he couldn't see well, but he relied upon his other senses to win. Izuku took a deep breath in, pinpointing Lucifer's location with the distressed breaths he took and the irritated swishing of the feline's tail. Izuku darted forward, thick fog-like smoke crashed out of his mouth like whipping waves, filling the arena. Lucifer jumped to dodge a few of the cloud-like fog, the cold, black fog looked like exhaust from a truck.

Arcs of lightning lit up the fog, the lightning showing itself on the surface of the blanket of fog on the ground. Lucifer's fur bristled and puffed, jumping over and away from the dangerous lightning on the ground, ears flicking to and fro, trying to pinpoint where his opponent was. His paw suddenly slid off something, making his body follow the falling paw, hitting grass.

Midnight gasped as she yelled out, "LUCIFER IS OUT, OF BOUNDS, IZUKU PROCEEDS TO THE NEXT ROUND!" The dark fog wisped away with a powerful downward clap of Izuku's wings, showing to the stadium he had been standing in the thickest part of the dark cloud; the middle. Izuku had driven Lucifer out of bounds without him even noticing. Lucifer yowled in annoyance before Izuku, in a six-foot form, grabbed him carefully in his front paws, flying up to the section where 1-A was, his back paws clutching onto the railing as Shinso took Lucifer out of his paws as Izuku's body was wrapped in Katsuki's arms, letting him rest as the other matches started.