All For Some

Chapter 42: Breaking Mind and Arm

Izuku stepped onto the arena. It was a lot quieter compared to previous fights. Monoma entered from the opposite side with a wide smile and generally friendly expression. Izuku was immediately on alert. Even Present Mic couldn't distract him from that.

"We are going to start the second round with a fight between Izuku Midoriya of class 1A, who already demonstrated his extensive fighting skills in the first round. His opponent from class 1B is Neito Monoma who showed he can have more tricks up his sleeves than one might expect."

"To be fair you could say the same for both of them," Aizawa added. "Either one could surprise us."

"It really is great to be here, even if having so many people watching us makes me a bit nervous," Monoma said still with his fake smile. He raised his hand offering it for a handshake. "Let's have a good match."

Izuku's hand inched a little upwards before he stopped and hardened his stare. He wasn't going to fall for such a simple trick.

"What's wrong. I thought a handshake is the proper way to start a friendly match. It... is going to be friendly right?"

Monoma made his voice shake like he was getting afraid while still keeping his hand up ready for a handshake, making sure everyone saw it.

"Please, I don't want to go to the hospital like your previous opponent."

"Can you believe that Midoriya kid?!" Someone in the audience shouted. How could anything be heard understandably that far from such crowd still baffled Izuku.

"Really? He steals quirks, did you expect him to be some beacon of morality?"

Izuku sighed. "You can drop the act. Both of us know you are just trying to touch me to copy my quirks."

"You might know," Monoma whispered, maintaining his fake expression, "but they won't. For people like us people are more than willing to assume the worst. So want to convince them more or...?"

Izuku kept staring at Monoma for a moment then smirked, for more than one reason. He raised his hand to accept Monoma's handshake.

"And you already know that both our quirks work through touch, except only one of us can use his after that."

Monoma froze still just as he was about to grab Izuku's hand and yanked his back.

"What's wrong, don't want to start with a friendly handshake after all?" Izuku taunted, glancing towards the audience.

"He wasn't being serious?" Some people in the audience at least noticed.

"I wouldn't shake hands with the Quirk Stealer either."

"So one refusing to shake hands shows bad morals and other refusing is what you would do?"

At least the whole stadium had one person with potential.

"Are you ready?" Midnight took control of the situation, forcing Izuku to focus on his opponent. "Start!"

"I hope I didn't ruin your whole plan," Izuku said, raising his hands in a fighting stance. "Then again you probably already copied someone else's quirk like with Toshi. So whose would you use against me? Either you need to keep your distance and attack from there or get something that helps you with hand-to-hand combat..."

As Izuku spoke Monoma's skin turned into metal and he charged. Izuku ducked and jumped to the side, avoiding the first punch.

"... and protection from my Dragon Blades wouldn't hurt either, smart. You picked a strong quirk, just made one mistake."

"And what would that be?" Monoma asked while swinging at him again.

"I have trained against basically the same power, you know the guy who beat the guy whose quirk you are using," Izuku dodged effortlessly again and lit a Dragon Blade formed as a shield. "The question is if you are a better fighter than him. So far, I'm not impressed. Don't burn your fingers."