All For Some

Chapter 46 Final Fight

Izuku released the hardening before stepping out to the arena. It left him feeling worse without it, but there was no need to expose the ace up his sleeve unnecessarily. He wondered if the quirk could have other positive effects on the body besides the obvious defensive value and enhanced strength. He joined Honenuki and Midnight at the centre of the arena.

"Well aren't you looking in high spirits Midoriya," Midnight said, "Excited for the finale?"

"No," Izuku said and tilted his head to massage his stiff neck. "Just ran into some friends on the way. Invited them to a victory party at my house."

Honenuki frowned at Izuku's nonchalant attitude. "Confident much?"

"Actually yes, although you did beat Todoroki so I should probably be careful. Mostly I just have other things on my mind."

"Like?"

"Not your business."

Izuku slipped from the serious expression with a quick inhale and held the side of his forehead for a moment.

"Are you feeling okay Midoriya?" Midnight asked.

"Yes, don't worry about me." Izuku stretched his arms above his head, trying to show he was ready for the fight despite blinking a few times to clear his vision. "Are we going to start this show?"

"You should at least take this seriously."

Izuku brought his arms down and stared at Honenuki.

"It is a show to entertain people and do our best to show off for heroes that are recruiting. That's the whole point of this festival. Doesn't mean I wouldn't take this fight seriously, just not for my own sake."

"Mmm interesting," Midnight said in her constant flirtatious style. "You have goals besides winning the tournament?"

"The point of winning is to look good to people watching and lot of them have already decided to hate me before they knew anything about me besides the basics of my quirk. I prefer to worry about people that actually give me a reason to care about what they think."

"That..." Honenuki said. "I don't have anything to say about that, except people can be nasty that way... I apologise for what I said."

Izuku smiled and offered his hand for a handshake. "No hard feelings then?"

Honenuki raised his hand but hesitated.

"Don't do it," someone shouted from the audience and got a scowl from Midnight.

"The match hasn't started yet. I couldn't do anything to you without getting disqualified if I wanted to."

"True." Honenuki admitted and took Izuku's hand. Then each of them took their starting position with Midnight to the side. She raised her arm.

"Begin!"

Honenuki immediately crouched to bring his hands in contact with the floor for his quirk, but at the same time Izuku's jets flared. He took several running steps and then his feet left the ground. The distance between them disappeared before Honenuki had time to even activate his quirk. He barely dodged Izuku's kick. It was an impressive show of reaction speed on his part, although he only had time to do so because Izuku aimed for his side rather than the head as was his first instinct. Still impressive especially considering Izuku had moved so fast he himself had barely reacted fast enough to do the kick.

He landed behind Honenuki a bit further than intended and took a fraction of a second too long to regain his balance, but by then he was already turning around and charged back at Honenuki the instant his feet touched the floor, this time without using his jets. The one mistake both Tenya and Todoroki had made was to keep too much distance for too long. Honenuki however continued reacting fast. He was already back up and raised his arms to block Izuku's punch, turning a little to guide the attack aside. Then Honenuki started falling backwards. His hand approached the floor again.