My Dilemma: Shoto, Aizawa or Me?

23.

I walked through the archway again, more confident than the last time.

Seeing Shinso stand across from me, I remind myself not to speak. I keep my eyes on his scarf, knowing about his mentorship with Aizawa.

Finishing our last steps, we stopped in front of one another, with no smiles or cheer. We weren't friends, I barely knew him. This fight was the most real one I'd experience today.

"Final round of the Quarter Final and we're seeing our NEW transfer of Class 3-A's (L/N) against Class 3-B's Shinso!" I hear Mic yell from his spot in the booth. I look up this time and shoot him a smile, quickly looking back at Shino, a small smirk now on my face.

Mic brings out peoples' confidence I guess.

We do a small bow, walking back to our spaces and setting our positions.

I take a deep breath, setting one foot forward, and swiping my right foot back. I don't create an energy ball, however, instead, I'm setting my hands with my palms faced down in front of me.

BEGIN

Shino's wrap launches at me quickly, but I don't move, instead of shooting my arms forward and beaming energy right at his scarf slicing off the piece shooting towards me.

I feel myself grunt as I pull my reserve energy and create an energy dagger in my hand, a soft laugh escaping me as I've finally created a tangible piece to fight with.

I see Shino's eyes widen slightly, their droopiness brightening as he sees the competition I truly am. 

I was limitless at this moment.

I shot forward then, my energy bouncing inside me as I danced through every shot of scarf wrap he shot at me, slicing through each piece like it was paper.

How unfortunate that he would need a new one by the end of this.

I imagined what the audience was seeing right now. Pieces of scrap flying everywhere, me dancing in the air and bouncing from the ground as I twisted and passed through his attempts to trap me, a foot closer each moment.

When I was only 10 feet away I grabbed and wrapped his scarf around my hand, pulling Shino towards me harshly and throwing him on the ground.

He jumped up quickly, bolting at me, his arms going towards my waist to tackle me past the line we had gotten too close to. I dig my heels into the ground, before shocking him with my electricity so he would let go. Hearing him grunt he bounced back while I jumped over him and kicked his back.

With the short amount of wrap he had left I felt him grab my ankle and pull before I landed face-first on the ground. Spitting out the blood I tasted, I kicked back only for him to let go and move toward the center of the arena.

His game plan was to stay as far away from the end line as he could, and it was annoying me.

Throwing my hand to my waist I breathed and pulled as much energy as I could, before shooting an energy string out that wrapped around his ankles. Pulling as hard as I could I had him on the ground. Jumping back I held tight as he tried fighting it, pulling him towards me. He was furious, and his eyes were blazing. It made me want to win so much more.

Electrocuting him through the string with a surge I knew could make him dizzy, he fumbled in his fight and went limper, the surge getting to him. I grunted, lowering the power to almost nothing before getting him in front of me and tying his arms up as I had done to Jiro.

I was exhausted, felt disgusting, and fell to my knees from how much power I had already used today.

"SHINSO, CAN YOU CONTINUE?" Allmight spoke into the mic.

I looked at him, blood dribbling from his mouth, scratches on his face, and eyes almost droopier than usual, which I had never thought possible.

"no." Shinso said, staring at me, almost awed.

"(L/N) advances to the final round!" Allmight yells.

There's yelling again. The crowd is cheering my name, and my classmates are in the stand yelling their heads off. And I'm here again, one step closer to my goal.

"Here, let me get this off you," I say, dissolving the energy from Shino's arms and ankles, letting him go from my hold.

"Sorry if I went too far on the shock back there, I was just hoping to get you dizzy," I say, as I help him sit up.

He stares at me, tilting his head a bit. "You're stronger than they said."

Who said I was weak? "Glad to hear. Do you need help getting to Recovery Girl?", I asked, looking around as Cementoss started cleaning up the arena for the semi-finals.

He shook his head, standing up and grabbing what was left of his wrap from the ground.

"Aizawa is gonna kill me." I hear him mumble, causing me to giggle.

He looks up, eyes big realizing he spoke out loud.

"I'm sorry about that, you can go ahead and blame it on me," I say, as we start walking slowly out the arena.

He sighs and shakes his head, but I hear a small chuckle escape.

There's a break in our conversation. As we continue walking my stomach rumbles, and I feel the exhaustion I've been fighting try to set in.

"Are you hungry? I was going to grab food before the next part starts." I ask, walking towards the ramen stand. He skips a little step, before nodding his head and walking alongside me.

"I love ramen, ate it all the time in the U.S," I said, getting in line behind some kids from the Business course.

"Yeah. We eat it pretty often in our hall," he replies, looking around the crowd.

"You looking for someone? I can help," I ask.

"Yeah, I texted Aizawa to meet me here instead of the student wait rooms." He replies, turning to the menu as we step closer.

I pause for a second and hope Shinso doesn't notice before stepping forward and looking up at the menu. I didn't need to see him before the finals, it would only distract me.

As we continue moving, Aizawa's nowhere to be seen and we're next to order. Making sure to ask for extra veggies, I turn around and crash into Shinso. Grabbing my wrist so I don't fall, I look up and see him checking me to see if I hurt myself. It was adorable, considering I had just kicked his ass.

We hear someone cough next to us. Shinso looks up and notices I'm staring at him and then I look to the left to see Aizawa staring at us.

It was an awkward second until Shinso let go of me and I righted myself, fixing my shirt that had moved from the fumble.

"Hey sir, we were just ordering Ramen, did you want some?"