Uraraka vs Bakugou

"Deku-kun, you're amazing.

"I keep seeing more and more amazing sides to you. During the Cavalry battle, I thought it would be easier to team up with friends, but now that I think about it, I might have been trying to rely on you. That's why, when Iida-kun said he would challenge you, it actually made me feel a little embarrassed.

"That's why it's fine.

"Everyone's facing the future and trying their hardest. That means we're all rivals, right? That's why…

"Let's meet in the finals!"

Huh? What… just happened? What is going on right now? Static noise filled my head and caused both ears to ring. Through all the noise and disorientation, I was only vaguely aware of a couple things.

First, I was laying face-down on concrete. Second, was that everything smelled of smoke. And third, I had little to no control over my limbs. No, actually, that was incorrect. I could completely control my limbs, the problem was that they all felt like they were on fire. So just trying to move them was so painful in and of itself, they may as well have just been broken.

Kind of like Deku-kun.

Deku-kun…

That was right. The small scene that replayed in my mind just moments ago popped back up, my brain latching onto it fiercely and recycling it several more times. With each subsequent playback, things became more and more clear. I was fighting my first match against Bakugou-kun.

Working my way forward from that scene in the waiting room, I remembered everything. My desperate plan. How spectacularly it had failed when Bakugou-kun simply blew the meteor shower away like it was nothing. Just pebbles on the side of the road. That was all they had been to him. That was all I was to him.

Everything after was nothing more than a blank slate. That was assuming there even was anything after. Had I passed out? I must still be in the arena, right? That means the match wasn't over yet. I could still fight. I could still win.

Tap

Tap

Tap

...Ah. My hearing returned, the static slowly being replaced by the sounds of the world around me. The crowd. The still falling leftovers from my marvelously failed special attack. And the clicking of heels on the arena floor.

Those echoed inside my head as if in slow motion. With great effort, as if cranking an old, rusty water-pump, I turned my head towards the source of the noise. Through the smoke and debris, I could just barely make out the shape of the Pro Hero, Midnight. She was heading this way. She was coming to disqualify me.

I had to move. If she reached me while I was face down like this, it was all over. So I had to move. Please, body, move! I cried desperately against all the pain and agony coursing through my joints to force a reaction out of them. Even if my body broke, I couldn't just lie down and allow myself to be beaten like this.

I promised, didn't I? I told Deku-kun and Iida-kun I would make it to the finals. I would fight one of them in the finals. I was going to change myself. I wasn't going to be the same weakling that only tried to rely on others. If I wanted to be a Hero… if I wanted to achieve my dream and one day take my parents on that trip to Hawaii, I had to stand.

Right here. Right now.

Stand!

"Oh!" Midnight's shocked exclamation sounded just next to me. She was close, far too close. Yet that was fine… because I was no longer eating the dirt at my feet.

"Tch," Bakugou-kun clicked his teeth from no further than ten meters in front of me. "You ready to go now, Uraraka!?" He was still standing poised for combat. Even when I had collapsed, he never dropped his guard, right hand lifted and slightly behind him in preparation for his favored right swing.

A swing I couldn't dodge even when I was in perfect condition and expecting it. If I took a hit like that now, my body would break. I would be just like Deku-kun…

Was that it!? That's right, that was it. I just had to be like Deku-kun.

"Uraraka-" Midnight started to say, arm reaching for me out of my peripherals.

"Ahhhhhh!" I screamed. At the top of my lungs, I bellowed the loudest battle cry I could possibly muster. It was broken and fragmented, but it was enough to startle the Pro Hero next to me and buy me the couple seconds I needed to keep her from disqualifying me. It also had another benefit. Energy surged through my whole body, the pain that I had been feeling just moments before vanishing.

Using that added adrenaline, I charged. Bakugou-kun hadn't so much as flinched when I yelled. Instead, his eyes glowed with an almost homicidal excitement and that villain-worthy grin grew thrice-fold. He wasn't afraid of me and would gladly hit me head on, regardless of how broken and damaged my body was.

Which was just perfect.

This plan wouldn't work if I couldn't count on Bakugou-kun to do just that. It was an absolutely reckless decision on my part, just like the person I was inspired by. Behind me, I could hear Midnight start to yell again, but it was too late.

Time again appeared to stop for me. I wasn't sure if it was the adrenaline doing that too or the effect of some mysterious Quirk. My right foot touched down, bringing me just in front of my opponent.

Bakugou-kun stepped forward to meet my charge head on and I was now in range of his right swing. A swing that was already coming. Even when it seemed like time was on my side, he was just too fast. His reaction-time was inhuman. I couldn't have possibly dodged that swing even if I wasn't already about to pass out.

Which was exactly why I wouldn't dodge it.

Boom

Instead I sacrificed my left arm, throwing it up and taking the full blunt of the explosion. Something wet hit my cheeks and I vaguely realized I was stepping in whatever it was too. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that was my blood. Even as the red liquid flew across my vision, however, I didn't acknowledge it.

I couldn't even feel the pain. I wouldn't allow myself to feel the pain. The moment I did and it was all over. Instead, the only thing I allowed myself to think… to feel, was that moment when I first saw Deku-kun fight.

It was extraordinary. He was like a martial artist the way he had picked Bakugou-kun up and threw him over his shoulder. I replayed that scene in my head so many times since it happened I could remember it as clearly as if it had only been a couple minutes ago. For weeks I had practiced that move I saw him do… not ever believing I would actually be able to use it. Especially not against the same person he had.

That was exactly what I was going to do, however.

Instead of rocking with the blast and allowing myself to minimize the damage by stepping back, I pressed forward. Smoke obscured my vision, but just above it I could see Bakugou-kun's face. His eyes were slightly widened, the wicked grin gone, replaced by a different expression entirely. "What!?" Even in surprise, he still managed to sound angry.

While Bakugou-kun had swung at me with his right, I had reached for him with my own. And for the first time since the match started, I did reach him.

My right hand clamped down around the bicep of the arm that just scattered hunks of me across the arena floor with such a powerful iron-grip that even All Might himself would have struggled to break free. Okay, I'm probably exaggerating a little bit, but in that moment, I truly believed it.

My Quirk activated the moment I touched him, gravity losing any and all meaning to the person named Bakugo Katsuki. The action of triggering my Quirk wasn't even a conscious decision. It just happened, my body so fully committed to the plan that I no longer needed to tell it what to do.

Even the managed arm I had thrown away to take the explosion played its role, mimicking Deku-kun by grabbing Bakugou-kun's lower arm. I still couldn't feel any pain and thankfully I was unable to see the extent of the damage with all the smoke still hanging around us.

My left shoe skid across the concrete with an audible screech, my body turning around. Bakugou-kun's chest pressed against my back and I lifted, pulling his weightless body up. I was going to do it! I was going to win!

"You think I'll fucking let you!?" In my excitement, I forgot one crucial fact. This move left an impression on Bakugou-kun just as much as it had me. No… placing us on the same level wasn't fair to the explosive-Quirk user.

I don't know all the details, but I do know that even as little kids, Bakugou-kun was incredibly volatile towards Deku-kun. Especially towards Deku-kun. Yet despite all that, he had never run away from his bully and perhaps even more importantly… he never truly fought back.

This move marked the first time Deku-kun had ever struck back at Bakugou-kun and succeeded. There was no way he wouldn't remember it.

What made Bakugou-kun such a terrifying opponent wasn't his quirk, although that was without a doubt a big part of it, but even more terrible was his reaction time. Even when I managed to catch him off-guard with a technique he wasn't familiar with, he was always fast enough to blast me away. That was nothing, however.

Not when compared with the speed at which his left swung at the side of my face, open palm reacting on pure instinct to an attack he already had devised a way to counter. The moment that hit me and I was unconscious. Or dead. There was no other outcome when taking a direct explosion from Bakugou-kun's hand to the head.

That was only if there was an explosion, of course. Nothing happened. Well, to be more accurate the only thing that happened was a light tap on the cheek. Bakugou clicked his teeth, either in pain or anger, I wasn't sure.

I wasn't sure of anything. Had he overextended his Quirk when he blew away my meteor shower? Or had he simply held back because even he knew that attack just now might have actually killed me? I have no way of knowing the truth and it's a question I will never ask him.

All of this happened in the span of a split second, my body still in auto-pilot as it completed its task. Bakugou-kun's one chance to stop it failed and just like that, I threw him over my shoulder, sending the now weightless boy floating across the arena.

"Damn you, Uraraka! Fucking die!" He screamed and flailed, helpless to do anything as he tumbled head over heels higher and higher into the air. It was too slow, however. I lacked the strength necessary to send him flying nearly fast enough to release him out of bounds.

And it went without saying, but Bakugou-kun wasn't going to just float off and do nothing. In only a matter of seconds, he managed to gain control of his flight and stuck his right palm behind him. With a bang you might have mistaken for a gunshot, he completely changed the direction of his aerial take off and was now on a collision course right for me.

And I was completely out of ideas. Even after all that, it still wasn't enough to beat him. Not that I should be surprised. That was just how big the gap in strength between us was in the end. It would've taken a miracle to win.

No sooner did I think that and a miracle happened.

The adrenaline from earlier was already starting to fade. Not enough for the pain to return, but I was now distinctly able to feel how weak my legs were. They were wobbling so terribly, it was a wonder I was standing up at all. As if the world sensed I was questioning its logic, it sought to correct it and in that moment I lost my balance.

I collapsed to my knees…

...and ducked completely beneath Bakugou-kun's wild haymaker.

"Wha-"

"Huh?"

Neither of us knew what had just happened. I almost think if I had tried to duck intentionally, he would have somehow realized what I was planning and made the necessary adjustment. Since it happened outside of my own will, however, there had been no way of predicting it.

Also, unlike Deku-kun who thought through every move to the point of over-thinking, Bakugou-kun just acted on instinct, usually not even bothering to think more than a single move ahead. Which was evident in that he had not even considered a scenario where I dodged his attack.

The explosions Bakugou-kun used to propel himself carried immense force, lifting his body and even hero suit with ease, seeming to simply ignore mass altogether. Only when he truly lacked any weight at all, however, did he discover the true force of those explosions. It wasn't wrong to say I hadn't even been capable of tracking his movements just now with my eyes.

In under a second he had flown past me and I heard him bounce off the broken concrete of the arena. By the time I turned around, he was already well outside the boundary. If I failed to react in the next moment, it was entirely possible for him to propel himself back in, however.

My hands were already raised in front of my chest, fingers extended and forming a kind of pyramid. They had been in this position from the moment I finished throwing my opponent earlier, my body never once abandoning the plan.

"Urara-" Bakugou started to scream again, shouting over the sound of his own explosion.

"Release!" I never gave him the chance.

In what looked almost comical, Bakugou-kun went from flying horizontally to falling vertically. He hit the earth outside of the arena hard enough to bounce and skid all the way to the foot of it, disappearing from my sight beneath the ledge.

"..."

And then… there was absolute silence.

No one, not even Present Mic, who had been announcing with extreme vigour until just a moment ago made so much as a peep. It was unnatural, to have so many people in one place and yet not hear a single noise except for the wind.

"Ah, fucking dammit! What the shit!?" And then as if to spit on all that, Bakugou-kun's head popped up over the side of the arena. He continued to scream, rant, rave, and curse in such an epic tantrum that I'm pretty sure it's going to make the history books. It also succeeded in snapping everyone else from their shock.

"B-Bakugou is out of bounds…" Midnight started slowly, as if she still couldn't fully believe it herself. Not that I could blame her, because I pretty much felt the same. Then, she seemed to recover and and with a dramatic flick, pointed towards me. "Uraraka advances to the second round!"

"WHAT!?" Present Mic screamed with such passion the entire stadium shook. "That's what I'm talking about, Yeah! You go, Uraraka! I knew you could do it! Yeah!"

"Is it really okay to play favorites like that?" Aizawa-sensei's quip went completely unnoticed.

"I… won?" It still hadn't settled in for me, despite the fact that the crowd was now cheering and clapping too. In fact, I think this might be the most enthused about the outcome of a match they had gotten yet. Of course, maybe it just seemed that way because I was the one in the center of the arena and not up in the stadium.

Regardless, their cheers now were for me. For me, who against all odds managed to beat one of the strongest in our class. Me. I did it, I actually did it. Tears welled in the corner of my eyes and I started to raise my arms in response to their cheers.

Only for the pain to finally kick back in. I hurt all over, but without a doubt the worst of it came from my left arm. Through the tears, both from relief at having won and now this indescribable pain, I tried to closer inspect what I could only tell now was slightly burnt and shaking.

That was a big mistake.

The moment I saw the true condition of my arm, I promptly passed out. Although, in hindsight, maybe it was also a good thing.

I really needed the rest before my next match, especially if I intended to make it to the finals.

End