The faint smile on my face seemed to be the final trigger for Shoto Todoroki. His momentary shock that his attack had been absorbed was quickly replaced by an expression of cold concentration. He was no longer underestimating me. He now saw me as a real threat, a problem to be solved, not just an insect to be crushed.
"Interesting," he said, his voice flat, but I could feel a new intensity within it. "So, your armor Quirk has a resistance to fire. Or perhaps... heat absorption." He was analyzing quickly, even in the middle of a fight. "In that case, I'll just have to use a different approach."
Without further warning, he stomped his right foot again. But this time, it wasn't a giant wall of ice he sent at me. The entire surface of the arena between us instantly froze over, becoming a thick, slick sheet of ice. Simultaneously, he grew jagged ice pillars all around me, not to attack, but to limit my room to maneuver, turning the arena into his own personal ice labyrinth.
I shot forward, the armor on my legs giving me enough grip on the ice. I charged toward him, intending to give him no time to devise a more complicated strategy. But as I got closer, he raised his left hand. A wave of fire swept toward me, but this time its purpose was different. The fire hit the ice walls beside me, creating a massive cloud of thick steam in an instant, obscuring all vision.
Damn it. He was using his elemental combination not for direct attacks, but to control the battlefield. He created a slick, obstacle-filled arena with zero visibility. He was trying to neutralize my speed advantage and force me to fight his game.
I stopped, sharpening all my senses. I couldn't see him, but I could hear the sound of ice cracking and forming somewhere in the mist. He was constantly changing the maze. I could feel the heat in my chest pulsing steadily, absorbing the residual heat in the air, giving me energy, but it would be useless if I couldn't find my opponent.
"You can't hit what you can't see, Tatsumi," his voice echoed from all directions, bouncing off the ice walls.
I grinned internally. 'That's true. But you made one miscalculation, Todoroki.'
I closed my eyes. I ignored the sound, ignored the steam. I focused on one thing: heat. The heat of his body. And the much more intense heat of his left side. I might not be able to see him, but I could feel him. He was like a beacon in a snowstorm to me. I turned, facing the direction of the strongest heat source, and raised my armored right arm.
At that exact moment, a sharp ice projectile shot out of the mist, straight at me. My instincts, amplified by my heat perception, reacted before my mind could even process it. I swung my arm, parrying the projectile with a loud clang.
In the observation room, the teachers were watching intently. "Incredible," said Midnight. "Even with zero visibility, he was able to block that attack. What kind of senses does he have?"
Aizawa stared at the screen intensely. "Not normal senses. His armor... it seems to react to heat. Todoroki's fire Quirk, instead of being an advantage, has become a perfect locator beacon for Tatsumi. Todoroki has accidentally given his opponent a radar."
In the arena, Todoroki seemed to realize this as well. He stopped using his fire, and the steam cloud slowly began to thin. He stood atop a high ice pillar, looking at me with a visible hint of frustration. His plan had failed.
"Every time I think I have you figured out," Todoroki said, "you show something new. Who are you, really, Tatsumi?"
"Just a boy who wants to win this festival," I replied, preparing myself for the next assault.
Our fight turned into a deadly dance on a landscape of ice. He would send precise, rapid-fire ice attacks, and I would dodge or parry them, constantly trying to close the distance. He was a genius, using every part of the arena to his advantage, creating slick ramps and sudden walls. I, on the other hand, relied on raw speed and the durability of my armor, turning his every attack into an opportunity to get closer.
We were both starting to reach our limits. I could feel the energy I had absorbed from the fire beginning to fade, and the familiar ache started to creep back into my muscles. Across from me, I could see frost starting to form on the right side of Todoroki's body again. He was exhausted too. This fight would be decided by one final attack. We both knew it.
Todoroki took a deep breath, cold vapor puffing from his mouth. He planted both feet firmly on the ice. "This is the end," he said. He no longer looked hesitant. His eyes were filled with the cold resolve of a warrior. He knew a simple ice or fire attack wouldn't work. He had to do something he had never tried before.
He stomped his right foot, and a massive ice wave, far larger than any before, began to form, hurtling toward me. But it was just a diversion. Simultaneously, he raised his left hand and didn't shoot flames. Instead, he super-heated the air above me and around the ice wave. I could feel the temperature around me skyrocket. He was creating a thermal explosion, an extreme clash of hot and cold designed to create an incredible shockwave. It was a brilliant and incredibly dangerous move.
I had nowhere to run. I couldn't absorb an attack that was a combination of two extreme elements at once. I couldn't block it with my partial armor. I had only one choice. I had to bet everything on a single counter-attack.
I stopped, ignoring the approaching ice wave. I focused every last ounce of my remaining energy, every shred of my will, into my right arm. 'Everything!' I thought, a command and a plea to my dragon. 'Not just an arm! Give me a weapon! Give me your fangs!'
I felt the armor on my arm pulse violently. The pain was blinding, but I held on. The black metal began to shift, to reshape itself. It elongated past my knuckles, tapering into a brutal, sharp point. It wasn't an elegant sword or a long spear. It was a short, deadly draconic spearhead, fused to my gauntlet. This was the first manifestation of Incursio's weapon, Neuntote, even if it was just its tip.
As the wave of ice and heat was just feet away from me, I didn't wait. I didn't defend. I attacked.
With a roar that tore from my throat, I charged straight into the heart of Todoroki's ultimate attack. I drove the Incursio spearhead forward. The armor pierced through the wall of ice with ease, its draconic nature seeming to nullify the cold. The searing heat around me slammed into me, but I ignored it, pushing forward, creating a narrow tunnel through the elemental storm.
I broke through. I emerged on the other side, directly in front of a wide-eyed Todoroki, who stared in absolute disbelief. He had spent all his power on that final attack. He was completely open and defenseless.
With the last of my strength, I let the spear manifestation dissipate, returning to a normal gauntlet. I didn't punch him. I didn't kick him. I just used my armored palm and pushed hard against his chest.
It was an anticlimactic push after such a cataclysmic clash of power. But it was enough. Todoroki, exhausted and off-balance, was pushed back several steps, and then his feet passed over the boundary line. He fell softly onto the grass outside the stage.
Silence. The entire stadium was silent, trying to process what they had just seen.
Midnight, after recovering from her shock, raised her whip high. Her voice trembled slightly. "Todoroki... is out of bounds! The winner of the first-year U.A. Sports Festival is... TATSUMI!"
The roar from the tens of thousands of spectators hit me, but the sound was distant and muffled. As the victory was announced, the last of my adrenaline left me. The strength in my body vanished instantly. The armor on my arm and legs didn't recede painfully this time; it shattered into countless particles of black and red light, then disappeared. The emptiness it left behind made me stagger. My legs gave out, and I collapsed to my knees in the middle of the ruined stage, gasping for air, shaking uncontrollably.
I had done it. I had won. I was the champion. But as I stared at my trembling hands on the cracked concrete, what I felt wasn't joy. Only a deep silence and an infinite, bone-deep exhaustion.