*CRACK!*
The ground beneath Dante exploded, his legs warped instantly, muscles elongating, knees bending backwards with sharp pop into sleek, birdlike limbs with thick, corded power. Ostrich legs. The sheer velocity of his launch cracked the tiles beneath him.
Todoroki didn't even get the chance to try and freeze him.
*BOOM—!*
Dante was right infront of him, shoulder barging Todoroki's chest and sending them both skidding back across the stage. Todoroki barely kept his footing, bracing with his right leg and pushing off his left.
"I thought we'd have a bit of hand to hand first," Dante said, already swinging a brutal right hook.
Todoroki ducked under it and jabbed a palm strike toward Dante's ribs, no ice? Just a feint. But Dante twisted, caught the arm and drove a knee into his gut.
"Not gonna use your quirk?" Dante muttered, pushing Todoroki back with a brutal elbow to the chin.
"You're not using yours," Todoroki replied, steady even as he stumbled back.
Dante grinned, eyes glowing violently. "That's 'cause I like to fight."
They circled eachother like predators. The crowd oddly silent. They weren't using any flashy quirks. Nothing special. This was just two teenage boys trading vicious, calculated, trained blows.
Todoroki moved again, faster this time. A sharp jab, a spinning back fist, then a low sweep. Dante leapt over the sweep effortlessly, twisting midair and falling back down with an axe kick that made the arena floor crack.
Todoroki thankfully blocked with his forearm and winced, he definitely felt that.
"You've got great combat skills, way better than everyone else," Dante said, voice low as they reset positions. "Kaijin would approve."
Todoroki blinked. "Who?"
"Nevermind that."
Dante darted in again, this time throwing three jabs, each one forcing Todoroki to either parry or block with extreme precision. But Dante was already reading his rythm.
Then, feint left, strike low, sweep the leg…
Todoroki fell.
He landed on his back, rolled and popped back up in one fluid motion, but Dante was already on him, closing in again. He slammed Todoroki with his shoulder and then drove his elbow down toward his chest, Todoroki caught it, gritting his teeth.
"I know what you're doing," he said through clenched teeth.
"Huh? I'm just fighting, dude."
"You're trying to make me mad."
Dante grinned. "Trying? You already seem pretty angry."
Their heads were practically butting as they grappled, they were grabbing at eachothers uniforms.
Around them, the crowd was starting to get loud again.
No quirks. Nothing special. Just sheer force of will.
And they seemed to love it.
Dante finally pushed back and reset again, chest heaving, eyes locked on Todoroki.
"I know you've got fire," he said. "Let's see it."
Todoroki's face tightened.
"Don't push your luck."
Dante smirked and cracked his knuckles. "I'm not pushing, im only just getting started."
Seems Dante wasn't the only one.
The air turned cold.
Dante didn't need to see the frost creeping across the floor to know that Todoroki was done playing.
"Aw, I was enjoying that…" Dante muttered, watching the pale mist roll off Todoroki's arm. His eyes narrowed. "Not gonna use any fire?"
Todoroki swung his right arm at Dante, a huge wall of jagged ice burst forward, about to swallow Dante whole.
Dante saw it coming.
FWIOOOSH!
Dante's back erupted into sludge, forming large, jagged wings. The instant they formed, they flapped once and launched Dante upward into the sky in a spiral, narrowly avoiding being skewered.
The crowd gasped.
"I don't need fire to beat you." Todoroki called out, launching another pillar of ice directly toward the airborne Dante.
Dante twisted through the air with uncanny flexibility, barrel rolling to dodge the spikes, then diving back to the ground. His feet just kissed the ground as he pivoted and launched himself back up into the air again, using his wings more like slingshots than wings, bouncing between air and floor to stay unpredictable.
"Guess I'll just have to beat it outta you." Dante shouted midair, flipping over another pillar of ice.
Todoroki's expression remained calm, but his eyes were focused. He threw his arm forward, launching a crisscrossing barrage of ice tendrils, trying to trap Dante in a net of ice.
Dante dropped down, hard.
He folded his wings and plummeted straight down, landing in a skid that carved through the already frozen floor. Frost crackled up his legs but he just shook it off and rushed in, closing the gap again.
"Let's go, round two!"
He ducked under an incoming ice lance and slammed a fist into Todoroki's ribs. The hit knocked him off balance and Dante followed with an uppercut that caught his jaw and sent him stumbling back.
But even as he staggered, Todoroki countered.
He spun and encased the ground around him in ice, catching Dante's footing mid dash and freezing him up to the chest.
"Shit—!"
Todoroki stood up slowly and encased Dante's whole body in ice.
The cold consumed him.
The sludge around his body instantly hardened, locking him in place.
Dante was frozen. Completely.
His body encased in a jagged spire of ice that shimmered in the sunlight, motionless.
Todoroki didn't speak, his breath was heavy, mist pouring out from his right side.
Inside the ice, Dante's world was nothing but cold.
He couldn't move.
He couldn't breathe.
His sludge was useless here, too cold to form properly.
For a second, his thoughts drifted back to his first day alone, nearly freezing to death on the street. That exact same suffocating, paralysing cold.
Is this it?
Is this all I've got left? Seriously?
Even little Dante couldn't help in this situation.
"Are you planning on letting him win?!"
Little Dante was furious.
"Get UP!"
"Come on! You've been here for 6 years now right? SURELY YOUR quirk has awakened right? There's an 80% chance, and I'm 80% sure it has something to with fire… So come on, do something!"
Silence cracked
CRACK!
Dante's eyes snapped open. Heat pulsed deep in his chest, like something newly awakened, it felt more natural than the sludge, it felt like it was… his.
CRACK!
A jagged line split down the ice, Orange light leaking through.
Then another.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
"I'm… not done." Dante's voice was distorted, layered, vibrating with something primal.
Then he roared.
BOOOOOM!!
Fire exploded out, violent and molten, shattering the entire glacier in a blinding eruption of steam. The shockwave rattled the arena walls.
Out of the smoke stepped a figure, Dante, but not entirely.
His skin was cracked, glowing like cooled magma with lava like veins pulsing across his body. His eyes were dark, his sclera black and his eyes gone from red to a gradient of orange and red, the white X replaced with a bright yellow one. Sludge and fire mixed unnaturally, his body bubbling and burning at the same time.
He wasn't flying around, or shooting fancy tendrils around.
He was just walking.
And every step melted all the frost around him.
Todoroki's eyes widened, just barely. "What…?"
Dante's voice came out deeper. Distorted. Echoing with rage.
"You… I will defeat you. I will win."
He didn't understand what his body was doing.
This wasn't anything to do with sludge at all.
This fire… it wasn't his quirk.
Or maybe it was?
Either way, it didn't matter to Dante.
Right now, he felt unstoppable.
And even Todoroki looked unsure.
He braced himself as Dante stomped closer, his skin was just like magma and it kept glowing brighter and brighter, his feet were literally melting into the concrete floor.
Each step sent embers spiraling into the air, melting the frost around him into hissing steam.
"This… you have more than one quirk?!" Todoroki realised. He could feel the heat even though Dante was over ten feet away, this wasn't plain old fire. This was something else.
He tried to raise his left arm to shoot a pillar of ice again, but this time… before it even formed properly, it melted straight into steam, not even getting a chance to become water.
Another wall of ice. Gone.
"It's… too hot. My ice… it can't keep up!"
He glanced down at his right hand. Trembling.
His fire.
"I… don't want to… but I don't want to lose either."
There was no choice.
With a grimace of defiance, Todoroki pulled in a deep breath, closed his eyes and unleashed the flames of his father, Endeavour.
This earned a scream of pure ecstasy from Endeavour in the crowd.
WHOOOOOOMMMM!!!——
A blast of red hot fire erupted out from his right side, meeting Dante's incoming fury head on.
And for a second, it was actual hell on earth.
The stadium rumbled, the concrete floor started to melt, the air warped and the flames clashed in a dance of chaos. Spectators shielded their eyes from the heatwave. Pro heroes stood ready to intervene.
But then—
Todoroki's flames started to dwindle.
And Dante's started to burn even brighter, his flames enveloping the entire battleground.
Dante kept marching through the blaze, his eyes glowing like twin suns, his voice a distorted growl.
"Don't hold back, or else my flames will swallow you whole…"
Todoroki stumbled back, flames sputtering.
"N-no," he whispered. "I used… everything."
Dante raised a sludge claw, cracked and molten.
Todoroki took a step back.
"I forfeit!" He called out, voice firm. "I forfeit the match!"
The stadium went silent in confusion.
Dante didn't stop.
He kept heading toward Todoroki.
Step by molten step.
"DANTE GRAVES, STOP!" Midnight called out, but it didn't register in Dante's mind:
He was too far gone. Too lost.
That's when a thick, heavy pink mist rolled across the arena, glittering and sweet smelling.
It wrapped around Dante's burning body.
He slowed down.
Took another step.
Then another.
Then he collapsed.
Steam hissed from his body as the magma glow faded, the cracks on his skin slowly closing up. His breathing even evened out, not a single scratch or bruise on his body.
He was just fast asleep.
The crowd murmured. Some in awe, others in fear.
Midnight exhaled shakily, glancing at the scorched stadium. "What the hell is up with you, kid?"
And in the med bay, a medic whispered, "that wasn't his quirk right? Does he have multiple?"