The Successor Ch. 68 (My Hero Academia) (Patreon)

A/N: Battles take place~

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In the end, Izuku doesn’t rise to Shinso’s bait. He takes Mashirao’s advice to heart, even as his opponent’s eyes narrow in response to his silence.

“… Tch. So the coward tattled on me, did he? I gave that idiot a free ride to the finals and not only does he drop out, he spills the beans. Some hero.”

The purple-haired Gen Ed Student sounds disgusted, even as he sneers. Izuku judges his words as a mixture of his true feelings and another attempt to get Izuku to speak. He’s trying to play on any camaraderie that Izuku might have with Mashirao, but frankly, Izuku isn’t that easy.

“Ready?! Begin!”

As Midnight calls for the start of the fight, Izuku begins stalking forward. His opponent stiffens, eyes widening ever so slightly in fear and jaw clenching in anger. By this point, Izuku is getting a pretty good idea of what sort of Quirk his enemy must have. Context clues alone make it rather obvious though to be fair.

First, Hitoshi Shinso had made a team of random people from Class 1-A and Class 1-B. He obviously wasn’t friends with them before UA or anything like that, because they all acted like they were violated after the fact, and two of the three of them had dropped out rather than final in the Battle Tournament.

Mind Control, had to be. Whatever Shinso’s Quirk was, it operated on some form of Mind Control. Judging by the fact that he hadn’t tried to mind control Izuku yet, and was growing increasingly desperate to provoke Izuku into responding… there was some sort of necessary verbal component on the victim’s end.

Like Mashirao had said, all Izuku had to do was not respond.

As he gets closer, he begins to reach for Shinso, intending to toss him relatively gently out of bounds and win the match. Only, just before he can do so, Shinso’s eyes dart to the side in a panic, only for a strange look to spread across his face as he looks back at Izuku with unearned confidence.

“After I beat you here, maybe I’ll have some fun with those lady friends of yours. I bet they’d enjoy celebrating with a real man.”

Well now. Clinically, Izuku could acknowledge that it was a half-decent attempt. Shinso had picked up on Izuku’s all-female squad and had deduced that Momo, Itsuka, and even Mei were a weakness that he could potentially exploit. Unfortunately for the Gen Ed Student, Izuku was always in control.

WHAM!

Admittedly, he might have responded a bit emotionally in the end though. Rather than pick Shinso up and lightly toss the other man out of bounds, Izuku’s fist finds its way to the Gen Ed Student’s face. Nothing too hard. He doesn’t even break Shinso’s jaw, though he’s mightily tempted to. But he does hit his opponent hard enough that Shinso goes flying straight out of bounds, landing on his back and giving Izuku the win.

As a hush falls over the crowd at a seemingly anti-climactic first round and Midnight calls the match as Izuku’s victory, Izuku looks down at his opponent with a glare. He might have offered the other man his hand before what he’d just said, but instead he just offers him some words of advice.

“If I catch you using your Quirk on any girl like that, I’ll fucking kill you myself.”

His words aren’t loud enough to be picked up by any of the stadium microphones. And neither are Shinso’s.

“Forfeit your next match.”

Izuku stiffens as he feels the sensation of a foreign Quirk trying to take control of him. He supposed talking at the end of the match was a form of cockiness in and of itself, but truth be told he hadn’t expected his opponent to be that scummy. Shinso’s Command washes over him and it immediately becomes obvious how his Quirk works. He needs his target to respond to him in some way first and from there he’s able to worm his way inside and make them do whatever he wants.

It allowed him to win the Cavalry Battle, but it didn’t let him go any further than the first round of the Battle Tournament, because in using his Quirk to manipulate a proud young man like Mashirao, all Shinso had done was reveal his hand too soon.

Now though… Izuku slowly turns back around to face his downed opponent, seeing the triumph in the hateful young man’s eyes. He can practically hear Hitoshi Shinso’s thoughts. If he can’t win, then Izuku isn’t allowed to win either.

For a moment, Izuku is almost tempted to let it all play out. To go into his next match with this compulsion to forfeit. Once he did so, he would be able to rightfully call Shinso out for forcing him to do it… and of course, even if your average student didn’t know what Hitoshi Shinso’s Quirk was, UA had to know. The faculty had to know.

The scandal would likely ruin Shinso’s life and see him thrown out of UA and onto the streets in a heartbeat. Nothing quite so villainously inclined as ordering someone else to throw a match after you lost to them, after all.

But… no. Almost contemptuously, Izuku breaks the compulsion. He doesn’t even have to really hurt himself to do it, though he judges that that would also have worked. Instead, all he has to do is cycle some of his Quirks and mentally snap the order in half over his metaphorical knee. Glaring down at Shinso as the small hint of victory rapidly fades from the Gen Ed Student’s eyes, Izuku just says one word.

“No.”

Then, he turns and walks away. Let Shinso wallow in his own insecurities and inadequacies. Izuku had no doubt that a Quirk like his was being watched closely. If the other young man used his mind control in the way he’d suggested he might during their match, then the UA Faculty would come down on him like a pile of bricks. And if they failed to keep him in check… Izuku himself would swoop in if need be.

For now, he leaves the stadium as the next match is called. The first round of the Battle Tournament continues apace, with Izuku honestly not paying that much attention to most of it. Shouko still primarily uses her ice in battle, specifically to freeze Hanta Sero so completely that the match is called in the former’s favor. However, she does use her fire to thaw Hanta out afterwards, which Izuku considers to be a step in the right direction if nothing else.

Meanwhile, Mei uses her match against Ida to advertise all of her support gear, effectively turning a battle into a publicity stunt and an infomercial all in one. After she’s finished showing off her gear, the Support Hero walks out of bounds of her own accord, leaving a disgruntled Tenya Ida in her wake.

And finally, Momo and Itsuka both win their own matches quite handily, taking down Mina Ashido and Ibara Shiozaki, a replacement for Mashirao after his resignation, respectively. Izuku was happy for them of course, and pleased to see they’d both been taking things so seriously… but it did mean he was more likely to face one of them then ever before when the second round came along.

Of course, Katsumi also won her match. This left the second round of the Battle Tournament surprisingly equal in terms of gender equality. On the one side, you had Momo, Itsuka, Shouko, and Katsumi all pulling through for women everywhere. On the other side, you had Izuku and Tenya alongside Eijiro Kirishima and Yuga Aoyama.

Apparently the faculty liked the symmetry as well, because the second round wound up being entirely Men versus Women.

“First match will be Izuku Midoriya versus Shouko Todoroki.”

How… disappointing. It made sense, of course. They had been the first two matches of the first round, so in the end they were destined to face one another first in the second round as well. Izuku just wished they’d mixed things up a little bit, maybe shuffled them all around.

But of course, he recognized that his desire was a purely selfish one. Maybe it was silly of him to want to face Shouko or Katsumi in the semi-finals, and the other of them in the finals. It would make for the best story after all and be the most poetic. Instead, while there was definitely a chance Izuku would face Katsumi in the finals if she kept winning… it seemed that this was where Shouko’s journey ended.

As the two of them face off, he can see determination warring with resignation in Shouko’s eyes. Grinning slightly, Izuku doesn’t bother with the silent treatment this time. After all, Shouko doesn’t have a mind control Quirk to ensnare him with.

“It’s a little unfair that this is where your run ends, Shouko. But the difference between us is still too great.”

Shouko’s glare intensifies at that, her teeth grinding as she clenches her hands into fists at her sides.

“… I know.”

Of course she does. She’d said it herself back before the Tournament even began. He was the one to beat. The undisputed top dog of Class 1-A. And like Izuku had told her time and time again, until she stopped holding herself back, she would never surpass him.

“That’s why… I’m going to go all out.”

“Match… BEGIN!”

She times it perfectly, the little minx. Izuku is actually pretty impressed with how Shouko waits until right as Midnight is drawing in a breath to speak before delivering that bombshell. Then, as soon as the word ‘begin’ leaves Midnight’s lips, Shouko shoots forward… on flames that explode out of her palms and heels, a combination of skills that both Tenya Ida and Katsumi Bakugou have shown off, but tweaked to work with Shouko’s own Fire and Ice Quirk.

At the same time that she’s exploding forward at speeds faster than Izuku has ever seen her move before, the air around Shouko goes below freezing, ice immediately beginning to form on every surface around her… specifically the ground. As ice races across the arena alongside Shouko, Izuku grins… and leaps into the air, coming down to meet her charge with one of his own.

What follows is one of the best fights that he’s ever had. Shouko isn’t just powerful, she’s technically skilled as well. She might not like her father, in fact she hated him from what Izuku knew, but there was simply no denying the results of however much training she’d allowed the man to put her through. She’s a very talented, very skilled fighter, and she’ll make an excellent Pro Hero as well at some point in the future.

Izuku actually has to lean on more than just One for All to keep up with her, because Shouko is apparently a master at fighting opponents who out-speed her. Makes sense if her only sparring partner for most of her life has been the Number Two Pro Hero. Endeavor doesn’t seem like the kind of man known for pulling his punches either, even for family.

And yet… it’s not enough. He thinks Shouko knows it too. She’s not pulling her punches or holding back even a little bit, but he can see it in her stance all the same. The resignation. Its unfortunate, given the ultimatum he’d given her. If she wanted to join his harem, she had to beat him in the finals. Obviously, that last part wasn’t possible in the end due to circumstances outside of their control, but if she couldn’t beat him here, then she had no hope of joining his harem like she’d claimed to want to.

But how much of Shouko actually even wanted that, really? And how much just wanted to stick it to her father in someway instead? Izuku supposed they would find out in due time, because he was done holding back.

Fact was, as much as using the full strength of her Quirk made her far tougher, she was still relatively inexperienced with the fire side of her Quirk due to her refusal to train with it. It would take time and more training, preferably with someone besides her father, before Shouko Todoroki could hope to reach her full potential.

In the end, Izuku bulldozes through her attacks and kicks Shouko in the chest. She tries to arrest her momentum, but while she probably can learn to fly, she can’t do it quite yet. In the end, she winds up on her back outside of the ring, having lost the battle by ring-out.

“Izuku Midoriya is the victor and advances to the Semi-Finals!”

Unlike with Shinso, Izuku walks right over to Shouko and offers her his hand. She seems startled by this, and he thinks he even sees the beginning of tears in the corners of her eyes, though she quickly swipes them away and composes herself before letting him draw her to her feet.

“Good fight. It was nice seeing you going all out. I hope with this, you’ll reach your full potential.”

Shouko flushes but then nods, even as they leave the arena so the next battle can commence. However, just as they’re getting out of sight of the crowds and into one of the stadium hallways, they’re confronted… by none other than Endeavor himself.

Izuku narrows his eyes as Endeavor stops in front of them, crossing his arms over his chest. The Number Two Pro Hero’s gaze darts up and down Izuku’s form for a moment, but ultimately settles on his daughter. And likely much to Shouko’s shock, Endeavor actually cracks a smile, his hard exterior turning warm as he nods to his daughter.

“You’ve impressed me, daughter. You might have lost, but seeing you use your flames… you have the potential to surpass me in every way. One day soon, I will be the Number One Pro Hero. And a long time after that, you will be the one to finally take my place. Once you graduate from UA, I’ll be proud to take you on as my sidekick!”

Izuku supposes he’s meant to be upset that Endeavor is ignoring him and his potential. But he’s more amused than anything, really. The man is a strange juxtaposition of an egotist and a walking bundle of insecurities and low self-esteem.

But Izuku stays quiet, letting Shouko answer for herself. The young woman grits her teeth and shakes her head.

“Nothing has changed. I didn’t use my Fire because of you. In fact, I used it in spite of you! Because it’s MY Fire, not yours!”

Endeavor looks slightly startled for a moment… before his eyes finally move back to Izuku. Realization seems to pass through the Number Two Pro Hero and after a moment he opens his mouth to speak.