You Want To Fight… Me?

"Wow Izukun, sounds like you had a pretty wild day," Nejire said before she returned to eating her comically oversized triple scooped ice cream cone.

It had been approximately three hours since the USJ incident had come to pass and after the police had left me alone, I bumped into Nejire on my way back to the dorms. We were already pretty close to an ice cream parlor, so we decided to stop by and talk.

"All's well that ends well, I guess," I said before eating another spoonful of my own ice cream. I never was one to eat ice cream from a wafer cone.

"At least for now it will be peaceful until the Sports Festival," I added.

"Ah! That reminds me, I need you to give me special training. For my final attempt at the Sports Festival as a third-year student, I at least want to reach second place and give Mirio a run for his money," She said with a fire in her eyes.

"You know," I gave her a sly look, "I could always buff you to oblivion." Insanity threatened to spill from my eyes as I maliciously added, "With your Quirk, experience, and my buffs, I dare say you may actually stand a chance at avenging my year of constant losing to that blond bastard."

"Thanks… but no thanks," Nejire said with a sad smile. "Even if you were being serious, I wouldn't want to win due to external support, but rather, with my personal strength."

I tried to tempt her, "It would be your personal strength. Temporarily, anyways..."

"Yeah, but we'd be found out for cheating rather quickly, wouldn't we? Unless you decided to always be with me, constantly maintaining your spells—"

"I'd do it," I saw reflected in her eyes that a fire had lit my own eyes. "To get back at my intangible senpai… Staying by your side to the very end would be entirely worth it. Honestly, it be more a pleasant, positive experience than anything else, really."

Only after seeing her blush and turn away did I realized I was flirting again.

'Shit, I've been doing this so often, I'm starting to do it unconsciously,' I thought. I couldn't decide whether or not this was worth worrying over. After all, it had always been over fun and games. But, isn't this a sign that I'm growing dense?

I can still catch myself after the fact now, but If I continue on this road… If I keep flirting unconsciously… Who's to say whether or not one of the multiple girls I tease on a regular basis will really catch feelings? What if I get dense to the point that I don't realize it?! God, that would be awkward, wouldn't it?

...

Walking through the entrance of the dorms, I did not at all expect to be suddenly swarmed by everyone in the common room.

"Man… Despite everything you went through, from helping several of us when we were separated, to fighting the leaders of the League of Villains, and being the last person out of the police station… You just nonchalantly come in with ice cream after all that? Friggin manly, my guy," Kirishima said as tears threatened to spill from his eyes.

"What he said, fam. You have good taste in ice cream too, homie" Camie added.

"Actually," before anyone could get another word of praise in, I offered Camie the cup in my hand and said, "do you want the rest? It was stupid of me to get more after Nejire and I went our separate ways."

"Really? You'd give me your Strawberry Fudge Crunch?"

Ignoring how she could tell with just sight, I just shoved the half eaten cup in her hands and said, "It'd be better than wasting it."

Apparently, that was the wrong move, seeing as everyone watched our exchange and the showed a myriad of expressions as Camie happily devoured what was left of the ice cream. From the aghast coming from Iida and… most girls, to the impressed from Kaminari and Jiro, various expressions ranging in intensity were tossed both at Camie at myself.

Before I could process why we were being eyed with such interest, I felt a finger swipe next to my lips and turned to see it was Camie, who apparently wasn't satisfied with simply inhaling all the ice cream in the cup.

Through some sort of magic or secondary Quirk she managed to erase all traces of the ice cream in the cup, yet she still went after the remnants that remained around my mouth!

After sticking her offending finger in her mouth and sucking it melodramatically, she said, "Hit me up the next time an ice cream joint, fam. This shit was next level."

"Yeah, I'll make sure you get a proper serving next time, too," I rolled my eyes.

"Deku..." Katsuki suddenly said, reminding me of his existence, "cut that disgusting lovey dovey shit for a second and follow me… we need to talk."

Without another word, he passed me on his way out and for a second I paused.

'Lovey what? Oh!' I winced and started to panic, 'My reaction time when it comes to this is getting noticeably slower...'

Tearing me away from my terrifying thoughts, I heard Kaminari say, "Oh shit, you think he's pissed at Midoriya for making a move on his crush or something?"

Jiro turned to look at me for a moment before she snickered and said, "I think the blond bomber wants to claim Midoriya for himself before Camie makes it official."

"Uugh… You're one of those… Fujoshis aren't' you," Kaminari squinted his eyes in cringe at Jiro as he slowly backed away from her. I couldn't tell if he was homophobic or just unsettled by the thought of Katsuki trying to—

You know what? I'm with Kaminari if he's against Katsuki being gay for me. That shit might just give me nightmares if I don't quickly forget about it.

Disturbed by the notion as much as I was by Jiro's expectant eyes, I excused myself and left to go see what Katsuki wanted. Upon serious consideration, I realized he'd been totally radio silence after we had our class Quirk Apprehension Test.

"So… What do you want?" I hummed merrily in very obvious disregard for the seriousness with which he carried our immediate atmosphere.

"Fight me," he said.

No. He demanded.

"Huh? I thought after all the mobs you and Kirishima faced in the Ruins Zone at the USJ, you'd have sated your bloodlust for murder today."

"I need to know what level I need to be at to kill you at the Sports Festival," he said with an even tone; quite creepily I might add.

"Ah, so that's what this is about. Ok then, where do you want to do this?"

At the most basic level, I could respect him for having enough self awareness to know that I was currently at a much higher level than him. Then again, he thought two weeks would be enough to not only match me as I continued to cultivate my powers, but surpass me?

Heh, I know there must exist people who think a mountain's peak is concealed just before the clouds. Sometimes, said people just won't believe how far away the peak truly is until a wind comes along to dispel the clouds. I don't mind taking a couple minutes to clear the clouds preventing Katsuki from realizing just how far beneath me he is in a one on one combat setting.

"I already got permission from Aizawa to fight in Training Grounds Gamma tomorrow morning." Katsuki said as he started to walk back towards the dorms. "Rest up, cause I don't want to hear excuses about being fatigued about what happened today."

With that he left me to consider how badly I was to defeat him tomorrow. How much pain should I inflict on him? How quickly do I want to end the fight, if it can even be called that? What type of humiliation would serve him best? Instantaneous defeat from going all out or being defeated after a lengthy duel only to find out that I had been debuffed the whole time… Against him, I think I might even be able to best him as an unarmed Saboteur, even with debuffs, so…

'Eh,' I shrugged my shoulders, 'I'll figure it out tomorrow.'

...

Welp, it's tomorrow, today, and I can't say I expected this.

"Why is our class gathered to watch this? I thought classes were canceled for the rest of the week?" I asked Aizawa.

"You and Bakugo are two of the most powerful, intelligent students in our class. You both have performed exceptionally both academically and in the few heroic endeavors thrust upon you thus far. So, I put out a notice to the rest of your peers to see just how far even those near the very top of a hierarchy can be from one another," he replied.

I turned to look at Katsuki and surprisingly, all he did was snort and "Hmph!"

"Dude, he just called you out as being way the fuck below me... Before the rest of the class!" Seeing no reaction, I yelled, "Where is the real Katsuki Bakugo and who the fuck are you, imposter?!"

"Shut the fuck up and get ready before I end you with sucker punch, Deku," Katsuki said whilst cracking his neck. I take back what I said; he's the real deal.

"At least tell me why you agreed to this. I can't see why you would drag me out of the common room to talk about this one on one fight so secretively, if we were just going to invite everyone all along."

"Sensei..." Katsuki growled the word, "made it a condition if I wanted the fight to happen in the first place." He then turned to stare at me hatefully as he added, "And I only dragged your sorry ass out yesterday to talk seriously. I should have expected what I got, seeing as you've been acting like a total clown since you got your shitty Quirk."

"So you've noticed? I thought you were giving me the cold shoulder all along, Kacchan," I said; goofy mode engaged.

"If you two are done warming up, we can start the official match any moment now," Aizawa snappily said.

"Your time," I addressed Aizawa, "I can waste. It's more fun that way. But for my classmates," I looked at each of their eyes for at least a second, pausing longer only for Todoroki and Inasa, "We should get this show on the road sooner rather than later, right?" I readied up a fighting stance and looked at Katsuki.

"Signal the start of the match whenever, sensei," Katsuki said. Though, his eyes never moved from my body; he was ready to catch all of my movements.

"Alright everyone, pay attention now. This is going to be a single round match with standard sparring winning conditions. So, if both of you are ready…

"Begin!"