"START!!!!!"

With the loud sound, Shoji enhanced his senses, noticing even the slight vapor that escaped from his mouth.

He wasn’t surprised when Bakugo instantly turned both palms his way or when an explosion big enough to rock the battlefield started coming towards him.

The boy was calm, unlike that battle against Shiozaki; he seemed to accept this one.

It was all or nothing; win, and only that, because he would win. So, with a calm mind, he made a calm decision and ran.

With schooled features, he jumped for the other side of the platform.

Once he had done a 180 and was now doing a handstand with the heat scorching his back, he pressed down on his hands.

Then, right before it incinerated him, like a spring cocked back, he pushed. With his quirk and multiple arms, the most power he could generate was in his upper body.

Thus, instead of running, he’d get there quicker if he pushed off of his arms and into the air.

And right he was, as within a hair's breadth, Shoji ended in the safe zone, clear of the blast and Bakugo’s view.

 ‘Exactly as I predicted.’ If Shoji had glasses, they’d be pure white, reflecting the sun right about now.

Bakugo Katsuki, a powerful boy, second only to Todoroki in raw output, yet his versatility, mobility, and battle instincts make up for this.

Someone who, without any formal training, could match up to the #2’s son no matter the situation, someone who didn’t have to rely on the conditions being favorable to him to win.

‘Truly a monster.’

But like all monsters, he was arrogant.

Shoji had seen growth in the boy from the first battle in the Hero vs. Villain simulation, where he one-sidedly threw away the objective in pursuit of his own personal vendetta against Midoriya.

To the sports festival, where he was more no-nonsense, ending battles faster than his usual taunting self would allow, not responding to blatant provocation as easily.

 ‘He’s grown.’

Yet…

‘There’s only so much growth a person can have in such a few short months.’

“How you got to this final was…interesting.”

Bakugo turned his attention to the massive screen of smoke in front of him in an instant.

The residual effect of his quirk blocked his view, yet there was nothing he could do to get rid of it, as more explosions would have the opposite effect.

Tch

Clicking his tongue, he focused on his hearing, wanting to figure out where Shoji was.

So with his full attention, Shoji continued, “Advancing to the final by default. Isn’t that kind of, I don't know…pitiful.”

‘Calm down, Katsuki; he’s just trying to rile—’

“You know, you shout about how Suijin is a coward, how he’s just scared to face you, but…isn’t it you who’s scared of him.”

!!!!

Even his own willpower could stop Bakugo’s face from scrunching up.

“Someone who could defeat Shoto Todoroki, someone who has consistently been a threat to you at the top of the class, someone who is a threat to your self-decided position as the strongest,”

The grinding of his teeth as a vein from his forehead popped out gave the onlookers a clear understanding of the effect Shoji’s words were having.

“You don’t think he’s scared of you; you’re scared of him. Scared that he could achieve a result that even you, in all your arrogance, couldn’t guarantee.”

Shoji was sure of the effect his words were having; he was sure that he was causing immense rage inside of Bakugo right now; after all, so was he.

Birds of a feather flock together, and the second he realized his hidden thoughts, Shoji instantly understood Bakugo.

A pretense of arrogance that hides great fear and insecurity, a vestige of impenetrability, shields the true form of fear.

They were the same.

All of the words he spoke to Bakugo were what he had previously directed to himself, he’d used this two-week period of training to avoid Suijin.

‘I was scared.’

He wanted to laugh at himself.

Suijin doing damage to a creature, even All Might struggled too. Suijin showing the MASSIVE potential he previously kept hidden under himself scared Shoji.

It made the boy fear the day he was surpassed, the day that he would no longer be him.

Shoji realized that this friendship that the boys had was obviously built on a pretext of lies; it was built on an already shallow, shaky, hollow foundation.

While Suijin thought of him as a rival, Shoji never viewed the boy as such, at least not truly.

Instead, he thought that the idea of Suijin surpassing him was inevitable, he originally agreed to this rivalry to bring Suijin down from the inconceivable pedestal he stood on in Shoji’s mind to his own.

This was a way he could tether himself to Suijin, so that he could grapple with even a bit of the boy's eventual prestige and become half as great as he was.

His thought process was simply that when Suijin became more powerful than him and Shoji lost his title of the strongest to Suijin, it was one of the only things he'd ever truly owned.

What would he have, then?

 ‘How stupid.’ 

Shoji shook his head in the midst of berating Bakugo.

 ‘Suijin, Mom, Dad, Enkai, Erena, hell even Tamaki-Sensei. They’re who I am; they're what made me the man I am today. I don’t need some stupid title like The Strongest, a false one at that, to define me.’

Titles and accolades meant nothing compared to the bonds he shared with his loved ones.

Losing one of those pillars, one of those who were what made him, was the push Shoji needed to understand that fact, and it would ultimately be the reason for him pushing beyond that fact, to higher heights he could never imagine in his wildest dreams.

‘I’ll make sure of it.’ 

Thus, right here right now, this wasn’t a battle of Mezo Shoji vs. Katsuki Bakugo, but instead a battle of Mezo Shoji vs. Mezo Shoji.

In that moment, the battle ceased to be about Shoji versus Bakugo; it became a battle of self-acceptance.

Shoji vowed to overcome his fears and insecurities and to rise above the limitations he had imposed on himself.

And would he lose a battle against himself?

Nah,

‘I’d Win.’

______________

Sorry for the delay, JJK got me up plotting on Gege.