A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the next four chapters are up on my Patreon for early access as well as the chance to vote on the direction of the story!

Lots of talking this chapter~

-x-X-x-

“… Let’s make a deal.”

His words defuse Shouko’s growing anger, converting some of it into pure confusion. Her brow furrows and her head tilts to the side as she looks at him both with curiosity and suspicion.

“A… deal?”

Izuku nods his head, making sure to maintain an amicable demeanor and tone. Especially since he knows just how… inflammatory his next words are going to be.

“You cannot defeat me with just your ice. You will never be able to defeat me with just ice.”

Shouko hisses, but Izuku isn’t done.

“Prove me wrong.”

That causes the young woman to jolt, her eyes widening in surprise at Izuku’s blunt command.

“I’m serious. This is it. Your chance to prove me wrong on a public stage. Win the U.A. Sports Festival. Get all the way to the end and defeat me.”

Because he was going to make it to the end himself… beyond a shadow of a doubt. Everyone, in Class 1-A at least, already knew the way this particular cookie was going to crumble. He was the current favorite to win the entire Sports Festival. So if Shouko was going to win it instead, it would be him and her at the end, no question.

“If you defeat me with just your ice… well, I’m so confident that’s not going to happen that I’ll go ahead and make it open ended. If you win, you can have whatever you might want from me. But if I win… if I win the Sports Festival, if you fail to beat me with just your ice… you have to use your fire for a week. In whatever capacity you’re called upon to use your Quirks, you have to use your fire just as much as your ice for seven entire days.”

Shouko stiffens up and grits her teeth again, her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists at her side.

“I already told you; I refuse to use That Man’s power. I-!”

Izuku is quick to cut her off.

“It’s not his power though, Shouko. It’s your power. All yours. And until you understand that you will never be able to beat me. You will never be the best Pro Hero you can be. So sure, pass on this wager if you’re that afraid you’ll lose. Seems to me that only confirms my point though… you know you can’t win with just your ice, so you can’t even risk losing to me and having to follow through with your end of the deal.”

It's funny, because he really is speaking from the heart here. She has no way of knowing it, but Izuku’s words apply to himself even more than they apply to Shouko. She was born with her Quirk, so in every possible way except her own mental gymnastics, it WAS her power. Both the Ice and Fire belonged to her and nobody else.

He, meanwhile, had been ‘gifted’ much of his power. His original Quirk was simply an off shoot of All for One’s Quirk, that he had then used to take all of his father’s Quirks before killing him. On top of that, he’d snaked All Might’s One for All Quirk out from under him, making Izuku the most powerful Quirk User in Japan if perhaps not the world.

And yet, technically all of that power was borrowed… stolen, really. But did Izuku see it that way? Of course not. His Quirks were his Quirks. His power was his power. That’s why it was so hard for him to see Shouko wasting her potential like she was. Because at the end of the day, they were more alike than she realized. But of course, she doesn’t know any of that.

“That’s-!”

Shouko bites down on whatever she might have said next. Izuku just gives her a meaningful glance. Silence hangs between them for a moment before finally, she hisses out her response.

“You have a deal. I WILL win with just my ice. I don’t care how strong you are Midoriya… I’m going to beat you. No matter what.”

Izuku smiles and offers his hand. For a moment, Shouko looks like she just wants to knock it away, but in the end she steps forward and they shake on it. Only once they’ve done so does he bother with a verbal response.

“We’ll see, Todoroki. We’ll see.”

She whips around at that and stalks away in a huff. Izuku watches her go with some level of amusement on his face… only for that amusement to drop when another familiar voice reaches his ears.

“Why waste time with her? You were right. She is wasting her full potential. Someone like her… she’s got nothing on us.”

Turning around, Izuku regards Katsumi Bakugo somewhat coolly. Immediately, the blonde stiffens and then ducks her head, flushing furiously under his gaze. Their… relationship could not be said to truly have improved ever since the incident with her mother. In fact, they actually hadn’t exchanged a single word since Izuku had covered Katsumi in his cum after fucking her senseless. His final words to her had been rather direct and altogether vicious.

"You're not worthy of bearing my child, Katsumi. You're barely worthy of wearing my seed."

And yet, here she was all the same. Approaching him. Trying to… what, find common ground with him? For the first time since they were very young children, Katsumi had just grouped her and Izuku together. She’d said ‘us’. As though she recognized his strength as an equal. But of course, they both knew they weren’t equals… hence the aversion of her gaze the moment he looked at her.

Still, she’d been a little bit more mellow in class at least. And so far as he was aware, she hadn’t engaged in any bullying since arriving at U.A. save for her failed attempts to bully him. Perhaps… was Katsumi trying to turn over a new leaf?

“Is that so?”

His voice is neither encouraging nor discouraging, but Katsumi seems to latch onto the fact that he’s willing to talk to her at all.

“It is. You said it yourself. She’s an idiot for not using all of her Quirk as much as possible. How else do you get stronger? I’ve practiced with my Quirk for years. I got the top score in the Entrance Exam… the open one, anyways. And you… you’ve clearly worked hard. Regardless of how late you got your Quirk. You never gave up, Izuku. You never restricted yourself. You never stopped fighting. Todoroki doesn’t understand that sort of drive. She can’t keep up with us, not when she limits herself like she does.”

… Wow. That was… a lot to unpack. Izuku didn’t think Katsumi of all people would ever be able to strike him speechless, but here they are. Funnily enough, she’s dead wrong of course. He HAD held himself back, and for almost as long as Shouko as well. Of course, his reasons for pretending to be Quirkless and Shouko’s reasons for ignoring half of her Quirk were two very different things. Still, it was nevertheless the case that Izuku had in fact restricted himself for a decade all for the sake of his father’s plans.

But just because Katsumi was dead wrong didn’t mean there wasn’t a surprising amount of heart in what she was saying. Was she seriously reaching out right now? Offering an olive branch? And yet…

“You really are something else, Katsumi.”

The blonde girl flinches at his amused, bemused tone. She opens her mouth to say something, but Izuku cuts her off with a raised hand.

“All of that… all of this… you really think you can just act like nothing ever happened, is that right?”

Eyes widening, Katsumi quickly starts to shake her head.

“N-No, I-!”

But Izuku cuts her off, suddenly standing in front of her, one hand on her shoulder and squeezing it firmly to remind her of his strength. Katsumi goes still and Izuku slowly brings his lips to her ear.

“Let’s make a deal between us as well, Katsumi. You think you’re so much better than Shouko? Think you have what it takes to beat her and face me in the end?”

He pauses and looks her in the eye, squeezing down a little harder to make it clear he wants an answer. Katsumi trembles, but there’s a glint of determination in her demeanor all the same.

“Y-Yes.”

“Then do it. Make it to the end. Face me. You don’t have to beat me. We both know you can’t. If you can beat Shouko… I’ll give you some personal one-on-one training, alright? But if you lose to Shouko… then I’m going to fuck you until you’re knocked up. I’m going to pin you down in another mating press, breed you silly, and force you to drop out of U.A. before your first year is even up.”

The more he speaks, the stiller Katsumi gets, until Izuku is pretty sure she’s not even breathing. She stares at him in wide eyed stupefaction, no doubt remembering his last words to her on that subject. He’d told her she wasn’t worthy of bearing his child, and now he was turning around and making bearing his child into a potential punishment. It was a bit hypocritical of him, wasn’t it?

Izuku didn’t care though. And he can tell that Katsumi realizes that fact, even as she shakily nods her head.

“A-Alright… d-deal.”

When she offers him a trembling hand a moment later, Izuku is beyond amused by it. Still, he shakes it nonetheless, before letting go and walking away from her. Would all of that cause Katsumi to fight better or worse? Funnily enough, he really didn’t know. His childhood friend and bully had proven to be rather… pathetic when he’d finally fucked her after plowing her mother silly. She’d gotten off on being demeaned, humiliated, and defeated. She’d been hopelessly aroused at being helpless and within his power.

She’d cum buckets when she thought he might actually pull the trigger and knock her up back then, but what about now, with time apart from that incident? From the way she was trembling before he left her behind, Izuku wasn’t too sure. His promise might just cause her to flop on her face on purpose at some point, maybe against Shouko herself. He didn’t think that very likely to be fair, but if it DID happen… well, that’d be fucking hilarious if nothing else.

A few moments after Izuku walks away from Katsumi, Class 1-A is led out of the waiting room and down the hall to the Freshman Stage where all of the other classes are also entering at the same time. There’s a lot of students and Izuku is reminded that just because he’s in one of the two Hero Classes doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty more Freshmen in the Support Course and the General Ed Course as well.

In fact, hadn’t he heard of some sort of incident where the other students had come around to Class 1-A’s room to ‘scout out the competition’? Admittedly, he hadn’t been there for that, nor had he cared much when he heard about it. Even still… there were a lot of dirty looks being thrown Class 1-A’s way, even as the R-Rated Hero Midnight made her way out onto the stage.

“Greetings Freshmen of U.A.! I am your Chief Referee for this year, Midnight!”

Most eyes turn towards the beautiful woman once she actually speaks… and once they’re looking at her, well it becomes a lot harder to stop looking at her. Midnight has that effect on people, even though her Quirk isn’t based on seduction, but rather putting people to sleep. Though, from what Izuku had read, Midnight’s Quirk DID work better on men over women. It also had to be exuded from her skin, which led to her wearing an incredibly thin bodysuit under her otherwise skimpy costume when she was out doing actual Hero Work. Thus the designation of R-Rated.

On top of that, the dominatrix-themed Pro Hero wielded whips and fans. The latter allowed her to spread her sleep-inducing aroma more effectively, but the former… that was just because she was perverse as far as Izuku could tell.

Of course, right now she wasn’t on active duty. One might wonder how such a controversial and unique heroine got permission to work at a school. But to be fair to Midnight, while she still dressed incredibly sexily, it wasn’t as bad as her Hero Work. Her bodysuit for Hero Work could rip at the slightest movement. But her bodysuit right now is clearly made of much thicker material, given how she’s all but jumping around as she grins and poses for all of them.

Nevertheless, she’s almost certainly going to feature in the wet dreams of most of the male Freshmen later tonight… and plenty of the female Freshmen as well, no doubt.

She-

“Alright! Let’s get this show on the road, shall we? Izuku Midoriya, get up here! You’re our player representative for the Freshmen, so let’s get a few words from you!”

Oh? Izuku wondered why he hadn’t been warned ahead of time. Ah well, nothing for it. He splits off from Class 1-A, everyone in the class having expressions of acceptance on their faces as they nod like it makes perfect sense. The other Freshmen aren’t nearly so accepting judging by their mutters and some angry scowls being thrown his way, but Izuku doesn’t pay them much mind.

Except… as he gives Midnight a boyish smile, taking the mike from her even as she grins right back without a hint of blush, Izuku turns and faces his fellow Freshmen, realizing he does have to pay them some mind. This is his chance to set the stage so to speak… no pun intended. Right now he has to decide what sort of tempo they all go into the Sports Festival with.

He’s already set a personal sort of tempo for himself, what with the deals he made with Shouko and Katsumi. But those two were those two… he knew how to motivate them, even if he still wasn’t sure what direction his motivation of Katsumi would end up going. Still, what worked for them might not work for all of these students.

… And Izuku did want to motivate them. He really did. His plans involved many of the young men and women that were standing in front of him now. Even the ones who were glaring at him angrily or staring at him with jealousy. In the world that Izuku wanted to create, they would all have their roles to play. They would all need to carry their own weight.

So what sort of speech did he want to give? Did he want to make himself the villain like he sort of had with Shouko and Katsumi? Or did he want to be encouraging, even in the face of their clear envy?

Hmm…

[ ] Give a decisive speech, make himself the villain for them to test themselves against - 15%