The winner and the loser were talking near the arena, and Shouto felt himself become very curious. He saw them walk off the field, and suddenly, chatter echoed all around him.

"He has such an amazing quirk!" Kaminari exclaimed.

"But a useful quirk isn't anything if you can't fight with it, dunce face," Marshmellow said.

"I'd like to say otherwise," Shouto said, "Aizawa-sensei's quirk is to make others essentially quirkless, he can't fight with it but it doesn't stop him from being a good pro."

"That's true," Momo said, "Just because the quirk isn't fit for combat doesn't mean it's not useful."

Shouto frowned as he realized his match was next. He stood up and started walking away.

"Oh yeah, your match is next! Good luck, Shouto!" He heard Momo exclaim.

Shouto didn't reply.

~~~

"It's a good thing you stopped your childish rebellion so long ago," Endeavor said.

"It wasn't a childish rebellion."

"Did you just talk back to me, child?"

"Of course not," Shouto glared at Endeavor. "I'm not you. My quirk is mine. You can use me as your puppet for all you want, but even puppets have a chance at becoming masters."

Endeavor raised his hand to slap him, but paused. "I'm just trying to get you to be the best you can be, Shouto."

Shouto stayed silent at that.

"But maybe if you listened more-"

What is there to listen to if you don't speak? All you do is beat, beat, beat and you expect me to get it?! Shouto couldn't take this anymore and walked away.

"Don't ignore me, child-"

Shouto kept walking.

"I'll-"

Shouto didn't hear the end of the threat.

~~~

Shouto walked into the field and tried to reign in his temper. The angrier he was, the more likely he could hurt someone, and that, Shouto did not want. He was up against Sero, one of his classmates.

Once Midnight said start, Sero immediately made the first move. He shot tape at Shouto.

Shouto merely let himself get wrapped up in the tape. Shouto knew that as long as he was touching the ground, everything will be fine.

Shouto was slightly lifted by the tape, and he panicked. A large pillar of ice completely shattered the tape and immobilized Sero.

"Todoroki Shouto is the winner!"

Shouto walked over to Sero, "Sorry, I panicked. This was overkill."

He then turned on his fire side to melt the ice.

Sero merely said, "It's okay, bro."

~~~

Shouto returned to the stands to watch the next match, which was Shiozaki vs Kaminari. It was quite an eventful match. Kaminari's matchup was bad, and not just that, his quirk had also backfired on him.

All in all; Kaminari wasn't lucky.

He spotted Midoriya taking notes on Shiozaki's quirk, which made him somewhat curious, what does Midoriya write down? Shouto was curious about a lot of things.

The next round began and it was Iida vs a girl that Shouto didn't know from the support course. "Is he... Wearing support items?" Shouto muttered.

I thought you had to submit a request to use them beforehand.

Then everything clicked into place, and Shouto frowned. He was all too familiar with being used. Hatsume and Iida started a game of cat and mouse. Hatsume showed how well her inventions worked by using Iida, much to the latter's frustration. And then, when she claimed that was all, she merely walked out.

Shouto felt bad for Iida, the guy just technically got scammed. He saw the disappointment on his classmate's face, Iida probably felt like he didn't deserve the win. But Shouto was sure that Hatsume deserved the loss for doing that.

Then the other matches weren't that interesting. Aoyama was defeated easily by Ashido. Ashido let Aoyama shoot his laser while she easily evaded all of them, and then she knocked him out of bounds. Nothing very exciting. The next round was not interesting either. It was a bad pair-up for Momo, since she needed time and Dark Shadow did not.

Shouto watched, disappointed but not surprised as Momo was knocked out of bounds. He finds himself thinking, at least it was non-violent. And then, the twins' match came up. Or that's what Shouto dubbed them, anyway.

(He swears they're related. This is the what, 3rd theory since coming to UA? He's on a roll.)

They went head-to-head. Shouto watched and he wondered when it was going to end. They seemed matched in everything, hell, even their quirks matched. The beatdown was brutal, Shouto had to say. They kept it up until they were too exhausted to continue.

Finally. That took like five years.

"Uraraka's match is next!" Tsuyu said.

"She's up against Bakubro, do you think she'll be okay?" Kaminari said.

"I hope so."

"I think Bakugo would take it easy on her, actually," Sero stated.

Shouto himself shook his head and replied, "Bakugo doesn't seem like the type to go easy on someone, no matter who it is."

Tsuyu frowned, "You're right. I just hope she doesn't get hurt too badly."

That's what I've been hoping since the beginning of the festival. And then, the next match started.

Everyone in Class 1-A seemed to closely watch the match.

Uraraka charged at Bakugo, but Bakugo quickly smacked her down with an explosion. He reached down to seemingly grab Uraraka, who was actually behind Bakugo in a sneak attack. Bakugo, however, caught onto this and launched yet another explosion. Uraraka is knocked back onto the floor because of that explosion. Bakugo then lets out explosion after explosion on Uraraka, causing the crowd to have quite negative reactions...

"Stop the match!!"

"He's looking down at her!!"

"You can't let him keep doing this!!"

"She's just a girl!!"

Whoever said that comment should meet Shouto at 3 AM in a parking lot of Walmart to square up. Shouto knows from experience, that it doesn't matter the gender, everyone's equal. Even in the world of quirks, a quirkless person can be downright terrifying.

"Are you guys serious? Bakugo's on guard due to Uraraka's strength. He knows not to let her use her quirk, it's an instant loss if he does." Aizawa seemingly scolded the crowd.

Uraraka said something to Bakugo. It caused Bakugo to freeze and lookup. And at the same time, the rest of the crowd did as well. And holy shiitake mushrooms, there was a bunch of rubble floating. Shouto saw Uraraka's smirk as it all rained down on Bakugo like meteors. Bakugo charged the biggest explosion Shouto had ever seen come from a quirk, the explosion knocks down Uraraka (who was planning to do something during the meteor shower. What, Shouto didn't know) and obliterating all the rubble.

There was a tense silence as Uraraka laid on the ground. She tried to get up, but her injuries were too much and she collapsed. Midnight called the match, and Bakugo was the winner.

Shouto frowned, to him, Uraraka was the winner of the match. It's just the fact that Bakugo's goddarn ruthless, but Uraraka's plan was absolutely genius.

Nonetheless, that was the final match of the first round, and round two was soon to begin.

Tetsutetsu and Kirishima had an arm-wrestling match to determine the winner from their match. Kirishima defeated Tetsutetsu and thus, was the winner.

Shouto gets ready for his round.

He stepped into the ring a bit nervously. Midoriya looks a bit angered, and it was scary seeing that emotion on the cinnamon roll's face. Midoriya quickly shifted into a fighting stance with Shouto doing the same.

"I h-hope you t-try your b-best, Todoroki-kun!" Midoriya said.

"Same goes to you," Shouto replied.

Midoriya looked like he had a shadow of doubt in his eyes.

For some reason, it fired Shouto up.

Let's see if his statement was true.

Let's see if Todoroki Shouto, the Cardcaptor, really is strong without his cards.

"Start!"

~~~

Fin.

~~~