-Y/n’s POV-

I went to the waiting room to prepare for my match with Tokoyami after I got off the phone with Mrs. Midoriya. Iida’s match started on the monitor in there as I sat down. Shiozaki started immediately with lashing her vines at Iida as he was kneeling into a sprinter’s stance. 

“Recipro...burst!” Iida yelled as his pipes spewed blue flames before, in a ginormous burst of speed, he got behind Shiozaki, grabbed her by the shoulders, and pushed her to the other side of the arena out of bounds.

“What the hell, since when can he do that?” I asked out loud. I couldn’t even keep my eyes on him at that speed. I guess my match is starting sooner than I thought. As I started stretching the door to the field opened. Shiozaki walked in looking very upset. So much so she didn’t notice me until she bumped right into me.

“Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t notice you.” She then bowed. “Please accept my apologies.” 

“Woah uh it’s cool. Don’t worry about it, okay?” I said as she was still bowing. “Um, please stop bowing.” As I said that I noticed tears hitting the floor. “Are you okay?” I quickly asked. She sniffled and rubbed her eyes as she rose up.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lost my composure in front of you like that.” She said as she regained her composure somewhat, but still looked upset. “You are Y/n L/n from Class A correct? My name is Ibara Shiozaki.”

“It’s nice to meet you.” I said with a smile. “I saw what you did in your match with Kaminari, that was pretty funny.”

“Yes I was told it looked quite humorous, however I was unfortunately not able to replicate the result in my last match.” She said with a sigh.

“Yeah I saw. I didn’t know Iida could hit that kinda speed like that and I'm in his class.” I admitted.

“He was behind me before I even noticed.” She complained. It’s a shame she couldn’t use her vines to feel around for him or something like that so she wasn’t caught off guard.

“Hmm, what do you mean?” She asked, curious to what I was thinking. I didn’t realize I was voicing my thoughts at the moment. Dammit I’m picking up Izuku’s habits.

“Oh uh, I mean I noticed how you use your vines kinda like tentacles so I was thinking maybe you could possibly use them like feelers if you spread ‘em out over an area.” I told her. She seemed to be taking the idea to heart as she thought to herself for a moment.

“A wonderful idea. I will have to look into that, thank you!” She happily said before she hurried out the other door. That was a little weird.

After whatever that was I immediately heard my match being announced marking my queue to walk out. Alright, time for your game face L/n. I came out of the tunnel to the roar of the crowd, as I walked up I gave a wave and a smile. Tokoyami calmly walked up while looking straight ahead.

“Aye Tokoyami, good luck man!” I yelled over the crowd.

“To you as well.” He calmly replied back with a curt nod.

“Alright, get pumped for this next match everyone!” Present Mic announced. “We got Fumikage Tokoyami verses Y/n L/n both from Class A of the hero course! Bird verse rock! Man, Tokoyami is at a total type disadvantage here!”

“What are you babbling about now?” Aizawa grumbled into his microphone. 

“Start!” Mic called. 

“Dark Shadow!” Tokoyami wasted no time in his strike, he’s starting with the same tactic he used on Yaoyorozu, trying to keep me on the defensive and not let me strike back. 

“Got it!” Dark Shadow called as he came out of Tokoyami. As it swiped at me I jumped to the left, out of its reach.

I landed and tried to send a row of spikes out of the ground at it, but it dodged them and sped at me again. I covered my arms in stone and waited for it to get closer. Dark Shadow came in close and went for another swipe, I spun on my heel making it narrowly miss and that left it wide open. I brought my elbow down on its neck driving it into the ground. I went to grab its head but it reeled back to Tokoyami faster than I could do so.

“Are you okay?” Tokoyami asked Dark Shadow, it grunted and nodded while it rubbed the back of its neck.

“Ha! You’re fast! I’m surprised I got that hit in.” I called out to them. 

“Not fast enough to hit you apparently, I will remedy that. Go!” He ordered Dark Shadow and it obliged. As it raced again I tried throwing a few baseball sized rocks its way. Dark Shadow weaved around them effortlessly. It sped up after that and caught me off guard and grabbed my arm. Dark Shadow whipped me off my feet and threw me off to the side of the arena. As I scrambled up I quickly noticed I was a few feet in front of the boundary now.

“After him Dark Shadow!” Tokoyami called out. He must have to command Dark Shadow sometimes then.

I looked up in time to see Dark Shadow try to grab me with both of its hands. I reacted by grabbing it under it’s left arm, grabbing it’s shoulder and with my other hand, grabbing it by the throat. It tried to push me backwards over the line and it was winning because it had the better leverage with both of its claws digging into my shoulders. Dammit I gotta think of something quick!

However right before I crossed the line Dark Shadow stopped making progress and looked like it was staining hard to push me now. I looked over its shoulder to see it was wrapped around the spikes I left in the stage. It must only be able to go so far from Tokoyami then. I can work with this. I put some force into leaning to the left on its arm that had the looser grip and its claw slipped down, but not without tearing up the left side of my back first.

Gritting through the pain I grabbed both sides of it’s head and brought it down to meet my knee chin first. 

“Gah!” It grunted out and snapped back to Tokoyami again, it was dazed now. I rushed towards Tokoyami to get away from the edge of the arena. Dark Shadow recovered quickly and tried to head me off.

I stopped dead center in the arena and dropped down putting both my hands on the ground and suddenly a maze of tall grey stone pillars sprang up from the stage around me and I covered my legs up to my knees in stone.

Dark Shadow rushed me so I got up and ran through the pillars. It followed close, but did not notice it started wrapping itself in the pillars. There was definitely less light in this maze now than before because of how tall the pillars were. I quickly noticed Dark Shadow was somehow getting bigger. Was it the lack of light? It made sense given the nature of the quirk. Shit new plan, I gotta end this quickly now.

Dark Shadow caught up much quicker than before and tried to swipe at me, but I rolled and dodged it then I ran behind a pillar. While I was out of it's sight I jumped up and dug my hand into a pillar keeping me up high. It tried to stay on me, but when Dark Shadow rounded the pillar and swiped it only hit the ground, making a rather large gash. 

“Stop running and fight!” It yelled out in frustration in a now deeper and manic voice.

“If that’s what you want!” I called out from above. When it looked around to find me I jumped down onto its back and brought my stone covered arm around its neck and locked it with the other, putting it in a chokehold. It started thrashing around wildly and slammed me into a couple of my pillars collapsing them and throwing up a cloud of dust. Ow. That's definitely gonna bruise.

“Dark Shadow what’s going on!” I heard Tokoyami shout.

Dark Shadow began clawing at my arms so I started punching it in the side of the chest repeatedly. Dark Shadow growled and managed to knock me off after slamming me straight into the ground. It retreated back to Tokoyami again, but this time looking worse for wear and smaller now that it was in the light again.

I caught my breath and was ready for another round seeing them from where I was in the smoke, but I saw both Tokoyami and Dark Shadow scanning the edge of the pillars looking for me. I lowered my stance to stay low and my foot brushed up against a chunk of a pillar around a few feet long. I got an idea and smirked.

I grabbed the pillar by the bottom end and lifted it onto my shoulder, steadying it with my other hand. I then waited a moment for Dark Shadow to look away and when it did, I grunted in exertion and launched the pillar like a javelin, straight at Dark Shadow.

“Dark Shadow, watch out!” Tokoyami called, but Dark Shadow wasn’t quick enough this time and it was hit directly in the chest, throwing it back and pinning it to the ground as it struggled to get up from under the rock. I rushed Tokoyami as he was distracted and looking at Dark Shadow.

“Lights out, buddy!” I shouted as I got close and tucked my arm to my side and brought it up delivering a very florishy uppercut to his chin knocking him unconscious.

“Tokoyami is unconscious, L/n is the winner!” Nemuri announced after Tokoyami hit the ground.

I stood there for a few moments as the adrenaline faded and I felt the pain hit me. The claw marks on my left side and the throbbing ache in my back now caused me to stumble as I clutched my side. The injury looked to be covered by my far less shredded clothes. I noticed Tokoyami started to come around, so I limped over to him and reached down to help him up. He looked up at me before taking my hand and standing up. He honorably shook my hand and with a nod we both went back to our separate waiting rooms.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After the match I hobbled my way to Recovery Girl’s office to at least bandage up before the next round. As I rounded the corner I saw Izuku and All Might were there talking. I didn’t say anything as I listened in.

“I could physically feel everyone’s strong emotions of not wanting to give in.” Izuku said and paused. “So I…”

“...Think that someone else should be my successor?” All Might finished his thought.

“...Yes.” Izuku reluctantly said.

“...It’s true that this place is filled with wonderful potential heroes.” All Might said as he looked out the window. “One For All is the crystallization of power. For those who have quirks...For example, if Young L/n were to inherit it, then with the super strength of One For All on top of his Geogeneration, he would become a superhero just like his mother.”

“Then--” Izuku tried to interrupt, but was cut off.

“But you know, I was quirkless, too.” All Might said, pointing a thumb at himself. Really? The All Might was quickless, that's kinda funny.

“Quirkless…? You were…?” Izuku stuttered out, looking shocked.

“It wasn’t as rare as for your generation, but it was still uncommon.” All Might said. “My master had a quirk, but even so, my master believed in me and gave One For All to me, and raised me to become a hero.”

“You never told me tha--” Izuku tried to say.

“Because you never asked.” All Might said bluntly. “Even though I thought you would.” He said in a joking tone.

“All Might...you were quirkless, too…?” Izuku still had a hard time processing that info.

“Yeah. At first, I saw the old me in you, but you have gone beyond what I imagined, time and time again. There is something that only you can draw out. I believe that.” All Might said. Izuku took a moment to process everything before apologizing. Again.

And then I ruined the moment because it was funny.

“I absolutely love the heartfelt Master to Student speech,--” I spoke up, scaring both Izuku and All Might, making the latter poof into his muscle form. “But for god's sake, stop having incredibly secret conversations like this in the hallways.” 

“Young L/n!/Y/n!” Both of them shouted.

“Y/n what happened, are you alright?!” Izuku suddenly asked.

“I won my match with Tokoyami and got banged up in the process.” I said nonchalantly. “And I was on my way to Recovery Girl before I ran into-” I paused as I waved my hand in their direction. “Whatever that was. SO now I will be on my way because I can feel blood running down my leg.” I said as I limped the other direction.

“Wait up!” Izuku said as he too limped in my direction and caught up.

“...Oh by the way…” I said as we walked.

“Wha--OW!” Izuku whined as I hit him on the head again.

“What did I say about unnecessarily apologizing so much!” I chastised Izuku.

“I just got out of surgery!” He whined.

“It was your own fault you needed surgery, dumbass!” 

All Might watched us walk back to the office with a smile on his face, before walking back to his seat.

(I know this is a short chapter but I really wanted to show you all something that been in the works.)

(Tada! I commissioned a character sheet for our rocksteady protagonist! It was made by the fantastic Miconomicon on reddit, seriously you need to check out their work. And remember this is just the name and color scheme I have in my head for writing purposes, they are still whatever you guys want.)