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The night before his match against Midoriya Izuku, sleep refused to come to Todoroki Shouto– and unlike the night before, there wasn’t a night festival to runoff and distract himself with. In the harsh chill of the Todoroki manor, there wasn’t a crinkled, red gaze to warm him up or an addictive caramel scent to get drunk on. In the overwhelming darkness, there weren’t any fireworks or bright smiles to add color to the murky darkness.
In the pounding silence, there were just his thoughts, his memories.
And, every so often, father.
“This is ridiculous, Shouto!” Enji snapped to the door of Shouto’s room, shouting through the keyhole as he had been for the past hour. Really, as he had been for the past ten years, whenever Shouto managed to slip out of his grip and make it to his room fast enough to lock himself in. Enji yelling through his door wasn’t anything new; instead, an every other day occurrence. “You can’t ice me out forever, I’m your father!”
Shouto buried his face into his pillows and wished he could deny that.
He wasn’t stupid. Even if everything went blurry and too hot at the end of the match, he knew whatever happened between him and Shinsou Hitoshi wasn’t any good. There was a reason his mind blocked it out, there was a reason he was sent to a separate office instead of the infirmary, and there was a reason the staff gave him the runaround every time he asked for his phone in the hour after the match. It was the last few seconds of the Calvary Battle all over again. Only this time, Shouto had blood dried up under his nails and one of Recovery Girl’s assistants flinched when he sat up too quickly in his cot.
Shouto wasn’t a cruel person. Shouto wasn’t his father.
His mother used to flinch whenever his father entered a room.
Shouto’s breath quickened.
“I just want to help you, Shou,” Enji insisted, sounding so far away even though he was just outside the door, too close. “That omega is in your head. Can’t you see, boy?! And if you keep going against your nature the way you are, you may even lose this damn thing!”
Did he even want to win it anymore?
Did he want to win if it meant sprouting up thousands of more articles comparing him to his father? Would winning be worth it when his triumph would be entirely overshadowed by the new publicity surrounding the ongoing legal battle between his parents?
At the start of all this, Shouto had been so confident in assuring Katsuki that dynamics could be ignored and they could fight without their fating coming between them. Now, only hours between him and the final match of the tournament, Shouto was so, so angry and his breath was too quick and his hands had been clenched shut for so long that his nails were drawing blood. Only a single night between him and that last battle, and Shouto couldn’t remember a single thing about his fight with Shinsou except that everything was so hot and so bloody and he couldn’t stop.
Shouto had never felt more like an alpha than he did now, trembling in bed with his eyes squeezed closed. It was horrifying.
Enji pounded on the door harder.
Sleep never came to Shouto.
<>
“Beating an omega is nothing to be proud of,” Momo’s father had said that morning, on his second cup of tea. Never once lifting his gaze from the morning paper, the man yawned, mushing his next few words together until they were intelligible– though his daughter got the message all the same. Omegas were child’s play, if she had been defeated by Jirou Kyouka in that last match, it would’ve been humiliating. Don’t let Bakugou Katsuki advance past you.
Momo had taken a sip of her own tea and remembered a time when her father drowned her in bows and jewelry and actually looked her in the face when she spoke. A time when her father would’ve done anything in the world for her to be Bakugou Katsuki– a powerful, pretty omega. Maybe not as brash as the boy, but just as omegan as he was in his suffocatingly sweet scent and the alluring silver his eyes sometimes turned. A time when she wasn’t an offhand mention at whatever gala her parents were hosting, when she didn’t have to beg for an ounce of the attention that Bakugou was smothered in from her best friend.
Staring across the clearing, at where Bakugou Katsuki bent into a stretch, Momo wondered what it was like for everything to come so easy. To have presented as a dynamic that actually mattered, to have the chance to mate and make a family and have a fated. To look like that, soft and slender and somehow strong and fierce at the same time. To captivate the entirety of the audience around them with a simple lunge, while Momo’s parents couldn’t even be bothered to spare her an offhand look at even one of her most impressive attacks.
Mid-switching stretches, Bakugou’s red gaze snapped up, as though he sensed her watching eyes. Today, they looked more tired than usual, the burning vitriol that usually exuded from them tampered down a bit by the bags under his eyes. Momo tore away quickly after noticing, distracting herself with the clamoring audience, which grew louder and louder with each second they got closer to the start of their face-off.
For the final day of the tournament, and the first ever third day of a UA Sports Festival, the arena doubled its attendance and press coverage. Thousands of people watched Momo’s every movement and hundreds of cameras tracked her from the sidelines. More than ever in the past few days did the beta feel like she was being watched, and she wondered if that feeling came with the finals or who exactly her opponent was. For his part, Katsuki looked at ease, continuing his warm-up routine as he had done it the past two days with no indication that he noticed a difference in the audience at all. And maybe, for him, there was no difference. He never seemed to have any trouble with attention.
For the most part. Because this time when he caught her staring, Katsuki rolled his tired eyes. Irritably and bending down for his toes, he spat out a very sour, “I’m not interested, Ponytail. Stop eyefucking me.”
The accusation nailed her in place instantly. Momo sputtered, cheeks heating and her heart stopping at once. “I– I most certainly am not!” she insisted, partly to the omega, but mostly to the many, many cameras surrounding them. Pointedly, she refused to look up where she knew her parents were sitting in one of the private balconies up above– though they probably hadn’t even been paying enough attention to notice the exchange, if she were being honest.
Rather than answering, Katsuki rolled his eyes once more and stretched an arm across his chest. Overly aware of the multitude of reporters wrapped around the field right now, Momo cleared her throat, feeling as though her words deserved more of an acknowledgement than that. Couldn’t have people assuming she was one of those types of betas, after all. Because she wasn’t, no matter what Shouto had tried to insist in the locker room yesterday. (And who was Shouto to insist on that anyhow? The boy had just barely learned about social pack dynamics a month ago).
Clearing her throat, Momo tried again. “I’m not–” she paused then, scrambling to come up with a way to say it without being so obscene. Red eyes narrowed up at her again, weighing down on her and rushing her into deciding that there really wasn’t a classy way to put it. The concept of inter-dynamic dating wasn’t really appropriate no matter what angle you looked at it, was it? “I’m not into things like that.”
Now Bakugou is smirking as though something about what she said was funny. Momo doesn’t get the joke.
Stalling in his stretching, the omega finally turned to face her fully. And it was then that Momo remembered only two days ago when she had advised her best friend to refrain from interacting with the blonde when he could, because Bakugou Katsuki was the worst publicity. Dread setting in, she regretted not taking her own advice before he even started. “Things like what?” the blonde questioned, though it was clear by the arch of his eyebrow that he knew exactly what she was talking about. “What aren’t you into, Ponytail?”
Momo pulls at the collar of her uniform and wills the countdown at their side to hurry up. Fifty seconds had never dragged on for so long before. After a painfully awkward ten seconds, with Bakugou’s stupid gaze still weighing her down, the beta finally clarifies. “Omegas,” she said, straightening her shoulders as she did. Because she was confident in that answer, no matter how soft the word had come out.
It was a fact of nature. How could a beta be into omegas? It wasn’t in their nature, not the way alphas were into omegas and omegas were to alphas. Momo may have been a bit confused these past few days, but that didn’t change anything about dynamic science. There just wasn’t a point in a beta wanting an omega. Not that she had ever wanted. There was no point in her wanting.
Despite herself, Momo thinks about Jirou stealing dango straight from her hands at the festival. Jirou showing up before her match against Hatsume Mei to wish her good luck. Jirou catching her eyes on the bus all those weeks ago, how pretty hers were when they crinkled.
There was no point, she insisted to herself.
Bakugou barked out a laugh. Again, the joke flies straight over Momo’s head. “No shit? Could’ve fooled me,” the blonde said, words threaded with amusement.
Ten more seconds, these ones slipping by far too quick. Momo gapes around words, excuses, explanations– but none come out. She wants to defend herself, to put on a show for the cameras, for her parents, but her voice fails her. She feels as though she’s been tilted off her axis, thoughts spiraling as she remembers her match yesterday. How Jirou had crumpled before her in those final few seconds.
The blonde spoke where she couldn’t. “You spent the entire start of the semester staring down Kyouka and blushing every time someone brought her up– but you’re not interested,” he mocked. Momo thinks ten more seconds pass but she can’t turn, can’t tear her gaze away from Bakugou’s piercing eyes. “Denial much?”
The start of their match is marked by a loud buzzing sound, followed shortly by All Might and Aizawa’s rivaling voices. Bakugou doesn't let her try to register what they’re saying before an explosion is barreling straight towards her face. In an admirable feat, the beta just barely manages to swallow down her panic for long enough to dodge, shutting out all thoughts of one omega just in time to not get immediately blown out of bounds by another.
Despite her father’s words at the start of the day, Momo couldn’t fool herself into thinking beating Bakugou Katsuki would be easy.
Like Shouto, Momo was admitted into UA on recommendation, and that was a true recommendation– not one her parents had paid for. By no means, was she weak. Her quirk may not be as flashy as Deku’s electric green whatever-it-was or Shouto’s overwhelming ice, but she made it this far in the tournament on her own merit and what she didn’t have in firepower, she made up in battle strategy. She knew she was nothing to gloss over, no matter how Hatsume Mei walked all over her a few rounds back or how her parents still weren’t looking up from their phones even now. Her unease had nothing to do with her security in her own skill.
It had everything to do with how Bakugou Katsuki was a walking nuclear disaster waiting to happen.
The moment the matchups were announced, Momo spent hours agonizing on ways she could beat the omega, studying everything from his quirk to his combat style. She’d spent the majority of the night before memorizing the components of any metal that was somewhat explosion-proof, eventually settling on tungsten for its’ high melting point. And then, when she was done deciding how she was going to survive without getting her head blown off instantly, she stayed up past her usual curfew (a prompt nine p.m.) to brainstorm a way to actually win the match.
She hadn’t factored in the mental attack Bakugou was going to throw at her before the bell even rang– but for the record, she was not in denial. She would say as much, but trying to remember how many protons and neurons tungsten had took priority. And even when she managed to remember how many there were (seventy-four, and one-hundred-and-ten, respectively) to make her makeshift shield, she then had to focus on making her next tool before the omega blew her face in.
Bakugou didn’t respect this need for focus or her desire to drop the topic, instead continuing to send a barrage of explosions her way and sending her and her shield stumbling backwards as he continued, mock-casual, “Kyouka shouldn’t have wasted her time on you.”
Momo’s brain buffered and the mental image of the object she was trying to make dissipated instantly. Another explosion sends her back a few more feet. In a harrowing moment, Momo realizes that Bakugou was playing with her instead of sending her directly out of bounds instantly. By this far in the tournament, the omega had shown what he was capable of, and it was only through his nonsensical desire to continue their conversation that she hadn’t been blown a hundred feet into the air right now. Her grip on her shield tightened and she dug her feet into the ground, locking her knees.
“Shut up,” she demanded, through grit teeth. Up above, her parents were still staring at their phones. The crowd had already lost interest in the match, the cameras were slowly drooping on reporters’ shoulders. Momo pressed her lips together, forcing herself to focus back on the image she needed. Her chest began to glow.
“Does the thought of it make you that mad?” Bakugou teased, pausing in his explosions to take a step closer. Just close enough. Raising both his hands, he pressed them together out towards her.
Last night, she’d watched him make that very same motion in half of his matches of the Sports Festival so far. This was a finishing move, one that shot Yosetsu Awase off of Bondo Kojiro’s shoulders and Shiozaki Ibara into an instant coma. A finishing move, and they weren’t even a minute into their match. Her parents probably still hadn’t looked up once. Momo’s breath quickened and Bakugou continued to taunt, “Can’t stand the idea of a beta with an omega that much?”
Small pops announce where Bakugou is revving up, just a step away. Around them, lenses not angled down are now directed at the omega, ready to capture his final move– the instant KO that would signal the last second of their match. The crowd is chattering with each other, laughing and joking around. For them, this match was probably over the moment it’d started. In their mind, this was a filler match, nothing to pay attention to. She’d seen the Twitter threads saying as much.
Up in the stands, Momo thinks she sees the purple of Jirou’s hair. She’s too far away to make out her expression.
A silver blow torch inches out of her chest.
The next ten seconds are quick, because they have to be. Bakugou had his hands poised and ready, and even worse than the explosion brewing there, were the words at the tip of his tongue, ready to be slung at her and truly knock her down. If Momo didn’t move fast, she would’ve been flung out of bounds and their match would end in a single minute without her parents having ever lifted their gazes from their FaceBook pages. If Momo didn’t move fast, the only thing anyone would have to talk about her match was the allegations of a beta in Class 1-A potentially liking an omega– and the thought of that didn’t exactly make her mad like Bakugou assumed, though it did make her stomach kind of hurt. Because it wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. It wasn’t natural.
Tossing her shield to the side, Momo yanked the blow torch fully free of her body and aimed it right back where Bakugou’s arms were aimed at her.
Red eyes narrow in interest. His mouth forms around another taunt.
She pulls the trigger. The flame is white.
And Bakugou’s explosion betrays him for the first time in his life.
His scream is bloodcurling.
^.^
It’s almost a command, with the way it seemed every alpha in the audience lurched forward at the sound of it.
At first, all Ochako sees is the explosion, devastatingly large. A finale, if there ever was one with the way the entire crowd silenced at once in awe of its vastness. Glowing with excitement, she’d just barely turned to give Kyouka a high-five when the scream froze her in place.
She looked down to find Katsuki and Yaoyorozu in the wrong places. Yaoyorozu was standing, looking grim as she lowered the silver machine in her hands– in the place where Katsuki should be, victorious. But instead, Ochako finds the blonde all the way on the other corner of the field, just a hair off the boundary line and crumpled in on himself. All the excitement escapes her in a sharp breath, replaced swiftly by confusion of how they got here when she’d only looked away for a mere second.
Around her, Kirishima and Sero had stood instantly in response to the scream. And then they turned to each other with twin looks of surprise, as though they hadn’t meant to move at all. A ball popped off of Mineta’s head and Iida’s engines growled to life. The sharp scent of mint overpowered the student section of the arena within seconds. Todoroki was up as well, his hands now gripping the railing tight enough that Ochako almost thought he would throw himself over it. His eyes are gold.
A few steps down from him, a few students who’d been leaning against that same railing jerked away from it with pained hisses.
Kyouka’s gasp tore her away from the sight and back to the jumbotron ahead, where Katsuki is struggling to lift himself up on ruined hands. Ochako gags at the sight of the fully charred fingers, twitching and trembling as the blonde tries and fails to flex them. Where the skin of his hands weren’t blistered black or white, they were cracked open in a grotesque peek at his underskin. Where they were, they looked leathery and patchy at once, ready to fall off the bone at any moment. Katsuki’s flesh had been fully cooked in the single second she’d turned away.
When the blonde finally manages to sit up, he faces downwards– towards his thoroughly burned palms. His shoulders trembled in his effort to keep upright as Momo began stumbling towards him, grip loosening on her silver machine the slightest bit as she called out something to him.
“She burned away the sweat glands in his hand,” Mei murmured at Ochako’s other side, almost in awe. Shoveling popcorn in her mouth– somehow, despite the disturbing state their friend’s hands are in on the jumbotron ahead of them– she continued, admiringly, “Smart move.”
“Cold-blooded,” Kaminari whistled, leaning forward in his seat a few down from them. It’s the first time he, and most of the student section, paid attention since the start of the match. Ochako included, having been chatting lightheartedly with Ibara from the start, overconfident that the match would be finished without a hitch. And now– “If ‘Splodey can’t even use his quirk, that means Momo just won didn’t she?”
“Not yet,” Kyouka insisted, before Kaminari had even gotten his last word out. Eyes unwavering from the field, she hissed, “Watch.”
When Momo neared close enough, still speaking and frowning almost apologetically, Katsuki wasted no time knocking her off her feet with a swift kick. Ochako hissed as the blonde clenched his hands into fists– gushing blood out of his palms– and then used those same fists to slam straight into where Momo’s stomach began to glow again with her quirk. The beta’s troubled frown turned pained instantaneously.
“Bakugou Katsuki has resorted to hand-to-hand combat after his quirk was nullified by Yaoyorozu Momo’s flame,” Aizawa announces, voice droning throughout the stadium. It’s the first time he or All Might have spoken since the start of the match, surprisingly as it seems that the Number One Hero made it a point to talk over every match featuring an omega to put his own narrative spin over it. “Yaoyorozu Momo tries to fight back, but Bakugou Katsuki nails her with three gut punches, followed by a sharp uppercut.”
Every hit looked as though it almost hurt the omega twice as much as it did the beta, with the way it tore apart his already fragile skin to shreds. But Katsuki didn’t relent in the slightest, continuing onward no matter the damage. Momo, for her part, still tried to put up her own fight, gripping the blowtorch once more and swinging it towards the omegas’ head– but Bakugou was leagues above their entire class when it came to combat and the weapon never made contact before it was blocked.
“The match is turning to grappling now, with Bakugou Katsuki blocking Yaoyorozu Momo’s blowtorch on one side and locked in an arm wrestle with her on the other side–” Yaoyorozu dug her fingers into the raw meat of Katsuki’s left hand when their fingers interlocked. When the blonde cried out this time, it sounded less like a cry for help and more like the battlecry of a harpy, emphasized by the way he continued to push her arm down even as she dug her nails in deeper. “Yaoyorozu Momo has lit her blow torch once more–”
Aizawa stuttered to a pause when Katsuki finally ended their battle of strength to fully slam Yaoyorozu’s arm into the dirt. The beta’s eyes widened in surprise and clear panic right before the omega slammed their foreheads together a second after. Yelping, her blowtorch slips from her other hand. Into Katsuki’s waiting grasp.
There’s a sickening crack when he brings it down on her head.
The stadium explodes as the beta goes entirely limp, the omega seated atop of her, shoulders shaking and hands ruined, but victorious.
Around Ochako, Kyouka lets out a relieved breath and Ibara is cheering loudly. Kirishima and Sero high-five. Another ball pops off of Mineta’s head. Gold lingers in Todoroki’s eyes.
It’s all far more dramatic than Ochako thought the battle would be, and Katsuki looks far more worn out than she thought he would be– but he had advanced. They were one step closer to the first final match in UA Sports Festival history to have an omega in it, to the first UA Sports Festival champion being an omega. Ochako glowed.
And then the countdown timer for the next match, between Ashido Mina and Bakugou Katsuki starts ticking at ten minutes, and all hell breaks loose.
*
Bakugou Katsuki doesn’t let Recovery Girl kiss his hands. It’s the first time in a while that someone has refused her ability.
“How are you supposed to fight like that?” she tried to reason, wringing a hand through her hair in frustration. Katsuki was nothing if not stubborn, and they’d already wasted seven of the ten fleeting minutes they had to get him healed up arguing over it. “Darling, you’re hurting. You can’t face an alpha like this.”
The blonde turned away from her, back towards the center of the field, where the young pink alpha was finishing up her stretching. When Chiyo tried to take the initiative of taking his hands into her own, he wouldn’t even let her touch him, flinching back. It’d been a long time since someone had flinched away from her and her ability. Her hands fell to her side uselessly as another minute passed.
If it had been up to her, Bakugou Katsuki would’ve been allowed a moment’s rest before being forced right into his next match. Making a student compete right after they just had the skin of their hands burned clean off in a match was a decision she could never endorse as a medical practitioner; and clearly, the audience agreed. Seven minutes stretched on forever with the crowds’ screams of pure outrage and on her way onto the field, she’d been stopped by six reporters demanding to know why the omega wasn’t getting a break after such an intense match. Chiyo hadn’t had an answer for them beyond that this was all B.S. Probably the most clearly rigged decision this year’s tournament had made so far– and there had been a lot of those.
From the unbalanced point system of the second round, to the clearly dynamic driven matchups in the finals, nothing about this Sports Festival had exactly been fair. But now that Bakugou Katsuki is still trembling with pain only three minutes before his next match, while Ashido Mina was standing strong and relaxed, centerfield– UA wasn’t even trying to hide it anymore. This tournament was never meant for omegas. And the school was willing to punish any member of the silver-dynamic who tried to challenge that.
“Give me bandages!” a demanding, feminine voice behind her snapped her back into focus. Chiyo whirled around to the sight of Uraraka Ochako and Todoroki Shouto, racing towards them from the nearest tunnel. The Pro took a long moment to register their sudden appearances, from their breathlessness to the sudden flashes of the cameras all around them. Too long, given that the young Uraraka Ochako has already stolen the bandages from her waistband before she even realizes she was meant to hand them over.
“Gross,” Todoroki Shouto remarked, nose scrunching up as he came to a stop before the omega. Though, as disgusted as he claimed to be– reverence is the only way Chiyo can describe how the alpha takes the blondes’ hands, with the amount of gentleness and attention he puts into lifting them up. Bakugou Katsuki doesn’t fight the hold either, even as he sneers at the attention. And as angry as that look is, Chiyo appreciates it as the one expression he’s hosted in the past eight minutes (the ever expressive Bakugou Katsuki forgoing expressions had been a feat in itself).
The brunette began to hurriedly bandage as the alpha assessed the damage, making a similar face to the one Recovery Girl herself had made not long ago at the first up-close look she’d gotten. If the damage looked bad on the jumbotron, it looked devastating up close. It was a wonder the blonde had been able to move his hands enough to form fists at all, much less finish an entire match as brutally as he did. As of now, his hands were little more than malleable cooked meat.
“Your best friend, by the way,” Bakugou snided, hissing when the other omega pulled the gauze too tight, too fast. Tighter than what Chiyo would’ve allowed for such severe burns. Tight enough to hold him together for the next battle all the same.
“Sorry, sorry,” Uraraka said, distractedly as she started onto his next hand, stealing it straight from Todoroki’s grasp. Glancing worriedly at the clock, she quickened her pace. “We have one minute, so if you two are going to do anything dramatically lovey-dovey, hurry it the fuck up.”
Bakugou looked like he was going to be even more sick than he already appeared, turning to set a withering glare on Todoroki. “Don’t,” he warned.
The alpha rolled his eyes. “As if,” he said, helping Uraraka tighten the gauze, again, far too tight. This time, when Bakugou hissed, Todoroki caught his gaze.
Concern turned curious quickly as the alpha stuttered where he was helping the brunette. Uraraka batted his hands out of the way when he hesitated, spurring him out of whatever trance he’d so quickly fallen into. “Your eyes are silver. Kinda,” Todoroki blurted, and then he rushed himself to continue helping with the bandaging as though he hadn’t said anything at all. He gets in Uraraka’s way again and she batted him away with a frustrated sigh.
Chiyo’s gaze snapped up to the omega to find that the alpha was right. While Bakugou’s eyes were still mostly their notorious red, there were hints of silver swimming within them.
Bakugou looked like the thought of that annoyed him for a moment. But then he squinted at Todoroki and mused, “Yours are gold.”
And again, he was right. Chiyo’s own eyes narrowed at the thought, intrigued. After that initial fating, alpha and omegas eyes never usually changed color again. There were rare phenomena and case studies, as there were always rare phenomena and case studies when it came to science– but for the silver and gold to linger this long? She’d heard the rumors of Katsuki’s eyes turning silver mid combat, but as their assigned medical professional, it’d never been brought up directly to her and she wrote it off as people’s hysteria over an omega being good at combat. Seeing it in person now, however, she felt as though it was something she should've paid more mind to.
Bakugou Katsuki and Todoroki Shouto always did seem to defy rumors for kicks, after all. There was no telling what was true or not when it came to them.
“Thirty seconds,” Uraraka chimed, interrupting their staredown and Chiyo’s spiraling thoughts.
The alpha nodded, gazing over the brunette’s handiwork when she stepped back. Seemingly satisfied, he then directed his attention back to his omega (because what else could Chiyo think after seeing all of this?) to say, resolutely, “Finals.”
Bakugou spared the slightest of smiles as he agreed, with finality, “Finals.”
And then he was off, making his way to where Ashido was waving to the cameras around her and tossing her short curls over each shoulder with her excited bouncing. It’s a harrowing juxtaposition to the way the omega stumbles his way across from her, just barely held together by a few bandages.
It’s only when all three of them are ushered off the field and back to the privacy of the mouth of the tunnel, that Uraraka Ochako’s facade finally breaks and she collapses to her knees.
Chiyo barely made it a step forward before the accusing question stopped her in place, freezing her still as the young omega shook and silently sobbed. “Why does this keep happening?!” she exclaimed, burying her face in her hands. “Why would you make him fight like that?!”
“I tried to heal–” Recovery Girl insisted, out of her depth as she started to defend herself, but it was Todoroki who interrupted then.
“Your quirk steals energy from the person you’re trying to heal,” the alpha pointed out, squatting down next to Uraraka and patting her back, comforting and a tad awkwardly at once. They’re both facing away from her now, but even without seeing their expressions, the vitriol in their voices is clear. “How was he supposed to waste any energy on your ability when he barely has enough to stand?”
Chiyo has never felt more useless in her life.
“I just don’t understand. How is any of this fair?” Uraraka whispered, and it’s almost overwhelmingly loud in the still, guilty silence of the tunnel. Behind them, the buzzer of the start of the match goes off, but only Todoroki turns to look. His eyes are still a fading gold.
Chiyo wished she had a better answer than the unfair truth that Bakugou had made a lot of very important people very mad.
“
All Might came to retrieve her from the locker rooms only a few minutes after Bakugou and Yaoyorozu’s match began. At the time, Mina assumed the omega had just knocked the beta down quicker than expected. (Nothing against the poor girl, she just didn’t seem like she’d be able to keep up with the fierceness of a bitchy omega (the whole class– if not the whole school– knew how the ravenette had fumbled Jirou Kyouka at this point)).
Now, exchanging blows with an alarmingly weak bitchy omega to the sound of an outraged audience, Mina knows something’s up. Something that likely wouldn’t do her following count any good given the amount of reaction Bakugou got every time he stumbled even the slightest bit.
Omegas are such fucking damsels.
“Yo, the fuck’s wrong with you,” Mina demanded, after Bakugou missed her face by a good foot with his punch and she was able to easily kick him off balance to the ground. He hits his side hard with a wince, barely managing to roll away from the sling of acid she shoots in his direction. It burns a hole in the ground where he just was. “You're normally more like… rah and gah than this. Where’s the umph? Where’s the energy?”
And why was she the one trying to hype him up during their finals match? Her sister was probably so disappointed up in the stands, watching her favorite little omega barely keeping up with Mina’s attacks. Well, womp womp, at least she’d finally get her eyes off of the damn blonde long enough to realize how cool her older sis would look winning this year’s Sports Festival. Spurred on by the thought, Mina sidesteps Bakugou’s weak attempt to kick her down and then knocks him back down with her own kick when he tries to rise back up. He lands on his heavily bandaged hands and lets out a very omegan yelp.
And oh, that was definitely a sound. A that-could-so-awaken-something-in-you type of sound that Mina dutifully ignored in favor of grabbing one of Bakugou’s arms with an acid coated hand. Instantly, his sleeve disintegrates and he cries out, pushing at the hand in vain as she begins to drag him towards the boundary line. He’s heavier than he looks, but it’s manageable with a little bit of elbow grease. Maybe this weak ass fight won’t earn her as many highlight reels as she wanted, but at least it’ll be over fast. Quickest fight Bakugou Katsuki has ever lost, probably too.
Mina says as much and Bakugou responds by jamming his nails into the back of her knee.
This time, she hits the ground. Bakugou wastes no time getting on top of her, trapping her arms to her sides with his very, very thick thighs. Thighs that could save lies. Mina says as much and Bakugou punches her in the nose.
“I meant it as a compliment,” Mina moaned, curling her arms around his legs to flip them over.
“I know how you fucking meant it,” Bakugou insisted, irritably as he landed on his back.
And Mina paused for a moment to just. Admire.
She’s said it before, but Todoroki Shouto was such a lucky alpha. Besides Bakugou Katsuki’s shitty attitude, he really is the perfect omega. No wonder Midoriya was obsessed with him when his skin really was that soft and his collarbones were that sharp. Hell, maybe Mina would be crashing out and letting out weird green sparks too if she’d fumbled a bitch this bad.
Whistling lowly, the girl smirked. “Damn ‘Suki, I see why you got all the alphas going crazy for you,” she mused, treating herself by leaning down towards his scent gland and taking a long, deep breath. Caramel. Nice.
Below her, the omega had gone entirely stiff.
“Giving up?” Mina asked, pleased. Wanting another whiff, she leaned down once more, breathing harder this time. God, she wanted to eat his scent, it was too good. She’d never smelt something so amazing in her life, how had she ever managed to sit through class with this smell so close?
Ever so slightly, the omega titled his head, exposing his neck further. Presenting the most miniscule bit. Mina’s alpha purred within her, despite the blaring alarm bells that should’ve set off.
Immediately, the soothing scent of caramel seduced Mina into relaxation even further. A purr rumbled from deep in her throat as she fell victim to the sweetness, her eyelids lowering as she reached an almost trance state. Bakugou Katsuki was scenting her. And it didn’t feel like the way her mom would scent her every now and then growing up, or the way her ex-girlfriend had tried and failed to that one time. This felt all encompassing and entirely disarming. Mina was melting and floating and flying all at once.
“Mina, get off of me,” the omega said— no, purred. And what type of alpha would Mina be if she didn’t listen to an omega when they asked something so nicely like that?
Mina rolled off of the omega and onto her side, dazedly. Out of the corner of her eyes, she watched where he rose up, and she moved to stand with him, hurriedly chasing the scent he was threatening to take away.
The omega adjusted the collar of his shirt, not even looking at her as he mused, “Step backwards.”
“Okay,” Mina agreed, coaxed by a new wave of his scent. When she stepped back, the omega stepped with her. And so she stepped again, reading what he wanted like a good alpha.
And then the alarm announcing the end of the tournament sounded and it was Bakugou who passed her when she snapped out of it, eyes wide and confused. “Quickest fight you’ve ever lost?” the blonde questioned.
Later, when the highlight of Bakugou Katsuki coaxing her out of bounds has six million views, Ashido Mina feels like a pussy of an alpha.
Yui thinks it’s the coolest thing ever.
UA OFFICIAL SPORTS FESTIVAL LIVE STREAM DAY THREE
Current: 01:47:22
Remaining: 8:39:43
@UAOfficial There will be an hour long intermission between this finale and the next match. Thank you for your patience.
@erenyeager.r ARE YOU KIDDING????????
@erenyeager.r NO MFING WAY THEY HAVE AN INTERMISSION SCHEDULED
@leoreo blud made bkg fight w hands still bleeding only to have a break now
@childishyail OMG?????????? OMEGA IN THE FINALS?????
@l00na Why THE FUCK would they have Bakugou Katsuki compete ten minutes after being burned with a BLOW TORCH if they had an hour intermission in schedule?????????
@kingczon Omega in the finals?
@whowannar0ckwjen did i just watch an omega command an alpha?
@poboyz__ Nahh Mina was robbed that shouldn’t be allowed
@shoutoswife omg guys i was joking but i think we may have just girlbossed our way into the fated pairing finale,,,
@lalalisakina Our last hope is Izuku :( <333 Rooting for you Zuzu
&
Shouto and Ochako are waiting for him in the mouth of the tunnel with Recovery Girl. Ochako greets him with a tight hug and tries to hide the redness of her eyes, but Katsuki notices. Shouto tries to hide how red his face turns when he’s hit with the heavy caramel smell that lingers after the scenting, but Katsuki notices that too.
Recovery Girl leads them to the infirmary and finally gets to heal his hands. Just as Katsuki thought it would, it takes everything out of him.
Already, he hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep the night before, unable to close his eyes without seeing some shade of green or too sharp teeth. In the morning, he hadn’t had an appetite, everything tasting like ash on his tongue. Reconstructing the skin of his hands would simply require a lot of calories and energy he didn’t have to give before a match. In the end, he’d had to resort to his omegan wiles to push Racoon-Eyes out of bounds. Racoon-Eyes who had a sloppier punch than he did when he was at his wits’ end and desperate. It made the blonde sick to think about it too hard.
Eyelids heavy, Katsuki hums noncommittedly to whatever Ochako says about Kyouka before her cherry blossom scent dissipates with her departure. Recovery Girl makes a comment about heading off to a staff meeting (probably an emergency one about what the hell they were going to do with an omega in the finals), and then there were two.
Katsuki just barely opened his mouth to break the standstill silence between them with whatever insult rolls off his tongue— craving some semblance of normalcy— when something lands on his chest.
Peeling his eyes open when he’s hit with a faint peppermint scent, the blonde finds a black sweater haphazardly strewn across his chest. All hopes at some form of routine disappear as his mind supplies that this sweater is Shouto's.
In his dopey post-scent state, doubled by his lethargy from Recovery Girl’s quirk, Bakugou Katsuki purred.
Shouto looks as startled by the action as Katsuki felt when their eyes snapped to each other at the sound, equally as accusing. Suddenly Katsuki is very awake and undoubtedly very red.
“What the fuck,” the blonde blurts, needing to get the first word out. Not that he had much competition for that with the way the alpha is stupidly gaping around nothing like a fish out of water. Continuing, Katsuki choked out, “Why the fuck.”
“I-I just thought– you said– nevermind,” Shouto finally managed to find his tongue, reaching back to snatch back the sweater in a panicked motion. But Katsuki is quicker, pur turning into a growl almost instantly as he pulls the fabric towards himself defensively. They met eyes again as caramel and peppermint melded together, their scents mixing and coating over one another naturally, the sweetness and sharpness finding its place against each other like they always were.
When Katsuki wore Shitty Hair’s sweater, or Deku’s all that time ago, his scent never melded with theirs. More so, theirs would just float above his, as an overprotective cover– distinctly their own. Only seconds of clutching this sweater to his chest and Katsuki can’t tell where his scent ends and Shouto’s begins.
Shouto looks like he can’t tell either, his face going as red as his hair. And then he continued to try and snatch it back.
This time, it’s far more defensive when Katsuki says, “What the fuck.”
“Why are you trying to take it back? You fucking offered it!” the omega reiterated after a minute long game of tug-of-war that neither he nor Shouto were relenting. Rather than answering, the alpha yanked it hard enough that Katsuki nearly toppled off the cot. And then when the alpha panicked over the fact that Katsuki nearly toppled off of the cot while he was trying to recover, Katsuki yanked it back twice as hard and Shouto fell face first into his lap.
It was an instant KO. Or at least, that’s what Katsuki took it as given that Shouto stopped breathing and he released the sweater from his ironclad grip the second he landed. The blonde rolled his eyes as he pulled the sweater protectively against himself, satisfied at his victory.
“You’re such a fucking idiot. Why throw it at me if you weren’t going to commit?” Katsuki said, when Shouto continued to refuse to breathe, seemingly as a form of protest. Maybe also a tad because he also feels that strange, overwhelming warmth in his chest whenever he takes a breath and all he can smell is them, together, as one. The way scents combined after a mating or when people had been with each other forever.
Katsuki and Shouto only met a few months ago. It’s weird.
Katsuki clutched the sweater closer to his chest.
“You told me to do it,” Shouto responded to his thighs, voice slightly muffled against the thin blanket. Raising an eyebrow, the omega gets ready to refute, not remembering any moment in the past few hours where he asked for a sweater, and as though sensing this, the alpha continued, hurriedly and imitating him, “Next time.”
Shouto’s version of imitating him sounds like a really bad parody of Corpse Husband. It’s kind of funny. Until Katsuki remembers what Shouto’s talking about and suddenly he’s embarrassed that he ever said such a corny line. Now back on defense, Katsuki blurted, “That night you called me pretty, right?”
Shouto lurched up, pinning him with an accusing glare. “You heard me.”
The expression would be funny if Katsuki’s heart didn’t start racing at the confirmation. Blinking slowly, the omega rolled the thought over in his mind. Shouto really had called him pretty that night.
“I wasn’t sure until now, actually,” Katsuki said, fingers clenching and unclenching on the sweater in his hands. “Idiot.”
Shouto gaped around nothing again before collapsing back into his thighs.
They’re quiet for a minute. Katsuki’s thoughts spiraling around the fact that Shouto thought he was pretty, that Shouto had given him his sweater– that he really couldn’t deny it anymore, could he? His fated was annoying, his fated was the biggest idiot ever, and every time something fated-related happened he wanted to combust on the spot. But fuck. Holy fuck.
Katsuki doesn’t really hate him, does he?
“You did good,” Shouto mumbled to his thighs.
Oh god, oh god.
Burying his face into the sweater, Katsuki thought just maybe, maybe, maybe.
RUDY. @marinette.dp.cheng
Are u alpha enough, but it’s an omega being forced to compete again ten minutes after having the skin of his hands BURNED OFF while Todoroki Shouto and Midoriya Izuku have a random hour long intermission before match #UASportsFestivals
67k ♡ 7k ⟳
@fullmetalp.an and that’s not even the craziest thing ua has put him through 😀
@crazy88 Him having to resort to scenting to win,,, UA management it is on SIGHT
PINKITY DRINKITY @galindathesgood
DIVA DOWN DIVA DOWN DIVA DOWNNNN #UASPORTSFESTIVAL
41k ♡ 12k ⟳
@yuilingp.rarch Is this abt mina lol?
@galindathesgood yes ofc </3 my queen gone but not forgotten :( @yuilingp.rarch
@yui.ra Idc Bakugou using his scent as a weapon was SO UNFAIR and UA should do something about it… like imagine if an alpha did that to an omega?🙄
@tinyturkeys_ blud they have, have u never watched another sports festival???? why do you think omegas never advacne so far??? also if mina’s weak enough that an omegas scent can knock her outta bounds, she didn’t deserve to be in the finals tbh
spider-man. @lukedaviss
Anyone else starting to think that Bkg can command alphas? My bf literally jumped instinctively when he screamed in the first match today and then his fight w Ashido was giving command, wasn’t it????? #UASportsFestival
46k ♡ 10k ⟳
@__thederektaylor776 omegas cant command dumbass
@bighero7 Actually, there are some case studies going on right now that claim they can. You should check out Verity’s video essay on it on YouTube. It’s an interesting watch and I think Bakugou Katsuki definitely adds a lot to that conversation in ways the science community has never seen before. @__thederektaylor776
@__thederektaylor776 smd nice guy @bighero7
@yui.ra It was such a lame ass way for him to beat Mina… total cop out :( Feel so sorry for her
H @hueysvida
OMEGA IN THE FINALS?????!?!?!?!?!?!? #UASPORTSFESTIVAL
256k ♡ 71k ⟳
@dattebbayo the concept of an omega being in the ua sports festivals finals for the first time ever in history and that omega being bakugou katsuki
@dudebro888_ Lol lets be serious can Bakugou katsuki even be considered an omega
#1 seulgi stan @t.kageyama
thread explaining how yaomomo is an underrated genius bc all of u idiots are too focused on the fact that her opponent was an omega oh no (like bkg can withstand a few burns, he’s literally exploded everyone in their grade at least once…)
- she understood bkg would have protection against fire at certain temps bc of his quirk and specifically used a flame that would incapacitate him[...]
@365sofres Glazing Yaoyorozu when she literally lost to an omega with his hands burned off is crazyyyy
@mariosworld67 Everyones focusing on the wrong thing rn bcz that fight was actually cool asf
@yuioice the amount of discourse around her sexuality over this is crazy….
🇦🇷🇧🇷melody @moonbeam1cecream
#UaSportsFestival
me when tdrk ran up to bkg during the ten minute intermission to stare dreamily into his eyes:
91k ♡ 19k ⟳
@cavincravityy uraraka was tryna get shit done and they was messing around 😭😭😭😭
Super Tuna! @seokj.injail
instinct burst this, fated mates that SOMEONE HAS BEEN RIGGING THE UA SPORTS FESTIVAL OPEN YOUR EYES #uasportsfestival
71k ♡ 15k ⟳
@kookie4u 10min break between matches was the last straw fr
@ianryu8 How ur moving rn
X.ikon @902100
guys i still dk what mido’s quirk is and the match is in an hour… #uasportsfestival
12k ♡ 129 ⟳