Izuku, The Twin Sword Knight: Mura

Chapter 9: Sports festival 3

(A/N: I hope you enjoy!)

I was sitting back with my class. Shoka stayed back in Recovery Girl's office to rest. I was sitting next to Izumi while Cementos rebuilt the arena. "Hey Izumi."

She looked at me. "Yeah? What is it?"

"Do you hate your old friends?"

Izumi looked down as she thought about it. "I... I don't know."

I nodded. "I understand. Just don't hold hatred in your heart." She seemed confused but nodded.

Once the arena was built, the matches began again. Stella had to go against Iida. Through the fight, Stella was having some difficulty dealing with Iida's speed but she had enough reaction time to counter him when he got close. The match ended when Stella learned his patterns and sent fire towards where Iida was headed, causing him to slip up and launch himself out of the ring, winning her the match.

Shoto had a quick match against Ibara. His fire quickly caused her to leave the ring. Then there was Izumi and Katsuki. The second the match started, Izumi picked him up with her quirk and smashed him into the concrete a few times before tossing him out of the ring. Then I heard what she said to him. "That was for Izuku, Bakubitch."

I tried hard to hold in my laughter at her use of my old nickname of Bakugou. It was my match against Stella and I was ready to test her growth in her swordsmanship. She'd been practicing a lot after our training together and I was excited. We stood across from each other with our swords at the ready.

When Midnight said "GO!" we immediately took off towards each other, swords clashing in the center of the arena, sending a gush of air all around us, pushing over Midnight.

Stella pushed herself back and tried to slash at me but I easily blocked the attack with one sword and thrust my other one towards her. She dodged out of the way and I kept after her. Every swing I threw, she blocked with expert precision. 'She's gotten a lot better. Good, less holding back.' I began to speed up my sword swings and she was having trouble keeping up.

I eventually pushed her into a corner and thrust both of my swords towards her, and taking the sword out of her hands before swinging one of my swords downwards and taking her leg out from under her, causing her to fall backwards. She landed just before the line and I put both of my swords on either side of her neck in a cross formation. "Concede."

She looked at her sword and it was too far away to get and even if she did get it, she couldn't do anything. "I... I give up."

"Stella Vermillion has conceded the match! The winner is Mura!"

I sheathed my swords and grabbed Stella's. "Here."

"Thanks uh, c-can you help me?" I looked at her confused. "You hit my ankle pretty bad when you tripped me."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I must have used more force than I intended." I packed her up bridal style and she was turning red. "Stella, are you okay? You're turning red."

"Sh-shut up Baka! Just take me to Recovery Girl!" I chuckled and carried her out of the arena.

She was silent as I carried her through the halls. "Stella, everything okay?" She didn't say anything and I got a bit worried. "Stella?"

She seemed to jump back to reality. "S-sorry."

"What were you thinking about?"

She hesitated as she looked down. "Did... did you hold back against me?"

"That's what your worried about? Stella, I hold back against everyone. If I didn't, no one who faught me would get a chance to shine for themselves." She looked up at me. "You have so much room to grow. So much untapped potential. I held back against you so you could really see just how much you've already grown since we faught. I was fighting you with more skill than when we trained together and you managed to hold your own. So yes I held back but for a reason."

We arrived at Recovery Girl's office and when I set Stella in one of the beds, Recovery Girl whacked me in the head. "That is two people who've come in here because of you, Mura! Any more and I'll ban you from here for a month!"

"Yes ma'am. I'm sorry." I held the spot where she whacked and looked over and saw Shoka watching with a small smile. "Hey Shoka, how are you doing?"

"I-I'm good. Still a bit tired so I'm gonna stay here to watch the rest of the sports festival."

I nodded and went to leave. "Well, I hope you two get better soon." I walked out to the hallway and saw a familiar face. "Master Buredo, what are you doing here?"

He gave me his version of a smile, a nod of acknowledgement, and walked up to me. "So, you choose to go by Mura?"

"For now, master."

He nodded. "I came to see how you have been doing since you left. I am glad to see you able to follow your dream."

"Thank you, master."

"And I saw how you interacted with them. Always wanting to help everyone. Some things never change." He reached out and grabbed my shoulder. "I am happy for you, Izuku." He whispered to me so that no one could hear.

"Thank you. I should be getting back to my class. If I take too long, some of them might worry." He nodded and gave me a rare sight, an actual smile.

When I got back to my class, I saw that Izumi and Shoto were already in the arena. I sat down. "So what took so long, Mura?" Mina asked with a sly smile on her face.

"Just ran into an old friend. We got to talking."

"Are you sure~? You weren't kissing on Stella, were you~?"

"No." Mina groaned and began to pout. I watched as Izumi's match began. Shoto tried to do something similar to what Shoka did in her first match by trying to freeze Izumi in a glacier of ice. It worked partially but even frozen, Izumi can still use her quirk. She just uses her hands for "dramatic effect" as she says.

She picked Shoto up before he could use any more ice or his fire and threw him out of bounds. Shoto, after losing, was about to leave Izumi frozen but was told he had to unfreeze her.

We had fifteen minutes before the finals and I was thinking to myself on how to beat Izumi. 'Her quirk could easily throw me out of bounds if I'm not quick. I could use that...'

My thoughts were interrupted when I felt someone grab my shoulder from behind. I looked over and saw Kirishima. "Mura bro, how are you gonna beat Yagi? Her quirk totally stops you."

"Just wait. I can't reveal all of my secrets right away, now can I?" As I was talking, I had just thought of the most likely way of me winning. I couldn't be sure but I was going to do my all to win this match. I looked over at Izumi and she looked distracted. I shook her a bit and she jumped. "Izumi, are you alright?"

"Oh, yeah. I was just thinking about, uh... something."

"Alright. But for now, think about your match. If you lose focus, I will easily take the win from you," I said with a slight playfulness in my voice.

She gave me a playful smile back. "Like I'd let you do that!" After a few more minutes of waiting, they called for us and we got up and left for the arena.

(A/N: The next chapter should be the end of the sports festival. I hope you enjoyed!)