Chapter 14: The Thermal Limit and the Silent Arena
The chaotic noise of the Cavalry Battle was deafening, a cacophony of shouting students, exploding quirks, and the roaring crowd. But for Team Aokiji, the world had narrowed down to a single, explosive threat approaching from the east.
Team Bakugo was not running; they were charging. Driven by the feral determination of their rider, the formation moved like a tank.
"PREPARE TO DIE, KUZAN!" Bakugo screamed. He wasn't aiming for the headband initially; he was aiming for the rider. He wound up his right arm, sparks dancing furiously across his palm.
"Incoming," Mezo Shoji warned, bracing his multiple arms to absorb the impact.
Mineta, cowering behind Aokiji's back, squeaked in terror. "He's going to blow us up! I'm too young to be roasted!"
Bakugo launched himself from Kirishima's back. He flew through the air, propelling himself with blasts, closing the distance to Aokiji in a heartbeat.
Aokiji didn't blink. He raised his left arm, instantly transforming the moisture in the air into a jagged, multi-layered shield of ice.
BOOM.
The explosion connected. The outer layer of the ice shield shattered, sending chunks flying. But Bakugo didn't stop. He used the momentum to spin in the air, aiming a second blast directly at Aokiji's face.
"You're open!" Bakugo roared.
Aokiji reacted with surprising speed. He waved his right hand, sending a volley of sharp ice shards—"Ice Partisan"—shooting toward the airborne Bakugo.
Bakugo gritted his teeth. He blasted the first three shards to dust, but the fourth one slipped past his guard. It collided directly with his right wrist, and frost burst outward, ice crawling rapidly up his arm.
"Tch! Annoying!" Bakugou barked, blasting explosions from his right hand until the heat stripped the ice away completely. He landed back on his horse, fuming.
"He's fast," Kirishima noted, hardening his skin as stray ice debris rained down on them.
"He's just stalling!" Bakugo screamed. "Again! Kirishima, get closer!"
Another charge. Another blast. This time, Bakugo unleashed a continuous stream of explosions, creating a tunnel of fire that melted Aokiji's defenses faster than he could regenerate them.
Aokiji felt a searing heat wash over his arm. The concussive force pushed him back, and for the first time in this festival, he felt a sting of pain.
He looked at his arm. The sleeve of his UA sport uniform was singed. On his forearm, there was a small scratch.
Analysis, Aokiji thought, his eyes were calm. Explosions generate high-intensity heat waves. If the temperature is high enough, I can't disperse into ice. I just burn. Maybe he's a bad match for me.
"This is annoying," Aokiji muttered. He wiped the soot from his cheek.
He raised his right hand. Moisture in the air condensed rapidly, not into a shield, but into a long, slender pole. An ice saber. It was about two meters long, radiating a cold so intense it caused the air around it to mist.
He looked down at his team.
"Shoji. Everyone," Aokiji said, his voice dropping to a whisper that cut through the noise. "I need you to jump."
"Jump?" Shoji asked, confused. "We are heavy. I cannot jump high with three people."
"Just one meter," Aokiji said, gripping the ice staff. "Or even half a meter. Just get off the ground."
"Why?" Mineta cried from behind, clinging to Aokiji's waist like a backpack. "Bakugo is winding up for a huge one! Look at him!"
Aokiji looked at the tip of his staff. "Because I'm about to touch the floor. And if you're touching it when I do, you'll turn into ice sculptures. And unlike Todoroki, I don't have a fire side. I can't thaw you out. You'd be stuck until the summer."
Hagakure gasped. "Understood! Shoji-kun, on his signal!"
Bakugo was ten feet away. His hands were glowing like small suns. "I'LL MELT YOU DOWN TO THE BONE!"
"Now," Aokiji said calmly.
Shoji grunted, his massive leg muscles contracting. With one heave, the formation leaped into the air. It wasn't a high jump—barely a meter—but for a split second, Team Aokiji was airborne, disconnected from the earth.
Bakugo was mid-flight.
Midoriya, across the field, was running from Todoroki.
Aokiji inverted his grip on the ice staff and drove the tip straight down into the dirt.
"Ice Age."
There was no sound of impact. There was only the sound of the world stopping.
From the point where the staff touched the earth, a flash of white expanded at the speed of sound. It wasn't just frost; it was a flash-freeze of geological proportions. The dirt turned to permafrost. The grass shattered. The air temperature in the stadium plummeted in a heartbeat.
The wave of ice swept across the entire arena.
Other teams running on the ground didn't have time to scream. The ice caught their feet, then their waists, encasing them in thick, translucent pillars of glacial ice.
Team Monoma. Frozen mid-laugh.
Team Kendo. Frozen mid-punch.
Dozens of students became statues in the blink of an eye.
The wave reached the stands. The front row of the audience recoiled, frost forming on their eyebrows. Present Mic's coffee mug on the commentary desk froze solid, cracking the ceramic.
"UNBELIEVABLE!" Present Mic shouted, his voice shaking. "IT'S... IT'S FREEZING! THE WHOLE FIELD IS A GLACIER!"
Team Aokiji landed.
They didn't land on dirt. They landed on a sheet of smooth, white ice.
Shoji exhaled, and a cloud of thick fog escaped his mask. He looked around. "Everyone... is frozen."
Mineta peeked out from behind Aokiji's back. He saw a frozen student next to them—Sero, from Bakugo's team, who had been on the ground. Sero looked like a museum exhibit. "We... we survived?"
Aokiji stood atop the formation. Half of his face was covered in a layer of jagged frost, creeping up his neck like a parasite. His breath came out in heavy, visible puffs. Using an attack of this magnitude drained him.
"Arara," Aokiji murmured, tapping the staff against the ice. "That should quiet things down."
But not everyone was frozen.
FOOSH.
A massive torrent of crimson flames erupted to the North. Shoto Todoroki stood amidst the ice, his left side blazing. He had reacted instantly, releasing a heat wave to shield himself and his team (Iida, Yaoyorozu, Kaminari) from the flash-freeze. They were shivering, surrounded by steam, but free.
"He tried to end it all at once," Todoroki whispered, his breath visible. "Crazy bastard."
To the East, an explosion shattered the silence.
BOOM.
Bakugo blasted himself out of a prison of ice. He grabbed his teammates, and blasted the ice off their bodies with surgical explosions.
"DON'T THINK THIS STOPS ME!" Bakugo screamed, though he was shivering violently.
And to the South...
Midoriya Izuku was falling. His team had been in the air thanks to the jetpack, but they were landing on the ice. The ice was creeping up toward them, the cold air threatening to freeze the jetpack's fuel.
"Smash!"
Midoriya flicked two fingers. The wind pressure shattered the ice below them, creating a safe crater for them to land in.
"That... was close," Midoriya gasped, clutching his broken fingers. "If we had been on the ground..."
"We would be popsicles," Uraraka finished, her teeth chattering.
The timer on the big screen was still ticking down. 07:45 remaining.
Midnight, the referee, stood on her platform, hugging herself to stay warm. She hadn't called the match yet.
Aokiji moved his eyes, looking up at her.
"Referee," Aokiji called out. His voice was calm, but there was a sharp edge to it. "You need to stop the clock."
Midnight blinked. "The time isn't up yet!"
"Look at them," Aokiji pointed his staff at the frozen teams. "They aren't moving. Their body temperatures are dropping rapidly. If you let this run for another minute, their heart rates will drop to critical levels. They could die."
He paused, letting the weight of his words sink in.
"I can't melt this ice, Referee. I'm not a heater. You need the medical bots. Now."
Midnight's eyes widened as she realized the severity of the situation. She raised her whip immediately.
"STOP THE GAME! MEDICAL BOTS, DEPLOY IMMEDIATELY! BRING HOT TOWELS!"
The siren blared. The game ended early.
Within seconds, the arena was swarming with robots carrying heaters and blankets, chipping students out of the ice.
The rankings flashed on the screen.
1st Place: Team Midoriya (10 Million Points)
2nd Place: Team Todoroki
3rd Place: Team Bakugo
4th Place: Team Aokiji
The rest of the teams were marked as Incapacitated.
"Fourth place again," Aokiji sighed, sliding down from Shoji's back as the adrenaline faded. "Consistency is key."
He looked at his arm. The scratch from Bakugo was still stinging.
"But that heat..." he whispered to himself. "I need to be careful with that one."
"Yaaaaaaah!!"
The crowd erupted into thunderous cheers, a wave of noise crashing through the arena.
"What was THAT?!"
"No way—did he seriously freeze every team?!"
"He literally finished the entire game in one move!"
"Kuzan… this guy has no limits…"
.
.
.