The first one to get knocked out by Todoroki's insane attack was Todoroki himself.
Because of Midoriya's beating, he couldn't even move his legs and hands. So, fueled by nothing but pure adrenaline, he had frozen the entire field using his right side before superheating the chilled air with his entire left.
Last year, Todoroki had done so using the palm of his left hand.
That seemed like a little, unimportant detail, but it was the most crucial aspect of Flashfreeze Heatwave.
By superheating the chilled air with his extremely hot palm, Todoroki controlled the propagation of the resulting blast outward.
There was no denying that this, in itself, was one of Todoroki's greatest Ultimate Moves; and, the safest.
All the other Ultimate Moves that he had come up with in the last year were in a half-baked state, with an enormous danger of inflicting self-harm.
Zero Bullet destroyed Todoroki's fingers, despite being capable of one-shotting Nomu-like Villains. Dodge them enough times, as Bakugo had done, and he would find himself in a much worse state than when he had started.
Ice Age had been cooking in Todoroki's mind ever since he had laid his eyes upon the frozen world after Dr. Blessed's Absolute Zero. However, because of the sheer scale of it, he had always known that using it even once would leave him in a frozen state. Then, he would need to slowly thaw himself, giving any surviving Villain enough time to finish him off.
If it hadn't been for Bakugo himself being injured when he reached the central area, such a scenario would have already almost played out.
Flashfreeze Heatwave exacted no such toll on Todoroki's body.
It did have its caveats, though.
First, like Ice Age, it didn't discriminate between friend and foe, upending everything in a massive area. Todoroki had been working on some limited, controlled versions of it, but he needed more time with them.
Second, there was a restriction on the superheating part of this move.
Using the palm of one's hand was still fine, as the wave would propagate out like a sonic boom, leaving the hand untouched.
Using the entire body to superheat the chilled air, though, was equivalent to Todoroki turning himself into a grenade, the supersonic waves crushing him as they left, snatching away the last bits of his consciousness.
The BOOM hadn't been just limited to the area within the laser boundaries, either.
It had gone out, rattled the multistory buildings, shattered the frozen windows all over the city, and then had continued to cover the entire Battle Center X.
The people watching it happen on the large screens at the stadium heard it, too, like an explosion going off somewhere very far away.
And that itself gave them an idea of just how precarious the situation was within the laser boundaries.
If that idea wasn't enough, then, as the dust and fog cleared, they got a look at it as well.
Todoroki's Ice Age, Bakugo's explosions, and Midoriya's weird, greenish-black strands of energy had already changed the topography of the central area beyond recognition.
Now, the little resemblance that was left in some corners was gone, too.
It was like some great, city-sized titan had thrust his fingers into the ground, made a fist, and then sprinkled the debris all over haphazardly.
There was a distinct characteristic about this new stage, though.
The blast seemed to have pushed almost all chunks of stone and ice outward, piling them beyond the laser boundaries.
Now, despite being muddy and hot, and despite being in a worse state than its original condition, the central area seemed to have gained a clear patch of ground within the laser boundaries.
And so, all the people watching the Battle Royale got to see the earth swallowing not only a passed-out Todoroki, but also…
The muddy earth sprouted a massive hand that shot up.
High in the sky, a figure was rising higher and higher, flailing like a person tossed into the vacuum of space.
It was Neito Monoma!
Just before Todoroki's outburst, he seemed to have switched his Quirk again, hoping to use Uraraka's Zero Gravity to survive the aftermath.
At a glance, that was a masterful strategy, especially with him needing little to no mastery of the Quirk itself to use it. All he would have needed to do was hang in the air for a few seconds without letting nausea become an issue.
And it would have all but worked if Todoroki hadn't used the traditional version of his Flashfreeze Heatwave.
The superheated wave had hit Monoma with the force of a bus, knocking him out instantly.
If it hadn't been for his being under the influence of zero gravity at that moment, he would have suffered a worse fate.
A fate that neither of the remaining two students should have survived.
Not when they had been on the ground, much closer to Todoroki than Monoma, with no way of outrunning the shockwaves.
And yet…
No one cared about the Timer ticking down to its 45th second.
No one cared about the fact that one of the greatest shows of might UA had put on display was slowly coming to an end.
All people cared about were the two figures still active on the changed battlefield.
The first figure belonged to Luke, who had lost his strange armor and Scale Gauntlet, hanging… midair — literally.
Luke had balled himself up, seemingly protecting his head.
It was like he had jumped into the air at some point in time, before getting petrified…
And, simultaneously, everyone realized that Luke had never planned to use Spot Heal. Instead, he had used that as a threat to push Todoroki to use his Ultimate Move, before using — Delay!
Hearts skipped a beat as everyone realized just how shrewd he would have needed to be, planning so much ahead.
He must be hiding Nyx near his head, too.
Which meant, even if he was sent flying when Delay stopped working, he would easily find a way to keep himself within the laser boundaries.
And, then… would come the time to use Spot Heal…
Still, that was only half the reason behind people losing their capability to think.
Because the other half of the reason was related to the second figure on the battlefield…
… who didn't look anything like the girl that they had seen before the explosion!
********************
Note: Up to 60 more chapters are available in advance across three Tiers. [Use the link in my webnovel profile to access all options]
You can even subscribe Trial Tier for just 1.99 dollar to have an experience of exclusive chapters for an entire month, along with all the Exclusive Images. I hope a few of you will consider supporting the work.
100 Power Stones/day: +1 Bonus Chapter next day