Time passed, and Hayato had defeated about 4 more people after Monoma and the other 1-B goons. He knew that Katsuki, Todoroki and most likely Itsuka and Himiko were gathering points before coming to him, so they could have a proper fight without it being interrupted because they needed to go get more points so they weren't kicked out of the festival.
Hayato had about 56 points, he only hit someone's discs once, gaining 8 points off of each person. Hayato thought that it'd be a bit unfair if he just held someone down and constantly tapped his balls onto their discs.
Hayato heard some distant explosions that were getting closer and closer.
'Katsuki's here, huh?'
One of the few Hayato was wary of was arriving.
"HAYATO!!!" Katsuki's rough voice was incredibly hoarse as he flew towards Hayato at an incredible speed, with his explosions pushing his faster and faster towards Hayato. The person who was being called slowly opened his eyes and looked at Katsuki.
Hayato got into a combat stance and waited. He wanted to have a fight, not this silly game of tag. He originally thought that it would prove to be interesting but it dulled the further he played along. His main aim now was to get a good fight out of this, while getting enough points to go through to the finals.
Katsuki was right in front of Hayato now and he could see the bloodshot eyes filled with rage and determination to destroy. Hayato sighed as he dodged Katsuki's charge, as he said "Slow." purely to anger him more.
As Katsuki was passing him, Hayato lifted his leg high into the air and brought the leg down onto where Katsuki was going to be.
*WHOOSH!*
The leg came down at a blinding speed, looking just like a blur to those watching in the stadium. Unfortunately, Katsuki's reflexes were incredibly quick and he dodged the kick by setting an explosion off in the direction of Hayato, pushing him away from Hayato and out of the range of the kick.
The kick carried on, making the surrounding air turbulent and it hit the concrete below them, smashing and cracking it.
"You're gonna have to try harder than that, you bastard!" Katsuki yelled as he flew at Hayato again. Hayato dodged once again and tapped a disc on Katsuki's back with a ball, eliciting a violent reaction from Katsuki.
This fight went on for a while longer and Katsuki was further adapting his fighting style to be able to take on Hayato's superior physique. His fighting style had leaned towards a hit and run tactic where he was trying to wear Hayato down while doing this he kept trying to throw the red balls at the discs on Hayato's body.
Of course, he failed to do so as Hayato would whip them away with his muscle fiber wires. The more and more they fought, the more aggressive Katsuki and the more serious Hayato got but the fight couldn't last forever.
"Katsuki, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to go and get more points, bye!" After saying this, Hayato hit Katsuki into the ground and then ran off to find more people to get points off of.
Along the way, he found Himiko and Itsuka and teased them a bit by throwing barrage after barrage of balls at them, by the end of this part of this part of the tournament, he had 180 points.
Everyone in the urban city heard a loud blaring horn go off and Present Mic shouting "HERO TAG, OVER!" so everyone made his or her way over to the entrance of the Urban city and went back to the stadium.
Once back there, Hayato had to withstand the death stare of Himiko and Itsuka and the wrath of Katsuki who, if it wasn't for Aizawa-sensei would have tried to blow Hayato up with a full powered explosion.
"Well, girls and boys, don't you want to see the results?" Midnight-sensei's seductive and playful voice came through the speakers and gathered everyone's attention. Behind her, was a giant screen with a leaderboard on it.
Looking at the results, Hayato was mildly surprised; he wasn't first. Todoroki was first with 212 points and Hayato could guess how she gathered her points. He looked over at her and she looked back at him, he walked over to her and posed a question "You froze someone and farmed points off of them, didn't you, Todoroki?"
Hearing his question, she scoffed and answered "Yes, I did. Got a problem with that?" her voice got incredibly confrontational when she posed her question to Hayato. Hayato was really wondering where her aggression against him was coming from, he only asked her a question.
Hayato didn't want a fight, so he put his hands up in surrender and walked back over to where he was before.
"Well, we're gonna have a quick lunch break before we start the tournament. So students, viewers, go eat your fill because you're gonna need it when you watch the battles later!" Midnight-sensei seemed like she was really getting into being a presenter as she kept speaking with more and more passion.
Hayato walked over to Himiko and Itsuka and walked off to go get lunch but before he could walk out, Todoroki was next to him with Izuku and she motioned that he had to follow her.
'Why'd I get dragged into this...?'
Before Himiko and Itsuka pounced on Todoroki, Hayato calmed them down and told them that he'd meet them in the cafeteria after he spoke with her and they reluctantly walked away while glaring at Hayato and Todoroki.
Hayato could only sigh as he followed Todoroki.
They soon arrived in a hallway that was hidden away from prying eyes and Todoroki started off by speaking to Izuku."I was overwhelmed when you attacked me by surprise in the Hero Tag game Midoriya-san." she took her time as Izuku started nervously gulping. "I don't think anyone else other than Tagami has ever experienced you when you attack with your quick. Not up close anyway. It reminded me of the time when I experienced All Might's quirk."
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Izuku nearly jumped out of his own skin at that and stuttered back at her "O-okay, is that a-all?"
"Midoriya, tell me and don't doubt me when I say I'll know when you're lying. Are you really All Might's secret love child?" Todoroki sounded so serious like she'd cracked a cold case that no one else had or could and Hayato couldn't hold it in.
"Hahahahahaha! Secret love child? Hahahahaha!" Hayato lost himself as he doubled over and laughed himself into a fit of laughter. He seen this part before but being here and listening to it first hand, just made him lose it a little bit.
Todoroki looked at the laughing Hayato with a look of anger and annoyance and Izuku looked a bit offended at Hayato's laughter at him being All Might's secret kid. But Hayato motioned for them to carry on as he tried to keep his laughter under check to let them talk.
"W-well, to answer your question, Todoroki-san, no, I'm in no way, All Might's secret l-love child!" Izuku yelled as he got more and more nervous.
Todoroki seemed to accept his answer but she accepted it with a grain of salt as she figured he was connected to him some different way. She then turned to the now, none laughing Hayato who was smiling at her.
"You...Are you All Might's disciple or something? You act like him, you fight like him and you even quote him when you fight. So are you his disciple?"
"No, I'm not. I just think of All Might as the ideal, the perfect hero and I want to strive to be like him. So I quote him when I feel it fits, I fight like him because like him, I'm a heavy hitter and I act like him, well, I'm not acting, that's just me!" Hayato beamed a smile at her to reassure her that he wasn't All Might's disciple. Which wasn't a lie because he wasn't, he was a student, just like everyone else, he just spent more time with him.
"I don't think that's entirely true, Tagami. Because you see, my dad's Endeavour and as you two must know, he's the 2nd ranked hero and right behind All Might." she paused for a brief second while she let Hayato and Izuku process what she meant before she said it.
"So if you're both connected to the number 1 hero, All Might, that gives me even more reason to beat the both of you." Hayato got serious at this moment and the smile on his face disappeared.
'Does she have some kind of daddy complex? Why's she still trying to prove anything to that ass?'
"You see, my old man is really ambitious. But he could never overtake All Might and that means the Symbol of Peace is an everlasting reminder of his failure." she seemed incredibly solemn as she continued to speak.
"Um, Todoroki-san? I'm not really sure what you're on about?" Izuku seemed anxious as he spoke.
"Have you ever heard of Quirk Marriages, either of you?"
Hayato spoke up hearing this "Yeah, I have. They're basically forced marriages between strong and compatible quirks to make stronger offspring. For example, my mom and dad would be a very good quirk marriage, as they made me, someone with a very strong quirk. It's a sick, old practice that has no place in a modern society." the more Hayato spoke, the more anger was in his voice.
Todoroki nodded with an expression of hatred on her face "My dad not only has a rich history of accomplishments but plenty of money to throw at his problems." she spat the last few words out like they were pieces of rotten food.
"He...he bought my Mother's relatives out so they'd force her into a marriage with him. And he did it all for her quirk, all to beat All Might...!" Todoroki was shaking with her hair covering her face but it did nothing to hide the venom in her voice as she spoke about her father.
Izuku was naturally taken aback by what was said and Hayato was too, but Hayato just squinted his eyes and he curled his fists into balls.
'Wouldn't it be nice to fire off a full powered punch into her dad's face?'
Was all Hayato could think. He just couldn't understand how you could throw someone's life under the bus for your own agenda. For a righteous enough agenda, like freeing people from oppression or things similar, Hayato could reluctantly agree. But to do so because you weren't the number 1 hero? Hayato couldn't stand to think that Endeavor was the 2nd ranked hero with that kind of selfishness.
"I...I refuse to be a tool to that scumbag!" Tears were dropping on the floor now as her shaking intensified but on the contrary, her voice got filled with more and more determination. If it weren't for the circumstances, Hayato would have admired her for her determination to go against that scumbag.
"In every memory of my mother that I have, she's crying and I couldn't do anything! She said my left side was unbearable to look at as she poured boiling hot water over it..." she covered the left side of her face, where her scar from that incident was.
When she went to speak again, she looked up at Hayato who'd dug his fingers into the concrete behind him like it was putty. His fingers and the pressure from his hands had sent cracks all across the wall and his feet were doing the same thing; they were dug into the ground and the ground was cracked and split.
Todoroki couldn't believe her eyes. The always Joyous Tagami she knew and took secret glances at in class was suddenly unlike himself; he was furious. She could feel the rage radiating off of his body, permeating the air and filling it with promises of violence and destruction. Then she looked into his eyes. His eyes, like the deepest, bloodiest infernos of hell, were glistening with tears.
She was shocked. Everyone else who knew this story either is angry, or sad, few people she knew were ever both of those and they were her sisters, her siblings and she knew that whoever showed her anger and sadness on this level; they cared.
Meanwhile, Hayato felt like he was being silly. He already knew what had happened, he knew what she'd gone through but there was something about her saying it in such a pitiful condition, while she was crying and shaking, it just snapped something in Hayato akin to an emotional dam. He felt anger like he'd never felt before and that led to sadness which led back to anger, like a vicious cycle and it was all real emotion. There was something different about sitting at a screen and hearing what happened to Todoroki there and hearing it in person when you knew she was real.
Hayato snapped himself out of it and wiped away the tears that had fallen yet. And walked towards Todoroki and did a simple thing; He hugged her.
"I'm...I'm so sorry you had to go through that, Todoroki...I...This is all I can do. If you have any problems, tell me, I'll sort them out no matter what." he paused as he felt Todoroki's arms wrap around his back and squeeze him with slightly inhuman strength."You'll never be a tool to your father. Don't think of using your left side as helping your father, think of it as helping yourself, okay? Never let him bring you down, ever." Hayato's voice was incredibly gentle like he feared he'd hurt Todoroki if he spoke too loud and after speaking he broke the hug, grabbed Izuku and started to walk away.
When he was at the exit of the hallway he turned to the sniffling Todoroki and spoke again "And if he ever does bring you down, tell him from me that--" as Todoroki looked at Hayato, he was like before but this time without the sadness, just the rage "--I'll hit him so hard that he'll have trouble remembering who hit him; Me or All Might." after saying this, Hayato walked away, leaving deep indents on the concrete below his feet.
As Todoroki just stood there, she felt like she'd cleared something out of her chest and she felt lighter because of it. She looked at where Hayato was and wiped her tears away with a smile as she stood there and remembered how she was hugged by him and her face went incredibly red.
Hayato who was walking away slowly calmed down and now had more reason to get stronger; to hit Todoroki's dad.