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Facing off against Class 1-A’s Bakugou Katsuki in the final round of the annual U.A. Sports Festival is such a drag. Shikamaru regrets every decision that has led him to this point, and he’s seriously considering forfeiting this match. What he wouldn’t give to be lying on his back watching clouds right now, rather than facing down the equivalent of an angry, bipedal pomeranian.
He doesn’t walk out of bounds, though. He doesn’t forfeit.
And the reason is because he has a plan.
On paper, Shikamaru is at a severe disadvantage against Bakugou. His Shadow Possession quirk is better suited to mid-range stealth attacks, and Lord Explosion Murder’s fireworks show is offensive to the highest order, powerful at long-range and devastating at mid and short-range. Not to mention Bakugou is incredibly perceptive.
But this fight isn’t on paper, and Shikamaru has already seen their every move play out in his head like a shogi match. Smirking, he faces Bakugou, waiting for Might Guy’s cue.
“Who’s ready to behold the pure passion of our hot-blooded final competitors in the last round of this year’s U.A. High School Sports Festival?” Guy yells into his mic with his usual amount of verve and enthusiasm, which is a lot .
“From the hero course, we have Bakugou Katsuki, whose blood continues to burn with the power of his youth! And surprising everyone, we have Nara Shikamaru from general studies! We’re as shocked as you to see him in the finals, but he’s blossomed into a fierce competitor before our very eyes!”
“Enough, Guy,” Aizawa cuts in, his voice as unamused as ever by his colleague’s antics. “Start the match.”
“Gentlemen, make the most of the springtime of your youth! Begin!” Guy’s voice rings through the stadium, shaking it to its foundation.
Shikamaru sighs.
A slight smirk threatens to curl his lips, but he keeps his expression bored, lacing his fingers behind his head and tilting his chin to the sky. The crowd expects a fight. Bakugou expects a fight. Shikamaru pretends not to notice.
It’s all part of his plan for pissing Bakugou off enough to trick him into making the first move.
And it works.
“Hey, asshole!” Bakugou roars. “Are you underestimating me?”
It was bound to work because, even from just a short time observing Bakugou, Shikamaru can tell the hot-headed hero demands respect. Anything less is a one-way ticket to learning that the hard way, which, in this case, is exactly what Shikamaru is relying on.
Bellowing like an angered animal, Bakugou unleashes an inferno from his palms. He doesn’t bother with fancy moves; he knows Shikamaru’s quirk is useless when met with a head-on attack. For as explosive as he is, Bakugou is observant too, and there is no way he didn’t see the way Shikamaru outmaneuvered the haughty wind-quirk girl from 1-A.
Shikamaru has to assume Bakugou isn’t going to give him a window to possess him—at least not willingly.
The heat from Bakugou’s explosions is sweltering, and any hope of escaping this match without working up a sweat is incinerated on the spot as Shikamaru narrowly evades the worst of the blast.
He can already tell this will take more effort than he’s willing to spare, but he’ll do it anyway. He isn’t sure when he became so motivated to pursue his hero license. The whole ordeal has been a never-ending drag.
If he’s honest with himself, it probably started when his old sensei was killed in front of him, defending students from a villain attack. His teacher hadn’t been a hero—but he died one. So, Shikamaru supposes he ought to put in at least a little effort to become a pro hero if he wants to prevent tragedies like that from happening again—if he wants to protect the future by safeguarding children the way Asuma-sensei did.
Shikamaru had been told by his old man and Asuma that he had the potential to be a great hero, one of the best even, but that he lacked motivation. It was easy to brush it off when his dad said it; Shikaku didn’t particularly care if his son wasted his quirk’s potential. He knew Shikamaru would do fine in any field.
Asuma’s words, though, were harder to cast aside. His words—his support and honesty—clung to Shikamaru’s ribs as if they’d been etched into them.
“Even though you’d probably hate it, you’d make an excellent underground hero. You’re incredibly smart, and you have the sense necessary to be a pro hero. You could save a lot of lives, but you’re too lazy.”
Making it to the final round of the Sports Festival probably isn’t the best start to an underground hero career, but Shikamaru can worry about fading back into the shadows later.
“Die!” Bakugou wastes no time, lighting up the arena with another volley of explosions.
With how effective Bakugou’s quirk had been against the bird-headed kid, it would be easy to assume his firepower would wreak havoc on any shadow that Shikamaru might deem useful. To an extent, the assumption isn’t wrong.
However, it is wrong to assume there are no shadows to work with. The truth of the matter is that Bakugou’s explosions create shadows. They’re just damn near impossible to get near without getting seriously scorched, which Shikamaru would really rather avoid.
The outcome of this fight will all come down to positioning and timing, two things Bakugou excels at. Luckily, though, Shikamaru is a genius , certifiably. So, as he does in shogi matches, he will win—with enough patience. That’s his advantage over Bakugou, the ability to wait like a snake hiding in tall grass, preparing to strike.
And strike he does.
“Don’t just stand there! Fight me!” Bakugou snarls. “Use your quirk, weakling. Use it so I can crush you fair and square!”
Shikamaru continues to dance out of Bakugou’s reach, each dodge purposeful, each step calculated. He’s almost got Bakugou where he wants him.
“Stop screwing around!” Bakugou is visibly enraged, the veins in his neck and forehead standing out as if they might pop, his skin flushed with exertion and frustration.
“Tch,” Shikamaru scoffs. “If you think I’m screwing around, you’ve already lost.” He calls out the jeer with as much self-satisfied smugness as he can muster, knowing it will fan Bakugou’s flames.
He’s right.
Bakugou vaults himself into the air with an earth-shaking explosion that tears the concrete beneath them to pieces.
Deep breath in , Shikamaru thinks. Deep breath out. Now or never.
Timing is everything. If Shikamaru moves too fast, he’ll reveal his hand too early, and the match will get dragged out. Worse, Bakugou will know his plan, so he won’t be able to use it again with high success. If he’s too slow, though, he loses—the match and possibly his eyebrows.
Waiting to be blasted to pieces isn’t easy. It’s unnerving, and sweat beads along Shikamaru’s brow as he feints indecision and hesitancy.
Bakugou lines up his shot, steadying his blistering palm with his free hand. He’s headed straight for Shikamaru. Flames explode from his sweaty palm. Heat saturates the air.
Shikamaru holds fast.
Bakugou’s victory is sure; his expression says so.
Shikamaru smirks.
And then, he makes a final dodge, crouching and pressing his hands together to activate his quirk. His shadow springs forth, racing through the arena’s rubble to meet Bakugou’s shadow—the one behind his back, created by his explosion.
“Shadow possession complete,” he laughs, folding his hands behind his head. He takes a deep breath and sighs. Asuma would have been proud.
I hope you’re watching, Sensei, Shikamaru can’t help but think, grinning up at the clouds.
“Now this is a most shocking turn of events!” Guy booms into his mic. “It looks like our young gen studies competitor outmaneuvered his rival in a daring display of guts and cunning! He is clearly in the springtime of his youth, ready to—”
“The match isn’t over,” Aizawa deadpans, snatching Guy’s mic away. “It doesn’t end until one of them is incapacitated or out of bounds.”
There’s a limit to how long Shikamaru can hold Bakugou hostage, and he doesn’t plan to push his luck. So, he paces across the ring, grinning at Bakugou’s back, watching Lord Explosion Murder walk himself out of bounds.
It’s got to feel bad to be defeated in this way, nonviolently and forced to wear the victor’s grin as it happens. Shikamaru only wishes he could have seen Bakugou’s expression when he released his quirk. He probably looked pretty damn stupid.
“Bakugou Katsuki is out of bounds!” Guy yells. “Nara Shikamaru wins!”
The stadium explodes, cheering and screaming. The noise is deafening, and it’s all for Shikamaru, a general studies nobody who’s still not entirely sure how he ended up here.
After that, everything is a blur. Shikamaru is approached about transferring to Class 1-A. He accepts the offer and, before he can take any kind of a break, finds himself standing in the doorway of his new homeroom class, facing the cream of the crop of U.A.’s hero hopefuls.
“Problem children, this is Nara Shikamaru,” Aizawa introduces him. “He is transferring into our class and is officially a member of 1-A.”
Shikamaru takes the only open seat in the class, sitting behind a girl with long blonde hair pulled up into a high ponytail. She whips her head around to look at him as he pulls his books out, nearly smacking him with her hair.
“Yamanaka Ino,” she says. “I watched you at the Sports Festival.” Of course, she had. Who hadn’t? “I think our quirks would pair really well together. We should team up some time.”
Shikamaru blinks, once, twice. He frowns.
“Uh, I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Well think about it, okay?” She grins. “I have a mind transfer quirk. We’d be pretty unstoppable if we teamed up. I bet—”
“Silence.” Aizawa glowers at Ino. “Make friends on your own time.”
The rest of Shikamaru’s first day in 1-A goes relatively smoothly. He gets shouldered by Bakugou on the way to the training grounds. A green-haired kid—Deku maybe—grills him about how his quirk works, asking all kinds of questions about how long the possession can last, the limits of its reach, and a million other things that one else has ever asked him.
He ends up getting paired up with Ino and a rosy-cheeked boy with a body-expansion quirk named Choji. He’s friendly. She’s chatty. Together, they have phenomenal quirk chemistry. Maybe Ino isn’t just a pretty face.
Their trio takes out several other teams but ends up laid out by a ridiculously overpowered one, boasting flashy quirks. The boy with two quirks—Endeavor’s son if Ino is to be trusted—pairs dangerously with the stoic sand manipulation quirk user, allowing a six-armed boy to hurl glass spears at them from a safe distance.
After a visit to Recovery Girl, the trio is dismissed for the day, and Shikamaru finds himself walking alongside Choji as Ino prattles on about class gossip. It’s troublesome, but…
It’s also really nice. For the first time, Shikamaru feels like he might be able to make good on his promise to Asuma, and if he stumbles, his new friends will be there to catch him. The thought is reassuring.
When he finally gets to kick back in his new dorm room, his mind wanders. He thinks about the old days when he’d play shogi with Asuma during lunch and recess. He remembers how they’d talk and how Asuma had never stopped believing in him, even when he’d been lazy or unmotivated.
Even though it’s been over a year now, Asuma’s voice is as clear in Shikamaru’s mind as the last day he heard it, and he hopes it sticks around a little while longer.
“You could save a lot of lives.”
He’s never forgotten what Sensei said, and he’ll protect the future generations with everything he’s got—even if it’s one hell of a drag.