Yaoyorozu Momo was still near the tunnel when Megumi found her, shield already dismissed, staring down at her own hands like they'd betrayed her.
He didn't waste time easing into it. "Hey."
She looked up.
"You thought too much. That's it. That's the whole problem."
Her expression tightened. "I am aware."
"Then stop looking like the world's over, because it isn't." He nodded toward the bracket screen still glowing overhead, her name already gone from it. "One match doesn't erase everything else you did to get here. Doesn't erase what happens after today either."
That actually got something out of her, a flicker, not quite a smile yet.
"I knew exactly what Tokoyami would do," she said. "I prepared correctly, and it still wasn't enough."
"You built the right shield. Then you kept building past it instead of finishing the fight that was actually in front of you." He held her eyes. "That's not a flaw. That's a habit. Habits change."
"You make it sound simple."
"It's not simple. It's just fixable. Different problem entirely."
Something in her posture straightened, just slightly, at that.
"During the cavalry battle you didn't have time to overthink anything," he said. "Something came at you, you answered it, you adapted the second it changed shape. No hesitation anywhere in it. That version of you would've eaten Tokoyami alive."
She almost smiled despite herself. "That version of me had you standing next to her holding down half the shield budget."
"Convenient. Next time, just build faster."
That actually got a real laugh out of her, short and surprised, like it had snuck past whatever she'd been holding onto.
Something about it, easy laughter breaking through what had looked like real defeat a minute earlier, reminded him of the exact kind of moment he used to chase with Tsumiki on her worst days. Not fixing anything outright. Just refusing to let someone sit alone in it long enough that they remembered they still had room to come back.
"You've got more tools than almost anyone left in this tournament," he said instead. "You could build almost anything if you gave yourself half a second to actually use it instead of arguing with yourself about which option's perfect."
Yaoyorozu studied him for a moment. "That's an unusually direct way of being kind to someone."
"I'm not great at it."
"I noticed. I don't mind it." Something warmer crossed her face. "Do you know what's actually frustrating? Watching you improvise. You don't hesitate at all. You just reach for whatever's already in your hand and make it work. I spent this entire match trying to plan four moves ahead, and you build the fourth move out of whatever's left over from the first one."
"That's just not having time to be precious about it."
"Then teach me to not have time either."
He almost smiled at that. "Watch enough fights. You'll get there faster than you think."
"I intend to." She straightened her spine properly for the first time since he'd walked up, something settling back into place behind her eyes.
"Good."
Present Mic's voice shook the corridor. "NEXT MATCH!"
The screen changed.
FUSHIGURO MEGUMI
JIRO KYOKA
Yaoyorozu followed his gaze, something almost eager back in her expression now. "Your turn. Go show me how it's done."
"Watching, or taking notes?"
"Both."
Something that wasn't quite a laugh escaped him on the way to the tunnel.
...
Jiro walked into the arena already knowing exactly what she'd drawn. Fushiguro Megumi, winner of the obstacle race, winner of the cavalry battle, the student most of the stadium already treated as one of the favorites to take the whole tournament.
She wasn't expecting an easy fight. She wasn't expecting to overpower him either. She wanted to make him work for it. That would be enough.
Her earphone jacks hung beside her shoulders as she took position. Megumi stopped opposite her.
Present Mic gave them a proper introduction this time. "ON THIS SIDE, SHE PLAYS BASS IN A BAND THAT'S PROBABLY BETTER THAN MINE WAS AT HER AGE, ROCK AND ROLL'S BIGGEST FAN IN THE FIRST-YEAR CLASS, JIRO KYOKA!" The crowd answered with a solid wave of noise. "AND FACING HER, THE NAME EVERY SCOUT IN THIS STADIUM ALREADY HAS CIRCLED TWICE, YOUR NUMBER ONE FIRST-YEAR, FUSHIGURO MEGUMI!"
Megumi glanced toward the booth. Aizawa sighed audibly enough to carry.
Midnight raised her arm. "Begin!"
Jiro didn't wait to see what he'd open with. Both earphone jacks snapped out from her shoulders in a wide arc, aiming to catch him low before he'd even finished settling his stance.
Megumi hadn't expected the opening to come that fast. He dropped under the first jack and rolled clear of the second, close enough that one grazed the edge of his sleeve.
"Got you," Jiro said, already recoiling the jacks for another pass.
He didn't give her the chance to throw them again. He lowered his gaze, and shadow spread beneath his shoes.
Megumi vanished.
Jiro's smile disappeared. Nothing to see anymore, no footsteps to read visually, no shape moving anywhere across the arena floor. She dropped both jacks flat against the concrete, searching for vibration instead.
Still nothing. No movement beneath the arena, no footsteps traveling underground, no signal passing from one point to another anywhere she could find.
"What?"
Megumi emerged behind her. Jiro heard the instant his shoes made contact and spun around, but he was already several meters away, close enough that he could have hit her the moment he appeared.
He hadn't.
Jiro understood why almost immediately, and her stomach sank with it. He'd let her open first specifically so he could see what she actually had in store for him. He'd been testing her.
Megumi summoned Kuro. The black dog hit the field running.
The dog rushed her. She turned before it arrived, jack striking the concrete, a pulse of sound catching it broadside and forcing it off its line.
It circled. She followed. It lunged. She evaded.
A small smile came back. "Okay."
Megumi watched her handle it without much trouble at all. One target, isolated cleanly. That was the second answer confirmed.
Up in the stands, Kaminari leaned over the railing. "Why hasn't he just ended this already? He's clearly stronger than Jiro."
"He's letting her show what she's got first," Kirishima said.
"Why would he bother doing that?"
"Every scout in the building's watching," Yaoyorozu said. "If he closes it out in ten seconds, nobody learns anything about her at all. Let her actually use the quirk first, and they get to see exactly what she can do before it's over. That's worth something, even in a loss."
Ashido tilted her head. "That's kind of nice of him, actually."
"It's also just efficient," Kirishima said. "He probably already knows how this ends. He's just waiting until it's actually time to do it."
Down on the field, that time had already arrived. Megumi had seen enough. She couldn't track him once he was inside a shadow, and one dog was already more than enough to handle a single opponent. Nothing left in her kit was going to change either of those facts.
'That's the fight.'
Jiro caught the shadow spreading wider beneath his feet, further than it had for anything he'd called up so far, and her smile vanished on the spot. "Oh, come on."
Megumi brought his hands together. "Rabbit Escape."
The first rabbit came out of the shadow beneath him. Then another. Then dozens. Then more than that, until the whole arena floor was flooded black with them.
Present Mic screamed into the microphone. "OOH-H MY GOODNESS! FUSHIGURO HAS SUMMONED HIS ARMY OF RABBITS!"
Jiro's jacks were still connected when it hit her, hundreds of feet, every rabbit moving independently, jumping, turning, crossing, stopping, starting, signal stacking on signal until no individual pattern could survive underneath the noise. She tried to find Megumi in it.
Gone.
The dog.
Gone.
Everything vanished beneath the sheer volume of it.
Her head throbbed. "Gah!" She ripped both jacks free, and the sensory overload cut off instantly. The visual chaos didn't. Rabbits filled the arena in every direction, one crossing between her legs, another behind her, and Megumi had disappeared somewhere inside the whole mess of them.
She turned. Nothing. Caught a flash of dark hair, and then a rabbit jumped through her line of sight and it was gone again.
Megumi had already solved the match in his head. There wasn't any reason to make the answer more complicated than that.
...
Jiro stepped left. Rabbits crossed the path. She stepped right, and more filled that space too. She tried forward, and the swarm opened slightly before closing again just as fast.
They weren't biting. They weren't scratching. They weren't attacking her at all, and that was somehow worse to realize. Her eyes went wide as she searched for the boundary and found it closer than she wanted.
"Oh."
The rabbits shifted. She backed away on instinct. Another step, and through a gap in the fur she finally caught sight of Megumi standing near the center of it all, barely moving.
That hurt more than anything else so far. He wasn't struggling. He wasn't reaching for some devastating summon to end it fast. He wasn't taking any real risk at all. He'd looked at her quirk, figured out exactly what mattered about it, and pulled something already sitting in his own arsenal to answer it.
Jiro had known there was a gap in strength between them. Everyone in that bracket knew it by now. Actually standing inside it was different. Todoroki had buried Sero under enough ice to end his match in a single move. Megumi was doing the same thing his own way, quieter, no less final. The power looked completely different. The gap underneath it felt identical.
The swarm didn't wait for her to find something else. Small bodies pressed against her ankles first, then climbed to her calves, dozens of them at once, not biting, not scratching, just piling on with a weight that had nowhere left to go but sideways.
She tried to shake free and only sank deeper into the mass of fur.
'They're not fighting me. They're moving me.'
She dug her heels in. It didn't matter at all. The swarm surged forward as one single unbroken wave, carrying her with it, and there was nothing solid enough left under her feet to fight the momentum.
"No."
Her back foot cleared the white line before she'd ever chosen to take the step.
Midnight's hand rose. "Jiro is out of bounds! Fushiguro advances!"
The crowd erupted.
...
Jiro stood still while the rabbits disappeared one by one, the arena emptying out within seconds. Megumi remained near the center, breathing barely changed at all.
She stared up at the screen.
WINNER: FUSHIGURO MEGUMI
She'd expected to lose. She'd wanted something more out of it than this, a difficult exchange at least, maybe forcing him to reveal something new. Instead she'd shown him one trick and he'd answered it inside a minute.
Megumi approached the boundary. Jiro rubbed one ear. "Great. My confidence really needed that."
"You handled me going into the shadow and coming back out of it better than most people manage either half on its own. Most people freeze on the vanish. The ones who don't still lose me completely the second I reappear somewhere else. You did neither."
"Are you complimenting me right now?"
"I'm making an observation."
"That felt like a compliment."
"Take it as one, then, if you want."
Jiro stared at him, clearly unsure what to do with any of this. "This is a weird way to make someone feel better about losing."
"You didn't lose badly. There's a difference."
"That's..." She shook her head, somewhere between amused and genuinely thrown off. "You are bad at this."
"I'm aware."
"No, like, actively bad. You should probably stop."
"Noted."
She sighed. "Good match."
"You too."
Her eyebrow went up. "Was it?"
Megumi actually thought about the question before answering. "You showed me sensory quirks can't track me in the shadows. That's useful."
Jiro stared at him again. "That's your takeaway?"
"Yeah."
She shook her head, unsurprised despite herself. She'd walked in trying to challenge him. He'd walked in trying to learn something. The gap between those two goals said most of what needed saying.
As she headed for the tunnel, she caught the professional section still writing notes. Megumi had barely shown any raw power the whole match. It didn't seem to matter to any of them. He'd identified her quirk's core mechanic, tested it, confirmed it, changed his approach, and closed the match out, all without wasting a single extra motion doing it.
...
Up in the booth, Present Mic was still catching his breath. "ANOTHER DOMINANT WIN FOR FUSHIGURO! Eraser Head, did you see that swarm carry her clean off her feet?"
"He was testing her the whole time," Aizawa said, eyes on the replay. "The dog, the disappearing act. The rabbits were just him cashing that out the second he knew where her limits were."
"So it wasn't even really an attack."
"It was efficiency."
"Sounded like praise from up here."
"Move on."
...
The next pairing appeared.
KIRISHIMA EIJIRO
SATO RIKIDO
Kirishima stood and punched one fist into his palm. "Finally."
Sato rose from another section of the stands, looking over at him. "No tricks?"
Kirishima grinned. "Wasn't planning any."
Sato returned it. "Good."
...
Present Mic's voice rolled out over the arena. "NOW THIS IS A SIMPLE ONE! TWO GUYS WHO LIKE SOLVING PROBLEMS WITH THEIR FISTS!"
Sato stepped into position. Kirishima hardened, skin sharpening and roughening across his face and arms in one smooth shift. Sato reached into a pouch he'd brought with him, pulled out a handful of sugar, and ate it right there in front of everyone. His body answered immediately, muscle expanding across his shoulders and arms, stance dropping heavier into the concrete.
Kirishima's grin only widened.
Midnight raised her hand. "Start!"
Sato moved first, faster than Kirishima had braced for, and the fist that slammed into his guard sent a full shockwave through the arena.
BOOM.
Kirishima slid several meters back, hardened shoes scraping long lines through the concrete, the crowd reacting to the sound alone. Sato followed immediately with a second punch. Kirishima blocked it, and the impact still drove both arms back into his own chest. A third landed, and his feet shifted again under the weight of it.
"Damn!"
Sato pressed forward. The sugar had changed the whole shape of the match in seconds. Kirishima was durable. Sato was simply stronger right now, at least for as long as the rush lasted. Another punch caught his shoulder, and he twisted with it instead of fighting the momentum, Sato driving in right behind it, Kirishima giving ground a step at a time.
Present Mic shouted over it. "SATO'S GOT THE ADVANTAGE!"
Megumi watched from the stands. "For now."
Yaoyorozu glanced toward him. "What?"
"Sugar rush has a time limit." Sato struck again, Kirishima blocking through it. "His strength exponentially increases but it has a set limit"
Tokoyami nodded slowly. "A flame burning brightest right before it exhausts itself."
...
Kirishima's arms hurt, and that was good. Pain meant he was still standing.
Sato hit him again. Kirishima hardened harder, the impact cracking against his forearms instead of through them, his feet stopping sliding quite as far as the last one. Sato noticed and pushed the pressure up further, a right hook Kirishima absorbed, a left he blocked clean, a body shot that made him grunt but didn't move him an inch.
Sato's breathing had started to change. Small. Barely there. Kirishima heard it anyway, and grinned through the ache. "That all?"
Sato's eyes narrowed and he swung harder. Kirishima took the punch straight against his hardened cheek, head snapping sideways before coming back level.
Sato stared. Kirishima smiled right through it. "My turn."
He drove his forehead into Sato's face. Sato stumbled backward, the crowd's noise cracking open around it, and Kirishima pressed the opening immediately. One punch into the ribs. Sato blocked the next. Another came in, Sato tried to answer it, and Kirishima just took it and kept moving forward.
The sugar rush still gave Sato the strength edge. That edge was shrinking with every exchange. Sato's reactions slowed a fraction more each time. His punches lost some of their weight. Kirishima's didn't. Hardening had always demanded endurance underneath it, and he'd built his entire fighting style around outlasting whatever the other person expected him to break under.
Sato threw another right. Kirishima caught it clean on his forearm, and for the first time all match, he didn't move at all under the impact.
Sato's eyes went wide.
Kirishima drove a punch into his chest, and Sato slid backward, Kirishima following immediately. "Come on!" Another punch. Sato defended it. Kirishima hammered the guard again, then again, walking Sato's heel steadily closer to the boundary.
Sato tried one final rush. Kirishima met him head-on, both fists colliding at once.
CRACK.
Sato's arm dropped. Kirishima stayed hardened, stepped inside the opening, and drove his shoulder forward. Sato crossed the line, both feet landing outside it.
Midnight raised one arm. "Sato is out of bounds! Kirishima advances!"
Kirishima threw one fist into the air. "YES!"
Sato stood outside the boundary breathing hard, then laughed despite himself. "Man."
Kirishima offered his hand. "You hit hard."
Sato took it. "You don't go down."
"Kind of my whole thing."
They bumped fists, and the screen updated overhead.
WINNER: KIRISHIMA EIJIRO
Bakugo's quarterfinal opponent had just been decided for him.
...
The stadium lights shifted, and Present Mic's whole expression changed with them. So did the crowd's. Everyone already knew what the final first-round match was going to be.
The giant screen lit up.
BAKUGO KATSUKI
URARAKA OCHACO
Jiro had made it back to the stands by then. "I almost don't want to watch."
Tsuyu stared quietly at the screen. Midoriya leaned forward in his seat. "Uraraka..."
Bakugo entered first and stopped on his side of the arena. Uraraka emerged opposite him, shoulders tense, hands steady.
Bakugo looked her over. "You're the one that makes things float, right, Round Face?"
"Round?"
"If you're gonna withdraw, do it now." His palms crackled. "You won't get off with just an 'ouch.'"
Uraraka's eyes hardened.
...
Iida turned toward Midoriya. "What was that strategy you were going to tell Uraraka earlier, for fighting Bakugo?"
"It wasn't much, really." Midoriya kept his eyes on the arena. "Kacchan's strong. In a real close-combat fight he barely has any openings, and the more he moves, the more he sweats, which makes Explosion stronger the longer it goes. He can ride the blasts to move through the air too. But if Uraraka gets a hand on him and activates Zero Gravity, she'd have the upper hand instantly."
Bakugo lowered his stance below them.
Midnight raised her arm. "Start!"
Midoriya's eyes went wide. "That's why the first thing she should do is-"
Uraraka sprinted straight at him.
"-a swift attack!"
Bakugo didn't retreat an inch.
"Even if it's an accident," Midoriya said, leaning further forward, "as long as she touches him even once, she can make him float."
Iida nodded slowly. "Bakugo won't want her getting close at all."
"That's why he won't try to dodge her."
Bakugo raised one hand.
"He'll counterattack instead."
"DIEE!"
...
The explosion went off point-blank.
BOOM.
Smoke swallowed Uraraka whole. Midoriya shot forward in his seat. "Uraraka!"
She slipped under the smoke anyway, still driving forward, still too slow to close the last of the distance before Bakugo pivoted and put another blast down right in front of her. She flew backward, hit the ground, and stood again.
She rushed him a second time. He exploded the ground between them, forcing her to change direction. Another blast sent her rolling. She stood again and charged.
Bakugo never gave up more ground than the minimum necessary. Every time she got close, he answered with fire. No hesitation in any of it, no mercy either.
...
Megumi watched closely. Bakugo wasn't attacking wildly at all. Every blast was placed to control distance. Every movement protected the exact space around his own body. Uraraka needed one touch to win. Bakugo was treating that single touch like a finishing blow, which was exactly the right way to treat it.
Somewhere in the professional stands, someone shouted down at the field. "Hey! How can you call yourself a hero acting like that?!"
Megumi's expression shifted.
"If there's this much of a gap in ability, hurry up and knock her out already! Stop bullying and playing with the poor girl!"
Booing started to spread through part of the crowd.
Present Mic hesitated at the microphone. "There's some booing coming from the crowd... but, honestly, I kind of feel the sa-"
Aizawa's elbow caught him square in the face.
"An elbow?! What was that for?!"
Aizawa took the microphone from him directly. "Was that a pro just now, calling this playing around?" The crowd went quiet fast. "How many years have you been doing this job?" His voice hardened further. "If you can say that with a straight face watching this match, there's no point in you sitting in these stands. Go home. Look into a different career while you're at it."
Midoriya stared toward the booth. "Mr. Aizawa...?"
Aizawa kept going anyway. "Bakugo is being careful because he's already acknowledged exactly how strong the person across from him is. It's precisely because he's doing everything he can to win that he can't afford to go easy on her or drop his guard for even a second."
Bakugo blasted Uraraka backward again below them.
Megumi's eyes stayed on him the entire time. Exactly that. Bakugo wasn't looking at a girl who needed protecting. He was looking at an opponent whose quirk could end the match in a single successful touch, and he had no intention of giving her that chance.
...
Uraraka pushed herself back up again. Bakugo watched her do it.
"Not yet." His eyes narrowed. "She's still not down."
Uraraka breathed hard through gritted teeth. "About time, I think."
Bakugo frowned. "Thanks, Bakugo," she said, looking straight at him, "for not letting your guard down."
"Huh?"
She touched her fingertips together. "Release."
Bakugo's eyes went wide. The sky above the arena changed, debris hovering in a wide field overhead, fragments of concrete he'd blasted apart during every single one of her failed charges, dozens of them, hundreds, all of it weightless and waiting.
The crowd looked up.
Present Mic's voice cracked. "A METEOR SHOWER?!"
The debris started to fall.
In the stands, Monoma smiled at nothing in particular. "Can't blame Bakugo for missing it from down there, but it's a little embarrassing watching a pro up here boo without noticing what she'd actually built." He watched the rocks descend. "She kept her body low the whole approach, concentrating his attacks into the ground, storing up every piece he blasted apart. And she narrowed his focus down to nothing but her charges the entire time, so he never once looked up to check."
Uraraka sprinted forward. "I'm gonna win!"
Midoriya stared, stunned. "She had a plan like that the whole time?"
Uraraka's legs were already burning, her breathing already ragged past the point of comfort. None of that mattered right now. Bakugo had to answer the debris somehow, evade it, blast it, anything at all, and whatever he chose would open the gap she needed.
One touch. That was all she needed.
Bakugo raised one hand.
Megumi's eyes went wide, just slightly.
The explosion tore straight upward.
KA-BOOM!
The whole stadium shook with it, the falling debris disappearing entirely into fire, dust, and shockwave. Uraraka was thrown backward by the force of it alone.
Silence settled over the arena.
Bakugo lowered his smoking hand, fingers twitching from the strain of it. "Since you're friends with Deku, figured you had something up your sleeve."
Uraraka stared up at the empty sky where the debris had been a second ago. "In one shot..."
Present Mic finally found his voice again. "B-BAKUGO BLASTS THROUGH URARAKA'S SECRET PLAN!"
Bakugo's hand was still trembling from the effort it had cost him. "That was close."
Uraraka forced herself upright anyway. She'd given everything she had, and he'd answered it in a single explosion.
Bakugo straightened up across the arena. "All right." His eyes sharpened. "Let's get serious then, Uraraka!"
She tried to take a step forward. If it were Deku, she thought, he wouldn't give up. Her knee buckled under her before she could finish the thought, and she went down.
Present Mic shouted. "URARAKA'S DOWN!"
Her palms pressed flat against the concrete. "My body," she gritted out, "won't do what I want."
Midoriya watched from the stands, throat tight. "She passed her limit a long time ago."
She kept trying anyway. "I... I also..." Her vision blurred at the edges. "...can still..."
Nothing responded.
Midnight approached the center of the ring. "Uraraka is out of commission."
Bakugo stayed exactly where he was. "Bakugo advances to the second round!"
The stadium applauded. This time, nobody booed.
...
Megumi looked back toward the tournament screen. The first round was finally complete, and the bracket shifted to display all four quarterfinal matchups at once.
TODOROKI SHOTO VS. MIDORIYA IZUKU
The crowd reacted to that one immediately. Midoriya stared at Todoroki's name on the screen. Todoroki stared right back at him from across the stadium.
The next pairing locked into place.
FUSHIGURO MEGUMI VS. TOKOYAMI FUMIKAGE
Dark Shadow rose over Tokoyami's shoulder. "At last."
Megumi looked toward him. Tokoyami's eyes met his across the distance. Neither one smiled.
The third matchup appeared.
ASHIDO MINA VS. IIDA TENYA
Ashido pointed across the stands. "Engine Boy!"
Iida adjusted his glasses immediately. "I will not be deceived into advertising any products this time!"
She blinked. "I wasn't going to ask."
His face reddened. "Of course not."
The final pairing appeared.
BAKUGO KATSUKI VS. KIRISHIMA EIJIRO
Kirishima cracked his knuckles. Somewhere below, Bakugo's palms popped again. "Finally."
Present Mic's voice crashed through the whole stadium one more time. "THE FINAL EIGHT ARE SET!"
Megumi leaned back in his seat. Jiro had been straightforward once he'd understood the shape of her quirk. Tokoyami would be different. Dark Shadow could attack and defend independently of him, had reach, had speed, had more than enough power even in daylight to dominate someone as capable as Yaoyorozu before she'd had the chance to establish anything at all.
Megumi looked toward Tokoyami again. Dark Shadow stared back without blinking.
One match down. The next problem was already waiting.
Good.
...
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