The arena still carried scars from the previous match. Cementoss had repaired the worst of it, but the fresh concrete stood out against the rest of the platform, one whole side rebuilt after Midoriya and Todoroki's final collision had torn through it.
The audience hadn't calmed down. If anything, Midoriya's loss had made them louder. The first round had been full of mismatches. That stage of the tournament was over now.
"AFTER THAT LITTLE DISPLAY OF PROPERTY DAMAGE, CEMENTOSS HAS GIVEN US THE ALL CLEAR!" Present Mic's voice crashed through the stadium.
Cementoss glanced toward the booth. "Little?"
Present Mic ignored him. "SO LET'S GET THIS NEXT QUARTERFINAL STARTED!"
The screen changed.
FUSHIGURO MEGUMI
VS
TOKOYAMI FUMIKAGE
...
In his waiting room, Tokoyami closed his eyes while Dark Shadow rose over his shoulder, already grinning at the prospect of it.
"FINALLY."
"Your enthusiasm lacks dignity."
"We get to fight Fushiguro. And all his weird animals."
"They are worthy adversaries," Tokoyami said, and meant it. He'd watched Megumi's quirk from closer than almost anyone else during the cavalry battle. Underneath all of it, Megumi himself had stayed perfectly calm the entire time. Tokoyami had wondered, more than once since, what it would feel like standing across from that instead of beside it.
He was about to find out.
"The hour has come," Dark Shadow announced to no one in particular.
"Ignore the theatrics once we're out there," Tokoyami told it. "I learned a great deal watching him work during the cavalry battle. That respect ends the moment the match starts."
...
"WE'VE GOT A REAL SHADOW MATCHUP THIS TIME! FROM CLASS 1-A, THE MAN WHO COMMANDS THAT MONSTROUS DARK COMPANION, TOKOYAMI FUMIKAGE! AND ACROSS FROM HIM, THE GUY WHO KEEPS PULLING MORE CREATURES OUT OF THE FLOOR EVERY TIME WE THINK WE'VE SEEN THEM ALL, FUSHIGURO MEGUMI!"
Megumi crossed to his mark, unchanged since his last match, same loose posture, hands at his sides. Tokoyami stopped opposite him, and for a moment neither spoke.
Aizawa rested his chin against one hand up in the booth. "Compatibility matters. Tokoyami's quirk gives him offense and defense in one body. Fushiguro has more options, but most of what he's shown still has to get through Dark Shadow before it reaches Tokoyami. If Fushiguro wastes the match fighting Dark Shadow, Tokoyami has the advantage."
"I will not assume familiarity grants me victory," Tokoyami said.
"Good."
"Nor will I let our previous alliance restrain me."
"Wasn't expecting you to."
Midnight raised one arm. "Begin!"
Dark Shadow exploded forward. Megumi answered with Totality, Shiro and Kuro fused into one shape, black surging up from the ground to meet it head-on, and the collision cracked straight through the arena floor. Dark Shadow caught it by the shoulders and threw it sideways, claws tearing lines through concrete before it found its footing again, and the crowd roared before either fighter had even settled into the match.
'Stronger than Totality,' Megumi noted, already moving on from it. The same construct that had bought him room against a Nomu at USJ, shrugged off in one exchange.
Nue dropped from above, electricity crackling across its wings. Dark Shadow abandoned the dog to meet it in the air, hissing through the shock but not letting go, catching one wing and slamming it toward the ground. Megumi dismissed it before impact, Toad taking its place instantly, tongue snapping for Tokoyami. Dark Shadow caught that too, and for a moment the two of them stood locked, neither budging.
Then Megumi sank into shadow altogether, and the arena went still for exactly as long as it took Tokoyami to realize what that meant.
"Behind."
Dark Shadow spun a half second too slow. Megumi was already gone again by the time the fist landed, cracking concrete instead of him, and reappeared clean on the other side of the platform.
Neither of them had actually been touched yet. That wasn't going to last much longer, and both of them knew it.
...
Kirishima leaned over the railing. "They're just throwing monsters at each other."
"Tokoyami knows his movements," Yaoyorozu said. "He watched Fushiguro use shadow travel all through the cavalry battle. He's not waiting for a full reappearance before reacting anymore, and he's keeping Dark Shadow in close whenever Fushiguro vanishes."
"So he came prepared."
'He's good,' Megumi thought, reappearing on the far side of the platform. Dark Shadow could attack, defend, and cover every blind spot Tokoyami had, all at once, and Tokoyami already knew most of Megumi's usual tools from watching him use them.
There was something else underneath it too. Dark Shadow hadn't had to work for its win against Yaoyorozu, hadn't taken a real hit the whole match, and it showed in how much of itself it was throwing into every exchange now, stronger than the version Megumi remembered from the cavalry battle. Darkness fed it. His own shadow was pooled thick across half the arena at this point, stretching further with every construct he called up, and Dark Shadow seemed to be pulling strength out of the air itself the longer they both stood inside it.
Fine. Time to show him the rest.
"Great Serpent."
The construct erupted beneath Dark Shadow and closed its jaws around its torso in one motion. Tokoyami's eyes went wide. "Dark Shadow!"
"I'M FINE!" It expanded, forcing the jaws apart by sheer strength, and Megumi hit it from three directions at once, Totality from the left, Nue from above, Great Serpent still constricting from the center. Dark Shadow met all three without breaking, one hand catching Totality, the other catching Nue's claws, its body straining against the serpent's coils, and Tokoyami's feet slid slightly under the weight of holding it all together.
Megumi's eyes went to him instead of the fight.
'There.'
He vanished. Tokoyami barely got the word out. "Return!" before Megumi reappeared directly in front of him, fist already moving. Tokoyami's guard came up in time to save his face, but not the force behind it, and the impact drove him backward hard enough that his stance nearly went out from under him. Megumi didn't give him room to reset. Second strike, blocked. Low kick, and Tokoyami's stance finally broke completely, Megumi's shoulder driving into his chest and sending him stumbling across the platform.
'He's stronger,' Tokoyami thought, and the realization landed harder than the hit had. Not hero-course competent. Not trained in the way most fighters meant it either, no set style underneath it, nothing that traced back to a dojo or a discipline. Just instinct, compact and immediate, the kind that didn't get taught. Compact movement, no wasted reach, feet always landing exactly beneath him.
Tokoyami threw a punch anyway. Megumi slipped it without appearing to move much at all, caught the wrist on the way past, turned it, pulled, and put him on the ground before he'd fully registered losing his balance. Behind them, Dark Shadow finally tore free of everything holding it and surged back, and Megumi released the wrist and stepped clear before it arrived.
Tokoyami rose slower than he wanted to admit. His forearm still ached where Megumi had gripped it.
'That wasn't just strength. He was reading me the entire time.'
...
In the private box, Naobito watched the exchange over the rim of his gourd. "Watch his feet. That's not hero-course footwork."
Jinya's eyes didn't leave the screen either. "Not trained. Not in any style you'd recognize."
"No, it wouldn't be." Naobito's mouth curved, faint and entirely unbothered. "Fights just like his father did. Same style to it. Same refusal to waste a single movement on anything that isn't necessary." He glanced sideways at his brother. "You must be thrilled."
Jinya didn't rise to it. "I could not care less how similar he looks doing it."
"Could have fooled me."
"It changes nothing about what matters." Jinya's gaze stayed fixed on the screen, flat and unmoved. "If anything, it's simply further proof. That's Zen'in blood moving him, whether he knows it or not, whether Toji ever claimed the name again or not. It runs in him the same as it ran in his father, and it will keep running in him regardless of what either of us thinks about the resemblance."
Naobito took a slow drink and said nothing to that at all, though something in his expression suggested he'd gotten exactly the reaction he'd been fishing for.
...
The pattern repeated, faster now. Toad's tongue over Dark Shadow, Divine Dog cutting off the retreat Tokoyami tried to take instead, Dark Shadow sweeping both aside, Megumi vanishing and reappearing to close the gap by hand every time an opening showed. Something had crept into it that hadn't been there against Jiro, a looseness in his shoulders that had nothing to do with fatigue, the corner of his mouth pulling faintly tighter with every exchange that actually cost him something to win. This wasn't a problem he was solving from a careful distance anymore. It had turned into something closer to enjoyment, and some small, distant part of him noted that and didn't particularly mind it.
Tokoyami adjusted as fast as he could manage, meeting the third reappearance with an elbow instead of a punch, catching Megumi's shoulder with his own before Megumi's knee found his ribs anyway. He rolled with it this time instead of scrambling, back on his feet before Dark Shadow even arrived to cover him.
"You are not the only one capable of adaptation," he said, breathing hard.
"Good." Megumi's voice had an edge to it now that hadn't been there at the start, something almost pleased. It didn't slow him down at all.
Every exchange after that told Tokoyami the same thing all over again. Dark Shadow attacked, defended, restrained, protected, and Tokoyami had built his entire fighting style around trusting it to do all four at once while he stayed a step removed. He'd trained control. He hadn't trained this.
'So this is my weakness. Not the darkness. Not the light. Me.'
...
Megumi read the moment that recognition crossed Tokoyami's face and decided it was time to finish setting up the real problem.
He dropped into shadow one more time, and for a handful of seconds the stadium disappeared entirely, sound gone, light gone, nothing but the familiar dark space underneath the arena and, for the first time all match, a few uninterrupted seconds to actually think in.
Totality alone wasn't enough. Nue alone wasn't enough. Great Serpent cost too much to hold for long. He needed something that didn't need to win outright, just needed to exist in enough places at once that Dark Shadow ran out of hands.
Toad's tongue. Nue's wings. Two shapes, pulled from the same shadow, that had never needed to touch before.
'If they're all made from the same thing, why am I treating them like they have to stay separate?'
The first attempt felt like trying to fit two limbs into one joint. It slipped apart before it finished forming. The second time, he stopped trying to merge the whole shapes and reached for pieces instead, a wingless mouth here, a flight-capable frame there, something small enough that it didn't need durability, just enough presence to hold on for a second.
His hands came together.
...
Shadow bubbled up across the arena floor. Something jumped out beside Megumi that looked almost like a toad, wings where none should have been, and then another, and another.
"What are those?" Dark Shadow demanded.
One of them answered by wrapping its tongue around Dark Shadow's wrist. A second leapt and caught the other arm, both beating their wings and pulling in opposite directions at once.
"HEY."
Present Mic nearly came out of his chair. "WAIT, THOSE ARE NEW! WE HAVE FLYING FROGS!"
"He combined functions," Aizawa said. "He didn't need anything strong enough to beat Dark Shadow outright. He needed several things strong enough to delay it."
Dark Shadow tore through the first one and the second, but a third and fourth replaced them before it had finished, tongues wrapping arms, torso, throat, dragging its momentum down with every fresh hold. It was moving faster than Tokoyami's own commands now, ripping through restraints half a second before he'd finished calling for it, and somewhere in the middle of that Tokoyami's voice sharpened into something closer to correction than direction.
"Dark Shadow. With me."
It didn't answer right away. That alone told him something.
Megumi vanished into the opening the delay bought him and reappeared directly on Tokoyami, hand closing around the back of his neck before Tokoyami's stomach had finished dropping. A knee drove up, caught ribs instead of center mass only because Tokoyami twisted hard enough to spare himself worse, and he answered with a forearm that Megumi absorbed without much reaction at all.
Tokoyami tried to create distance. There wasn't any left to find. Every step back met a step forward, no gap, no room to call Dark Shadow home.
More winged toads dropped from the shadow, wrapping ankle, wrist, waist, spreading Tokoyami's stance wider than he could hold on his own. Dark Shadow tore two apart fighting its way back, and Megumi answered with everything else at once, Divine Dog on its arm, Nue's electricity forcing a recoil, Toad's full tongue lashing around its torso, every summon he had pulling in a different direction at the same instant.
Dark Shadow roared and didn't get anywhere. Megumi wasn't trying to beat it anymore. He'd turned his whole arsenal into a single restraint system, and it didn't matter how strong any one piece of it was next to Dark Shadow, because the moment one hold broke, another had already replaced it. Something about watching it all hold together at once, six moving pieces answering to him without a wasted motion between them, sat closer to satisfaction than he usually let himself feel mid-fight.
"Still going?" Megumi asked, and there was almost a smile underneath the flat delivery.
Tokoyami pulled against the tongues holding him and found nothing gave. Couldn't reach Megumi. Couldn't free himself. Couldn't call Dark Shadow back before the rest of the swarm caught it again. Megumi hadn't closed the last of the distance either, and Tokoyami understood exactly what that meant, the choice sitting entirely with him now instead of being taken from him.
He exhaled. "Enough." Dark Shadow froze. "I surrender."
Midnight's arm shot up. "Tokoyami surrenders! Fushiguro advances to the semifinals!"
...
The restraints held a few seconds longer before Megumi let them go, the winged toads dissolving one by one, Toad and Nue folding back into shadow, Divine Dog releasing its grip and vanishing with the rest.
Dark Shadow rushed to Tokoyami immediately. "You okay?!"
"I am unharmed." He rubbed at one wrist, then looked past it toward Megumi. "That technique. You hadn't used it before today. You built it during our match."
"Mostly. Had the name already, before I even knew if it would hold."
Dark Shadow perked back up instantly. "WE MADE HIM INVENT SOMETHING. THAT MEANS WE'RE STRONG."
"You are," Megumi said, and didn't elaborate past that, though he didn't look away from Dark Shadow while he said it either.
Some of the disappointment visibly drained out of Tokoyami's posture anyway. "What will you call it, then?"
"Well's Abyss. Had it in my head the second the shadow pulled together."
Tokoyami went completely still, one hand rising to rest over his own chest. "An excellent name."
Megumi didn't have anything ready for that, so he just nodded once instead of arguing it. Neither of them said anything else for a moment. It didn't feel like it needed filling.
"THE ABYSS HAS OPENED," Dark Shadow announced, "AND SO HAS A GREAT RIVALRY."
"Don't push it," Megumi said, though there wasn't much heat behind it, and he let the corner of his mouth do whatever it wanted for once instead of correcting it.
...
Tokoyami dropped into his seat in the contestant section. "Victory would have been preferable."
"It should still feel good," Yaoyorozu said. "You forced him into an actual fight. Nobody's been able to do that yet."
He flexed his fingers, thinking it over. "Dark Shadow has become the center of nearly every combat decision I make."
"That's because I'm amazing," Dark Shadow said.
"You are. That may be the problem." It deflated instantly. "If an opponent reaches me while you're occupied, my options narrow considerably."
"Sounds like you need hand-to-hand training," Kirishima said, grinning. "I got you."
"You?"
"Yeah!"
...
Megumi reached the corridor leading away from the field, his shadow feeling strange in a way that wasn't damage, just change. Toad, Nue, and now a third route sitting between them that hadn't existed an hour ago.
'Well's Abyss.' He'd had the name ready before he even knew the technique would hold, which said something about how his own head worked that he wasn't in a hurry to examine right now.
The bigger thing to take from the match wasn't the name. His constructs didn't always need to win outright. They could hold, redirect, occupy, and let his own body finish the job from there.
Todoroki was waiting farther down the hall, already treated, his right side looking normal again even if his movements stayed stiff.
"Came to see it yourself?"
"Wanted to know what I was walking into." Todoroki's eyes flicked briefly toward the arena behind them.
Neither of them said anything else for a moment.
Somewhere outside, the screen updated before either of them saw it, the crowd's reaction carrying through the walls first.
SEMIFINAL
FUSHIGURO MEGUMI VS. TODOROKI SHOTO
Neither of them reacted to it directly. The air between them changed anyway, something settling into place that had been circling both of them for a while now.
"You said you'd make me use it," Todoroki said. "And if I don't?"
Megumi thought of the frost, the boundary, Midoriya unconscious outside the ring, Todoroki stopping himself by inches when he could have gone over with him just as easily. "Then you'll lose," he said, plainly enough that Todoroki's eyes hardened at hearing it. Good. No father standing behind it, no history clouding it, just the two of them and whatever was actually left to decide.
Megumi started walking. He'd gotten a few strides before Todoroki's voice caught him from behind.
"Don't assume whatever you built today is going to be enough."
For a second neither of them looked away, something unresolved sitting in the space between them, before Megumi finally answered.
"Wasn't planning to."
He kept walking. The stadium roared somewhere behind him, and neither sound reached very far past the two of them still standing in that corridor.
The quarterfinal had forced Megumi to build something new.
The semifinal would decide whether it was enough.
...
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